Master Elder picked up the bow himself, his face grim beneath everyone's watching eyes.
He nocked an arrow and began drawing the string.
The initial resistance made him frown, and his contempt only deepened.
This? This was it?
Its draw weight was far lower than that of any war bow I had ever used!
An arrow fired from this probably couldn't even pierce leather armor fifty paces away!
He was already prepared to slap this ignorant human in the face with cold, hard facts.
He drew the bowstring back.
Just as the string approached full draw and the resistance reached its peak-
A miracle happened.
The pulley assembly rotated to a particular angle, and the tension on the bowstring suddenly dropped!
The enormous release of resistance nearly made him lose his grip on the string, and he stumbled a step forward!
Maintaining a full draw should have required over a hundred jin of force, yet now he could hold it effortlessly with just two fingers.
The bow was steady as a rock.
He took steady aim at a distant hundred-forged steel target used to test the toughness of heavy armor.
Even a troll's battle-axe could leave only a shallow mark on that target.
"This... how is this possible?!"
Master Elder's pupils shrank to pinpoints, disbelief written all over his face.
He simply could not understand why the monster in his hands, called a "Compound Bow," defied all reason!
Filled with shock and uncertainty, he released his fingers.
Thrum!
An extraordinarily deep report rang out, far shorter and more explosive than the sound of an ordinary bowstring!
This was no song of wood and string, but the release of pure violence compressed to its limit!
The black arrow vanished from the string, leaving only a blur in the air that the naked eye could barely catch.
The next second.
Clang!!!
A piercing metallic crash erupted!
That seemingly ordinary arrow punched straight through the center of the distant hundred-forged steel target!
Behind the target, the arrow's fletching still trembled violently, letting out a mournful buzzing!
The entire workshop fell so silent that a falling pin could have been heard.
Every Elf sucked in a breath, staring blankly at the pierced steel target.
An arrow could actually wield such power!
When they looked at that "ugly" Compound Bow again, their skepticism had turned into feverish shock and awe!
Master Elder stared dumbly at the distant steel target.
His hand went slack, and the oddly shaped Compound Bow clattered to the floor, but he seemed not to hear it.
As though he had lost his soul, he staggered over to the steel target and reached out with a hand like withered bark, trembling as he touched the savage hole.
"No... impossible... this is absolutely impossible..."
His lifelong pride, those sacred bowmaking texts revered as absolute truth, had been smashed to pieces by a single blow from this "ugly" weapon.
Fendona hurried forward and picked up the Compound Bow.
Unlike Elder, she was not hung up on tradition. All she saw was hope.
Copying Lin Mo, she nocked an arrow.
The initial resistance as she drew the string made her heart sink. It was heavy.
But just as she thought she would have to use every ounce of strength, the pulleys rotated, and most of the bowstring's resistance abruptly vanished.
Holding it at full draw actually took less effort than holding it halfway!
What kind of mad genius designed this?
She could focus entirely on aiming, with attention to spare.
She aimed at another hundred-forged steel target and released.
Clang!!!
With a tremendous crash, the arrow buried itself deep in the center of the target, its fletching buzzing.
Fendona's heart gave a violent jolt along with that crash.
She put down the Compound Bow, picked up one of the Elves' finest traditional longbows, and fired an arrow at the same target with all her strength.
With a ping, the arrow bounced away.
The difference was instantly clear.
One demanded every ounce of strength and could barely scratch the enemy.
The other let you shoot with ease, yet could punch through the enemy's shell.
Fendona stood rooted to the spot, her body trembling uncontrollably.
"A divine weapon... this is a true divine weapon!"
"Easy, we're only getting started." Seeing how these Elves acted like they had never seen anything before, Lin Mo decided to give their poor little hearts another jolt.
He picked up the newly assembled Repeating Crossbow. It was much more compact than the Compound Bow and looked like an oversized toy.
Lin "Arms Dealer" Mo cocked the "toy" and handed it to a young Elf guard standing nearby, who had been watching in a daze.
"Here, try this."
"See this trigger? Aim at those straw dummies and keep pulling it."
The guard took it nervously, his palms slick with sweat.
Copying Lin Mo, he aimed at a row of straw targets thirty meters away and rapidly pulled the trigger.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The dense whistles blended together. This was not shooting arrows-it was spraying water!
In less than three seconds, all ten bolts in the magazine poured out, turning the five straw dummies ahead into heaps of shredded straw.
The whole process required only slotting multiple bowstrings into the gear notches while cocking it. After that, all he had to do was pull the trigger.
The trigger held the gear, and the gear held the bowstrings. Pulling the trigger once fired one bolt; holding it down fired continuously.
"Heavens!"
Every Elf was once again petrified.
If the Compound Bow had overturned everything they knew, then this Repeating Crossbow had pinned their understanding to the ground and ground it into the dirt.
The creation of the Compound Bow and Repeating Crossbow was merely the beginning.
The real show would come when the Elves' millennia of accumulated enchanting techniques met the pinnacle of Blue Star's industry.
The atmosphere in the workshop changed.
The once stubbornly conservative Master Elder now had bloodshot eyes and looked as excited as a madman about to sleep with another man's wife.
He cradled a freshly enchanted Compound Bow, gazing at it not as though it were a weapon, but a married woman stripped naked.
"Sir Lin Mo! Princess Fendona! Look at this!"
His voice was slightly hoarse. Pale cyan runes shimmered along the body of the Compound Bow.
The once cold mechanical structure now had something of the feel of a cosmetic skin with special effects.
Lin Mo's interest was piqued, too.
Magical enchantment?
Fendona immediately signaled for the strongest archer among her people-Leon-to step forward and test it.
Leon was a legend in the Elf Royal City, known as a walking, humanoid eagle-eye system. His vision was so keen that he could make out a butterfly's wings a thousand meters away.
He accepted the bow with a solemn expression.
He nocked an arrow and drew.
The instant the pulleys locked into place, a flicker of astonishment crossed his face.
Holding the bow at full draw so effortlessly made him feel he could keep aiming until the end of time.
"Target: stone target at five hundred meters!"
That was the maximum effective range of a traditional Elf longbow.
As magic flowed into the bow, pale cyan light flared.
Thrum!
The bowstring's report was deep and brief, but the arrow launched with a shrill whistle!
A pale cyan cone of airflow actually formed out of thin air around the arrow, reducing air resistance to an absolute minimum!
Lin Mo was slightly startled.
The black arrow became a blur in the air.
Five hundred meters away, the stone target exploded on impact!
It was not pierced-it exploded!
Stone fragments flew everywhere, as though it had been struck by a small-caliber cannon shell!
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