Chapter 305: Weapon

Baifeng picked up the gemstones he saw and asked the others to check if anything had been missed; they found seven in total, ranging in size, and could find no more. Baifeng estimated there were more inside the Meteorite, and he would know once they returned to the tribe and dismantled it. He was already imagining in his mind what his Changdao, forged from Meteorite Iron and inlaid with beautiful gemstones, would look like.

With everyone working together, three thick hemp ropes were tied onto the Meteorite; that was all the rope they had brought, otherwise they could have tied more.

After the ropes were tied, they threaded sticks through them. Six people in total lifted the Meteorite together. With many hands, the work was light; such a large Meteorite was barely manageable for them, though their pace was very slow. Others had to go ahead to clear the weeds and branches from the road with knives, level the roadside with shovels, and toss away rocks blocking the path. Everything was done to ensure this "gift from Heaven" was successfully transported back to the tribe. From the moment they found the gemstones, they had concluded this thing was definitely not an ordinary rock, and that Heaven was generous.

After walking for a stretch, if any one of the six could not hold on, they would immediately call out, and the group would set it down at once to swap everyone out. Just like that, after changing people many times, they finally saw the ox cart parked in the distance.

The Soldiers in front quickly went to notify the others. Upon receiving the news, the remaining Soldiers hurriedly dismantled their camp and packed their things, while also turning around their sturdiest ox cart—a cart usually used for transporting ore, pulled by two oxen—to prepare for loading the Meteorite.

Everyone worked together to place the Meteorite onto the cart. The cart creaked, but fortunately, nothing went wrong. The Soldiers who had carried the Meteorite let out a long sigh of relief; it had been truly exhausting.

Next, the Meteorite was handed over to the driver. It was still a bit of a struggle for the two oxen to pull the cart, because their wheels were made of large logs, and the road surface was wide but uneven, so people had to push from behind to help. They treasured their oxen, especially these hardworking, good-tempered draft oxen; those with bad tempers, raised fat to be eaten for meat, would not receive much care from the tribespeople.

Baifeng's family sat on their ox cart once again. After boarding, Baifeng felt drowsy; for one, he hadn't slept well at night, and for another, the cart swayed violently. If it hadn't been semi-open, they would have been carsick long ago.

Baifeng fell asleep in the cramped space with his head resting on Sui's lap. Yulong and the others wanted to wake Baifeng to chat, but they were stopped by the two women.

It wasn't until they returned to the tribe that Sui woke Baifeng up. Knowing they had arrived, Baifeng forced himself to perk up and, after recovering his state, got off the cart. By this time, the Citizens were already craning their necks in anticipation, all wanting to see what the gift sent by Heaven looked like.

However, upon seeing the unremarkable rock tied up tightly on the ox cart, they were all disappointed, wondering if their King had just found some random rock to fool them.

But now, without Baifeng needing to say a word, those who had gone along were already chattering away, telling everyone about the differences of this rock, not caring if they knew the person they were talking to or not; as long as they could show off a bit, it was enough.

As for the rock, other than being a bit black and having lost a few gemstones, they really couldn't think of anything special. Finally, after thinking for a moment, they just said it was much heavier than ordinary rocks; they had never seen such a heavy rock, which counted as one difference.

Seeing that everyone was very interested, Baifeng directly had people take the Meteorite down and place it on the ground, letting everyone watch as they pleased; in any case, ordinary people had no way of causing any damage to this Meteorite.

Everyone couldn't make heads or tails of it themselves, so they simply waited for the Tribal Chief to explain it to them. Baifeng called out several Blacksmiths, patted their strong arms, and then said in a voice everyone could hear: "This was sent to me by Heaven, a material to be used for forging my Weapon. When the time comes, melt this thing down, refine it, and forge a better Changdao for me. Furthermore, there will be some green gemstones inside this rock; when the time comes, inlay them onto the blade and the scabbard for me. I will give you the blueprints later."

Upon hearing this, the crowd went "Oh," suddenly enlightened. So it was for forging a Weapon for their King; no wonder it was just a rock.

Blacksmiths were the most knowledgeable about ore. They stepped forward and touched the Meteorite, immediately judging that it was a good material for forging weapons, better than all the materials they were currently using.

As for the Tribal Chief saying there were gemstones inside, they couldn't just throw it directly into the Smelting Furnace; it had to be broken apart bit by bit to extract the gemstones, and the broken material would also be easier to smelt.

Having satisfied the curiosity of the tribespeople, the Blacksmiths carried the thing away themselves. Now they had many people, and each was immensely strong, so they didn't need anyone else to help.

Baifeng had his wives take the two children home, then went to his office. He wanted to draw the Weapon that had appeared in his mind immediately, and then hand the blueprints to the Blacksmiths.

What he drew was a Tang straight-backed sword. Although the craftsmanship was different, Baifeng only wanted the shape, and the practicality was likely similar, plus it could be distinguished from the uniform, cookie-cutter weapons of their tribe.

With his own Weapon arranged, Baifeng then considered how to build the weapons of their nation—that is, the army. The previous loose model definitely couldn't be used anymore; it had to be required more strictly.

After much thought, he felt that creating it himself wasn't as fast as plagiarizing, so he immediately listed the recruitment criteria on paper.

He set requirements for height, physical fitness, and intelligence. He couldn't test for psychology, so he would just have to eliminate people during training.

There shouldn't be any mental illness or psychological disorders in this era; there was only congenital intellectual disability. Chi belonged to this category, but Chi was also physically capable, a close friend of his current body before it died, and Chi was very obedient to Baifeng. Therefore, Baifeng not only added Chi to the army but also made him a high-level leader.

To verify if the physical fitness standards he had set were reasonable, Baifeng went out directly, randomly grabbed a few unlucky souls who looked ordinary and unremarkable, and had them test from the first item to the last. Based on the results, Baifeng made revisions until he finally determined a set of relatively reasonable data.

Moreover, Baifeng tried to lower the threshold as much as possible; in any case, there would be other conditions later to eliminate people.