Chapter 528: The Concept of Strengthening Martial Equipment

The fist-sized gemstone was crystal clear, without a single impurity, and one could see the Secret Medicine sealed inside without any obstruction.

The amber-yellow ointment was like liquid gold, quietly sealed within the gemstone.

After the entire top-grade gemstone was hollowed out, the ointment was placed inside and sealed, completely isolating it from the infiltration of air.

Not to mention the value of the ointment itself, the gemstone used as a container alone could be called priceless.

"Mirror-Rounding Thousand-Gold Ointment, as the name implies, can make a broken mirror round again, and is worth a thousand gold."

Hmm? Zhou You suddenly realized that he had no weapons on hand that urgently needed repair.

The bone hammer was completely shattered, and even the fragments could not be found; it had no value for repair.

The dagger and the gaze that formed the long spear, although worn from intense combat, had not reached the point of needing repair.

As for the two large hammers, they were hard and heavy, passed down from ancient times, and relied on being sturdy and durable.

This was quite the situation; an impulsive purchase had led to acquiring something he couldn't use for the time being.

"Hmm?"

When Zhou You opened the Hunger Pouch to check the idle items inside, he suddenly pulled out a broken horsewhip.

It consisted of the whip and the handle, which were fragments Zhou You had scavenged from the corpses of different enemies.

The reason he had kept them was that the material of the whip and handle was excellent; even though the corpses had been smashed to pieces, these items had remained intact.

Based on this alone, it was definitely a treasure.

"Let me see if you are worth me wasting the precious Mirror-Rounding Thousand-Gold Ointment."

Zhou You unscrewed the gemstone's mechanism, wiped a glob of ointment with his fingertip, and applied it to the broken ends of the whip and handle.

A strange scene occurred; the broken ends, which had been worn for years and covered in dust, were cleansed of all grime as the amber-colored ointment slowly flowed, looking just as they had when they first broke.

With a click, the whip and handle joined together along the break, fitting perfectly; golden light flowed through the crack, gradually thinning until it disappeared.

Zhou You held the handle in one hand, and the entire whip had healed as if new, becoming a complete Calamity-Charm Treasure.

That's right, after being repaired by the Mirror-Rounding Thousand-Gold Ointment, this set of whips had returned to its original appearance.

A Calamity-Charm Treasure... the Corpse-Interrogation Whip; besides being used as a weapon, it had another miraculous use... whipping corpses.

Holding this whip to lash a corpse could make the body speak and confess all the information it knew while alive.

The conditions for using this whip depended on the freshness of the corpse; a body that had just died was best. Each time it was whipped, the corpse would decay a little more, until finally, it completely weathered into ashes, and nothing more could be interrogated.

If he had possessed this item earlier, Lu Zhigang and Du Wuyao wouldn't have had to go through so much trouble, catching and interrogating the Witch-people one by one.

Holding the Corpse-Interrogation Whip, one could kill and then whip the corpse; wouldn't every secret be easily extracted?

It was worthy of being a Calamity-Charm Treasure; one could only wonder what kind of Calamity-Charm remains were fused into it, as it was not only far more powerful than ordinary Latent-Charm Treasures but also possessed the function of making the dead speak.

Zhou You gripped the Corpse-Interrogation Whip, feeling ambitious and eager to kill someone on the spot to test it.

He managed to suppress the impulse; Fucheng was not the wilderness, and after all, one had to follow the rules here, and human life was much more precious.

"Good treasure, use it sparingly."

Zhou You hurriedly sealed the gemstone and stored away the remaining Mirror-Rounding Thousand-Gold Ointment.

A bit of ointment had brought a discarded Calamity-Charm Treasure back to life; used in the right place, this item was of immeasurable value.

In this great battle against the Witch-people, both sides had suffered heavy losses and were exhausted by the end.

Whether they were martial artists or Witch-people, they had consumed a massive amount of supplies, manpower, and weapons; upon careful calculation, it had been a losing battle. Most martial artists had lost money; their Qi-Blood Divine Weapons, nurtured for years, were worn or cracked, and those with bad luck had them broken, not to mention the scars on their bodies and the hidden injuries lurking within.

After the war, medical businesses like Xingren Tang would usher in another wave of business frenzy.

Weapons also needed to be repaired and re-forged; iron furnaces of all sizes inside and outside Fucheng burned day and night, consuming countless amounts of charcoal and coal.

The ore Zhou You had seized had already been sent back to Zhou Family Village by Tie Niu to be secretly melted, refined, and forged into various weapons.

From this great battle, Zhou You's most direct feeling was that a higher level of strength crushes all, but equipment could bridge the gap.

As a Primary Martial Master, he could hunt down Witch-people at the level of Intermediate or even Advanced Martial Masters while wielding a Latent-Charm Treasure.

The equipment on Liu Fengji and Gaoyang Ruoqiang was terrifying; their accumulated comprehensive strength was such that even a Strong Martial expert would find them like a tiger biting a hedgehog—nowhere to sink their teeth in.

Even a warrior at the late stage of Qi-Blood, wielding a Qi-Blood Divine Weapon, had a chance to turn the tables when facing a Primary Martial Master.

Therefore, a good weapon concerned one's life and property.

After this battle, many martial arts halls and factions would secretly hoard weapons.

The blacksmiths of Fucheng had suddenly become highly sought after; everyone was placing orders and occupying production capacity, and the status of the Tiejian Hanghui was rising.

Zhou You did not join the crowd; his rear base, Zhou Family Village, had blast furnaces and blacksmiths, possessing the ability to produce its own weapons.

With Zhou You's support, Zhou Family Village was financially strong and had taken in many craftsmen, including veteran blacksmiths with experience in forging weapons.

What they lacked was nothing more than high-quality ore. The Witch-people's invasion had brought high-quality ore produced in Beijing, including countless amounts of five-metal materials, as well as rare minerals seldom seen in Zhong Yuan.

These minerals were collectively known as "beyond the five metals"; one only needed to add a tiny bit during the forging of a weapon to achieve a qualitative leap.

The ore Zhou You had transported back to Zhou Family Village weighed over ten tons, enough to forge hundreds of excellent weapons.

Once the weapon blanks were produced, they would be tempered and nurtured by Qi-Blood, greatly increasing their power, becoming Qi-Blood Divine Weapons capable of going to the battlefield to kill.

If one wanted to further enhance their power, one would have to fuse them with the remains of Strong Martial Golden Bodies, or even Latent-Charms and Calamity-Charms.

Unfortunately, neither of these two types of things was something Zhou You could get his hands on at the moment.

He did know one Strong Martial expert, Yanshan, but... he couldn't beat him, and asking him to take out his own blood and bones to strengthen a weapon was unrealistic.

As for Latent-Charms and Calamity-Charms, the City Gate Guard forces in Fucheng were powerful and had long since suppressed them into peace.

Unless...

"Zhenxiong Yu!"

The underground prison where the City Gate Guard held prisoners was rumored to cover a larger area than the entire surface of Fucheng.

Everyone imprisoned inside was a heinous villain, along with various Charm-beings, ranging from Void-Charms and Transformation-Charms to small Latent-Charms, large Latent-Charms, and even Calamity-Charms comparable to Strong Martial experts.

Although Zhou You didn't know why the City Gate Guard didn't kill the Charm-beings after catching them but instead kept them in captivity, it was undeniable that only in Zhenxiong Yu could one come into contact with a massive number of Charm-beings.

However, how could he get inside Zhenxiong Yu? Zhou You suddenly remembered that he still had the status of a City Gate Guard, and subconsciously pulled out his waist token.

Still, he had to inquire about the situation underground; ever since the successful prison break last time, he did not know what changes had occurred.

As it happened, Zhou You had "someone" inside Zhenxiong Yu.

Tao Zhugong, that unlucky fellow, had tried to rob him on the road last time, and Zhou You had sent him into Zhenxiong Yu with a single "Detain" character talisman.

It had been such a long time; if he were still alive, he would certainly be familiar with the environment inside Zhenxiong Yu.

(End of this chapter)