Five days after Bai Zemin received the message from the seventh princess of the East Sea Xian Mei’er.
In the western part of the base that had now officially become part of the Transcendent faction after the Chinese Renaissance faction changed its leader, homeless people could often be seen wandering around. Three days ago, the streets were filthy and there were even human feces casually lying around the corners, people sat in the alleys or outside makeshift wooden huts that could not even protect their residents from the night cold properly.
Although Bai Zemin knew that a place so large and with a population of such magnitude would naturally have its low areas since the current rules were not as firm compared to the past, he did not expect to encounter this kind of situation in the base that Wu Keqian had raised from the ground, therefore, after arriving at that area of the base and seeing the situation, he immediately questioned Wu Yijun’s father about it.
It was then that Bai Zemin learned that it was not that Wu Keqian did not want that part of the base to improve but that he also had his own difficulties. There were some gangs in the area, gangs led by soul evolvers whose levels could not be ignored and with skills that could cause certain headaches if they were assaulted.
It was precisely because of this that Wu Keqian came to an agreement with those soul evolvers, and as long as they did not step out of line, he would turn a blind eye to certain issues. Wu Keqian needed time to establish the society so naturally he had no choice, but he had planned to clean everyone out once things improved.
Bai Zemin naturally did not have the same patience as Wu Keqian and the way the two of them led or saw things, as well as the way they resolved them, were different. Therefore, he personally charged deep into the western part of the base and in one night of roaring and explosions, he dyed those lands with the blood of over 7000 armed militants and among whom surprisingly there were over 500 soul evolvers with 10 of them above level 40.
Although some innocent people were unfortunately affected and lost their lives, Bai Zemin would definitely not let a malignant tumor exist within his establishment. Even if he had to take some losses, he was willing as long as he could completely extripate it from the root.
Selfish? Disheartened? Maybe, but being a soft-hearted leader would only lead to everyone suffering more in the long-term future. The clearest proof of this lay in the fact that in order to avoid the deaths of innocents, Wu Keqian did not realize that he was inadvertently affecting the daily lives of countless others.
After two days of hard work by a team of over 2000 survivors in charge of doing all kinds of jobs in exchange for food and some food vouchers as pay, the place was completely cleaned up to the point that after one night all bad smells were blown away by the wind.
A large part of that area of the base was taken over to start building factories. There were steel and other metal machines that could be used, there was even specialized machinery for making clothing and charcoal that was being installed there.
At the same time, in the most secluded area of all with the nearest factory under construction about 1 km to the south, a simple looking workshop had been quietly erected. Except for a very limited handful of people, no one was allowed to approach it as shown by the warning signs posted everywhere.
If one approached the door of the workshop or the walls made from the union of several bones of a big-sized mutant beast, one would be able to hear the sound of metal hitting metal coming from inside.
Inside the workshop, Bai Zemin’s movements were much more graceful and less brutish compared to his past self. His right arm moved up and down with constant swings, causing the clanging of the Rank 3 hammer in his right hand to be strangely pleasant to listen to each time it met with the chestplate almost completely finished.
The blue flame danced lazily in the forge furnace, dimly illuminating the surroundings with a sort of ominous but beautiful light. From the small flame occasionally spread a thin, small flame that resembled a small tongue, receiving as an occasional reward some Soul Stones that it was quick to devour.
Although it had not yet evolved, the current Endless Blue Lotus Flame was undoubtedly several times more powerful compared to when Bai Zemin signed a Soul Contract with it. This was all thanks to the good daily nourishment it received, of course.
Standing a few meters away, Meng Qi silently watched the movements of the hammer in her brother’s hands with a somewhat stunned expression. She was the only person currently present, and thus the only one who could enjoy the beautiful sight.
Even though it was just swinging a hammer, there was a certain charm that was hard to describe, and the more one looked the more enchanting one found it. In fact, Meng Qi had hardly realized that she had been standing there for the past 3 hours.
Approximately 20 to 30 minutes later, Bai Zemin finally stopped and with a sigh of exhaustion that also contained satisfaction. He set the forging hammer down on the work table as he looked at the chestplate he had just completed.
No, the chestplate was not really finished yet. One last step was missing, a very important one and also the main reason why Bai Zemin finally decided to forge a chestplate using materials with metallic properties instead of the typical leather armor, something that would obstruct his overall movement speed.
He turned to look at Meng Qi and for the first time since her arrival he showed her a smile, “Meng Qi, I’m sorry for ignoring you earlier, it’s just that I was too focused since I haven’t worked with metal chestplates very often.”
Meng Qi shook her head and advanced towards the work table as she said with a smile, “There’s no need to apologize for anything, big brother. I didn’t even notice the passage of time as I watched you work so it wasn’t wasted time at all.”
When one did not notice the passing of time it was because that time was being well spent. Of course, Bai Zemin didn’t really believe Meng Qi’s words and thought that she was being kind to him as she had always been; this was because he was unaware of how elegant his movements were in the eyes of girls thanks to the passive effect of Immovable Heart and his Blacksmithing skill now evolved to the Second Order.
As for the reason why Blacksmithing evolved to the Second Order…. This was because Bai Zemin had been locked in his newly erected workshop since the first moment it was possible for him to set up the forging tools inside.
“I’ll have to trouble you to help me like before.” Bai Zemin nodded with a smile as he stepped back and made room for her to take his previous place.
“Em. Don’t worry and leave it to me.” Meng Qi nodded with a serious expression, and from the small leather bag tied to her waist, she took out a chisel that her brother had built for her previously. “Big brother, this will take me a few hours so you can go do other things if you want.”
However, Bai Zemin shook his head and said slowly, “I’ll be around, I need to check some of my recently acquired records that I didn’t pay deserved attention to.”
“Okay then.” Meng Qi nodded and quickly got to work. ᴀʟ ʟ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ full.com
Under Bai Zemin’s now unsurprised eyes, she stabbed the chisel into a First Order Soul Stone and after a few seconds the Soul Stone turned into a pile of luminous dust that disappeared before it hit the ground.
She took the chisel which now glowed with a faint multicolored light and slowly began to draw strange patterns on the chestplate. Her movements were very slow and her expression extremely serious as the process of inscribing runes was far from simple and a single mistake would waste all the work previously done.
Bai Zemin shook his head after a few moments and stepped back silently. He really couldn’t understand rune engravers, they were a mystery as they were existences capable of “damaging” Soul Stones that even for someone as powerful as Bai Zemin were indestructible.
Arriving at the wooden table located in a corner of the workshop, he carefully observed the objects he had been working on for the past three days with practically 0 rest.
These pieces of equipment were very different from the ones Bai Zemin had forged before, and this was because apart from the normal smithing and magic smithing process, these pieces of equipment were surrounded by strange, mysterious-looking engravings that gave each piece a more ancient and at the same time more profound appearance.
Precisely, these pieces of equipment had received the care of Meng Qi’s beautiful hands. All of them were covered by a series of mysterious and complex runes that perhaps no one in the whole of today’s Earth would be able to understand but that when joined together added one and sometimes even two special effects more than usual to each piece of equipment.
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