Radically Modified Spirit Guns

Murong Qing called out with a slightly embarrassed expression, as if she had been caught red-handed playing a prank by her parents, and secretly put the fried tofu in her hand behind her back—she had never eaten these in the past due to her upbringing.

Murong Zhe didn't take it to heart, acting as if he hadn't seen anything. He first nodded to Si Ming and Liu Qingqing as a greeting, then said to Murong Qing, "I've agreed to your request to go out and train during the summer vacation."

Murong Qing was stunned for a moment, then her face lit up with surprise. "Father, you agreed!"

Murong Zhe nodded slightly, then walked up to Si Ming, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "I'll trouble you to take good care of my daughter, my dear nephew."

"Uh, I will."

Si Ming felt an inexplicable awkwardness, as if he were about to abduct someone's daughter.

Murong Zhe didn't say anything else, just reminded him not to stay out too late, and then left.

"What's going on?" Si Ming was a little confused.

Murong Qing speculated, "It's probably because my father witnessed your skills in today's battle that he felt comfortable letting me go out to train."

Si Ming couldn't shake the feeling. "Something just feels off..."

"Are you going out together?"

Liu Qingqing suddenly asked, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two.

Si Ming felt inexplicably guilty. Although he believed he hadn't done anything wrong and his relationship with the two girls hadn't crossed the line of friendship, he could only explain the situation and then ask, "Do you want to come along?"

Murong Qing didn't think much of it and also invited, "Qingqing, why don't you come too? Reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles; it can also hone your own cultivation."

After thinking for a while, Liu Qingqing shook her head and said, "No, I won't be a burden to you two."

Murong Qing retorted unhappily, "We're friends, we can help each other. I have strengths that you have, and you have strengths that I don't. How can you be a burden?"

Liu Qingqing said, "Actually, I have other plans. After watching today's special recruitment exam, I suddenly felt that archery might be a direction I could try. So this summer, I plan to find an archery school to study."

Since there was important business to attend to, Murong Qing didn't press the matter further and instead asked Si Ming, "When do we set off?"

Si Ming thought for a moment and said, "Let's wait another two or three days. After all, we still need to book train tickets. Also, we need to be prepared. The Deep Blue Plateau is extremely high in altitude and the temperature is very low. Our destination is in the snow-capped mountains. It would be best to go to the library to look up relevant books or ask experienced mountaineering enthusiasts for advice. If we set off rashly, there will be many troubles along the way. Being forced to give up would be the least of our worries; it's not impossible that we might encounter disaster."

Murong Qing suppressed her excitement and said solemnly, "Don't worry, I will make thorough preparations."

"We also need to bring weapons in case we encounter bandits or wild animals."

Si Ming thought to himself that he had to go to the research institute to ask the doctor for the new weapon.

Chapter 105 Modified Spirit Gun

"These two guns, named White Eagle and Spirit Sparrow, are groundbreaking masterpieces. The former emphasizes firepower, using large-caliber bullets, making it quite lethal at close range, but sacrificing accuracy for this purpose; you can't hit anyone beyond thirty meters. The latter emphasizes agility, firing up to ten bullets per second. While it can't compare to a machine gun, it's a top performer among pistols, and it's equipped with a silencer, giving it a range of two hundred meters."

Inside the Mohist Knight Guard base research institute, the doctor was showing two novel-looking guns to Si Ming.

The gun named White Eagle has a distinct steampunk style, with an intimidatingly thick barrel that leaves no doubt about its lethality. There is a clock-shaped gauge on the handle to display the amount of True Qi. There are several interlocking gears on both sides of the gun, supposedly to reduce recoil. These gears spin rapidly after each bullet is fired.

However, in Si Ming's view, these things were more decorative than practical. The recoil might be unbearable for Earthlings and would put a lot of pressure on their wrists, but for him, whose physique had been enhanced many times over, he could keep his firing position after firing, unless the White Eagle Gun could reach the firing rate of the Spirit Sparrow.

In contrast, the gun named Spirit Sparrow is rather simple, at least without as many decorations. Of course, given the gun's slenderness, there's no room for other decorations; at most, it's printed with some mysterious and impressive patterns.

The Spirit Sparrow Gun has a strong fantasy feel. From the barrel to the handle, it is very thin, forming a horizontal "7" shape, giving it an indescribable eerie feel. It doesn't even have a trigger, with only a button on the handle, which is thinner than a loofah. Pressing it will fire a bullet, making the whole gun look a bit like a child's toy, lacking the deterrent power of a weapon of death.

Clearly, neither of these guns is suitable for mass production. From an industrial perspective, they have too many useless decorations, too many complex functions, and lack simplicity and solidity. They are more like works of art than industrial products.

However, the doctor never intended to mass-produce dual pistols. He only wanted to verify his design and collect combat data to lay the foundation for a more powerful psionic gun. For firearms to gain the attention of the higher-ups, they must at least demonstrate the ability to threaten Spirit Transformation cultivators.

Due to the difference in their military systems, the Sea Continent people value individual destructive power more than the range of damage or the destructive power to buildings and facilities.

Whether a weapon is valuable depends on whether it can threaten the lives of the strong; its lethality to ordinary people is a very minor criterion.

The current bottleneck in the development of firearms is that ordinary bullets cannot penetrate the True Qi of a strong person. If the power is increased, the accuracy will be lacking. After all, strong people are not stupid and will obediently stand there and let the enemy shoot. Even if a martial artist is not good at light footwork, as long as his Internal Cultivation is strong enough, his speed will not be slow.

If a group of ordinary people with submachine guns and heavy machine guns surround a powerful opponent and unleash a barrage of fire, theoretically they could kill a master below the Spirit Transformation. However, this situation is unlikely to occur in actual combat.

Martial artists have a strong sense of their surroundings and an irrational intuition for danger. They can be detected before they even get close, let alone form an encirclement. Once a master uses guerrilla assassination tactics, ordinary people are left dumbfounded.

Artillery, tanks, and other weapons face the same problem. They are sufficient to deal with ordinary people, making them veritable killing machines for mortals, but they are too cumbersome against experts. Unless the opponent chooses to engage in a head-on confrontation, once assassination is attempted, they can make a quick and decisive move. If one's own side does not have a strong opponent of the same level to restrain them, they can only be bled dry until they die.

If we evaluate martial arts characters by game character standards, they would undoubtedly belong to the agility-type heroes. Most of them are fragile, and they will have a True Qi shield as they level up. Only a very few who practice martial arts horizontally can become tanks. Even tanks cannot withstand heavy firepower weapons such as cannons and missiles. Therefore, high mobility is the mainstream way to truly bring out the abilities of martial arts heroes.

This is why the Su State insisted on developing the Mohist School's Profound Armor. Rather than trying to make up for its shortcomings, it was better to develop its strengths. Besides, Profound Armor also falls into the category of firearms in a certain sense.

After testing the performance of the two guns at the shooting range, Si Ming was quite satisfied. The combination of long and short range and the complementary characteristics of the guns made him realize that if he had been holding these two guns instead of the psionic revolver when Yuezheng Qiong was taken hostage, he could have stormed into the warehouse through the main entrance and killed the enemy, instead of resorting to a feint attack.

"Compared to the previous psionic revolver, its performance in all aspects has undoubtedly improved significantly, and it also possesses a particularly outstanding feature in each aspect. However, it still seems to fall short of the groundbreaking masterpiece you described, Doctor."

The dual pistols were impressive, but they hadn't exceeded Si Ming's expectations.

"Being able to say such things proves you truly understand firearms and weapons, unlike those conservative old fogies who always spout nonsense about relying on external tools being the wrong path. Bah! What are external tools? Firearms are external tools, but bows and arrows aren't? Ranged weapons are external tools, but melee weapons aren't? Weapons are all external tools, but Profound Armor isn't? Inorganic matter is external, but organic matter isn't? Aren't the food we eat and the water we drink external tools? Aren't the muscles, bones, and nerves we develop from eating external tools?"

The PhD student grumbled bitterly, clearly having accumulated considerable stress from frequent arguments on the topic.

External factors also constitute a major constraint on the development of firearms and weapons. Given this global atmosphere, one cannot expect countries to invest funds in the research and development of related technologies; breakthroughs can only be achieved by individuals or groups.

Si Ming, "They probably believe that the power of firearms is fixed and cannot increase with the user's cultivation level."

This is the core tenet of the theory of firearms as external objects. The same sword can exert different powers in the hands of the strong and the weak, but firearms exert the same power no matter who holds them. Even if a Spirit Transformation expert pulls the trigger, the speed of the bullet will not increase in the slightest.

Therefore, swordsmen consider their swords to be external objects, yet they despise firearms and other weapons as such, and even have the right to look down on bows and arrows, which are also ranged weapons.

Si Ming initially couldn't understand this sense of superiority, but after gradually adapting to the world and reshaping his worldview, he realized that this was not an ideological dispute, but had practical significance.

In the hands of an ordinary person, a submachine gun can increase their combat power tenfold; in the hands of Spirit Transformation expert, the increase is less than one-thousandth.