Witch Troupe and the Undead

Didn't your mother leave you any inheritance?

"I kept it. Do you think the materials for the bloodline potion that I had Miss Livia refine came from? They were what my mother had saved up her whole life, oh, and some of mine too." As for what percentage she earned, it would be very impolite to ask.

The blonde girl, who had been listening for a while, finally nodded blankly, "Oh, well, I can go take a look~".

The Dragon Fortress Mountains are where Vilandera's father's grave is located. It is said that when her father was young, he was a rare autistic patient among the dragons, only interested in alchemy and magic, and stayed in his own lair for many years. He was only burned out by his grandparents with dragon breath after he came of age.

However, as a decent alchemist (after all, he had a long lifespan and could accumulate enough experience to become a master) and a dragon, he quickly amassed a considerable fortune. As for how her parents got married, neither Roach nor Vilandella asked.

"Therefore, his collection contains a huge number of various statues and artifacts, as well as rare materials, which I saw in his treasure vault when I was a child."

"May I ask you something? Your father was already old when he had you, wasn't he?" Otherwise, she wouldn't have been alive while her father was gone.

“Oh, no, he died for other reasons, not from natural causes.” Vivi shrugged. “He liked to collect all sorts of strange and unusual materials. It’s said that once when he was collecting them, he was poisoned, his body began to weaken, and he eventually died young. Otherwise, I would be much more arrogant than I am now.”

Vilandella said that she was the tyrant of her dragon-born village when she was a child, because other dragon-born children were not half-dragon-born. They were mostly born from their grandparents' generation, and some were even born from a generational atavism. Dragons were considered ancestors. There were also some who were born from the union of dragon-born individuals, and they were individuals with relatively strong bloodlines.

In other words, most of them did not have direct elders from the dragon race to take care of them, but Vilandera was different. She not only had a mixed-race mother, but also a maternal grandfather and grandmother.

Although the tradition and cultural customs of the dragon race are to only care about the next generation, that is, the offspring, and not care about the grandchildren, after all, for the immortal race, there is indeed no need to consider the grandchildren's generation, but her father is still alive!

Even if a young and strong Ash Dragon is one of the weaker types of dragons in terms of direct combat strength, it is still a pure-blooded true dragon. Ordinary kids really wouldn't dare to mess with it, because they would really get beaten up by the other kid's parents.

However, things took a sharp turn for the worse after her father passed away. Perhaps it was jealousy, or perhaps some other complicated reason, but in any case, she and her mother moved from the village to live in the human world. That's roughly how it happened.

With the black horse as their mode of transport, they quickly arrived at the entrance to Vilandella's father's tomb. To be honest, the dragons' secret burial techniques were truly superb; Roach couldn't discern anything from the smooth mountain wall.

Only Livia stared blankly at the mountain, then pulled out a chaotic, howling dragon-shaped phantom and stuffed it into Vilandela's body. "This is..." She had barely finished speaking when the True Dragon Inheritance poured into her brain left her speechless.

Fortunately, I had experienced it once in the cocoon of ancestry. Although this time it was more complete, just like last time, I sorted out all the files, pressed the inherited memories to the bottom of the memory, and set them to be triggered on a timed or quantitative basis.

Then, just like a normal fledgling dragon, it spends 10 or even 20 years slowly absorbing the experience and heritage passed down from its fathers and grandfathers over thousands of years. As the dragon-shaped phantom was pulled out, a protruding stone on the rock wall glittered. That was the Dragon Stone. Livia reached out, grabbed the stone, and pulled hard, but naturally... it didn't come off.

The little one's face turned red, and she even stepped on the rock wall and pulled hard to get it out. It took her a long time to finally pull the rock out, and she fell backward a whole circle. Her skirt covered her entire upper body, revealing her white lantern pants and slender waist.

"Ugh~" The blonde loli rolled over and sat up, pouting, holding a stone in one hand and rubbing her buttocks hard with the other.

Lacking the dragonstone, the rock wall began to fold inward, revealing a long passageway and at its end, the skeleton of a giant dragon completely reduced to white bones. Beneath its body lay its collection, or rather its legacy, shrouded in hemispherical orbs of magical light, obscuring its contents.

For a dragon, re-examining these treasures in the final moments of its life is like a human's final moments before death, a reflection on its life in a hazy, half-awake state before finally finding peace.

[PS] Collection of Imperial Jokes:

One day, a poet stood in the Imperial Square and said worriedly: How can I save this country?

A passerby overheard this and told him directly: "All you need to do is take a mobile magic crossbow into the Imperial Council, start shooting at the podium until there are no survivors."

The poet was very curious. Why was that? When he arrived at the Imperial Council, he found a large crowd lined up by the entrance. A clerk asked him: What are you here for?

The poet said: I have come to save this country.

Clerk: Go over there and line up. There are 350 people ahead of you before it's your turn to go in.

The poet said: I came with a magic crossbow!

Clerk: You still have to queue. The guy who came this morning even drove a tank!

Chapter 126 Roach Livia Infantry Crossbow

The space inside the dragon tomb is not large, just enough to fit a dragon skeleton and a pile of artifacts in front of it. Unfortunately, there are not many ordinary gold nuggets and coins among the artifacts, but there are quite a few gold and silver objects.

Vilandella didn't take everything; instead, she took whatever looked valuable. First, there was a small statue weighing about 3 to 4 pounds. Just by holding it, she could tell it was gilded, not pure gold, but it was pure copper gilded.

The carving depicts a small dragon, with the inscription "Champion of the 200th Dragon Hunting Competition" on the base, written in dragon language, and signed "Healthy Young Dragon Committee".

"What is this Healthy Young Dragon Committee?" Leslie and Roach were both very curious, but Livia wasn't very interested. She touched and rummaged around the skeleton, as if she wanted to take Old Deng's bones back and process them into magical artifacts.

“It’s hard to explain. You know that dragons are oviparous, right?” Vilandella hesitated for a moment before saying, “And the incubation period is as long as four and a half years, and real dragon eggs need to be constantly replenished with nutrients.”

“Ovoviviparous?” Roach asked. On Earth, ovoviviparity refers to the process where an organism hatches in an egg, then enters the uterus to continue developing, and is eventually born viviparously. Some sharks have this reproductive pattern.

"Uh, no, it means that dragon eggs absorb nutrients through the eggshell. During the incubation period, the female dragon needs to constantly use an organ similar to a stomach to pre-digest the food, then mix it with dragon fire secretions and spit it onto the dragon egg, which serves to warm it up and provide subsequent nutrition."

From a human perspective, it sounds like a disgusting process, but in reality, what comes out is more like some kind of high-energy fuel, with a strong fuel-like smell.

"In short, the incubation period for dragon eggs is very long, and dragon parents may not have that patience. As a result, the number of dragons has continued to decrease. Later, they established an organization called the Healthy Hatchlings Committee, which is specifically responsible for taking in dragon eggs that have been abandoned by their parents or have lost their parents' care, and providing them with centralized care."

“Traditionally, dragon eggs grow by regurgitating the milk spit out by the female dragon. But even among dragons, times change. In fact, dragons are not conservative or rigid at all; that’s a misunderstanding by humans,” Vilandella said somewhat awkwardly.

"However, as you know, the concept of time for long-lived beings like dragons is different from that of humans. In 100 years, some small countries have already gone through several generations, while for dragons, it's just a transition from infancy to childhood. Their cognition and worldview are built over hundreds of years and cannot be changed by a small thing in a few years."

"In short, nowadays, dragons hatch their eggs by directly purchasing special nutrient solutions from specialized dragon alchemists. Oh, they're quite expensive. My mom told me that because of the severe shortage of dragon eggs, when I was born, there was even a version of the nutrient solution specifically for dragons with high blood purity."

"Are there dozens of varieties, such as enhanced or calcium-supplemented types, and even models that make the eggshells smoother or prettier, and they're more expensive?!"

"How did you know?!" Vilandella was shocked. Could Roach also be a deeply hidden dragon descendant or a member of the dragon race?!

“No, what I mean is that humans do the same thing, at least the humans over there do it. There are eight hundred brands and formulas of infant formula,” Roach said with a complicated expression.

"So that's how it is..." Apart from Livia, who had no idea what everyone was talking about, everyone else had a distant look on their faces.

"Speaking of this Healthy Hatchlings Committee, in addition to adopting these dragon eggs and centrally purchasing nutrient solutions, they have also launched a campaign with the slogan 'Healthy Hatchlings, Strong Next Generation.' The main purpose is to reform the dragon race's consistent laissez-faire parenting policy, adopt a policy of multiple births and better breeding, strengthen the care and cultivation of hatchlings, reduce the existence of deformed dragons and degenerate dragons, and now they have even proposed to include dragon descendants in this plan."

Vilandella said with a sigh, "If the Dragon Clan's deliberation process weren't measured in decades or even centuries, I wouldn't have needed to gather materials and bloodline potions myself. It's said that a committee would be responsible for purchasing them and providing them free of charge to dragon descendants with a high chance of transforming into dragons."

"Oh, then it seems the Dragon Clan's problem of 'Dragon's Mouth' must be quite serious."

"Well, it's said that there were originally hundreds of branches and species, of which at least two-thirds are now functionally extinct. Um, I, the Ash Dragon, am one of them."

Functional extinction does not mean that there are none left, but rather that the remaining population is insufficient to maintain the normal continuation of the population or to fulfill its function in nature, such as leaving only one Ash Dragon of a single sex.

"It is said that at its lowest point, there were fewer than 300 dragons in the entire world. Now it's better, with a total of less than 1, and the number of newborn dragons each century is less than 20."

"..." In human society, this species would probably be sentenced to death. Fortunately, dragons are long-lived species, and their reproductive period spans at least five centuries. That is to say, if they insist on reproducing at every reproductive age, a dragon can produce five offspring before it dies, not even considering the issue of laying multiple dragon eggs.

"So, this is a trophy your father won when he was a child, like one from a sports meet or a competition?" Roach thought it was better not to take it; it was too immoral. Oh, it was his daughter who took it. Well, never mind then.

Next came a whole bunch of gems, all engraved with dragon language characters. They seemed to be the first batch of magical gem artifacts her father had made. Of course, after so much time, they were all ruined and were now just simple gem crafts.

There was also a small pile of gold, her father's first pot of gold, which he stole from her maternal grandfather's treasure vault. Along with the gold was a broken dragon scale, which showed obvious signs of being broken by violent impact.

"It seems your family has a long tradition of scholarship," Leslie said, trying her best to be tactful and polite.

The remaining items included some valuable porcelain pieces, a ring that looked like it had been used at a wedding, and so on. They tried to pick out the most valuable items possible, but the later items were placed in the collection started to look a bit off.

For example, a small silver bottle with "Vilandella" written on the bottom. "Your used baby bottle?" Roach looked at it curiously. It looked pretty much the same as a baby bottle, except it didn't have a nipple.

A small hair clip inlaid with cheap gemstones was broken and didn't look very valuable; a picture book covered in doodles, and so on.

"..."

"Alright, I'm not watching anymore." Vilandella remained silent for a moment before turning and leaving the depths of the Dragon Tomb.

"What's wrong with her?" Leslie asked curiously.

“You…” Alessina hesitated, but the outspoken blonde witch still asked, in a very innocent and curious tone, “Don’t you have a mother?”

“See, she understands everything~” Roach spread his hands, and doubted whether Leslie really didn’t have parents.

"We mermaids have external births, okay?! Who the hell has ever seen what their own parents look like?!" Leslie shouted angrily.

"Oh, I'm sorry, it was our fault," Roach apologized insincerely.

"Alright, I've taken my things. Don't go too far." Vilandella stood at the door, transformed into her dragon form, as if she would breathe dragon breath on Leslie's face if she said anything strange again.

Roach and the others didn't take anything; they just looked around the dragon tomb. Only the little witch touched and tapped on the dragon bones, seemingly greatly satisfying her curiosity.

Ordinary stones were used to reseal the dragon tomb. The little witch inscribed a substitute concealment array on them to replace the function of the dragon stone, concealing the existence of the dragon tomb and preventing others from intruding. Incidentally, she had the black horse leave a powerful curse inside the dragon tomb. Anyone who steals anything from inside will automatically be considered to have fulfilled the conditions for signing a mandatory hell contract, and their soul will directly report to Old Horse.

After Livia's testing, Dragonstone could indeed replace "Ancestral Rock" as the core of the ritual. However, the other materials needed would take some time to arrive with the next batch of merchants. At this point, Roach and his team would have to find a way to satisfy the investors, otherwise it would be hard to say whether the next round of funding would be available.

With the funding secured, research on this magical crossbow quickly progressed, and when the second caravan arrived, the initial draft of the improvements was taken away by the Swift Eagle Envoy who accompanied the merchant guild.

One advantage of the magical world is that there are tamed small magical creatures used to deliver letters. Although they are expensive and not very fast, they are still faster than caravans and messengers, and can deliver small packages.

These tamed magical creatures resemble the giant eagles of Eagle Feather Mountain Range. They are dark blue with two distinct golden stripes on their wings and bellies. These creatures can briefly transform into a bolt of lightning to dash forward, leaving most predators behind. When in urgent situations, they can perform consecutive short lightning leaps before changing to a new swift eagle at the post station to take over.

Of course, the price was not ordinary, so Roach only purchased a regular mail delivery for 5 gold coins, which included a detailed disassembly blueprint and related component disassembly diagrams, and used the Little Witch's magic to encrypt and compress it.

If an unrelated person opens it, it will just be a bunch of messy lines. Only after finding a sorcerer to decipher it and then transcribing it onto parchment will it present a complete form. This is one of the methods used to make spellbooks.

—For those in the know, they can extract a thick notebook from a single page, while for those who don't, it's just a pile of waste paper filled with incomprehensible experimental records. Of course, this method has long been obsolete in the world of magical books.

By the time Byrne received the blueprints, it was already a month later. The Parliamentarian army had barely held off the Governor's army's attack, and the latter seemed to be slowly giving up as the economic downturn caused by the tightening of physical currency gradually subsided. It was just a fuse, not a powder keg itself.

The real powder keg is the long-standing loss of the empire's right to mint coins, and the conflict between the merchant class, who gradually gained power to rival supernatural forces, and the traditional landed nobles and supernatural nobles, as the new nobles invested in industry and commerce with the development of the magic industry. In essence, this powder keg has been continuously being loaded with explosives since the rise of the arcane sorcerers hundreds of years ago.

One of the reasons for the disappearance of the Mystic Warlocks was that they threatened the status and power of the Bloodline Nobles and the Extraordinary Nobles. Although the interruption of this process has resulted in the high cost of Bloodline Potions or similar methods, which have instead become a means for these Extraordinary Nobles to continue their families and increase their chances of inheriting bloodline power, ultimately, mortals have indeed begun to more widely master these powers.

The rise and increasing number of adventurers is a manifestation of this phenomenon or social change. There weren't so many adventurers before, and most of the "adventurers" were not so simple people, especially those who possessed extraordinary powers. They were either wandering knights who had lost their lords or "former noblemen" who had fallen on hard times for some reason.

The fact that even the second son of a wealthy farmer can now obtain the status of an adventurer was unimaginable before the profession of adventurer emerged. Moreover, the earliest adventurers were not called adventurers; there were clear distinctions among them, such as monster hunters, which were a mercenary-like profession, not as formal and widespread as they are now.

If nothing unexpected happens, with the fuse extinguished, this turmoil will end with the suppression of these "insubordinates" and the restless new aristocracy falling silent once again. But when we say "if nothing unexpected happens," it means that something unexpected is bound to happen.

The swift eagle flapped its wings and landed on the T-shaped frame, tossing the package into the rope net below. The guard eagle slave quickly delivered the package to the town hall where the temporary council was located.

The month-long confrontation has drastically reduced these men's wealth, and their prestige and the population they control are also shrinking rapidly. This has caused many of those who were initially hot-headed to start having second thoughts and considering the possibility of surrendering to the governor.

"Master Roach has sent over the preliminary finished product." Bourne immediately had the deciphered blueprints sent to his family's workshops in the Hot Sands Province. Since the governor had no idea what it was and it didn't look like a proper weapon, it only needed to be manufactured in multiple parts, then transported and assembled separately.

A pressed, glowing crystal; a rod-shaped crystal that is claimed to be some kind of ornament; a hollow wooden block with a fishbone structure on one side and iron hoops; a metal rod with a spiral hexagonal inner diameter of about 20 centimeters; and the essence gel is a common alchemical consumable.

The remaining slightly sensitive parts are the crossbow arm, trigger, and stock. Roach notes that the crossbow arm is unnecessary and is merely decorative. Of course, you can find other arcane mages or alchemists to enchant it, since he has reserved rune interfaces on the receiver. As long as the other party's skill level is similar to yours, they can do some simple enchantments.

The trigger's mechanical structure is a bit complicated, but it's a small part that's easy to conceal. Finally, the stock isn't strictly necessary, but it's better to have one if you want to shoot accurately.

As for the final sights and automatic feeding, Roach hadn't developed them yet. Finally, this pile of things that even the most learned alchemist couldn't figure out was assembled into a crossbow that was at least 1.2 to 1.3 meters long and, according to normal weaponry theory, had absolutely no practical combat value.

The package also included ammunition samples and simple manufacturing instructions. The simplest ammunition was named "Standard Round" by Roach and marked with an "I" to indicate that it was the first generation of standard round. The package also included subsequent development ideas and a rough budget.

A cheap green glass sphere, charged with a small amount of wind elemental magic, was embedded in a hexagonal block. However, its effect was not a wind blade or anything like that. Instead, it formed a wind shield at the top with decent strength. In Roach's description, he called this thing a "shock cone" and said that as long as the speed of launch was fast enough, this thing was no less strong than adamantite.

The second generation incorporated an explosive fuse, and the third generation proposed using a two-stage explosive discarding sabot for secondary acceleration, claiming it could even penetrate a water tank with a single shot, and named it the "sub-caliber discarding sabot stabilized fin active damage armor-piercing projectile."

It was a very tongue-twisting name, but Byrne thought it would be better to just call it "Standard Missile III". At least when the logistics officers were filling out the paperwork, they wouldn't have to deal with a long and difficult German word that consisted of about ten words and had at least seventy or eighty letters.

"Why a water tank?" Bourne couldn't understand why the other party would use a water tank as an example. Weren't the walls of a water tank very thick? The second type of ammunition looked like a flower bud, supposedly used to deal with mounts.

Simply hitting the mount will unleash sharp, scattering wind blades in all directions. Even if it misses, it will still hit the ground with a delayed effect, enough to slash the rider's mount's legs—it's extremely vicious.

The third type of ammunition is simply a hexagonal cone, indicating that it is made of the finest metal, preferably adamantium, so that it can penetrate even if the opponent is wearing adamantium armor.

Next, Byrne tested the weapon in front of the council members. First, with the normal bullets, it failed to penetrate the knight's armor because the crank and charging system had not yet been developed. It was just an optimization based on the previous version, using better materials, but it had not been adapted for dynamic elements. However, it did penetrate the breastplate of the squire infantry.

Then came the armor-piercing bullets. After using adamantite materials, they successfully pierced the knight's armor. However, considering that the opponent would use superhuman physique and muscle strength no less than that of ordinary iron armor, it was estimated that they could only penetrate the armor and injure the knight.

The thing called "Slicing Shot" is actually quite useful. In practice, it can be used to hit the ground or armor while charging, damaging the opponent's mount. Even if it doesn't damage the mount, it can cut the leather straps of the saddle. As long as enough shots are fired, a certain hit rate can be guaranteed.

The firing rate is currently only stable at about one shot per minute, which is a problem. In addition, the weapon itself is heavy, making it almost impossible for users to carry other backup weapons. This has made members of parliament hesitant about whether to use this weapon.

In the end, it was Byrne who suggested that at least it could be tried in small-scale battles, since it was cheap! The most expensive component was actually the metal tube used to improve armor penetration, followed by the trigger and receiver, while the rest of the magical materials were all cheap.

This weapon was named the "Rocky Livia Type I Infantry Crossbow," or simply...

Chapter 127 Times Have Changed!

The Jade Province Border Fortress, built during the Empire's unification wars, is at least two hundred years old. Moss and vines cling to the ancient rocks, and collapsed and fragile parts have been reinforced with wood and ropes. A wooden crossbowman's corridor has been built on the original battlements to replace the damaged fortress structure.

The fortress was small, able to house fewer than 200 soldiers. It was the front line of the standoff between the Parliamentarian army and the Governor's army. As the summer harvest was approaching, most of the Governor's troops had already withdrawn, leaving only a small force to keep watch.

It wasn't that the governor didn't want to send heavy cavalry to these rebels one by one, but rather that the knights needed to return to their estates to tend to their crops during this season. If they missed this season, their grapes, olives, and berries would simply rot in the ground, and even a lord couldn't stop these knights from going home to harvest their produce.

It was precisely because of the high value of these products that these knights were equipped with exceptionally fine equipment, enough to rival the regular knightly orders of the Empire.

Because of the high value of these products, unless the governor can come up with an astronomical sum of service compensation, the two knightly orders in the Hot Sands Province will only have a maximum of 6 months of fighting time per year, which will be staggered into two periods of summer and autumn.

On the contrary, the governor's customs guard could operate year-round. However, they were mainly composed of light infantry and light cavalry. The former were used for naval battles and boarding operations, while the latter were used for anti-smuggling operations. Although they were experienced in combat and well-equipped, they were really not good at assaults and field battles.

A wagon train entered through the passage behind the fortress, carrying crates. This slightly lifted the eyelids of the demoralized parliamentary soldiers. No matter who was being beaten inside the fortress, with insufficient supplies and heavy casualties, their morale would be low.

"Isn't it time for payday yet?" The veteran, at least in his forties or fifties, leaned on his spear, somewhat puzzled. These wagons looked heavily guarded, so they couldn't possibly be grain or supplies sent from the rear. Such guardedness was only required when money was being distributed.

"Go to the training ground in squads, don't bring weapons." "...Is it because we're getting bonuses?" Having never experienced the brutal beating of "payment on the training ground, no armor or weapons," these parliamentary soldiers weren't surprised. It was normal for them not to bring weapons; what if someone suddenly got carried away and robbed a wagon carrying silver coins?

If the opposing governor's army not only had material benefits such as treatment and real estate, but also honors, then the parliamentary army was simply a group of people who were paid to fight.

There's no honor to be had, and real estate is out of the question. The governor might use the wealth of these merchants to reward his knights, and the knights would share some with their personal guards and squires. But why did those guys in the council rebel? Expecting them to use their assets to boost morale is wishful thinking.

If they weren't forced into this situation, they would be extremely stingy with their pay, so most of the soldiers on the parliamentary side are unwanted and worthless by the other side.

That's why Byrne thought procuring Roach's equipment was the best option—what use would it be to equip these worthless bastards with magic swords and high-level magic armor? They'd just surrender as soon as they got to the battlefield—and that's the best-case scenario; the most shameless ones would even run off with the equipment before even seeing the battlefield.

The crates were heavy, which made the soldiers who helped carry them grin and guess whether they contained gold or silver. After all, they had been confronting the "ruthless" governor for two months. If they didn't get some gold or silver, who would risk their lives for them?