Chapter 73: Bailiffs at the Door

Meng Yifan was in the courtyard and soon found another large rat. He followed the same procedure, and once again, a phantom of a large rat appeared inside the Ghost Head Blade. He had a realization and muttered, "Absorb!"

"Whoosh!" The large rat phantom flickered violently and vanished from within the Ghost Head Blade, and the countdown on the Game Panel decreased by five seconds accordingly.

Although five seconds was very short and not worth mentioning, it still made Meng Yifan overjoyed. Through the experiment just now, he had truly found a way to shorten the countdown.

"The soul of one large rat can shorten it by five seconds; if it were a human soul, how much time could it shorten?"

Meng Yifan knew that the stronger a Martial Artist's strength, the stronger their soul power would be. If he could absorb that, it would certainly be able to significantly reduce the countdown time.

Earth possessed technology that crushed the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty. By traveling back this time, the several weapon manufacturing methods he had learned could quickly improve Meng Yifan's combat power here. As long as they were used properly, he would have the confidence to resist even if faced with a siege by the Luolong County bailiffs.

It was already the middle of the night, with a bright moon and sparse stars. Meng Yifan checked the mechanisms and traps in the courtyard again, gave a few instructions to the young men on night watch, and then returned to his room to rest.

Even though Meng Yifan was a Second Grade Lower Stage Martial Artist, he still had to sleep when it was time to sleep; otherwise, he would feel listless the next day and be unable to concentrate on fighting.

The night passed without incident. The next day, the sun rose as usual. Meng Yifan felt a sense of urgency. He did not know when Zhang Butou would investigate him, so he ate a simple breakfast and then began to set about manufacturing the Congreve Rocket.

The netizen named "Wild Donkey Running Wild" had provided a very simple manufacturing method: the rocket's tube was just a tin pipe filled with gunpowder. Once ignited, the flame would spray out the back, creating a powerful propulsive force.

The three slanted stabilizing spiral fins at the tail were also easy to install; one just needed to fix them onto the tube according to the dimensions and installation angles on the manufacturing blueprint. These two parts were almost not difficult at all, and the blacksmiths in the city could completely forge them.

The most difficult part of the Congreve Rocket was the explosive warhead. Wanting to manufacture a warhead capable of exploding required a certain level of technical skill, and ordinary people truly could not make it.

However, if he could find some craftsmen in the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty who manufactured firearms and show them the blueprints for the explosive warhead, they should be able to build it given the existing technology of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty.

"When I have the conditions later, I must recruit some skilled craftsmen." Meng Yifan was not a science and engineering student; his ambition was to become an Immortal Cultivator, and he did not intend to become a master craftsman of the mortal world in the future. If he obtained any more technology from Earth later, he would still have to let his subordinates manufacture it. His task was to strengthen himself as quickly as possible.

With the current scientific technology of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty, firearms could at most take down a Third Grade Martial Artist. For more powerful Martial Artists, their bodies had already been repeatedly strengthened by True Qi, and ordinary weapons could no longer cause them harm.

Unless he could continue to develop the technological level of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty, if he could build a nuclear bomb, then even Fourth Grade or Fifth Grade Martial Artists could be blasted into ashes.

Just think of the Martial Saint who could collapse a mountain with one punch. Such an existence had already reached the limit of the human body. Let alone the cannons of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty, even if a Katyusha Rocket Launcher from Earth were aimed at a Martial Saint and fired, it might not necessarily be able to break their defense.

But if a nuclear bomb were detonated near a Martial Saint, it was unknown whether the Martial Saint's formidable physique could withstand the high temperature, shockwave, and nuclear radiation formed by the nuclear explosion.

Meng Yifan had no way to manufacture an explosive rocket warhead for the time being, but he thought of an alternative method: replacing the warhead with a conical arrowhead and then coating the arrowhead with poison. By utilizing the powerful propulsive force of the gunpowder to give the arrowhead an extremely high speed, even a city wall could be pierced through.

The interior of the conical arrowhead could be filled with gunpowder and connected to the gunpowder in the tube. This way, after the gunpowder in the tube burned to a certain extent, it could also lead to the detonation of the gunpowder inside the conical arrowhead, but this method was not easy to control regarding the detonation time of the arrowhead.

Meng Yifan really wanted to manufacture the kind of arrowhead that would explode upon impact, but that would require developing a firing pin, percussion primer, and detonator—this entire series of detonation devices.

Don't look at these few items as if they were not difficult; an outsider like Meng Yifan could not manufacture them even if he followed the blueprints.

Professional matters should be left to professional people. For now, he would just make do with this.

Meng Yifan went to the blacksmith shop in the city and ordered three iron pipes, conical arrowheads, and the corresponding stabilizing spiral fins, spending thirty taels of silver. Then he returned home and filled them with gunpowder layer by layer. He soon manufactured the rockets, which looked like large-sized firecrackers, only with stabilizing spiral fins added to the tail to ensure that it could fly straight forward after being launched.

The rocket launcher was just a wooden frame, which was even simpler to make, and it was finished quickly.

On this day, the task for Meng Yitong and the other young men and Meng Qingshan and the other teenagers was still to practice the Savage Bull Strength technique. Meng Dayong led the old, weak, sick, and disabled to continue manufacturing Elm Cannons. Xu Dafu was very proactive in order to earn money; at noon, he delivered another batch of Earth Saltpeter, and Meng Yifan continued to refine Saltpeter and mix the gunpowder according to scientific proportions.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" In the afternoon, the gate of Meng Yifan's house was pounded forcefully.

"Open the door! We are the bailiffs of Luolong City. Open the door quickly!" A series of shouts came from outside the gate. The courtyard gate was pounded until it was swaying, as if they would knock the gate down if it weren't opened.

Everyone in Qinghe Village looked at Meng Yifan, who was walking out of the room, waiting for his decision.

"Open the door and see what they have to say," Meng Yifan said.

Meng Yitong stepped forward quickly and opened the courtyard gate.

"You bastard, making your master pound the gate for so long! What are you hiding inside for?" A bailiff walked in, cursing, and raised his leg to kick Meng Yitong.

Meng Yitong was now a First Grade Lower Stage Martial Artist, with strength comparable to this bailiff who had come to the door. He did not dodge but circulated his True Qi and took the bailiff's kick head-on; his body remained as steady as a rock, not moving an inch.

"Eh!" The bailiff was stunned. He had originally intended to kick the person who opened the door a few times to give everyone in the courtyard a show of force first, but he hadn't expected that the person who opened the door was actually also a First Grade Martial Artist.

The bailiff looked at Meng Yitong with some surprise, then looked toward the people in the courtyard, and the more he looked, the more alarmed he became.

Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong were both Second Grade Martial Artists, and among the others, there were five or six people with True Qi fluctuations, who were also Martial Artists. This group of hunters from the mountains was very strong; they were completely capable of committing the crime. Could it really be them?