Staring at the spiritual furnace, Old Mo meditated with his brow furrowing in concentration.
There was only a key part left. If it could be accomplished, this furnace would be remolded successfully, and Ziying Battleship would make a thoroughgoing change.
However, since this part was difficult to be done, he wasn’t 100% certain that this remolding would turn out successful.
He was thinking how to guarantee the maximum success rate.
Thus, when Lin Xun came to him, he became a little impatient. Like the other spiritual tattooists, he hated being interrupted when he immersed himself in spiritual tattoos.
Fortunately, Lin Xun was the comer. The others would get a tongue-lashing and be driven away by Old Mo.
“You ask me to make a crossbow for you?”
He became stunned upon knowing Lin’s purpose. And then he was intrigued by that. He said decisively while clapping his skinny chest, “It’s quite simple. Just leave it to me. You helped me out last time and I owe you a big favor. Since then, I’ve been feeling regretful. I’ll repay you this time by refining a delicate crossbow for you.”
Lin Xun gave Young Man in the distance a wink, seemingly saying that he wasn’t crafty at all, because Old Mo wanted to return the favor, too.
Young Man curled her lip without responding to him.
“What kind of crossbow do you want to refine? Seven-star Crossbow? Holy-arm Crossbow? Rapid-fire Crossbow or Bloody Armor-piercing Crossbow?” asked Old Mo quickly.
What he mentioned were empire-made crossbows that were spiritual weapons at low grade of Human-rank. Those weapons were powerful enough for the practitioners in Martial Realm, like Lin Xun, to wield.
After thinking for a while, Lin Xun spread out a piece of white paper, took an inscribing pen that had dipped in ink, and quickly drew several intricate spiritual tattoos.
At last, he drew a very common crossbow which was like a cylinder with a refined hand holder at its end.
“That’s what I want. Its name might be Meteors Crossbow,” said Lin Xun with uncertainty.
Before Lin Xun left the mine prison, Master Lu had given him an ancient scroll made of hide and a dull gray inscribing pen. Later, those two treasures were coincidentally incorporated into the Gate to Heaven that was suspending in sea of Lin’s consciousness.
But, before that, the scroll documented many spiritual tattoos just like a spiritual tattooist’s personal notebook, and it had been preserved and protected carefully by Master Lu.
Brought up by Master Lu, Lin Xun had stored up its content in his heart. Thus, he knew the spiritual tattoos used to refine the Meteors Crossbow since they were documented in this scroll.
Of course, they were just patterns. On the basis of the patterns, Master Lu put forth the means about how to refine the Meteors Crossbow. There was no doubt that Lin Xun had already learned the means. That was all, however. He hadn’t owned the ability to refine a spiritual weapon at that time.
Nonetheless, knowing the means did mean that Lin was really able to make one Meteors Crossbow by himself.
For example, Lin Xun could instruct Old Mo to use many spiritual tattoo formations to remold the spiritual furnace, and he could also explain its secrets. However, inscribing and refining one by himself were beyond his capability for now.
That was the gap between spiritual apprentices and spiritual tattooists.
It was “easier said than done”.
Roaming in his recollection, Lin didn’t find that Old Mo was staring at the spiritual tattoo formations on the paper as if he was glaring at a rare treasure. His skinny cheeks were full of surprise, excitement, trance as well as exhilaration.
Although Lin didn’t notice that, Young Man incisively sensed that Old Mo was not his usual self. But, she knew nothing about spiritual tattoos, so she could do nothing but look at Old Mo without the courage to disturb him.
She could see that Old Mo had been immersed in the spiritual tattoos. Interrupting him at this time would make him suffer from extreme fidgets.
She was curious to know what kind of crossbow Lin wanted to make and why it made Old Mo so excited?
Three days flew, and tomorrow the quarterly assessment would kick off.
All trainees in the 20 camps were busy preparing themselves for the examination, and the material warehouse of each camp thereby became the most popular place.
Each one was clearly aware that killing a Barbarian Soldier with the similar strength of a practitioner in Gang Spirit Realm in a one-to-one battle without the help of powerful weapons was totally impossible.
In a bid not to be sifted out, they would spare no effort to rush for the usable spiritual weapons in the warehouse at the cost of their accumulated points.
The items, including armors, inner armors, wrist guards, shoulder protectors, combat boots, shields, crossbows and spiritual bows, thereby became the hot objects.
Especially crossbows had already become the spiritual weapons in greatest demand.
It was well-known that with a long range, crossbows boasted destructive power. Furthermore, as long as they were used appropriately, they would do great harm to the Barbarian Soldiers without consuming much spiritual energy of their holders.
It was a pity that there weren’t so many crossbows in each camp, and one crossbow would cost a lot of accumulated points. Hence, only a small part of trainees could possess them.
Further to this matter, Ye Qi congratulated himself privately, for he had already exchanged his accumulated points for one Bloody Armor-piercing Crossbow in the first monthly assessment. Thus, there was no need for him to compete with the others.
Nonetheless, all trainees including Ye Qi knew clearly that it was totally impossible to kill a Barbarian Soldier with just one blow by an empire-made crossbow.
Barbarian Soldiers weren’t motionless targets. Their combat effectiveness was equal to that of a practitioner at the Gang Spirit Realm. Besides, they had excellent battle techniques and experience. Therefore, crossbows could only cause limited damage to the Barbarian Soldiers by surprise.
In other words, whether a Barbarian Solider was killed or not depended on each trainee’s actual strength.
In the warehouse of Old Mo.
As Old Mo touched the Meteors Crossbow that had been accomplished just now with his fingertips, feeling the coldness on its surface, he was excited.
Beyond his imagination, a crossbow should be able to be inscribed with so many spiritual tattoos and own such delicate structures.
In the past, never before had the empire witnessed a crossbow like the Meteors Crossbow that was at the low grade of Human-rank, but had so complex spiritual tattoos and structures.
Its power must be extraordinary.
Furthermore, the Meteors Crossbow was equipped with 24 Starry-frost Arrows. Although each arrow was only 20 centimeters long, it was as sharp as a sharp shuttle. On the surface of it were lines of stream-like spirally spiritual tattoos, which were shining with a breathtaking cold light.
The combination of the Meteors Crossbow and Starry-frost Arrows wasn’t put into a power test yet, but Old Mo had already speculated how amazing its power would be.
The sole shortcoming might lie in its high cost. It took 800 imperial silver coins to buy those spiritual materials and inks.
Plus the efforts a master of spiritual tattoos had made, its price would become even higher!
“It’s a shame that a normal spiritual tattooist is unable to make one. What’s worse, its cost is rather high. Otherwise, it can be produced massively to arm each army of our empire. By then, our empire’s military power will be upgraded into a higher level.” Old Mo sighed with regrets.
The minute Young Man was told about the power of Meteors Crossbow, she couldn’t help becoming awed. Such a crossbow was literally a destructive weapon!
She looked at Lin Xun curiously. How many secrets did he bear in his mind? How could such random idea he shared turn out earthshaking?
Without much explanation, Lin Xun grabbed the crossbow and turned around to leave. Now that the quarterly assessment would be held tomorrow, he had to prepare himself for it.
“His mentor must be awesome and has obtained the ability of grand-master in spiritual tattoos. No, no, no, his mentor’s ability is even beyond the grand-masters’. At least, that old bastard in Green-deer School can’t create such a unique crossbow!” sighed Old Mo with emotion.
“Where do you think his mentor come from? The four great families of spiritual tattoos or some secluded families?” asked Young Man with curiosity.
She knew that the old bastard mentioned by Old Mo was the one who forced him to come to the Bloodthirsty Camp to avoid some troubles in that year.
That one was a famous grand-master of spiritual tattoos in the empire. Old Mo said that Lin’s mentor was even better than that guy, so Lin’s mentor must be extraordinarily powerful.
“It’s beyond my ability to make a guess. At least, never have I seen someone who can make a Meteors Crossbow and remold the spiritual furnace of Ziying Battleship before.”
Old Mo pondered with a furrowed brow. But after a long while, he couldn’t figure out who also boasted such an ability.
“I’ll come to visit Chief Shu.”
Suddenly, Young Man thought of something and then left.
“What do you want to do?” asked Old Mo with surprise.
“I will offer to bet with him.”
As her voice arose, her slender and charming figure had disappeared outside the warehouse.
…
In the central tent of the Bloodthirsty Camp.
The quarterly assessment would kick off tomorrow, so the drillmasters of 20 camps and some powerful people in the camp were all summoned there.
Being seated in the center, Shu Sanqi looked around with his sharp eyes, saying, “Sijiu, have you finished selecting Barbarian Soldiers?”
A stalwart middle-aged man of great stature stood up and said in a low and muffled voice, “They have just been caught from the front, and I can make sure that they are all first-level Barbarian Soliders.”
Shu Sanqi said with a nod, “In case of any accidents, we should be embattled to protect each trainee from being killed by the Barbarian Soldiers in the quarterly assessment tomorrow.”
The others nodded in unison.
Shu pondered for a while, and then asked out of the blue, “In your views, who will be the first one to kill a Barbarian Soldier among 600 trainees from 20 camps?”
Those words plunged the people present into contemplation.
“It must be Bai Lingshi from our Camp 7, of course,” said a bearded man without hesitation, and many of the others nodded their agreement.
Bai Lingshi was endowed with the talent of “Starshine Eternal”, and was the most outstanding girl among the trainees in the Bloodthirsty Camp.
However, some people didn’t agree with him.
“Bai Lingshi isn’t bad, but Zhao Yin from our Camp 15 is better than her in terms of the antipersonnel force.”
“Zhao Yin? Humph, his Purple Sun is really powerful, but Zhangsun Heng from our Camp 22 is as strong as him at least!”
As the people started to talk, the room was in an uproar. Since nobody wanted to admit that their trainees were less powerful than others, the arguments among them made their faces crimson with anger. How would the trainees feel if they witnessed their strict drillmasters bicker with each other like the shrews shouting in the street?