A Little Invention... Maybe?

Before school started, Chen Ming did his best to learn about the people at Heaven Dou Royal Academy, trying to find familiar names among the students. In the end, however, he gained very little.

Dugu Yan was seven years older than Tang San, while Chen Ming was the same age as Tang San. By rights, Chen Ming was eight this year, so Dugu Yan, at fifteen, should have already enrolled at Heaven Dou Royal Academy. Yet there was no one named Dugu Yan at the academy.

Instead, Dugu Yan's future teammates—Yu Tianheng of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, the Shi Mo brothers whose Martial Souls were Black Tortoises, and Ye Lingling of the Nine Heart Begonia—had already joined Heaven Dou Royal Academy and become Chen Ming's upperclassmen.

Chen Ming did not understand why Dugu Yan had enrolled so late, but he could not be bothered to start learning medicine and all sorts of miscellaneous arts before even coming into contact with her.

Ordinary people relaxed after becoming tired from cultivation, but once Chen Ming had pushed his physical training to its limit, he cultivated other skills to pass the time.

Medicine, mechanical arts, musical instruments, tea ceremony, etiquette, calligraphy, painting...

Besides books on Spirit Master cultivation, Heaven Dou Royal Academy's library also contained plenty of books on these miscellaneous arts. Chen Ming selected some to study and tried to recreate certain technologies from his previous life in order to earn benefits for himself.

After all, in the Douluo World, being a genius was itself a form of recognition and proof. Chen Ming lacked a sufficient background, so he needed to display value and talent beyond that of ordinary people. Only then could his actions seem more reasonable in the future.

Moreover, displaying sufficient talent while having a clean family background and no backing was itself a special kind of value.

In the first month, relying on the carpentry and blacksmithing techniques he had learned, Chen Ming replicated a prototype of the Spinning Jenny in his training yard, then went a step further and built a Water Frame.

What level was Douluo World's textile industry at? Roughly equivalent to Chen Ming's previous life in the tenth century AD. Forget industrialization—even its handicraft textile industry was far from outstanding.

The Spinning Jenny was eight times as efficient as manual labor, while the Water Frame was roughly forty times as efficient.

No matter how cheap labor was in the Douluo World, with a gap of dozens of times in efficiency, even the most stubborn, old-fashioned fool could understand which had a better future.

Chen Ming merely waited for the chance to open a spinning mill himself, or simply cooperate with someone and use these spinning machines to make a fortune.

After all, although Gold Soul Coins during Douluo Continent I could not buy truly priceless treasures, enough Gold Soul Coins would still allow Chen Ming to accomplish more than ninety percent of what he wanted and avoid countless troubles.

As for the Spinning Mule, Chen Ming could make one as well. But to avoid a tragedy of sheep devouring men taking place in Douluo Continent too, he restrained himself a little.

As for more advanced techniques such as high-proof alcohol, refined white sugar, purified salt, porcelain firing, and soap-making, Chen Ming could reproduce them one by one in a short time if he wanted to.

But those things were simply too valuable. Chen Ming could not guarantee that he would still be alive after revealing them, so he could only wait until later to "invent" those technologies in this world. Before then, at most, he could use them a little for himself.

In the second month, after carefully considering the development and technology of the Douluo World, Chen Ming recreated a Han Dynasty Bed Crossbow and a simple Hand Crossbow from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, then used Qin Ming's connections to arrange a meeting with the three Education Committee Members.

At a training ground in Heaven Dou Royal Academy, Chen Ming met the three Education Committee Members for the first time.

Bai Baoshan was a short, stout old man whose waistline was almost as large as his height. He looked perpetually cheerful and exceptionally kind.

Meng Shenji appeared normally built, but he was extremely thin. With white hair and beard, he gave the impression of a respected elder.

As for Zhi Lin, he looked the most ordinary of the three in terms of build, but his eyes carried a peculiar gleam.

The three Education Committee Members were curious why Chen Ming had repeatedly requested to see them. After greeting them, Chen Ming began demonstrating the power of the Bed Crossbow and Hand Crossbow.

Chen Ming loaded an arrow into the Bed Crossbow by himself and wound the winch to its limit, then fired the bolt toward a massive boulder he had selected beforehand.

The refined iron arrowhead sank deeply into the huge rock. With Chen Ming's current size, he could even step on the shaft and stand on it directly.

The Hand Crossbow's target was a dried log. When it fired, the bolt easily buried itself in the wood, leaving only less than half the shaft exposed.

After Chen Ming displayed the destructive power of the Bed Crossbow to the three Education Committee Members, all three were greatly shocked and began praising Chen Ming's intelligence and talent.

Under Chen Ming's guidance, the three Education Committee Members each began manually loading the Bed Crossbow and Hand Crossbow before firing them at the targets. Bai Baoshan even summoned his Heaven Star Furnace Martial Soul and had the other two Education Committee Members shoot it with the Bed Crossbow and Hand Crossbow.

Feeling the feedback from his Martial Soul, Bai Baoshan's face showed a hint of surprise.

The Bed Crossbow could easily pierce through the protective Soul Power of a Soul Ancestor. The Hand Crossbow was not as absurdly overpowered as the Godly Zhuge Crossbow from the original story, but killing a Soul Grandmaster with it would not be a problem.

For the Heaven Dou Empire, whose military Spirit Masters were generally weaker than those of the Star Luo Empire, Chen Ming's two inventions were practically a shot in the arm.

They might only have been the most primitive Bed Crossbows from the Han Dynasty and Hand Crossbows from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, but in the field of mechanical arts, Douluo Continent had always been completely haphazard.

The divine craftsman Lou Gao could use mechanical arts to create mechanisms that required almost no power source, and he could forge inner armor capable of withstanding attacks from a Spirit Emperor.

Yet Douluo Continent did not even have the most primitive crossbows. Ordinary long-range weapons consisted only of bows, throwing spears, and the like. The strongest were merely primitive fixed stone-throwing devices, not even as sophisticated as Thunderclap Carts from the Three Kingdoms era.

As for forging technology, it was even more remarkable—roughly at the level of the Qin and Han Dynasties.

Skilled craftsmen could hammer out extremely durable metal products by hand, but all of that came from Soul Power and the special material science of Douluo Continent. As for actual technology...

Put it this way: even the Greenskins from the neighboring Warhammer 40k were more scientific than the people of Douluo.

The old-fashioned crossbow Chen Ming recreated had a simple, understandable structure and tremendous power. It merely consumed a fair amount of materials and required considerable strength to wind the winch. But neither of those was a problem at all for the people of Douluo Continent.

It consumed materials? The Douluo World had magical metals and Spirit Beast materials. Simply relying on brute force with heavy materials would be enough to coast for thousands, even tens of thousands of years.

It required strength? Then several people could operate it together. If that still was not enough, they could use Spirit Masters. One way or another, they could wind it.

Under such circumstances, the Bed Crossbow Chen Ming recreated was practically a weapon of national importance. The three Education Committee Members immediately took it away, intending to present it to Xue Ye, the emperor of the Heaven Dou Empire.

(I looked carefully into Douluo Continent I. Every crossbow mentioned there referred to the Godly Zhuge Crossbow and its corresponding bolts. Even Bed Crossbows never appeared, which showed that Douluo Continent truly did not have such things.

Moreover, when Tang San cooperated with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, he had the sect manufacture every component while he was only responsible for assembly. If normal Bed Crossbows and Hand Crossbows had existed, people would have long figured out how they were assembled.

And during the era of the Peerless Tang Sect, the method of enhancing Soul Tools was based on Tang Sect mechanical principles. The means of increasing the destructive power of a Level-9 Fixed Soul Tool was actually Gunpowder. Yes, Gunpowder... The Douluo World was quite amazing, wasn't it?)

At first, when Xue Ye learned that this was an invention made by a special student from a rural family who was neglecting proper pursuits, he was summoned directly from his bedchamber with deep disdain written across his face. He felt that being disturbed over such a matter after visiting his consorts was a grave insult to him as emperor.

Only out of consideration for the three Education Committee Members did he refrain from rejecting it outright, merely offering a few perfunctory responses.

But when he saw the three Education Committee Members personally load the crossbows and fire them at the targets, Xue Ye's previously formulaic expression vanished at once. He straightened up and personally reached out to examine the two weapons.

After personally firing the Bed Crossbow and Hand Crossbow, Xue Ye lavished praise on Chen Ming's invention. A youthful vigor and flush appeared on his aged face, and he revealed a rare, completely undisguised smile.

These things could not deal with high-level Spirit Masters, but even Xue Ye, who lived far removed from worldly matters, could tell from their materials and crude style that they cost far less than training Spirit Masters.

On the very day the Bed Crossbow and Hand Crossbow were delivered to the palace, Chen Ming was summoned into the palace by Xue Ye overnight.