Chapter 1843: Chapter 590: Army at the Border, Qingxun Divine Crossbow and Power Surge_2

But since Xia Chuan wouldn’t speak of it, and Madam kept absolutely silent as well, coupled with the fact that Xia Hong’s Sect Master’s Spirit Plate in the Sect Temple had always appeared normal, Qiu Peng and Yuan Cheng, no matter how much suspicion arose in their hearts, had never taken the initiative to ask.

The two of them were no longer the young men they once were; they knew very clearly that at such a critical juncture, once news of the Lord’s absence spread to the Four Vassals of the Moao River, Great Xia would face exceedingly grave consequences.

At the same time, they could fully understand Xia Chuan’s urgency in wanting to resolve the East River City problem.

The more the Lord was absent, the more Great Xia’s posture to the outside world had to remain tough. Great Xia’s territory now sprawled vast and wide, and the Four Vassals had planted no small number of spies within its borders. Over the past half year the Capital City’s population had suddenly surged; in addition, in the third month, formal trade routes were opened with Cai Qiu, so it was inevitable that agents of the Four Vassals would slip in.

No one knew when the Lord would be able to return. If enough time passed, those spies would eventually discern that something was wrong. Once Chen Cang grew suspicious and merely sent people over to probe, Great Xia would certainly be unable to keep up the fa?ade; at that point, the fact that Xia Hong was absent would be completely exposed.

By then, setting aside the East River City problem being impossible to solve, Chen Cang and even the other three vassals might well march south to take a bite out of Great Xia.

Therefore, East River City could not be allowed to drag on; it had to be resolved swiftly!

"What trouble can two Tribulation Body Realm cultivators be? We’ve pulled all twenty Qingxun Divine Crossbows over; dealing with them will be more than enough. As for East River City’s walls, we tampered with them long ago—breaking the city will be as easy as lifting a hand."

As Yuan Cheng’s words fell, Qiu Peng, Luo Yuan, and even Xia Chuan at the front all had their expressions slightly stirred; their pupils were filled with excitement.

At the beginning of the year, Great Xia had already struck into Evergreen Valley and fully incorporated the entire Bone-Eroding Path into its territory. With such a land of treasured resources, Great Xia naturally began exploiting it at the first possible moment.

The most precious thing in the Bone-Eroding Path was, without question, the Qingxun Treasure Tree.

In fact, among the many supplies Xia Hong had entrusted Qiu Peng to transport back to Xia City at the start of the year, there had been fifty Qingxun Tree Vines and a single Qingxun Treasure Tree. The Craftsmen Department, upon seeing these items, immediately thought of bow manufacturing; they promptly tested the vine’s toughness and resilience, and found that it was exactly as they’d hoped.

Even Qingxun Tree Vines subjected only to simple treatment could withstand a pull of three jin; this stuff was practically a naturally-born top-tier bow-making material.

Thanks to the Lord’s early emphasis on such matters, the Craftsmen Department’s enthusiasm for material research was now abnormally intense. Whenever they obtained a new type of material, they would invariably work day and night to study it, determine the limits of its properties, and, while digging out more potential uses, also allow the material to exert its greatest possible effect.

This bow-making material capable of withstanding a three-jin draw, once sent back to the Craftsmen Department, truly stirred up a thousand ripples with one stone. Mu Dong, leading the craftsmen, practically worked around the clock on development; in less than a month, by means of special methods, they quadrupled the vine’s maximum tensile limit, raising it to twelve jin.

Afterwards, because the Bone-Eroding Path had already been brought under their banner, the Harvesting Department soon discovered vast Qingxun groves within that region, thereby resolving the issue of material supply. Great Xia’s bow manufacturing level rose with explosive speed, and at its peak they could even produce Qingxun Divine Bows especially for Xianyang Level cultivators, with draw weights reaching twenty jin.

Bow making was only the first step. Mu Dong’s second step was to improve Great Xia’s original Divine Machine Crossbows, which had used Teng Jiao Tendon as their main manufacturing material. The power displayed by a Divine Machine Crossbow was fundamentally determined by the tension of the bowstring on the crossbow frame. With Qingxun Tree Vines possessing far greater toughness now available, the Qingxun Divine Crossbow naturally came into being.

"A single Qingxun Divine Crossbow consumes five hundred Qingxun Tree Vines, and the main frame of its Crossbow Mechanism is cast from Ten Thousand Forged Silver. Even with wheels attached, it still requires over a thousand Cold Resistance Level cultivators exerting their strength together just to move it, let alone to deploy it in battle."

Qiu Peng paused after speaking, lowering his head to look at the middle section of the great army below.

Twenty thousand-man squads, with teams in front pulling and those in the rear pushing, were shifting a gigantic Crossbow Carriage over thirty meters in length. Because the carriage was covered with a black canopy, its precise appearance could not be seen.

"To drive a Qingxun Divine Crossbow, not only do we need two Xianyang Level cultivators with draw strength above ten jin to serve as chief operators, we also need five hundred Cold Resistance Level cultivators with strength above twenty jin, all highly skilled, to cooperate in drawing the bowstring. We’ve tested it in Moao Mountain—the arrows fired by a Qingxun Divine Crossbow have a normal impact force above three hundred jin, and in extreme conditions it approaches four hundred jin, equivalent to a full-force strike from an ordinary Fourth Turn Tribulation Body Realm cultivator."

Yue Chuo, responsible for testing the Qingxun Divine Crossbows, was precisely Yuan Cheng; at this moment he couldn’t help but speak out. After he finished, he even added, "As for speed, that goes without saying—Xianyang Level cultivators can’t even see it clearly, and there’s simply no possibility of dodging. It’s just that we currently don’t have any Tribulation Body Realm experts; this time we can use those two—Chu Tianhe and Fang Tianqing—to test the weapon’s power on Tribulation Body cultivators.

The only flaw of this Qingxun Divine Crossbow is probably its rate of fire: each shot requires at least a hundred breaths of preparation. Mu Dong likely still has ways to further improve it, but the situation is critical right now, and there’s no time left for him to make refinements."

After listening, Xia Chuan gave a slight nod, a faint gleam of excitement showing in his eyes.

Although his elder brother was not present, the Qingxun Tree Vines he had left behind had inadvertently brought Great Xia yet another enormous pillar of support. Three hundred to four hundred jin of force—setting aside rate of fire—on strength alone was enough to allow Great Xia, for a short time, to fear no top experts of the Feudal Towns.

"Cold Resistance Level cultivators with strength above twenty jin—our Cloud Dragon Army hasn’t yet reached that standard. As for the Crossbow Mechanism crews, we could only draw personnel from the various Numbered Armies. Fortunately, over this past half year, the soldiers’ cultivation levels have risen quickly, so we just barely managed to assemble the required numbers."

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