Chapter 406: The Birth of the Elves’ Nemesis

Bang!

A flash of fire burst from the barrel, and the lead bullet shot out, slamming into a suit of armor not far away, leaving a deep dent where it struck.

Wu Qingsong quickly reloaded and fired again. This time, he missed slightly, hitting the stand holding the armor instead. But the result was even more dramatic: one of the wooden pillars was blown apart and splintered into fragments.

Several members of Dark Moon stepped forward to inspect the damage to the armor, quietly murmuring in surprise.

The river water flowed noisily by. The moonlight was dim. In such a place, at such an hour, it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon their small boat—nor would they notice what they were doing.

“The power is decent, but the flash and noise are serious problems,” an older man muttered. “What’s the range?”

“Within a hundred meters, it can kill unarmored targets,” Wu Qingsong said. “But accuracy at that range is unreliable. Within fifty meters, you can expect a decent hit. Within thirty meters, near certain.”

“The range and accuracy are terrible,” another man said. “And the firing rate is slow too.”

“But the power is undeniable,” the first elder countered. “If this armor were worn by a man, the shot might not kill him outright, but it would certainly knock him down. If it hit a limb…”

“I wonder how it fares against magic shields?”

“We’ll have to test that soon.”

“This weapon should be very effective for close-range ambushes.”

“But an assassin won’t get a second shot.”

“Even an ordinary slave could fire this. It requires far less training than a bow or crossbow.”

Wu Qingsong stood silently to the side, listening to their discussion. He had fulfilled his responsibility; how Dark Moon chose to use the weapon after this was none of his concern.

“What about the contents of that little paper packet?” Red Moon asked, pointing to another critical matter.

“I call it gunpowder,” Wu Qingsong explained. “When ignited, it rapidly produces a large amount of gas, pushing the bullet out of the barrel at high speed. It’s made by evenly mixing finely ground charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. I’ll give you a basic formula, but due to purity issues, you’ll have to test and adjust it each time you make a batch.”

“Gunpowder…” Red Moon nodded thoughtfully.

“This stuff is extremely dangerous. You must keep it away from any open flames during manufacturing.”

Red Moon stared at Wu Qingsong for a long while, making him a little uneasy, before finally sighing softly.

“Sometimes I really wonder… so many different things, unrelated, even contradictory. How do they all come out of your head?”

Wu Qingsong coughed awkwardly, trying to shake off the discomfort, and changed the subject. “Did you find anything from what I asked you to look into?”

“Still investigating,” Red Moon said. “It’s not that simple.”

“We don’t have much time. The sooner, the better.”

After arriving in the capital, he had begun quietly searching for the tombs of elven nobles.

But they weren’t hidden or remote as he had imagined. The tombs of great figures were usually proud monuments—huge stone memorials or even colossal sacred trees, often placed conspicuously within their family estates. Wu Qingsong observed carefully and realized it would be nearly impossible to sneak in unnoticed and awaken the long-dead.

After all, the stronger the target, the more effort and time it would take for him to erase their personality and memories. When he awakened Boulder, it had taken him a full ten days. If it were a powerful elven mage, it might take even longer. He wasn’t confident that he could stay under someone’s nose for ten days without being discovered.

He didn’t believe he could hide under the elves’ noses for that long without being discovered.

Thus, his only hope lay in tombs that had been forgotten and buried by the dust of history.

This was not something he could accomplish alone. He needed Dark Moon’s long-established underground networks in the capital to find them.

There might be some within Dark Moon who didn’t wish for his success, but Wu Qingsong believed that if he could awaken powerful dead elves and turn them into a force opposing the Empire, it would benefit Dark Moon’s cause too. Some people would certainly be happy to see that happen.

At Dark Moon’s secret base, Wu Qingsong dismantled the musket and explained the basic manufacturing concepts to their craftsmen. Of course, he withheld key details about mass production, standardization, and quality control.

He also taught them the method for preparing gunpowder. The alchemist Red Moon had brought in was highly skilled; he not only quickly purified charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter, but even demonstrated purification methods Wu Qingsong had never thought of.

For example, dissolving an excess of saltpeter in hot water, filtering out impurities, cooling the solution to precipitate pure crystals—repeating this several times yielded very high-purity saltpeter.

Sulfur, too, could be purified by careful heating in a special vessel, capturing and recondensing the vapor to produce nearly pure elemental sulfur.

Thanks to these methods, the gunpowder they produced was significantly more powerful and compact than what Wu Qingsong had carried, and of far more reliable quality.

It was somewhat embarrassing to realize that while he came to teach them, he himself ended up being taught, but Wu Qingsong wouldn’t mind experiencing more of that kind of embarrassment.

Dark Moon’s craftsmen even managed to produce an improved musket, using unknown metal alloys to forge barrels capable of withstanding higher powder loads.

Following Wu Qingsong’s suggestion, they rifled the barrels, dramatically improving the guns’ power, accuracy, and effective range.

After fitting them with crude scopes, they had created the first sniper rifle this world had ever seen, with an effective range reaching a staggering two hundred meters after repeated refinements.

Tests showed that musket bullets could still be blocked by active magical shields. But against an unprepared target, or one without magical protection, they could still kill with a single shot.

“This weapon will change everything!” one of the elder craftsmen said excitedly to Wu Qingsong.

Legendary mages were terrifying, but to become a legend, one needed talent, opportunity, resources, and luck, all combined. The real backbone of the elven empire was not the handful of legends, but the countless mages, magic warriors, and arcane archers who might never break through that final threshold.

If this weapon could kill them, then Dark Moon would truly have the power to change the world.