allonlinenovel Chapter 254 Exercise
Chapter 254 Exercise
Chapter 1 Drill
Four days passed quickly. Mo Yuming began assembling the hidden arrow early in the morning. Although the assembly did not require the use of spiritual power, it was a meticulous task that required a high degree of concentration.
Although all possible scenarios were taken into account during the design process and the production was also done very well, it was still a new weapon after all, and there was no reference to refer to. So even though it was made exactly according to the design draft, some minor flaws still appeared in the result.
So Mo Yuming assembled and disassembled the hidden arrow repeatedly, and after many adjustments, it took him a full three hours to assemble it.
The sleeve dart is made of compressed air and a spring mechanism, because the purpose of using a sleeve dart is to strike unexpectedly, and it is mainly used for self-defense and surprise attacks.
Therefore, there is no need to use spiritual power to drive it, especially in duels with experts, where even the slightest changes in spiritual power will attract the opponent's attention.
Mo Yuming did not use powerful gunpowder. Although gunpowder does not use spiritual power, the loud noise produced when it explodes will still alert the enemy and arouse their vigilance.
Furthermore, the sleeve dart is a close-range weapon, and generally only needs to achieve a lethality of about ten zhang (approximately 33 meters), so a spring mechanism is sufficient. To increase the rate of fire, Mo Yuming added compressed air to the dart barrel.
Dual-powered is the most distinctive feature of Mo Yuming's sleeve dart. The sleeve dart consists of three parts: the dart barrel, the firing device, the dart handle, and the arrowhead.
The arrow tube device was the first black iron tube to be forged. Inside the arrow tube was a piston that compressed air. Before the arrow was inserted into the sleeve dart, the air inside the piston was compressed and then inserted into the sleeve dart.
The handle of the sleeve dart is also hollow, with a tiny spring mechanism designed inside. The spring, made of specially crafted black iron, has great elasticity, and the burst of elasticity is enough to launch the arrowhead ten feet away.
The arrow is only half an inch long and has a sharp inverted triangle design. During the making of the arrow, Mo Yuming added the attribute mineral Poison Dragon Stone.
As its name suggests, the Poison Dragon Stone is extremely toxic. Its characteristics include making wounds difficult to heal and causing dizziness and doubled pain.
While not immediately fatal, it would quickly render the injured person incapable of fighting. Mo Yuming had considered using the Demon-Slaying Arrow, but it was difficult to make it so small, so he had to give up.
Mo Yuming's sleeve dart design is different from others. It uses compressed air in the barrel to launch the dart first. During flight, a spring mechanism in the handle is triggered, which ejects the arrowhead at a faster speed.
After being launched twice, the arrow tip reaches twice the speed of a regular arrow, making it very difficult to dodge.
To this end, Mo Yuming specially made a leather sheath, which was attached to his arm and had a trigger mechanism connected to his wrist. Simply rotating his wrist would activate the mechanism and fire the hidden darts. Each sheath contained three hidden darts, allowing for three consecutive shots.
The Tianxuan Continent emphasizes the cultivation of profound skills, and the most commonly used hidden weapons are throwing knives and crossbows. Few people study intricate mechanical weapons like these.
After all, these weapons are somewhat useless in the face of powerful profound arts. Everyone spends their time and energy cultivating profound arts and has no time to pay attention to these things.
Just like in the old days of China, everyone was obsessed with swords and martial arts, and looked down on the advanced Western machinery and firearms as something different, ultimately falling humiliated under the guns and cannons of the empire.
Mo Yuming put the installed sleeve dart on his arm and covered it with his sleeve, so that no one could see that the sleeve dart was there.
Stepping out of the courtyard into an open area, Mo Yuming shot an arrow at a tree trunk ten zhang away. With a soft 'whoosh,' the arrow flew from Mo Yuming's arm. When it reached about three zhang away, the thin shaft vibrated, and the arrowhead was instantly propelled by the shaft at high speed, accurately piercing the tree trunk at an even faster speed. With a 'thud,' the sharp arrowhead pierced through the thick trunk and landed on the stone slab more than ten zhang away behind the tree.
The hidden dart makes only a slight whooshing sound as it travels at high speed from the moment it is fired until it hits the tree trunk. This sound comes after the arrow has already struck its target.
Mo Yuming estimated that if this hidden arrow were launched at a speed of surprise, it would be impossible to dodge its shot within ten zhang by relying solely on sight and hearing.
Unless one possesses exceptional spiritual perception and reacts with lightning speed the moment the hidden dart is triggered, it is impossible to avoid its sneak attack.
How many cultivators of profound arts in the world possess such high-level, almost precognitive, spiritual perception abilities?
Mo Yuming picked up the arrowheads and shafts from the stone slab with satisfaction and returned to the courtyard.
The weapon forging was completed. Three days of forging had given Mo Yuming a certain understanding of weapon forging and some of his own insights. Mo Yuming drew up the blueprints for the sleeve arrow he designed and prepared to leave it to the armory.
Currently, the person with the highest weapon-forging skills in the arsenal is Elder Huo, but he has only just advanced to the early stage of level four, just stepping into the master level.
There are still many advanced items that cannot be crafted. For example, magic crystal cannons, soul-level battle armor, and soul iron-level spirit treasures cannot be made, and meteor iron-level divine weapons are even more impossible.
Therefore, if Mo Yuming wants to improve his weapon refinement skills, he needs to learn from a higher-level Grandmaster or God-level weapon refiner. Weapon refiners at level three and below are considered ordinary, levels four to six are considered master, levels seven to nine are considered grandmaster, and levels ten and above are the legendary God-level weapon refiners.
Mo Yuming has only just grasped the basics of a novice weapon refiner and wants to further his studies by learning intermediate weapon refiner techniques, but he can't find a good teacher. Even Elder Huo, who has just entered the master level, doesn't have much left to teach Mo Yuming. From now on, if Mo Yuming wants to learn more advanced weapon refinement techniques, he will have to go to the Weapon Refiner Association.
Mo Yuming packed up his tools and finished refining the weapon. Although he had only been refining for three days, Mo Yuming found that it greatly helped him improve his fire-attribute profound skill cultivation. Even his previous hard work in cultivating fire-attribute techniques hadn't been as effective as this weapon refining. It seemed that if he wanted to improve his fire-attribute profound skill cultivation in the future, he would have to refine more weapons.
In the afternoon, I visited Elder Huo and his group's weapon-forging courtyard to watch the three of them forging weapons. They had already produced quite a few demon-repelling bullets since yesterday. Yesterday was mainly spent improving their techniques, so production was low, with only about sixty bullets made so far. However, as their skills improve, they will be able to produce them faster in the future.
The shells for the anti-magic bullets have already been prototyped in the factory. Now they just need to do some finishing touches. The important thing is to draw the runes and place the magic crystals.
The three of them divided the work. Electric Master had lower skill level but higher cultivation, so he mainly did the task of modifying the rough cartridge blanks. Huo Lao's apprentice mainly carved the basic runes, and Huo Lao completed the final advanced composite runes and placed the magic crystal.
As the three's teamwork improved, the production speed of the Demon-Slaying Bullets increased significantly, now producing ten bullets per hour. At this rate, producing one hundred bullets per day would be no problem.
Mo Yuming was pressed for time because Jiang Yuheng had recently sent word that there might be unusual activity in Jingzhou. Therefore, in order to strengthen defenses, Mo Yuming decided to take these dozens of anti-magic bullets and a batch of cannon barrels to the Black Dragon Fortress for emergency use.
The manufacturing process for cannon barrels is simple, and with the factory using an assembly line, five hundred cannon barrels were produced yesterday alone. The only thing missing now is gunpowder cartridges, but Mo Yuming has already sent a message to Brother Ji Jiahe to prepare the materials, which should be delivered to the fortress in the next few days.
Mo Yuming told Huo Lao about the blueprints and manufacturing techniques for the sleeve dart, but the manufacturing process of the sleeve dart was complicated, and the requirements for various accessories were quite high, and they were all very small parts.
This test not only assesses the weapon refiner's skill level but also their meticulous techniques. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether Elder Huo's craftsmanship is up to the task. However, this hidden blade is not an urgent matter; Elder Huo can study it at his leisure when he has more time.
After giving his instructions, Mo Yuming led the sixty-odd anti-magic bullets and five hundred cannon barrels toward the Black Dragon Fortress.
As expected of the Crimson Cloud Horse, which boasts top-tier speed and endurance on the Tianxuan Continent, it galloped at full speed for Mo Yuming, covering nearly 800 li before nightfall. Traveling a thousand li a day was a piece of cake for the Crimson Cloud Horse.
After settling down at the fortress, Jiang Yuheng and Mo Yuming held a secret meeting. He had received two messages in the past two days.
One of the messages was from Fuyuan Restaurant in Qingdi City. Marquis Wu Yi of Zhenglan Kingdom had ordered all the prefectures to begin gathering troops in Jingzhou.
It seems that the visit of the guest minister from Jingzhou to investigate the incident was just an excuse. Even if the matter in Jingzhou was indeed a case of a son murdering his father and seizing the throne, as the Marquis, he could not punish a hereditary city lord without solid evidence. This is because, for thousands of years, the Wu family, even as a legitimate royal family, has done such things many times.
Even if intervention were necessary, there would be no need to mobilize the army. Simply dispatching a few special envoys and officials would suffice. If it weren't for the fact that Jingzhou and Zhongyuan City border each other, a marquis would simply turn a blind eye to such matters.
So it's clear that all Wu Yi really needed was an excuse; he didn't care about the truth behind the city lord and the old city lord's disappearance. Sending a guest advisor to investigate was just a pretext.
The second message came from the Wushuang Restaurant in the capital of Long Kingdom. The Feather Palace had officially issued its punishment order against Wu Ji. Wu Ji was found guilty of colluding with criminal clans and ordering her subordinates to assassinate the special envoy. Long Kingdom was ordered to punish her. The Feather Palace did not specify the severity of the punishment, leaving it to Long Kingdom to determine.
The Feather Palace is indeed a troublemaker. They threw a hot potato at the Long Kingdom and then ignored it. "You decide whether it's light or heavy. I won't say anything. If the punishment is too light, I'll charge you with harboring a criminal and send the other four kingdoms and five hegemons to attack the Long Kingdom."
If things get too serious, Wu Ji might resort to a desperate, all-or-nothing approach, causing chaos in the Long Kingdom. After all, besides Zhongyuan City, the Great Chi Kingdom also has nine large prefecture cities, making its strength not to be underestimated. At that point, the Long Kingdom would be plunged into internal strife from which it would find it difficult to extricate itself.
"These two matters are of great importance. We will convene a secret meeting of the Grand Secretaries tomorrow to gather everyone's opinions!" Mo Yuming said.
But whatever the outcome, it foreshadowed that the days to come would not be peaceful. Mo Yuming handed five hundred cannon barrels to Jiang Yuheng, instructing him to first gather one hundred of the best members of the 'Red Shadow Guard' who were training in Wild Wolf Valley to familiarize themselves with the new equipment, and then accept their mission.
These thousand-plus 'Crimson Shadow Guards' are all sharpshooters selected from the ranks. Each warrior is a seasoned veteran, incredibly brave and skilled even on the battlefield. Not to mention, they underwent further special training in the Wolf Valley battle formation.
The Ji family had already delivered all the military supplies to the fortress, which were placed in the underground cave as requested by Mo Yuming. In order to put the new weapons into practical use as soon as possible, Mo Yuming, despite the fatigue of the journey, came to the underground cave accompanied by Jiang Yuheng and Wang Baichuan.
Inside a spacious side cave, the transported raw materials were piled up. For safety, Wang Baichuan had set up an isolation array at the entrance to block the fire elemental energy. This way, the items wouldn't accidentally ignite.
Since everyone was unfamiliar with gunpowder making, Mo Yuming had to do it himself. To keep it a secret, only Mo Yuming, Jiang Yuheng, and Wang Baichuan were in the cave.
The raw materials in the cave were all blocky raw ores, unprocessed. However, all three were masters of profound skills, with Wang Baichuan even reaching the Heavenly Rank, capable of splitting mountains and rocks. Therefore, grinding and screening the ores was not difficult for them. Mo Yuming first taught the two of them how to grind and screen the ores.
Then Mo Yuming meticulously mixed these ore powders according to a precise ratio. The three of them finished processing over a thousand kilograms of medicinal stones in just two hours. Finally, they filled the gunpowder powder into the tanned intestines of the bull-tailed roe deer.
Each powder packet only needs three ounces of gunpowder. Therefore, over a thousand pounds of gunpowder can fill more than three thousand powder packets. For this purpose, Mo Yuming made a large gunpowder barrel out of wood.
All the gunpowder was placed in a barrel, which was then placed on a five-foot-high wooden platform. Several small holes were made in the bottom of the barrel, through which tubes were inserted. The gunpowder could flow out of the tubes and quickly fill the sausage casings that were fitted with the tubes.
Once the first sausage casing is full, the second one is immediately filled. Then, the openings of these sausage casing bags filled with gunpowder are sealed, and the size of the sausage casing bags is adjusted. This completes the production of one gunpowder bag.
By the time the three finished preparing the medicine packets, it was already dawn the next day. The Red Shadow Guard soldiers who had been transferred had arrived at the fortress and were preparing to receive orders.
Mo Yuming arrived at the training ground and, after explaining the performance and operation of the new weapon to the soldiers, demonstrated how to load the ammunition and how to aim and fire it to the enemy, ensuring everyone was familiar with this new weapon.
The Demon-Slaying Bullets were too powerful and expensive to be used in live-fire exercises. However, in order to let all the soldiers clearly understand the power of the Demon-Slaying Bullets, Mo Yuming decided to fire three first-generation Demon-Slaying Bullets live on site for them to see.
After teaching everyone how to use it, Mo Yuming took out three first-generation anti-demon bullets made by Elder Huo and distributed them to the three guard captains, asking them to fire live bullets to demonstrate to everyone.
.