Ye Xiaobei sheathed his sword in confusion, scratching his head.
Beside her, Lu Shan quickly identified the newcomer by voice, a hint of awkwardness appearing on her face.
Unable to guess the senior’s intentions, Lu Shan could tell that the other party meant no harm, so she decided to wait and see.
Before long, a figure in a plain white robe slowly approached from the town, her posture graceful and elegant, but her face was hidden under a hood, stirring curiosity.
Could this be some ageless hermit?
It really was a Magical Girl.
“Hehe, no need to worry about who I am, girl.”
Ye Xiaobei was slightly startled, about to feel confused, when she noticed that her sweat-soaked clothes were clinging to her body, revealing her slender figure. Embarrassed, she hunched over.
“Oh, girl, I can see you have an extraordinary bone structure; you’re destined for greatness. Are you interested in learning my self-created new martial art?”
Su Mu smiled mysteriously, pulling out from behind her the masterpiece she had squeezed out of Tang Yin.
Ye Xiaobei took the long, smooth black tube in confusion. Her first reaction was to grab the barrel: “Use the buttstock to hit people, but this shape doesn’t look like it’s meant for that…”
“Senior, what is this?”
Su Mu gave a sinister smile, the corner of her mouth curling up from the shadows.
“This is my unique hidden weapon. I call it—Miss M14. That’s right, just an ordinary M14 designated marksman rifle.”
Most of its materials could be replaced with substitutes, and the rest could be replaced by Su Mu’s silk threads. And so, such a modern firearm was born in this dream world that reflected several hundred years ago.
Here, all its problems were solved. As a firearm with good performance and ballistics but worrying recoil, Ye Xiaobei, though her martial arts were sparse, could at least wield dozens of pieces of the black iron sword, so she certainly wouldn’t fail to control the recoil of a gun.
Su Mu pretended to aim, but in fact she didn’t know much about shooting. However, the technique was just three points in a line, and the rest could be left to the dream world’s auto-adjustment.
As long as you believe you’ll hit, you’ll definitely hit!
The next moment, Su Mu pulled the trigger. The bullet burst out of the chamber with a fierce, sharp howl.
The sound was like thunder, the speed like lightning. A flash of fire, and smoke billowed from the muzzle. Shortly after, the sound of a child crying in fright came from a nearby house.
Lu Shan had only been curious at first, but upon sensing the terrifying speed of the bullet, her face showed shock, followed by a heart full of lingering fear.
‘If someone aimed at her without warning, would she be able to react in time and intercept it? The best method would be to use the Seek Immortal Technique to meld into the shadows.’
‘Of course, if she could track the trajectory of that hidden weapon, she might also try to manipulate its shadow, thereby altering its path.’
But regardless, just by feeling it, Lu Shan knew that this object had the power to threaten first-rate martial arts experts. However, in the martial arts tournament, a surprise move couldn’t be used repeatedly. If she were prepared and watched for the moment the opponent pulled the trigger, then this so-called M14 would likely pose no threat to her…
“Come on, girl, give it a try. This time, try to press the trigger all the way down.”
Ye Xiaobei nodded solemnly, then imitated Su Mu, aiming the muzzle at the grass and trees in the distance, and opened fire fiercely.
“Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat…”
A continuous series of rapid, sharp howls assaulted the ears of everyone around. The muzzle flashes briefly illuminated the dust on the ground.
The birds in the air were terrified out of their wits and scattered in all directions. The crying child in the house had stopped crying and seemed to have fallen asleep peacefully.
“Senior, this is so much easier to use than a sword!”
Su Mu smiled slightly, having already expected this reaction.
“Senior, this is so much easier to use than a sword!”
Although there were firearms in ancient times, compared to this thing, they were like incompetent kindergarten children, firing softly and unable to travel far against the wind.
Hearing the girl’s confusion, Su Mu just mysteriously raised her index finger to her lips.
“But, senior, why did you choose me?”
“Secret.”
Ye Xiaobei scratched her head in confusion. She wasn’t good at overthinking, so she simply changed the question.
Su Mu turned around and said leisurely, “Then what is this martial art called?”
“This—is Gun Combat Art!”
Nine days later, after several nights of shooting training, Ye Xiaobei had mastered the use of the firearm, even able to hit exactly where she aimed and make bullets curve. Su Mu called the former “headlock” and the latter “magic bullets.”
There was also infinite ammunition, because Su Mu hadn’t told Ye Xiaobei the concept of bullets. She only told her that consuming internal energy would allow continuous firing, and accordingly, the trajectory could also be controlled with internal energy. Soon, Ye Xiaobei realized many of these techniques and could now stand on her own.
The first task she received from Su Mu was to challenge the Meishan Two Brothers and establish her reputation.
To participate in the martial arts tournament and become the number one under heaven, it wasn’t enough to just sign up. You also needed enough prestige for people to remember your name. Otherwise, countless arrogant small fries would show up, and the process would drag on until next month.
If it came down to numbers, it would turn into the Five Great Sects attacking Bright Summit together. Even if she, Ye Qing, were strong, she would eventually run out of internal energy. Then everyone would swarm and knock her down, and the outcome would certainly be unsatisfactory.
So to get the entry qualification, one had to obtain a token from Heavenly Origin Mansion. Generally, renowned first-rate martial artists in the martial world obtained it by challenging the messengers of Heavenly Origin Mansion.
The prerequisite was that tokens were sent out in the previous month, with a fixed number of one hundred. After that, one could only obtain them by challenging the Heavenly Origin Mansion messengers. Of course, those with ill intentions could use sinister means to snatch tokens from others, or buy them with a large sum of money. Heavenly Origin Mansion did not forbid this, after all, the so-called number one under heaven wasn’t necessarily determined purely by martial arts.
Currently, Ye Xiaobei’s biggest problem was that she had no usable token.
First, she absolutely couldn’t bring herself to ask the elders in the mansion for one. That behavior was too shameful; even someone as slow as she could realize that.
But now that the one-month period had begun and no more tokens were being distributed, she couldn’t just test the hidden weapon’s power on the mansion’s seniors. So she had to find another way: seize the token from the Two Brothers.
The Meishan Two Brothers together received one token. Because they always fought together as one, they were treated as an exception and considered a single entity, so a token was issued to them. During the tournament, they would also fight together.
Although it sounded suspiciously like bullying by numbers, most experts only cared about strength and rarely bothered with such trivial matters, so they tacitly allowed this situation.
Correspondingly, this meant that Ye Xiaobei using a gun to participate in the martial arts tournament was also a feasible path…