CH 25

“Alright, we’ll put these compound bows away and put them in the storeroom of the castle.” Liu Feng was helpless. He had to hide treasures whenever he has some. Too advanced might not be a good thing.

“Young master, it’s mostly because we can’t fully utilize the power of this compound bow. It’s a waste to give it to us. It’s better for us to have a recurve bow.” Mina shook her ears and said softly.

“Indeed, only people on the level of divine archers can exert the full power of this compound bow,” Niu Ben nodded in agreement.

“Divine archers? What counts as divine archers?” Liu Feng was a bit curious.

Mina’s eyes narrowed slightly and said in a serious tone, “All elves are naturally born divine archers. They can hit targets from dozens of meters away using regular longbows. If they use compound bows, they could probably hit targets 200 meters away.”

“You saw people from the elven¹ race?” Liu Feng was surprised. It was stronger than a few pistols. It seems like he couldn’t underestimate the people of this world.

“I have encountered them a few times in the Secluded Forbidden Mountains Range,” Mina said, nodding her head.

A trace of sadness flashed in Niu Ben’s eyes, and he said, “I saw some by chance in the capital.”

Liu Feng frowned, thinking that elves aren’t simple, since they were admired by the two. He was also curious if the elves had pointy ears or not.

If there was a chance, he must abduct… cough cough… invite some elves to serve him. It would also be good to form an elven divine archer team. This might be the other world version of a sniper unit.

“Young master, although the recurve bow is very good, but it would take several months in order to let the newbie soldiers learn how to use it and be able to shoot accurately.” Niu Ben calmed his mood and went directly to the main point.

The corner of Liu Feng’s mouth rose. He had already considered this problem. He asked, “As of now, how many people can master the recurve bow within 10 days?”

Niu Ben took out a roll of sheepskin, and said, “There are 20 people who are hunters. They constantly use bow and arrows to hunt, so it shouldn’t be difficult for them to master the recurve bow.”

“Very good. There’s a few more than I thought. Give them the recurve bows for them to use.” Liu Feng came to another box and took out a crossbow.² This was his killer weapon.

“Young master, is this also a bow and arrow? It seems a bit small,” Mina said curiously.

“Look at how I use it first.” Liu Feng quickly loaded the arrow, aimed at the target, and pulled the trigger.

“Whoosh!”

The arrow immediately nailed on the bulleyes, which made Mina’s and Niu Ben’s eyes glow.

“Young master let me try.” Niu Ben took the crossbow and shot 7 or 8 shots in a row.

“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!” Mina also had a lot of fun.

“How is it? With this crossbow, even people who don’t know how to use bows can hit hit people after training for a dozen days, right?” Liu Feng said, smiling.

“No problem. This is a bit easier, and we only need to exercise arm strength,” Niu Ben said excitedly.

“Ok, then I’ll give these to you. I want at least 50 archers. You can do the rest yourself.” Liu Feng would be invincible after he has 50 archers in this era where the combat power is low. Of course, the opponents can’t have numbers that exceed his too much.³

There are also heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, which were still in process. Once he increases the production of steel, Liu Feng would really be invincible. Liu Feng was excited when he thought of steel. He hadn’t expect there to be an iron mine and a coal mine not far from Xi Yang City.

However, the iron-making technology of this era is behind, and so the amount of iron produced annually was horribly small.

After Liu Feng took out the steel crafting method,⁴ the iron craftsmen almost fainted from excitement. Of course, they were now obediently crafting steel for Liu Feng.

Under Liu Feng’s request, the amount of steel produced increased each day.

Liu Feng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when coal was discovered. The people of this era didn’t know that coal could be burned. They still used wood, and people mostly used charcoal.

Speaking of the discovery of coal, Liu Feng was lucky. He saw a few naughty kids playing with coal on the streets. Looking at the black coal from far away, he had thought it was a gem, but when he got a closer look, he realized that it was coal.

After a series of questions, Liu Feng finally learned that there was a natural open-pit coal mine. It would be a lot easier to craft iron with coal. Liu Feng also had a few plans that required coal. Sometimes, energy represented civilization.

“Let’s go! Let’s see whether or not those craftsmen made what I want or not.” Liu Feng took Mina out of the warehouse, leaving Niu Ben to arrange everything.

They went to the mountain behind the castle when they got out of the military camp. There were many hidden workshops, no, in Earth’s words, they were laboratories.

Excluding the military camp, Liu Feng had invested the most gold coins in those workshops. Maybe in the future, Liu Feng would invest more and more into these workshops, because these were the other world version of laboratories. Of course, they were very simple right now, with there only being wooden houses and few people.

When Liu Feng came to this place, he saw a few people holding rocks and yelling, while Niu Wu was holding a sword and blocking them.

“Quickly get out of the way, I need to tell Lord City Lord that we succeeded, we really succeeded…”

Niu Wu was unmoved and said, “If you have anything to say, you can just tell it to me and I will transfer help you transfer the method. Without Lord Liu Feng’s warrant, none of you can leave.”

Translator’s Notes:

¹ That’s a word, right? Right???

² The author wrote 军弩, which means military crossbow, but when I looked it up in both Chinese and English, I couldn’t find anything about it, so I just put in (regular) crossbow.

³ That’s not even invincible though.

⁴ 炒钢法. Literally, fry steel method. It’s an actual method to make steel, but I couldn’t find the name in English. I don’t really know how it works, but this method involves heating steel into liquid and adding in iron ore powder(?).