Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery

Boom, boom, boom,

Loud noise echoed.

Chunks of ore were fed into the crushing machines for repeated pulverization until they finally became powder. Three workers at the Internal Qi Realm operated the machinery, pressing buttons occasionally.

The work seemed effortless, merely a matter of dealing with extra dust and noise.

”... Magic Arts-Breaking Steel is the primary base material for Half Magic Tools and a part of full Magic Tools. The refining process includes 67 types of metallic ores and goes through 1,148 procedures. With the aid of large intelligent machines, many of these procedures achieve a control precision that can only be manually achieved by Nascent Soul Monks at a micrometer level (one millionth of a meter) in Formation Method,”

Engineer Zhou Xiuyun said proudly.

”That’s why Immortal Door can forcefully manufacture materials with Breaking Law attributes from ordinary materials, disproving many cultivators’ speculation from the Outer Realm about the abundant presence of low-quality Spirit Mines with Breaking Law attributes within the Fairy Gate, which led them to believe it was wasteful enough to equip Mortal warriors on a large scale.”

”Do you know the origins of Magic Arts-Breaking Steel?”

She asked again.

Hua Bing and Wu Tianli looked towards Jiang Ding.

They knew the answer, but obviously, Zhou Xiuyun’s internship guidance also included some ideological education. It was better to let a professional handle this.

”In the year 3247, more than a thousand years after the first exchanges with the Cultivation World from the Outer Realm, Immortal Door finally met its first real enemy, the Blood Cloud Sect, a subordinate to the Xuanwu Heavenly Palace.”

Jiang Ding said softly.

”At that time, the cultivation of the Immortal Path on Lanying Planet had just begun. The inheritances were unstructured, obtained through stealthily infiltrating the Cultivation World of the Outer Realm and by annihilating the invading Loose Cultivators. The strongest in Immortal Door were Golden Pill Monks, who, amid the era without spirit energy, could barely handle single Nascent Soul Monks under the saturated attacks of nuclear and missile weaponry, and that too required much luck.”

”But the Blood Cloud Sect was a Divinity Transformation Sect.”

”After just over a hundred years of resistance, billions of citizens died, Immortal Door fell entirely into enemy hands, and Lanying Planet became a subordinate world of the Blood Cloud Sect. All citizens became blood slaves of the Blood Cloud Sect, cultivating the ’Blood Cloud Ten Thousand Transformations’ and refining the raw materials for the Magical Treasure Myriad Blood Banner.”

”Among women, the most beautiful Immortal Door citizens became the concubines and servants of disciples of the Blood Cloud Sect. Among men, the most handsome became face-painted menials.”

”The most outstanding among the concubines and face-painted menials who could gain favor could become low-level disciples of the Blood Cloud Sect.”

”Even under such circumstances, our ancestors didn’t give up.”

”Selling their dignity and bodies, they concentrated the meager cultivation resources obtained through exhausting all their wisdom to train talented and politically reliable citizens and struggled immensely to research and develop the science of the Immortal Path.”

”During that period, there were traitors; geniuses who took away all the hopes of everyone, consuming all the cultivation resources the humiliated citizens had painstakingly accumulated, still unsatisfied. The little organization that Immortal Door had managed to form was destroyed overnight; tens of thousands of concubines, face-painted menials, and furnace cauldrons were executed.”

”There were also those whose actions weren’t cautious, leading to massacres by the Blood Cloud Sect cultivators.”

”Or simply by the collateral damage of a powerful Blood Cloud Sect figure refining treasures, leading to the destruction of organizations formed by Immortal Door over centuries, almost all elites dead.”

”...”

”Immortal Door citizens remained subdued for over a thousand years, accumulated over a thousand years,”

Finally, in the year 4785, the first pioneer ’Yuan’ stood up, with the status of a Golden Pill furnace cauldron. Seizing the opportunity when the Blood Cloud Sect was in disarray during the transition between old and new Divinity Transformation Cultivators and when Nascent Soul Cultivators were temporarily absent, he led the Xianmen Science Institute to successfully refine the first generation Central Array Spirit Computer using his own Divine Soul as the key main material, achieving the combat power of a weakened Nascent Soul level.”

”Since then, Immortal Door gained a tremendous ability to hide; their organizations were no longer easily destroyed, and their ability to calculate and deduce was greatly strengthened, accelerating the exploration of the Immortal Path.”

”A century later, ’Yuan’ was on the brink of death; another Golden Pill furnace cauldron ’Cong’ self-destructed. Merging his Divine Soul with the Central Array Spirit Computer, he continued to maintain the existence of the only foundation of Immortal Door... until the seventh generation, when the first Immortal Door Nascent Soul Monk, ’Wu’, was truly born.

```

Under Wu Tianli’s leadership, the constant development of Magic Arts-Breaking Steel and the Optical Formation Engraving Machine over thousands of years was finally successful, significantly enhancing the war potential of the Xianmen Sect in conflicts among middle and lower rank cultivators and further strengthening their foundation.”

”During Wu’s tenure in power, Xianmen Sect severed the plane’s channel to Lanying Planet connected by the Xueyun Sect, allowing Xianmen to recover and enter a period of rapid development.”

”After another five hundred years, Wu advanced to the Peak of the Nascent Soul Stage. Under his guidance, the first generation of forbidden nuclear weapons—Hope—was born, which successfully lured and killed the new Nascent Soul Patriarch of Xueyun Sect, and it was made to look like an internal conflict within the Xueyun Sect, thus avoiding attracting the enmity of the outer Cultivation World.”

”Ten years after this battle, on May 7, 5978, Wu died from severe injuries. His divine soul, just like those of the predecessors, merged into the Central Array Spirit Computer.”

Jiang Ding slowly told the story, his voice becoming choked with emotion without realizing it, his eyes reddened and tears brimming.

The others were not as visibly affected as he was, but they too were touched by the solemn atmosphere.

”Yes, this is the origin of Xianmen’s Magic Arts-Breaking Steel and Optical Formation Engraving Machine.”

”We can see that, from ’Yuan’ to ’Cong’, and then to ’Wu’, under the leadership of many rulers, why did they relentlessly sacrifice themselves?”

Zhou Xiuyun spoke solemnly, ”Because when they were of low status, other predecessors did not treat them as ants to be trampled at will, but as kin, as beings with equal dignity, given respect.”

”All human hearts are equal.”

”Otherwise, even if one ruler is a sage with great fearlessness and sacrifice, could it be that all successors are the same?”

”If you treat lower-ranked cultivators and those inferior to you as ants, to be killed and commanded at will, trampling on dignity and pride, and occasionally rewarding them with some spirit stones for which they are grateful, when external enemies approach, when they grow stronger, would they simply sacrifice and identify with you just because of the simple phrase ’We are all from the same Xianmen’?”

”Don’t even think about it!”

”Today you trample on those weaker than you, tomorrow you will be trampled on by those stronger than you!”

”Mortal and immortal are one; this is the foundation of unity and stability in Xianmen, and all students must bear this in mind,” Zhou Xiuyun earnestly said.

”Yes, we understand.”

Hua Bing and the other two had serious expressions and answered together.

This was a political baseline that Xianmen could not afford to touch, and no cultivator would dare to contravene it publicly.

In fact, although there were also numerous disputes over resources and methods within Xianmen, the internal consumption was far less than that within the nine Great Immortal Sects of the Outer Realm; this was an indisputable fact.

After touring the crushing workshop, the melting and extraction workshop, the synthesis workshop, and other areas, Zhou Xiuyun arranged for them to learn from the workers in each workshop and participate in the initial processing of the Magic Arts-Breaking Steel.

It was simple: they were to use the machines for foolproof operations.

With a little familiarity, given their Eaglet Qi and the realm of Qi Practitioners, with their precise control over Inner Energy and Mana, they could easily do it better than the seasoned workers by far.

After a little over three hours, today’s internship ended.

At the exit of the steel factory, they said goodbye, and Jiang Ding hurried to the school’s cultivation room to cultivate. Afterwards, he went home to continue his cultivation at the Sword Casting Manor and monitor Jindaoshan Mountain.

Seven days passed in this way, and the three of them had each become familiar with the process of refining the base material for Magic Arts-Breaking Steel, fully capable of being skilled workers.

”The next part of the internship involves learning to inscribe Array Patterns on Half Magic Tools; follow me,” Zhou Xiuyun said as she led the three of them into an ultra-clean workshop in white lab coats and to an operating table with a familiar object on it—the barrel of an 89-model Half Magic Tool heavy machine gun. Without seeing the fine Array Patterns inscribed on the barrel, it could only be regarded as an ordinary thermal weapon.