Lord's Trial (Part 1)

In the outpost's open ground, thirty-five Clones bustled about in full swing.

As for their original body, Lin Mo, he was currently reclining on a battered wooden bench dug out of the warehouse, one that could barely be called a "lounge chair."

The bench sat in the shade by the warehouse entrance, in a perfect spot where he could both watch the Clones at work and stay out of the sun.

Lin Mo had even found a chipped clay bowl and brewed some coarse tea he'd rummaged out of the warehouse, sipping it at leisure.

"This bamboo won't do! The nodes are too close together—it can't hold enough water!" Clone Seven held up a freshly cut stalk of bamboo, his face full of disdain.

"Brother, we're making temporary weapons, not works of art!"

Clone Fifteen, who was handling the bamboo, rolled his eyes. "We're lucky to have anything usable at all!"

"Shut up and get to work!" First Clone barked. "The enemy will be here any minute. Whoever keeps yapping will be the first one sent out to bleed!"

The threat worked well.

The Clones immediately fell silent and buried themselves in their work.

Lin Mo comfortably adjusted his position on the lounge chair and set the chipped clay bowl on a small wooden stump beside him.

Now this was living.

War? Let the Clones handle it.

Work? Let the Clones handle that too.

All he had to do was lie there, drink some coarse tea, and occasionally move his lips to give orders. How nice.

"Original body, what dilution ratio should we use?" West Number Clone came over carrying a broken wooden bucket containing nearly half a bucket of dark red liquid.

Lin Mo sat up slightly and squinted at it. "Try one to three first. Use it sparingly—our blood is still blood."

He lay back down and pondered. "Too much toxic blood is wasteful. Too little might not be poisonous enough. Find a rat and test it."

Before long, they brought over a gray rat caught in a corner of the warehouse.

West Number Clone dipped a wooden stick into the diluted toxic blood and lightly dabbed it onto the rat's back.

"Squeak—!"

The gray rat let out a shrill scream. The spot that had been touched rapidly blackened, and the rot spread outward in all directions.

A few seconds later, the rat twitched twice and stopped moving.

"It works!" The Clones' eyes lit up.

"But the time to death has gone from five seconds after contact to eight." Lin Mo frowned. "And the rotting is slower too."

"That's enough." First Clone analyzed, "On the battlefield, there isn't much difference between a soldier losing combat ability five seconds after being wounded and eight seconds after. The key is the coverage!"

He raised the first completed "toxic blood sprinkler gun."

It was a bamboo tube around one and a half meters long and as thick as a bowl. All the bamboo nodes had been cleared out. One end was sealed with a wooden stopper, while the other had more than a dozen tiny holes drilled into it.

A filling port had been cut into the side of the bamboo tube and sealed with a cork stopper.

"Come on, let's test it!"

First Clone poured diluted toxic blood into the tube through the filling port, filling it about two-thirds full.

He then walked to the city wall, aimed at an open patch of ground below, and forcefully pushed down on the lever!

Hiss—!

A cloud of dark red mist sprayed from the small holes at the front of the bamboo tube, covering a fan-shaped area roughly three meters wide and five meters long!

The mist was fine and dense, lingering in the air for two or three seconds before slowly settling.

The weeds on the ground visibly withered and turned black.

"Good!" Lin Mo clapped. "The range is around five meters, and the coverage is wide enough. If the enemy charges in a dense formation, one spray can cover more than ten people!"

"But reloading is slow." Clone Five pointed out the problem. "It takes over ten seconds to refill the toxic blood. Where would we get that kind of time on a battlefield?"

"Make more and rotate them." Lin Mo waved a hand from the lounge chair. "Thirty-five Clones, two for each person! One in use, one as backup!"

"What about long range?" First Clone walked over, his brow deeply furrowed.

"Our toxic blood guns only reach five to eight meters, and clay jars can only be thrown fifty meters at most with human strength.

But powerful bows and crossbows have an effective range of one hundred to one hundred and fifty meters. The gap is way too big!"

That really was a problem.

Lin Mo sat up from the lounge chair and rubbed his chin.

A moment later, his eyes lit up. "Make simple catapults!"

"Catapults?"

"That's right, the lever principle." Lin Mo picked up a branch and drew a diagram on the ground.

"Find a sturdy tree trunk to use as a lever. Fix a weight to one end and place a poison jar on the other.

Pull the lever down with a rope. When it's released, the weight drops, and the other end throws the poison jar outward."

He estimated, "This kind of simple catapult can reach over a hundred meters. The accuracy will be poor, but it'll be enough to cover the Archer positions."

"How many do we need?" the First Clone asked.

"At least five." Lin Mo lay back down on the chair.

"Spread them out at different points along the city wall to create overlapping fields of fire.

Assign two clones to each one—one to load, one to fire."

After speaking, he took a sip of tea and slowly closed his eyes.

Through the Consciousness Link, he began sensing the progress of each clone's work.

Those cutting bamboo cut bamboo, those draining blood drained blood, those mixing concoctions mixed concoctions, and those packaging packaged.

Thirty-five clones plus fifty militiamen—the efficiency was passable.

As the setting sun slanted westward, dyeing the wasteland a dark red, all preparations were finally complete.

[The enemy's first wave of attack will arrive in fifteen minutes]

The golden prompt box appeared right on time.

Only then did Lin Mo slowly climb out of the Lounge Chair and dust himself off.

Lin Mo climbed onto the city wall and looked into the distance.

Dust billowed along the horizon.