He was Ling Zhen, the Heaven Shaking Thunder!
Ji Ye hadn’t been familiar with this name until he specifically read Water Margins.
This man even rarely appeared in the various TV adaptations of Water Margins.
It was because to some extent, he wasn’t a famous warrior who was best at melee fights, but a general who used to serve the authorities and then surrendered to Liangshan with his abilities to create and fire cannons.
In Water Margins, the cannons he made could hit targets almost ten kilometers away!
It must be noted that even the real cannons of Qing in history only had an effective range of no more than five kilometers.
While the novel could’ve exaggerated it a little bit, Ling Zhen might really be capable of doing that on this Land of Inheritance.
Or rather, since he was directed here with an Extraordinary Rank-3 Soul of Civilization, Ling Zhen might even be better than that.
…
“Chief Ling, they’re ready. You can try them!”
In a range that had been specifically built to test the cannons near the Twin Dragon Mount fort…
Ling Zhen was fully armored, with a red cape fluttering behind him. He was standing in a shooting position. But oddly enough, the cannons which should’ve been on the shelves down below had been dismantled.
The barrel of a cannon, which was made of Extraordinary cold iron, had actually been held in Ling Zhen’s bare hands.
“Okay, thank you for your trouble!”
After muttering that to the soldier, Ling Zhen ignited the fuse on the barrier with a lighter that he was biting.
Whoosh!
In the next moment, a black cannonball was launched from the barrel and hit a target, which contained the bones that the Soul race left behind and was covered by multiple layers of bamboos and furs, a hundred meters away with a high speed and temperature!
Boom!
The armor on the target instantly broke apart with pieces splashing everywhere. The hard bones that had been strengthened by the Soul race spluttered out too.
In the end, even the tree to which the bones and the armor were bound was broken into halves too. Its upper half was blown away!
This cannonball was definitely more powerful than the one that Ji Ye resisted with bare hands when he entered the City of Humans.
“Heave-ho!”
Ling Zhen, who had been holding the barrel when it was launched, couldn’t help but step back. However, he was still holding the barrel steadily even though it was probably scorchingly hot.
That was Ling Zhen’s special ability. His arms which were bronze in color could take the high temperature during the launch and control the cannon precisely. So, he could use this minor cold iron cannon as his special weapon.
“Come again!”
Clearly, the cannon that was made of frigid iron and designed with modern technologies made him very satisfied.
He demanded another test with excitement.
This time, he fed two cannonballs into the barrel without loading any powder.
Then, he held his breath and concentrated his attention.
Following that, a gale seemed to be rising, and tremendous air was absorbed into the barrel.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Next, two black cannonballs flew out of the barrel one after the other, hitting another two targets that were about fifty meters from each other. The armors on the targets were broken as they were blown away!
This consecutive shot wasn’t as powerful as the last one with black powder, but it was definitely intimidating enough.
That was exactly the ability that Ling Zhen acquired from the Sludge Monsters after he absorbed the Heart of the Sludge Monster during his arrival.
This ability was a perfect match for the best artilleryman of Song. It could make the black powder and the ancient cannons, which weren’t powerful enough, to be as threatening as modern cannons and any Superior Hero.
However, Ling Zhen was much more significant to the Twin Dragon Mount than being a simple Extraordinary warrior.
His real significance was that he could build all kinds of cannons to help with battles.
Besides, he could also train artillerymen so that the Common soldiers could have Extraordinary combat ability!
“Chief Ling, Master summons you to a meeting in the shrine.”
At this moment, one of the soldiers shouted at Ling Zhen.
…
In the shrine on the Twin Dragon Mount…
Many people were already seated in the shrine.
On the seats on the left side were Elder Meng, Elder Jiao, Su Nongying, Qin Yueyu, Li Qing, and other old players.
On the right seats were Lu Zhishen, Wu Song, Ninth Uncle, Ling Zhen, and the other heroes!
Those who were seated were all of paramount importance for the Twin Dragon Mount and responsible for some issues in the fort.
Of course, apart from them, some other people who had proven worthy were invited to the meeting too, such as the rookies like Chu Yin, Mister Bug, and the natives like Pei San.
Also, Wu Qiao, as a “beta tester”, was also invited to the meeting because of her experience in settlement development.
“Li Qing, tell everybody the situation!” Ji Ye nodded at Li Qing and said.
During the days when Ji Ye was away, Li Qing was actually busier than all the others.
As a former scout and with the Combat Ability Detector as his initial equipment, he was undoubtedly the best candidate to gather information on the aliens.
Before Ji Ye left, Ji Ye had even left the Mantis Invisibility Cloak to him.
Besides, the settlement even exchanged the Extraordinary Rank-2 Stone of Civilization for two hundred bullets for his pistol so that he could figure out the situation of the aliens near the Twin Dragon Mount.
When Ji Ye and Lu Zhishen returned to the City of Humans, it would be the time for expansion!
“Based on my reconnaissance, there are four to five alien groups that border our settlement.
“Firstly, we have the two alien groups down below the cliff, namely the Soul race and the Sludge Monsters. Everybody knows them well enough, so I’ll save us some time and get to the others.
“Secondly, there are creatures that are named Forest Monsters. Their settlement is to the west of our mountain. Their territory is full of high trees. Their combat abilities are Rank-5 to Rank-8 on average. The level of their civilians is unclear.
“That’s because I was discovered the moment I snuck into their forest. They seemed able to detect intruders. I had to retreat immediately!”
While talking, Li Qing asked An Quan to distribute the illustrations he drew earlier to the participants at the meeting.
“On the other hand, an alien group named ‘Metal Men’ lives to the south of the Twin Dragon Mount.”
“They look somewhat like human beings on the surface, and they seem to have developed a mature civilization. More importantly, their territory is made of all kinds of metals. Also, all the Metal Men I encountered seemed to boast Extraordinary powers and could control metal substances to attack me!”
“A full-metal species?”
Hearing that, Elder Jiao’s eyes glittered as if he had found a gold mine.
“They all have Extraordinary powers?”
The others were all slightly shocked by the information.
“Just because they’re Extraordinary doesn’t mean they’re strong, especially when their power isn’t from themselves.”
“Don’t forget that if we can make pistols for everybody, then all of us will possess Extraordinary powers too!”
Elder Meng, however, appeased them.
His primary responsibility was to teach knowledge to the people in the fort.
At the same time, he was also the strategist in the fort. He had pointed at another possibility to stabilize everyone’s emotion.
“Those are the four alien groups.”
“Why did you say that there might be five? Did you mean the Hawks?”
Ji Ye couldn’t agree more with Elder Meng.
Science, and even electricity, was an extraordinary power too, if one was really good at using it.
“Not the Hawks. Although the Hawks pose the greatest threat to us, they do not border our territory directly.”
“The last alien group should be aquatic. The east side of our fort is not ground for a sea. When I did reconnaissance, I found life waves from the water but didn’t see them with my own eyes. I’m not sure whether they were an alien group or just random creatures in the sea!” Li Qing explained.
“A sea?”
“So to speak, are we actually on an island?”
Shang Yan asked somewhat in surprise.
“Maybe we’re at the corner of a continent, and our settlement happens to be adjoining the sea!”
Qin Yueyu, on the other hand, proposed another possibility.
Observed from the Twin Dragon Mount, most places outside of the mountain were covered in mist. They were completely hazy over a distance.
The sight was blocked as if there were a fog of war, which made it hard to determine what was around the Twin Dragon Mount.
“Wu Qiao, did your settlement have a sea around?”
Su Nongying thought of something and asked Wu Qiao, the beta tester who passed the initial trial.
“No.
“However, there was a lake ahead of us, and some tricky amphibian aliens lived in it. They destroyed our settlement!”
Wu Qiao shook her head with an awful look on her face.
The species that could fly or swim were indeed more difficult to deal with than those which lived on the continent.
“Let’s leave it aside. Even if we’re truly on an island, it’s possible that the map could be changed like it did when the trial was over.”
“Now, let’s make a decision. Which alien tribe should we attack first?”
Ji Ye finally spoke and got to the most important topic.
“Let’s attack the Metal Men!
“An area that’s full of metals is more significant to us than a bunch of Extraordinary resources.
“In particular, I suspect that they can control the metals because they’ve mastered some sort of technology similar to magnetic levitation thanks to the terrain.”
Elder Jiao’s voice was loud, and his eyes were glittering.
There was only limited frigid iron in the fort, and it wasn’t easy to develop and refine ores from other places even if they were there.
A settlement full of metals meant that it was exclusively made of resources.
With those resources, and plus the transformations based on the Extraordinary Stones of Civilization after the enemy players were killed, there was only half way to go before planes, tanks, and ships could be built!
“I think we should attack the Sludge Monsters first. After all, we’ve known them very well by now.
“After these days of contact, they’re clearly not too developed. In general, they’re just primitives who have just learned to use simple tools!”
Elder Meng, on the other hand, shook his head.
“If the Metal Men have many Extraordinary members, and if they’re well-developed, we may suffer heavy losses. We should take the Sludge Monsters first!”
“No, they can’t be too powerful considering that they only have a level-one settlement, or they would’ve upgraded it to level-two. Also, if they have many Extraordinary members, we’ll harvest a great deal of Extraordinary combat ability after we conquer them!”
“Why does neither of you consider the Forest Monsters? Their terrain is more suitable for us to fight, right?”
After that, the other participants proposed their opinions too.
“Let’s attack the Sludge Monsters. Safety first.”
“However, we can also send some people to find out the other two tribes’ ways of attack first.”
Eventually, Ji Ye made the call.
The rewards after conquering the Metal Men could be bigger, but it was more challenging too.
The Sludge Monsters, on the other hand, had only twenty members. Its population might only be half of the Twin Dragon Mount which had just been reinforced. It would be more than easy to take them down.
However, the fog in the Soul Valley was indeed a major problem.
“There may be a way that we can try out!”
“Chief Wu, Li Qing, let’s go down the cliff first. We’ll scout the Sludge Monsters’ settlement today,” Ji Ye thought for a moment and said to Wu Song and Li Qing.
They attacked the Soul race’s settlement before because all the enemies were out and nobody was left to defend it.
Even so, an Extraordinary Rank-3 Bloodsoul Vine Tree emerged and resisted them.
The Sludge Monsters, judging from their form, were clearly better than defense than offense. So, the central defense plan in the enemy’s settlement core must be figured out first before a massive attack was launched.
