Determination to Grow Stronger, Displaying New Weapons

As Xu Mochen felt the waves of formidable soul power continuously emanating from Xu Yuanding, a flash of shock crossed his eyes! Xu Yuanding's status was not merely that of an Imperial Prince and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the military; he was also the second strongest powerhouse in the Sun Moon Empire, second only to Kong Dehan!

Although Xu Mochen had long heard of Xu Yuanding's strength, this was his first time witnessing it firsthand. The terrifying fluctuations radiating from Xu Yuanding caused even his own soul power to tremble. Had it not been for the exceptionally high quality of his own martial soul, and the fact that Xu Yuanding had intentionally avoided him when releasing his pressure, the mere aura emanating from the man would have been enough to crush him!

It seems that focusing solely on technology is not enough. To forge iron, one must be strong oneself. Intensifying my cultivation and completing the assessment tasks as soon as possible is a matter of extreme urgency, Xu Mochen thought with a bitter smile. If Xu Yuanding were his enemy, Xu Mochen had no doubt that he would be the one lying on the ground right now.

Combining the strength displayed by Kong Dehan and the Shadow Guard Commander Mo Wuying during his own martial soul awakening, Xu Mochen understood clearly that his current ability to steer the nation and eliminate obstacles was not just due to his status and wisdom, but largely because he had a group of powerful combatants under his command!

In a world of xianxia where the weak are prey to the strong, relying on other talents is insufficient to solidify one's power and position; the most important thing is to possess formidable personal strength. With his current soul power of only level twelve, he was clearly far from that goal.

Unlike the protagonists in many system-based novels, he could not elevate his strength to an invincible level in a short time. Thus, this world remained fraught with crises for him, not to mention his future plans to travel to the Douluo Continent, where the soul master powerhouses were undoubtedly more numerous and terrifying than those on the Sun Moon Continent. Consequently, Xu Mochen's determination to grow stronger became even more resolute.

However, the immediate priority was to handle these criminals according to plan. Xu Mochen ordered them to be thrown into the Shadow Guard's dungeons for detention, and then, as originally planned, he immediately notified the candidates he had been selecting for months to fill the vacancies—people who had actually been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Thus, just two or three hours later, the entire upper echelon of the military underwent a massive reshuffle! Fortunately, this was during an extremely peaceful period without war or external threats; otherwise, Xu Mochen would never have dared to do this.

After all, replacing so many high-ranking military officials at once, including the subsequent plan to purge a group of people in the local regions, would inevitably lead to a period of power vacuum during the transition between the old and the new. If handled poorly, the entire military system could collapse rapidly.

Therefore, regarding the upper echelons, Xu Mochen adopted a strategy of cutting the Gordian knot, sweeping away the rot among the high-ranking officers in one fell swoop. Better a short pain than a long one; only then could he smoothly implement his subsequent plans. As for the local officers and soldiers, Xu Mochen focused primarily on dealing with a small number of the most heinous offenders to establish authority and deter the petty-minded.

However, Xu Mochen also "magnanimously" indicated that while the most heinous would be severely punished, he would adopt a policy of leniency and let bygones be bygones for the vast majority whose actions were less egregious, using both soft and hard tactics.

He naturally welcomed those willing to turn over a new leaf, but for those who were stubborn or still harbored delusions of resisting central policy, he was sorry—once he stabilized the imperial center, Xu Mochen would slowly clean out these black sheep.

With the new batch of high-ranking officials personally screened by Xu Mochen in place, he began to push forward his next plan. First was the issue of weaponry and equipment. On this point, Xu Mochen assured the generals that he would find a way to persuade the parliament to increase military spending so that the military would have more funds to enhance its strength.

Furthermore, Xu Mochen pointed out that there were huge problems with the current development of weapons in the Sun Moon Empire. The most important point was that soul guidance weapons had basically seen no progress for many years, which meant that the strength of the Sun Moon Empire's military had not only failed to rise but was actually regressing!

In addition, there were problems with the design philosophy of the Sun Moon Empire's weapons. The current primitive soul-powder weapons were severely outdated, and soul guidance weapons like rifles and cannons needed a complete overhaul in their research and development approach!

Over the past two months, Xu Mochen had not been idle while leaving the research of the Soul Guidance Steam Engine to Kong Dehan and the others; instead, he had been studying new types of soul-powder and ammunition-based firearms with the experts at the research institute.

After a long period of discussion and practice, Xu Mochen and the experts finally developed a new type of smokeless soul-powder, fixed soul guidance bullets and shells, and their corresponding weapons! Xu Mochen intended to showcase the research achievements of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Tool Research Institute from the past two months to all the generals after the meeting concluded.

In fact, during the process of discussing and practicing with soul guidance weapon designers, Xu Mochen discovered that compared to ammunition-based firearms, ray-type weapons certainly had many advantages. For example, they did not require specific calibers of bullets or shells; as long as there was sufficient soul power, they could be used, greatly easing the pressure of logistical ammunition transport.

Furthermore, the range of ray-type soul guidance weapons was longer than that of ordinary ammunition-based ones, and their piercing power was stronger. Moreover, when necessary, skilled designers could specifically select and craft the energy arrays within the ray guns and cannons to grant them other special abilities, such as burning, freezing, or toxicity. However, this did not mean that ray-type weapons were completely superior to ammunition-based ones.

First, the most direct problem was that ray-type weapons consumed far more soul power than ammunition-based ones. This was normal; after all, one required the soul master to provide enough soul power to be converted into an attack beam to be fired as a bullet, while the other only required the soul master to provide the propellant soul power to fire a bullet—and some new types of smokeless soul-powder weapons didn't even require soul power to use.

Often, a soul master in their twenties would consume nearly one-tenth of their soul power with a single shot from a ray gun. Over ninety-nine percent of the soul masters in the Sun Moon Empire did not have impressive martial souls, and many possessed martial souls with no offensive capabilities at all.

Therefore, for the vast majority of them, the weapon in their hand became their only means of attack. On the battlefield, where situations changed unpredictably, one could not simply fire ten shots and tell the opponent to stop because they had run out of soul power and needed to replenish it before continuing the fight.

Secondly, the cost of ray-type weapons in the Sun Moon Empire was much higher than that of ammunition-based ones. According to Xu Mochen's experiments, the cost of crafting one ray gun was more than three times that of crafting a bullet-firing gun!

Although this did not include the price of bullets, even with the cost of ammunition added, unless a ray gun could be used for a very long time, the cost of a bullet-firing gun plus its ammunition still could not compare to a ray gun of the same grade.

However, according to calculations, the average lifespan of a ray gun was far inferior to that of a bullet-firing gun, and its failure rate was significantly higher. This was not hard to understand; after all, the wear and corrosive ability of soul power on the barrel and body was higher than that of bullets made from soul-conductive metal.

This meant that although ray guns did not need ammunition replenishment, they required frequent maintenance and replacement, which was undoubtedly very troublesome and painful for soldiers and logistics personnel exhausted from a day of fighting.

Of course, this did not mean that Xu Mochen intended to completely phase out ray-type weapons, but rather that they could not be widely equipped to the troops. However, after continuous future improvements, they would be necessary for certain special units. After all, the advantages of ray-type weapons were clear, and using them as elite special weapons rather than standard-issue equipment was undoubtedly a better choice.

In this regard, Xu Yuanding and the generals expressed their support, but they still needed to confirm the situation regarding Xu Mochen's so-called new weapons. Xu Mochen did not shirk; instead, he took the initiative to invite the generals to visit the weapons testing ground after the meeting.

Next, Xu Mochen immediately proposed a plan to expand the military. Of course, Xu Mochen did not hide anything, telling everyone the intelligence he had obtained regarding the Douluo Continent. This information was undoubtedly like a bombshell, causing an uproar among the generals!

If anyone other than Xu Mochen had said this, they would have suspected the person was insane. But Xu Mochen told them of the intelligence he had obtained with absolute certainty, and with the support of Xu Yuanding, the military generals eventually agreed to Xu Mochen's arrangements, albeit with skepticism.

However, Xu Mochen knew very well that while persuading his subordinates was not difficult, the real challenge was how to convince the parliament of his request for military expansion. After all, without funding from the parliament, his expansion plan would be impossible to initiate.

But for now, Xu Mochen's main focus was on the demonstration of the soul guidance weapons. The generals, led by Xu Mochen, were already on their way to the Sun Moon Empire's Royal Weapons Testing Ground by carriage.

Inside the Crown Prince's carriage, Xu Mochen, Mo Wuying, and Xu Yuanding sat together, though an unconcealable worry remained in Xu Yuanding's eyes: "Your Highness, even now, I find it hard to believe that another continent truly exists to the east of the Sun Moon Empire's waters! Is that place called the Douluo Continent really as miraculous as you say?"

Mo Wuying had naturally heard Xu Mochen speak of this continent. Although even with his intelligence-gathering capabilities he had never heard of its existence, he still chose to believe Xu Mochen, because the existence Xu Mochen invoked was one he could not help but believe.

"Actually, I am not entirely sure myself. These are things my ancestor told me, and I have no choice but to believe them," Xu Mochen said with a bitter smile, telling a lie. After all, he couldn't exactly say he had transmigrated from another world and knew the storyline of this one, could he?

Therefore, for the time being, using the Purple Imperial Chaos Dragon King to fob the two off was undoubtedly the best plan. After all, only he among them had seen the ancestor and received the ancestor's most important inheritance, so only Xu Mochen knew what the ancestor had said.

Most of the Sun Moon Empire's high-ranking officials were familiar with many secrets in the history of the Sun Moon Empire and naturally held a sense of awe toward this founding ancestor of the imperial family. Thus, Xu Mochen did not worry about being exposed, as the existence of the Douluo Continent was, in fact, a reality.

During their conversation, Xu Mochen and the officers finally arrived at the designated Royal Weapons Testing Ground. After strict security checks, the group finally met the team of soul guidance weapon designers waiting to welcome them.

"Your Highness, this old man has been waiting here for a long time. In these days, thanks to Your Highness's help, my soul guidance weapon research work has made such huge progress," the leading old man in a white research coat laughed and stepped forward immediately.

Xu Mochen replied modestly: "Elder Xiao, that is too much praise. If it weren't for the joint efforts and day-and-night struggle of all you seniors, I alone could never have achieved such success."

The surrounding officers were secretly shocked by Elder Xiao's behavior. It seemed that this Crown Prince not only had extraordinary talent in politics, economics, and cultivation, but his attainments in soul guidance weapon design were also quite remarkable. After all, they had heard of Elder Xiao's character—he was notoriously stubborn, a tough man who dared to contradict the late Emperor and Prince Yinyue, Kong Dehan, in discussions on many soul guidance weapon research issues!