Chapter 143: Broadened Thinking

Dealing with a village naturally didn't require everyone to be together. Ji Liuli and Bao Yun dispersed to the left and right to handle the surrounding small villages.

Two minutes later, the group reunited, and behind them was a ruin. There were still many Shamans alive, fleeing into the wilderness, but all the villages were completely destroyed.

The next place was a small tribe of several thousand people, built by a small lake.

This time Wei Yuan started, manifesting the Myriad Miles of Heshan to cover it directly. Bao Yun used the Seven-Marvelous Treasure Tree to bless it, and the manifestation range surged to a thousand zhang again, forcibly twisting this heaven and earth into a Pure Domain of the Human World.

A part of the Myriad Miles of Heshan also covered the small lake and the paddy fields next to the village. The surface of the small lake suddenly boiled, and several large fish several feet long leaped out of the water, two of which even jumped onto the shore. The backs of these large fish were full of serrated barbs, looking ferocious. At this moment, the scales on their bodies were opening one by one, and fresh blood was constantly seeping out, appearing extremely painful.

The meat of this kind of fish was highly toxic, but this toxin helped Shaman magic, so it was a must-have dish on the Great Shaman's table.

In the paddy fields, things like small trees full of tumors were planted. Under the stimulation of the pure Qi, the wooden tumors kept swelling, breaking one after another, with pale green sticky thick liquid flowing from inside.

After the wooden tumors matured, they would turn into powder inside, which was the staple food for ordinary Shaman people after adding water.

The water surface of the paddy fields was also boiling, and countless insect corpses floated up from the water. Even the Shaman people were unwilling to eat these insects; it was said that they were the food of slaves and the lowest poor people.

The village was already in chaos. Several Dao Foundation warriors had just flown up when they were knocked down by Wei Yuan's Golden Tripod. Many ordinary Shaman people fled the village toward the surrounding wilderness. Wei Yuan did not stop them, nor did he deliberately pursue and kill them, only beheading all the cultivators among the Shamans and destroying the village.

In less than two minutes, the village was completely destroyed. One Shaman priest and five warriors in the village were all beheaded, and those who had achieved Body Forging were not spared either.

The group destroyed two more villages on the way back before returning to the realm. This was not because Wei Yuan was soft-hearted, but because there was no time. The longer they delayed, the more obvious the warning signs in their hearts became. If they dragged it out a little longer, the Great Shaman's blood curse might fall.

As the group returned to the realm, Xiaoyu greeted them excitedly, saying, "Come, try the gun I just made!"

Xiaoyu didn't notice the somewhat dull atmosphere among the group and excitedly led them to the stone valley behind the mountain. In the stone valley, there was an extra stone table, on which lay a thin steel pipe flashing with a faint green light. The pipe mouth was about the thickness of a thumb, and one end was sealed.

They saw Xiaoyu load gunpowder and a pre-made iron bullet into the steel pipe, holding the steel pipe like a sword, pointing at a big tree in front, and then igniting the gunpowder with Dao power. Only a "bang" was heard, and the iron bullet, carrying a chilling sword intent, sank deeply into the trunk, reaching a depth of several inches.

Everyone had sharp eyes and could see that the trajectory of the iron bullet was stable after leaving the muzzle, unlike the stone gun Wei Yuan had yesterday, which was somewhat erratic.

Xiaoyu held the iron pipe and performed a sword flourish, proudly saying, "How is it?"

Wei Yuan was very interested, so he asked about the method in detail, and Xiaoyu didn't hide anything, explaining the production process in detail.

Xiaoyu took two sword embryos from the secret treasury of the Lan Shen Palace, melted them with the Great Sun True Fire that came with the immortal sword, carefully adjusted the physical properties for a night, and finally cast this steel pipe, re-refining it with Dao power. The weight of the final steel pipe was only half the original weight of the two sword embryos, while the quality was greatly improved, equivalent to a middle-grade magic sword.

Wei Yuan felt something strange as he watched.

This thing looked like a steel pipe, but it had Dao rhyme born inside, and this Dao rhyme was a sword. So in the eyes of cultivators, this thing was a sword; even if it was twisted into a twist or rubbed into a ball, it was still a sword.

So Xiaoyu just held an immortal sword and fired a shot?

This line of thinking was a bit interesting, Wei Yuan thought thoughtfully.

The quality of this sword, no, gun, made by Xiaoyu was already quite good and could kill a powerhouse in the Blood Merging Realm, but it wouldn't work well against those in the Bone Forging Realm. Wei Yuan estimated that it would be a bit difficult for this shot to pierce the bones of a warrior who had achieved Bone Forging. But if a few more shots were fired, a Bone Forging warrior might also die.

The power of this sword-gun was slightly worse than an ordinary Liao bow, but it was much easier to control than a Liao bow; you just had to point it in the right place, and it consumed far less Dao power than controlling a magic weapon long arrow. An ordinary Liao cavalryman could only fire one Gale Arrow in a battle, but using this gun, firing dozens of shots was not a problem.

Xiaoyu was smug, thinking that if this gun could be equipped on a large scale, an not-weak long-range unit could be raised immediately. Wasn't this mass production?

Wei Yuan was also very excited at first, but after thinking about it deeply, he felt there were still many problems.

For example, this thing had to be activated with Dao power, so only warriors who had cultivated their Primordial Spirit could use it. Since they had already cultivated to the Primordial Spirit, it was naturally more convenient to use a bow and arrow, and the rate of fire far exceeded that of a gun that needed to be reloaded with gunpowder and bullets.

The world where Xu Wenwu was had guns with faster rates of fire and greater power, and they all had special names. But everyone felt at this time that if the power problem wasn't solved, no matter how fast the rate of fire was, it would be useless.

Ji Liuli suddenly had a new idea and asked for the steel pipe, refilling it with gunpowder inside. This time he filled it to the top in one breath, and then embedded an iron bullet on top.

Ji Liuli aimed at a large stone more than ten zhang away and pointed a finger. The steel pipe went out like an arrow and sank into the large stone with a "pop"! Only after the steel pipe entered the stone did a "bang" sound, the gunpowder ignited, and the iron bullet shot out, breaking out from the other side of the large stone!

Wei Yuan's eyes lit up. Was this stabbing with a sword first and then firing a gun? It was impossible to guard against!

Everyone began to conceive of new ways to play, but they were noncommittal about Xiaoyu's idea of large-scale equipment.

Xiaoyu didn't think about it; he used two low-grade magic sword embryos as raw materials to refine this sword-gun, using Great Sun True Fire. Where would others have such conditions? Calculated comprehensively, the cost of this sword-gun was around a thousand taels of immortal silver, and its power could only kill a powerhouse in the Blood Merging Realm.

If you hired a killer with these thousand taels of immortal silver, you could kill a hundred Blood Merging powerhouses. Although Xiaoyu's dream of mass production was shattered, everyone was inspired. For example, Wei Yuan was thinking, what if he made a long spear according to this line of thinking?

Thinking of it, he did it. Wei Yuan immediately went to fetch two magic weapon long stick embryos, asked Xiaoyu for a group of Great Sun True Fire, and began to melt and refine on the spot.

Xiaoyu was inspired by Ji Liuli's flying sword strike just now and began to re-refine the steel pipe, planning to turn it directly into a sword shape; there was no need to follow the rules of the world where Xu Wenwu was.

Zhang Sheng naturally wouldn't mess around with them and dragged Ji Liuli to check the earth veins and Feng Shui, preparing to carefully survey the mineral deposits within the realm.

Bao Yun stayed behind to help Wei Yuan. The two worked together, and soon the magic weapon long stick was melted into a long spear, and many impurities were refined out. Under Bao Yun's blessing, the temperature of that group of Great Sun True Fire increased again, making Wei Yuan's refining like a fish in water.

Refining materials and improving physical properties were the basic skills of all Tai Chu Palace disciples. This link was not difficult; the difficulty was how to generate Dao rhyme on the magic weapon and engrave arrays to add characteristics to the magic weapon.

Fortunately, Wei Yuan didn't intend to get those fancy characteristics, only intending to bless two most basic characteristics: sharpness and toughness. These were the most common characteristics of magic weapon weapons, and both arrays were present in the graduation exam of the centralized teaching, so Wei Yuan was familiar with engraving them and could complete them without the aid of array tools.

When Wei Yuan and Xiaoyu were engraving the arrays, the Exquisite Treasure Tree manifested a green branch. The two immediately felt their minds clear and their inspiration surging, and the success rate of refining the weapon increased by 30% directly.

Half an hour later, Wei Yuan finally refined the magic weapon long spear. This spear looked like an ordinary long spear, but Wei Yuan had grown taller in recent years, and the original spear was a bit short, so he lengthened it by another foot.

Strangely, Wei Yuan only refined one spear body, which had reached the level of a middle-grade magic weapon under the blessing of the treasure tree, but he refined three spearheads in one breath, and the spearheads were only low-grade magic weapons.

In fact, this spear was two magic weapons; the spear shaft was one piece, and the spearhead was another. If you didn't get serious, it could barely be considered a combination magic weapon. The spear body was hollow, filled with gunpowder inside, and then equipped with a spearhead. Wei Yuan's long spear was considered refined.

!.

Xiaoyu was inspired by Ji Liuli and refined the steel pipe into a two-foot sword body, then additionally refined a one-foot-long sword blade, connecting them together to form a magic sword. The sword body was hollow, filled with gunpowder inside.

When this sword was used, it was blessed by the immortal sword Great Sun. After flying to shoot the enemy, the gunpowder detonated, and the sword tip shot out again, forming a secondary strike.

The only drawback was that the sword must be drawn quickly. The immortal sword Great Sun was the Sun True Fire, and any delay would directly ignite the gunpowder. Xiaoyu had learned this lesson early on and paid the price of some hair.

Watching the two most outstanding disciples of the young generation of Tai Chu Palace refine insidious magic weapons one after another, Bao Yun was thoughtful.

She felt that she seemed to have not seen Xiaoyu's essence clearly in the past.

The aura of the long spear refined by Wei Yuan was slightly strange; after all, the grades of the spearhead and spear body were different, which could make people feel vigilant. The sword in Xiaoyu's hand was seamless, and it was impossible to see that it was segmented. If Bao Yun hadn't watched him refine it, it would be easy to ignore if she didn't look carefully.

The gap between Wei Yuan and Xiaoyu could be seen when refining the weapon.

Xiaoyu added a lot of rare materials he had prepared to this sword, and as a result, the quality of the immortal sword was exceptionally improved, and it was already a boutique among middle-grade magic weapons.

It was just that in this way, the cost of his sword soared directly from one thousand taels when it was a steel pipe to five thousand taels. With this money, you could completely buy a brand-new high-grade magic weapon, or hire some very famous cultivator to cut something.

Xiaoyu didn't realize at all that this sword was ridiculously expensive. He excitedly poured gunpowder into the sword, installed the sword blade, and then said to Bao Yun, "Come, help me test the sword."

"Good." Bao Yun just stood opposite Xiaoyu.

Xiaoyu checked the distance and beckoned, "Come closer, the accuracy of this sword of mine might not be very good."

Bao Yun followed suit and took a few steps forward, standing still ten zhang away.

"This distance is just right." Xiaoyu held the sword in his hand, his face turning solemn, even somewhat pious. As a sword cultivator, when holding a sword, one should be upright and sincere, treating the sword with sincerity.

Seeing Xiaoyu was serious, Bao Yun also prepared her Dao power in advance, just waiting for Xiaoyu to attack first.

Xiaoyu set up a common starting stance, holding the long sword level, aiming the sword blade at Bao Yun, looking at the sword blade, and lightly wiping the sword body with the two fingers of his left hand. Where the fingertips passed, raging Sun True Fire ignited, and at the same time, he chanted: "Fighting alone for eight thousand miles, one sword can block a million soldiers!"

Xiaoyu's majestic two lines of poetry hadn't been finished yet, and his fingers had only wiped half of the sword blade when a "bang" was heard, and the sword tip had already reached Bao Yun in the smoke and fire!

Bao Yun was taken aback, instantly raising her hand to catch the incoming sword tip, actually a bit flustered.

Wei Yuan's eyes lit up, and his thinking suddenly broadened.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 144 =====