Fabricating a Claim

There are no secrets in Danfeng Lucerne, especially after what happened last night. The atmosphere in the city has suddenly become strange, and all forces are watching every move closely.

Since the ceasefire, Kang De has remained the eternal core and focus. This morning, Hong San led his team into the city, and their whereabouts could not be concealed at all. Everyone of any standing in Danfeng Lucerne knew that the Easterner's confidant had entered the city.

Once someone reaches a certain level of status and position, all their actions and behaviors will attract attention.

Following last night's attack, trusted subordinates have arrived in Danfeng Lucerne. This may be the beginning; His Highness Kang De Guardian is seeking substantial power and influence... All those involved are holding their breath, sniffing out opportunities, and calculating whether their interests are under potential threat.

"Hong San."

Santos kept repeating the name.

They were highly suspected of being attacked last night and were being half-monitored and half-protected by Goth, but there were no restrictions on intelligence transmission or personnel exchanges, so this important figure in the Dragon Defense also received the news.

Kang De's retainers, whom he had taken in Valentan, have arrived in Danfeng Lucerne.

Led by Hong San, a small squad of green-skinned orcs and some followers from Valentan also arrived, along with members of the Crimson Queen's mercenary group.

Although small in size and lacking any outstanding figures, this small group can be seen as the beginning of Kang De's establishment of power and a landmark political signal.

The message that arrived stated that after a secret meeting with Hong San, Kang De, together with Princess Tina who had arrived, met with the followers from Valentan and had lunch together at the Maple Leaf Palace.

Archduke Goth also visited during the journey.

Of course, Santos valued Hong San more than that.

He was no stranger to Hong San.

Since the company had thoroughly investigated Kang De's intelligence, it naturally didn't overlook the intelligence of those close to Kang De. The one most valued by the Dragon Clan Think Tank was the Crimson Queen. Like Kang De, her origins were shrouded in mystery, and she possessed unfathomable power. Everyone had sufficient reason to believe that the two came from the same place. In addition, the person seriously evaluated by the think tank was Hong San.

With a twisted personality and bizarre behavior, his fate intersected with that of Kang De in Glittering Sand Town. At that time, he was a servant of the Good Family, content with his lot. The information about this part is very detailed. The Hong San described above is a hopeless case.

After Glittering Sand Town was razed, Hong San had a brief encounter with Princess Tina and the Sword Saint Cascading Snow before heading to Goth. On the way, he unexpectedly rescued a group of displaced people and displayed commendable organizational and military skills. In the end, he led an increasingly powerful force to Valentan.

Then comes the entire account of the Battle of Valentan, which has been thoroughly examined by various monarchs and leaders.

The post-war Hong San was a completely different person, a rebirth. Not only did his appearance and demeanor change drastically, but he also handled all political affairs on behalf of Kang De, cultivated relationships with powerful figures in the province, appeased the people, and managed post-war matters with remarkable efficiency, demonstrating extraordinary military and political talent. It is worth noting that the think tank's assessment of this was not unbelievable, but rather, "This Cathayan has finally demonstrated the talents he possesses."

Yes, because I am that person's student.

"Dong Tianming."

Santos whispered the name.

The Dragon Girl was sitting at her desk in the distance writing and drawing, looked up when she heard this name.

Santos pulled out Hong San's file from the folder; it was surprisingly much longer than Kang De's. Looking at the records, he gave a mocking smile, "Finally, the fox has shown its tail."

As he spoke, he shook his head and said, "My most prized disciple, to whom I poured the most effort, feigned madness, willingly degenerated, and became someone else's servant, lacking both ambition and aspiration, as if he intended to drift through life like this—but after meeting Kang De, he immediately displayed prime ministerial talent, readily becoming his servant..."

At this point, the Chief Marketing Officer couldn't help but laugh out loud, "Could Dong Tianming have been any more blatant? It's like he's shouting to the whole world, 'Look, this dangerous person of mine ran away from Cathay to the mainland, remained unknown for twenty years, and all the preparations and plans I made, all the talent I cultivated and the deployments I made, all the industries and influence I built, were all prepared for this person.'"

Kang De.

The image of this person flashed through the Dragon Girl's mind.

Well, my feelings about it are quite complicated.

After yesterday's series of encounters, my feelings are now more complicated.

She said calmly, "Perhaps not?"

"You mean, this is just a coincidence?"

Santos chuckled, "Dong Tianming's most prized and talented disciple, coincidentally, lost his mind. He's hopelessly useless, like a lump of mud, and ended up as a lowly person. There are more nobles than stars on the entire continent, and he was coincidentally chosen by the Good Family to go to Glittering Sand Town."

"Then, Princess Tina, who was on a diplomatic mission to the Empire and was intercepted by the elves, was coincidentally rescued by a mysterious Cathayan from Zhen Dan. They coincidentally went to Glittering Sand Town and coincidentally met Hong San..."

As he said this, his eyes rolled to the sky.

If this isn't a conspiracy, then what is?

"Then this Kang De, the Cathayan whom Princess Tina happened to find, coincidentally possessed the power to destroy an army, a city, and even severely damage a country. He appeared out of thin air, suddenly falling into this world, and had nothing to do with any conspiracies, arrangements, or plans. It was all just a coincidence?"

He scoffed. This was a fucking coincidence? It was an insult to everyone's intelligence.

"If Akatum heard that, he'd laugh."

Santos, who is skilled at hiring online trolls to create hype, sensationalize, and market, shook his head repeatedly.

This work is too sloppy. If it were handed over to him, he could have packaged it much better.

This doesn't seem like Dong Tianming's doing, unless he did it on purpose, deliberately letting everyone know that Kang De was his chosen one, so everyone should be careful... wait a minute...

"Wait a minute, what if it's Dong Tianming..."

He muttered, "If it was someone Dong Tianming chose, then the suspects with a strong motive to attack Kang De last night should also include that group... hiss..."

He gasped, then abruptly stood up. "No, I must tell His Majesty the Dragon Emperor about this theory."

Then he heard the Dragon Girl sigh.

"Why are you sighing?" Santos said. "This is serious!"

Lily said calmly, "I feel like you're punching thin air."

Why do you say that?

"Intuition."

"... I trust your fists more than your intuition."

Santos, as a principled socialite and a classic capitalist, believes in financial reports, research, data, logic, and that all strange phenomena stem from conspiracies. He believes that all living beings have vested interests, and he just doesn't believe in intuition.

Are you kidding me? You'd be better off having the Faerie Dragon on the island use her crystal ball to tell your fortune.

He ran to the secret chamber and began to contact the Dragon Emperor.

The remains extracted from the attacker's body last night have been expedited and sent back to Dragon Island.

Given the seriousness of this matter and His Dragon Emperor's attention to it, within a day, the after-sales service department and the market supervision department were able to Extraction the effective ingredients, determine the product number, and then find out the specific production line and sales chain. They also worked with the audit department to check and compare accounts, implementing the investigation at each level and locking down the source of the problem.

Then the anti-traitor squad can set off.

But now, the enemy's identity has another possibility, and this matter may need to be treated with caution.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The continuous gunshots were like popping beans, and the smell of gunpowder filled the indoor training ground.

Kang De was teaching Hong San how to shoot a gun.

Rifles were fired, pistols were fired, and some shotguns were also used.

How are you feeling?

He took the FAMAS rifle, its magazine empty, from Hong San. Smoke was still rising from the muzzle. It was a France rifle, borrowed in Comora; there were many of them.

In fact, if he had a choice, he would not want to use military firearms, because when the military purchases firearms, cost and durability are always the primary indicators, while power and failure rate are secondary.

Simply put, it's trash.

Furthermore, as modern warfare systems become increasingly sophisticated, the combat value of individual firearms is constantly diminishing. Various combat distances are addressed with corresponding light and heavy weapons, and individual firearms are even on the verge of degenerating into purely self-defense equipment. Under this guiding ideology, countries are paying less and less attention to the development of individual light weapons, simply patching them up and making do with what they have. In this environment, the military individual light weapons of various countries are basically worthless, riddled with problems inside and out, unchanged for ages, and relentlessly criticized by their own military enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, these were the only military supplies they had in large quantities and with ammunition.

Hong San felt the immense recoil and the pulsation of Flame, explosions, steel, and burning. Even though he had received similar training before and had seen Kang Shuangying shoot bullets more than once, he was still shocked when he actually used it... He confirmed once again that this was a pure killing weapon.

Steel, Flame, and the wisdom forged within them, permeated with the scent of blood, born solely for war.

He said, "It is no less powerful than the elves' bows and crossbows."

Kang De nodded. In human history, after the advent of firearms, bows and crossbows were not completely replaced. On the contrary, they suppressed gunpowder weapons for a period of time. After firearms were updated and iterated, bows and crossbows remained equally powerful for a long time. Not to mention in this other world, with magic, and the elves' technology tree being developed rapidly in this area, the elves' archery skills are indeed unparalleled.

At the end of the Battle of Valentan, the elves entered the city and fought a street battle with the Dusk Warband. Dozens of archers fired rapidly, using light arrows for rapid fire, heavy arrows for sniping, and armor-piercing arrows for suppression. The arrows shattered rocks, pierced wood, and collapsed walls. Some of them could even curve, creating a devastating, whistling barrage. Occasionally, an enchanted arrow would be interspersed, making it feel like a grenade launcher. The level of offensive was almost comparable to the effect of suppressive fire from light weapons.

In fact, it wasn't the breech-loading rifle that completely rendered cold weapons obsolete.

It was a machine gun.

The advent of the machine gun brought about a qualitative leap in the power of firearms compared to cold weapons.

"The difference between this thing and the elven bow and arrow is..." Kang De raised the gun and pointed to the black hole at the muzzle, "... we can make it as thick and big as we want."

Hong San nodded and said, "Understood."

"Horus will teach you how to use all kinds of firearms, from shooting and reloading to maintenance and even management regulations. After you've learned that, you'll teach our group, the Valentan group."

Hong San nodded and said, "Understood. We won't teach Lady Crimson and the beastmen yet."

"Yes, the group A Xing recruited, in my opinion, has various motives. Many of them follow A Xing for ulterior motives; some are spies, some want to use her power... We need to investigate them. As for the Greenskins..." Kang De gave a wry smile, "I need to think about it."

Humans' limited caliber may not be suitable for them, nor do their dimensions match.

He shook his head and said, "It would be better if Horus taught it himself, but it's injured now and shouldn't see anyone... so I'll have to trouble you."

"It's not tiring at all, Your Highness..."

Hong San looked at the row of guns and ammunition on the table. "Are you going to give these important weapons to someone else?"

Kang De replied, "Since it's a weapon, it will always be used."

He is no longer the Kang De of the Battle of Valentan. He is now wealthy, has more weapons, and has made a name for himself on Earth. More importantly, his perspective has broadened, and his thinking is different. He no longer needs to hide his light weapons.

I already have an F-35, and you're telling me this?

"With such a powerful weapon, if ammunition is plentiful, it can indeed form a formidable fighting force. Although the elven archery skills are strong, to achieve such destructive power requires elite archers, and each draw consumes energy. The combat time is ultimately limited, but this weapon... only requires the force of pulling the trigger."

The war mode needs to be rewritten... no, it already has.

Battle of Danfeng Lucerne, who would have thought that a single alchemical weapon could suppress the Twilight Moon Expeditionary Force, rendering all their methods futile...

Only...

He said, "After this battle, the elves, the empire, and other powers are all searching for your methods and weapons. If such a weapon falls into the hands of the elves and the empire..."

"So let's first implement a policy of separating firearms and ammunition, and enforce storage regulations. Then I'll develop an enchantment for automatic destruction... It doesn't really matter if they end up in their hands."

Kang De shook his head and said, "They probably can't replicate it. Even if some master craftsman or grand mage could use magic or a level ten fitter's skill to copy it one-to-one... it wouldn't make any sense."

Besides, even if we manage to copy it, what then? We still have cannons, missiles, and nuclear bombs.

Learning how to make guns doesn't automatically mean you can make cannons; that's pure fantasy, they're two completely different things.

Moreover, guns are difficult to manufacture.

While military individual light weapons may be considered inferior, that only applies to major powers.

Even on Earth, for the vast majority of countries, it would be simply impossible to independently develop and produce an assault rifle from scratch.

A rifle may have a simple structure and a few simple parts, but it contains a wealth of craftsmanship, technology, and science, such as metallurgy, die casting, grinding, heat treatment, milling, turning, planing, and grinding, as well as design and assembly processes. Where do the technical reserves and processing equipment come from? Furthermore, the workers who can skillfully operate this equipment require a comprehensive education system for training and development. So, where does this knowledge come from?

Pay money, get ripped off like a sucker, kneel, lick boots, be exploited, be extorted, and call someone "daddy."

That's how the modern world is; small countries don't deserve national defense, they don't even deserve to manufacture guns.

If Earth's nations are like this, imagine what other worlds are like. Here's an assault rifle. You go through Earth's tech tree first, then start industrialization, have a bloody internal war, kill off countless people, and work for many years. Maybe that'll be enough. Then I'll introduce you to what a military-industrial complex is, and show you what a bullet production line that sprays bullets faster than spraying semen looks like.

So don't panic.

"It's good that Your Highness understands."

Hong San didn't insist any further. In fact, as long as Kang De could still cast Forbidden Spell, it wasn't a big problem.

Oh, right.

Kang De continued, "Tina just told me that the Grand Duke is considering reopening the Cathay Embassy and plans to hand it over to us as a place for you to stay... What do you think?"

This matter contains a lot of information; no wonder Kang De wanted to discuss it with Hong San.

Upon hearing this, Hong San's expression turned solemn.

Embassy of Cathay.

Many years ago, Goth maintained trade relations with Cathay, even exchanging envoys and exchanging cultures. Now, the embassy is practically defunct, and exchanges between the two sides have long been severed. If the Grand Duke were to reopen the Cathay embassy and use it as Kang De's residence, such an act would be...

--This is essentially equivalent to making a claim for Kang De.

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PS1: I'm home... Hope I can sleep well... Goodnight, goodnight.