Chapter 9: Preparing for Battle

Meng Dayong looked at his son with some surprise; in the past, Meng Yifan was very timid and even a bit squeamish about blood—the sight of a pig being slaughtered could scare him into wetting himself—so why was his desire to kill so strong now?

He had already killed five people with his own hands today, yet he still wanted to go and finish off the other thirty; those were living, breathing human beings, not pigs or sheep waiting to be slaughtered. Even if one were to kill thirty pigs in one go, shouldn't one feel a sense of pity? How did Meng Yifan suddenly become so cold and ruthless?

Could it be that after the old immortal in his dream cleansed his marrow and washed his tendons, even his personality had changed so drastically?

Meng Yifan had obtained the memories of the original owner and knew that the original's personality was somewhat cowardly and incompetent. This sudden transformation would certainly arouse Meng Dayong's suspicion, but in order to improve his strength, he could not worry about that much; in any case, with the old immortal as a cover, a bit of a change didn't matter.

"Father, punishing evil is promoting good. Eliminating bad people is protecting the good people in the village. Have you ever thought that now that there is no food, as long as those scoundrels are alive, they will continue to harm other kind villagers? Their living is a disaster. They were the ones who attacked us first, wanting to hand us over to the Flying Tiger Demon; they all deserve to die," Meng Yifan persuaded.

In his previous life, Meng Yifan was a mercenary who traversed battlefields; his daily work was slaughter, and killing was a matter of routine. Coupled with the fact that the original owner's memories were filled with hatred for Zhang Cheng and his gang, after the two memories merged, this hatred was passed on to the current Meng Yifan. If he didn't finish off this gang, Meng Yifan's mind would not be at ease, and his whole body would feel uncomfortable.

Meng Dayong hesitated; he did not want his son's hands to be stained with blood, but the current world was in chaos—if you don't kill, you will be killed. What his son said also made sense; those thugs truly deserved to die. So, let it be; he would consider it acting on behalf of Heaven.

"Let's go, I'll back you up," Meng Dayong said, walking out with his Mountain Opening Blade. They were all from the same village; he knew where those animals could be hiding.

Meng Yifan followed behind, carrying his Bird Gun. The Gun Knife had already killed several people, and the blood had not yet dried, radiating a cold murderous intent. Today, he was going to start a massacre.

The remaining thirty thugs were all Unranked ordinary people; even if all thirty swarmed them at once, they would not be a match for the Meng father and son, let alone the fact that they were not gathered together at all.

Qinghe Village was only so big, and Meng Dayong had lived here since he was a child and was very familiar with the place. He soon found those thugs one by one.

"Brother Meng, for the sake of us playing bare-bottomed by the river when we were kids, please spare me! All those bastard things in the past were forced upon me by Zhang Cheng. I will definitely turn over a new leaf and never do evil again."

The first one found was Sun Laoer. At this moment, he was kneeling on the ground, kowtowing with loud thuds, longing for Meng Dayong to spare his life.

Meng Dayong hesitated. He had indeed played with Sun Laoer when they were children, but later, Sun Laoer followed Zhang Cheng to commit evil, and their relationship faded; they hardly interacted anymore.

Seeing his father reminiscing about old feelings, Meng Yifan hurriedly said, "Father, it was this animal who snatched Wang Xiaohua from the village."

Images of those horrific scenes flashed through Meng Dayong's mind, and he could not help but burn with rage.

Even wild beasts do not eat their own kind; these bastards were truly worse than animals.

"Sun Laoer, you are an animal; you deserve to die," Meng Dayong said through gritted teeth.

Meng Yifan was waiting for these words. He thrust the Gun Knife in his hand forward, cleanly and neatly stabbing Sun Laoer through the heart.

"Ding! Team hunted an Unranked enemy, gained 1 point of Experience Value."

The slaughter continued. Although the remaining thugs were hiding here and there, they could not escape Meng Dayong's pursuit. Every time an enemy was found, Meng Yifan would charge up with his Gun Knife and finish them off. He was now a First Grade Lower Stage Martial Artist, and Unranked enemies were simply no match for him.

Half an hour later, all thirty thugs had been finished off, and Meng Yifan had harvested a total of 30 points of Experience Value.

Adding his previous Experience Value, Meng Yifan now had 75.8 points. He did not hesitate and added them all directly to the proficiency of the Bull Strength Art.

On the Game Panel, Meng Yifan's profession changed to First Grade Intermediate Martial Artist, and the proficiency of the Bull Strength Art became Level 1 (219.8/300). His strength and defense each increased by 3 points; now, relying solely on his physical strength, he already exceeded that of an ordinary adult.

As the proficiency of the Bull Strength Art increased, Meng Yifan felt his True Qi surge to double its previous amount, and his originally slender meridians were stretched to the point of almost splitting.

His body muscles bulged suddenly as if being inflated, and muscles covered his entire body, making him look like a sturdy bull, full of explosive power.

"The True Qi is growing too fast," Meng Yifan thought with a start, hurriedly circulating the Bull Strength Art, mobilizing the True Qi in his body to perform a Great Heavenly Cycle to slowly refine this suddenly increased True Qi.

After the True Qi completed three Great Heavenly Cycles, Meng Yifan finally gained full control over the True Qi in his body, sending it into his dantian. The previously swollen muscle groups also contracted back, looking less frightening.

"A First Grade Intermediate Martial Artist? Isn't this too fast?" Meng Dayong was dumbfounded. He remembered that when he was in the army, using the army's cultivation resources, it took him a year to break through from a First Grade Lower Stage Martial Artist to a First Grade Intermediate Martial Artist, and even then, their Centurion praised him as a good seedling for martial arts.

Meng Yifan had gone from an ordinary person with no True Qi to a First Grade Intermediate Martial Artist by continuously breaking through realms in less than an hour or two. If his former Centurion knew this, his jaw would surely drop.

"That old immortal is truly amazing. Just seeing Yifan once in a dream was enough to make him Reborn and Transformed, with his strength advancing by leaps and bounds. He is worthy of being an immortal." Meng Dayong attributed Meng Yifan's explosive increase in strength to the old immortal; this was also good, as it saved Meng Yifan from having to rack his brains to explain.

With the bad guys led by Zhang Cheng all killed by the Meng father and son, the remaining villagers applauded. Everyone had had enough of the bullying by Zhang Cheng and his gang but were powerless to resist. Now that those bastards were killed, everyone felt very satisfied.

There were only fifty-eight villagers left in Qinghe Village, among whom only thirty were young and strong. These people were once good hunters who went up the mountains, and their physical fitness was quite good. Although they were not yet First Grade Low Stage Martial Artists, among ordinary people, they could be considered agile, but they had not eaten their fill for a long time and all looked very weak.

These thirty young and strong men all gathered at Meng Dayong's house, willing to follow Meng Dayong.

Meng Dayong and Meng Yifan were worrying about how to deal with the attacks of the Flying Tiger Demon and its minions; the Meng father and son naturally welcomed these young men who were willing to defect.

Meng Dayong was not a stingy person; he took out the meat of a Big Dog Bear, arranged for it to be roasted, and also had people boil a large pot of bone soup with the large bones that had been removed.

The thirty young men all ate until their mouths were oily, and even the remaining twenty-plus elderly, weak, sick, and disabled ate a few pieces of meat and drank a few bowls of meat soup. Everyone praised the Meng father and son for their righteousness and decided to follow Meng Dayong from then on.

They were all people from the same village, and Meng Dayong knew the roots and bottom of these thirty young men. Even when they were about to starve to death, they were still unwilling to collude with Zhang Cheng's gang to oppress the villagers, which showed that they were all kind-hearted young men and reliable helpers.

Meng Yifan asked the villagers to collect all the weapons and equipment in Qinghe Village together. Swords, spears, halberds, axes, hooks, and forks—many of these cold weapons were found, and they also found two damaged Bird Guns and a small barrel of gunpowder, weighing about five jin.

Meng Dayong was a veteran of the Divine Machine Battalion and knew how to repair Bird Guns. He studied the two Bird Guns for a moment and was convinced that he could repair both of them. This made Meng Yifan overjoyed; the Bird Gun had immense power, and even a Level 1 High-Grade Big Dog Bear would be killed with one shot if hit in a vital spot.

Meng Yifan had Level 2 Shooting Technique, so even using a very primitive Bird Gun, he could hit the target every time within a hundred paces. What restricted his performance was the cumbersome loading process of the Bird Gun.

With these two spare Bird Guns, Meng Yifan could arrange for three people to specifically load ammunition for him, and then hand the loaded Bird Guns to him to fire, which would allow him to greatly increase his firing speed.

Meng Yifan opened the Gunpowder Barrel and looked at the gunpowder inside, discovering that these were only very primitive Black Powder, and it seemed that the ratio was not very accurate, which would greatly affect the power of the explosion.

"Maybe I can improve the ratio of the gunpowder." Meng Yifan's eyes lit up. Although he was not a military industry expert in his previous life, he had heard of: one sulfur, two saltpeter, three charcoal, and add a little white sugar for Dayiwan.

It was in the high school chemistry textbook; the explosive reaction equation for Black Powder is:

S+2KNO3+3C=K2S+3CO2↑+N2↑

One sulfur, two saltpeter, three charcoal does not mean that the mass ratio of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal in the Black Powder composition is 1:2:3, but that the ratio of their molecular coefficients is 1:2:3.

If converted into a mass ratio, it is approximately Fire Saltpeter: Sulfur: Charcoal = 16:2:3.

"If I prepare Black Powder with the classic ratio and add a little white sugar, I wonder how much power it can exert? Can it blow that Flying Tiger Demon to death?"

The more Meng Yifan thought about it, the more excited he became, feeling that Black Powder prepared this way would surely give the Flying Tiger Demon a surprise.