Chapter 668: Killing the Chicken to Warn the Monkey

A young cultivator stood atop a small hill, looking out at this dense, green world filled with swamps, thick forests, shrubs, and swarms of mosquitoes and flies.

The hill was not high, only a few hundred zhang, and the slope was very gentle.

Standing on the summit, he gazed into the distance, and after a moment, said, "This place is not bad!"

Standing beside him were dozens of people, both civil and military officials, all dressed in Zhao Guo attire. Seven large flying ships were already parked on the flat land at the foot of the hill. At this moment, half of the flying ships had been emptied and were beginning to take off one by one, flying in the direction of Zhao Guo.

A large camp had already been built at the foot of the hill. Tens of thousands of soldiers were changing into sickles and iron shovels, beginning to clear the shrubbery and forests, and digging ditches for drainage. A group of craftsmen were surveying the geography, digging foundations, and building a city.

The young cultivator opened a map and said to the crowd behind him, "This location is 3,500 li from Qingming and 15,000 li from Li Zhi's Zhenshan Territory. It is perfectly wedged between the two of them, and it is also southwest of Qingming. To the northwest, one can enter the Shaman Domain; to the southwest, one can pacify the mountain people. It also blocks Qingming's path to the mountain people. It is truly killing many birds with one stone!"

A scholar said, "This place has all sorts of advantages, but there is only one drawback: it is too far from Zhao Guo. Once something happens, I fear domestic reinforcements will not arrive in time."

The young cultivator said, "That is why I prepared this. Bring it up!"

Several soldiers carried up a heavy chest. Upon opening it, they saw a strange, golden-green exotic stone inside. When the crowd saw this stone, they were all startled: "Azure Water Stone?"

The young cultivator smiled slightly and said, "Exactly. Although this stone only expands the domain by a thousand li, its characteristic is that it can draw upon the power of water to protect the people of the domain. Firstly, it is suitable for this heaven and earth, and secondly, it is suitable for defense and resisting the enemy."

The generals and strategists looked at the map. If the domain were opened here and the expansion completed, it could form a domain with a radius of two thousand li, stuck in the southwest of Qingming. By then, the edge would be only 2,500 li from the core of Qingming.

There had long been rumors that Qingming was an Immortal Stone. The judgment within Zhao Guo was that the expansion of the Qingming domain should be around five thousand li, enough to place several commanderies.

If the Azure Water Domain Stone were established, it would happen to carve a large piece out of Qingming's complete area, which could be said to make Qingming incomparably uncomfortable.

Seeing the young cultivator reach his hand toward the Azure Water Domain Stone, a burly-bearded general said, "Wait!"

"General Yang, what is your opinion?"

The burly-bearded general said, "Qingming's military strength is formidable, and Little Wei Yuan uses troops like a god. Moreover, this surrounding area was originally a gathering place for the Shaman tribe. It only became empty land because Qingming defeated the Rain Kingdom and the Shaman tribe retreated.

If we establish the domain stone here, we will have no room for buffer at all; we can only win, not lose. This subordinate thinks it would be better to move another thousand li to the southwest, which would happen to deter Li Zhi even more."

The young cultivator smiled slightly and said, "I know this battle can only be won, not lost. If we win, it's fine; if we lose, we will be pointed at by thousands. Therefore, we just need not to lose."

He picked up the domain stone and said, "If we move a thousand li to the west, we cannot give Qingming a skin-deep pain, and Little Wei Yuan would likely not come to fight. Then, wouldn't the three years I spent training troops become a reflection in the mirror? Father King would not be satisfied either. I haven't even played this game of chess yet, and I have already lost to the Third and the Seventh; perhaps I am not even as good as the Eldest."

The burly-bearded general wanted to persuade him further, but he saw the young cultivator's hand shake, and the Azure Water Domain Stone fell to the ground. Immediately, a golden-green light expanded rapidly, and wherever it passed, the heaven and earth slowly began to change.

The young cultivator smiled and said, "Now we have no way back; we can only fight with our backs to the river."

The burly-bearded general wanted to speak but stopped, and could only let out a sigh.

The young cultivator said, "Now that the domain is established, everyone has no way back. General Yang, if you have anything to say, you can speak freely."

The burly-bearded general was somewhat surprised, so he said, "Fourth Highness, then this subordinate will speak bluntly. Qingming's firearms are sharp and numerous. As for their elite legions, that is one thing; our Great Zhao's elites are certainly better.

However, firearms can make the combat power of ordinary troops advance by leaps and bounds, and Qingming is known as having everyone as a soldier. By then, I fear we will have to face hundreds of thousands of troops. Moreover, these hundreds of thousands of people have just experienced a bloody battle with the Shaman tribe; there are no small fry."

The young cultivator said, "Qingming's firearms are sharp, as everyone knows. I have already made preparations, so naturally, I will not use the elites we worked so hard to train to confront their ordinary troops. Hmph, firearms are just tools for mortals; what is difficult about them? If they can have them, we can naturally have them too. Someone, come!"

Several personal guards carried over a few large chests. The young cultivator opened the chests, and inside were neatly arranged flying sword guns, while on the edges of the chests were flying swords for the guns.

The other few chests were all filled with flying swords for the guns, with several hundred in each chest.

"These are the flying sword guns currently used by Qingming. Now we can also manufacture them in large batches; there is nothing difficult about it. The first batch is five thousand, each equipped with ten flying swords. There are still fifteen thousand more and two hundred thousand flying swords to follow. In a few months, there will be even more."

The burly-bearded general's expression finally turned better, and he cupped his hands and said, "Fourth Highness is far-sighted; this subordinate admires you!"

Little Wei Yuan hurried to the Weapon Forging Workshop.

The current Weapon Forging Workshop was no longer a small workshop as its name suggested. It was a behemoth that produced two million jin of ore and hundreds of thousands of jin of molten steel daily, possessed sixteen mining sites, and had thousands of template Dao Foundation cultivators consolidating their realms here.

When fighting the Rain Kingdom, Little Wei Yuan had desperately developed steel forging. Out of the six thousand template cultivators in all of Qingming, more than four thousand were stationed at the Weapon Forging Workshop, which resulted in the current behemoth.

The Weapon Forging Workshop had multiple workshops scattered throughout Qingming, and its total area was already impossible to calculate. For the convenience of memory and positioning, they began to number the zones. And the place Little Wei Yuan was going to at this moment was the most mysterious and core zone of the Weapon Forging Workshop: Zone 51.

Zone 51 was at the original location of the Weapon Forging Workshop, which was also one of the places with the best geothermal veins in all of Qingming. Yu Zhizhuo had chosen this place directly back then.

In the years since, Yu Zhizhuo had continuously enlightened the earth veins with the secret techniques of the Heavenly Craft Hall. Now, the natural geothermal fire here had been raised by a whole level overall.

Little Wei Yuan passed through layers of defenses before entering the core of Zone 51, and then met Yu Zhizhuo in a side hall.

The interior of this hall was pale white, clean and bright, without a speck of dust, and was divided into several different experimental areas. The equipment placed in each area was completely different.

One area was specially set up with a magic array, and two Dao Foundation cultivators were sitting in meditation within the array, driving the array to provide energy for the entire hall. After they drove the array for six hours, someone would come to replace them, and then they would rest for a day before coming to work again.

There were several cultivators in the hall working with full concentration, and Yu Zhizhuo was one of them. When Little Wei Yuan found him, he was holding a tool thinner than a hair, carefully arranging materials that were invisible to the naked eye of mortals.

Little Wei Yuan waited quietly on the side until Yu Zhizhuo finished the work in his hands, then asked, "Uncle-Master, you called me over so urgently; what is the important matter?"

Yu Zhizhuo said, "I saw the recent battle reports. The Fourth Prince of Zhao Guo has established a domain stone in our southwest, and has stationed a large army."

Little Wei Yuan nodded: "There is such a matter. I am currently gathering intelligence, and I also went over to take a look. There are quite a few people there, the domain stone has already taken root, and they are building a city. I plan to go over later, to be polite before using force, and ask them to move."

"Not going over now?"

Little Wei Yuan shook his head: "No rush. Let them build the city until it's almost done before talking. Building a city costs a huge amount of money, but the city walls no longer have much significance to us. Zhao Guo is currently eyeing us covetously, so naturally, we must let them do more useless work so it can be consumed. If we fight now, the money they spent isn't enough; they might just pull up the domain stone and run away."

"Have you never thought that they might want to fight a serious battle with you?"

"I know. Establishing the domain stone so close already makes it very clear. Isn't this just spitting in my face?"

Yu Zhizhuo said, "I also secretly went to take a look. Although I couldn't get too close, my spirit bird could get within fifty li. Their tone was a bit strange, and I suddenly thought of one thing.

Half a year ago, a nephew in the hall reached a bottleneck in his cultivation and prepared to return to the main mountain to go into seclusion and break through. This was a big matter, so I let him go back. But there has been no news since then. Two days ago, I went to look at the Zhao Guo camp, and suddenly had a whim and thought of this matter. So I went back to the main mountain to check, and found that the nephew had only stayed on the main mountain for less than half a month before leaving, and there has been no news since."

"What is that Senior Brother's surname?" Little Wei Yuan asked.

Yu Zhizhuo sighed: "Surname Li; he is a direct descendant of the Zhao Li family."

"Has he handled many things?"

"Mainly the manufacturing of flying sword guns and firearms. Because his cultivation is insufficient and his energy is limited, he hasn't come into contact with others for the time being."

Little Wei Yuan said, "Half a year is enough to do many things. So, is it very likely that the Zhao Guo army has already been equipped with firearms?"

"And flying sword guns," Yu Zhizhuo reminded.

Little Wei Yuan's expression became somewhat solemn. Firearms mainly have lethality against Body Forging cultivators and have limited threat to Dao Foundation cultivators. But flying sword guns need to be activated with Dao power, which means at least a Body Forging perfectionist can use them. One shot can pose a fatal threat even to Dao Foundation cultivators.

However, Little Wei Yuan had experienced countless great storms and waves, so he was naturally calm and said, "No need to be nervous. Since he knows limited information and left half a year ago, let's first see what new progress we have made in these six months."

Speaking of this, Yu Zhizhuo was like counting family treasures, confidently saying, "Mainly, the new steel mixed with Nether Iron has begun to be applied in large quantities, so we have improved the missiles, the rotary flying sword guns have begun mass production, infantry cannons have begun mass production, long-range infantry cannons have also begun mass production, eight-drive light combat vehicles and twelve-drive heavy combat vehicles have begun mass production, and breastplates that can withstand firearm shooting within fifty zhang are fully equipped..."

The more they counted, the more relaxed the two became, and finally they looked at each other and smiled.

Yu Zhizhuo sighed: "This matter of Nephew Li almost caused a great disaster. I will strictly discipline the fellow disciples in the hall in the future. For those who can come into contact with core secrets, I will have them sign a blood curse."

"We are all fellow disciples; is there such a need?"

Yu Zhizhuo explained, "Although we are all in the Grand Void Gate, those from aristocratic families are not quite the same as us. At critical moments, many will stand on the side of their families. The only ones who truly treat the Grand Void Gate as home are probably those of us who have no roots."

"Then let Uncle-Master decide this matter."

After leaving Zone 51, Little Wei Yuan ordered people to go to the Zhenshan Territory and invite Li Zhi to come and discuss matters.

Then he gathered a team of ten thousand cavalry, ordered them to change into leather armor, bring old-style firearms, and then pulled in eight thousand rookie recruits who had not yet reached the Blood Merging Realm to fill the cavalry team, and marched toward the new Zhao Guo domain in a grand manner.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 669 =====