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He had only managed to walk some distance before bumping into a squad of heavily armed soldiers on their way to the White Ash Forest. As the soldiers caught sight of Yan Liqiang, each and every single one of them smiled as they greeted him.

"Yeah. It would be a waste if I don’t put the fine bow that Big Brother Zhou gifted me yesterday to good use. I mustn’t disappoint Big Brother Zhou after all his goodwill..." laughed Yan Liqiang heartily. "Oh right, big brothers, are all of you going to patrol around the White Ash Forest today?"

"Quarter Master Qian ordered all of us to be on alert these few days and tighten the security as well as increase the frequency of our patrols around the quarter!"

Yan Liqiang was slightly taken aback, but realization soon dawned on him as he understood Qian Su’s intentions. The moment the news of what happened at the Lu Residence spread, then everyone would know that he was currently staying in the Weaponsmiths Quarter. Hence the reason for Qian Su’s request for the quarter’s soldiers to make their rounds more often was indirectly for his protection.

Yan Liqiang gnashed his teeth quietly as he recalled feeling the cold peering eyes hidden in the shadows last night when he returned to the quarter.

In his previous life, he had always assumed that working hard to earn money every day was the most stressful thing to do. But this was when he was living in a peaceful and quiet environment. Because of that, he had never been exposed to any life-threatening situations and had never experienced any form of imminent crisis before. Naturally, he was never aware of the fact that the peaceful and stable environment he was in before was hard earned. But after experiencing this world for a few days here in this life, the trepidation that struck him instantly made Yan Liqiang feel the immense pressure to survive. This had nothing to do with earning money; this time, it was his own life and safety that was threatened.

Yan Liqiang conversed with the squad of soldiers as they walked together. Only when they finally reached the White Ash Forest on the hillside located near the Weaponsmith Quarter, did they go their separate ways.

Yan Liqiang walked up the hill as the squad of soldiers patrolled around the exterior of the Weaponsmiths Quarter and White Ash Forest. Because if this place were to be under siege, invaders would come in through the walls at the base of the hillside. It was impossible for them to come down from the top of the hill due to the fact that crossing the Weaponsmiths Quarter was the only way to head up the hill.

Yan Liqiang surmised that the unknown individual who was spying on him from the shadows last night did not have the guts to barge into the Weaponsmiths Quarter to stir up trouble. It was important to note that the Weaponsmiths Quarter was an important location for military operations, a part of the country’s specialized law enforcement organization. Though the place may seem tranquil, however, if anything were to happen, it would be the cause of a huge ruckus. Forget about the Hong Clan’s hired hitman, even if it were violent and desperate criminals, none of them would dare to casually charge into this important location for the military as that was the same as having a death wish.

Therefore, as long as he remained in the Weaponsmiths Quarter, that unknown individual wouldn’t be able to do anything to him.

He was carrying the bow on his back and had the quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder as he went up through his usual path. It didn’t take Yan Liqiang long to arrive at the location near the hilltop, the place he used for daily practice.

The sun had risen not long ago and the life force in the mountain forest was flourishing. The environment looked as if it had just woken up from its slumber, there were birdsong and fragrant flowers all over the mountain forest.

Placing the bow and arrows he carried carefully against a boulder, Yan Liqiang meticulously surveyed his surroundings. Upon realizing that there wasn’t a single soul in the vicinity, only then did he feel reassured. After that, he moved around to the back of two boulders that were situated below the hillside. It was not far away from the empty land which he was in previously.

The back of the boulder was protected from the wind and could conceal him from view. There weren’t any plants on the ground in the vicinity, only stones. Even if his formulation of the gunpowder was successful, it wouldn’t start any fires. Regardless, water could be easily retrieved from the nearby brook. If smoke were to rise, it would instantly be blown away by the mountaintop wind, the people at the foot of the mountain would not see it.

Yan Liqiang crouched down behind the boulder and took out the fire rope that he had already prepared earlier on and the flint and steel. Then he began to test it.

Honestly speaking, if this was still the Earth of his previous life, Yan Liqiang wouldn’t have any worries regarding whether or not the gunpowder could be used after being formulated. However, Yan Liqiang was not confident deep down, due to there being too many things that his knowledge could not explain nor could he comprehend in this world.

Such cases included the Dharmic projection and phenomena that had occurred during his training, the emergence of the gigantic palm silhouette during Hong Tao’s performance of the Iron Palm, as well as the appearance of the illusory rhinodrake steed during his passing of the Horse Stance stage. Damn it! The martial arts and secret techniques of this world all carried the effects of illusory imagery that could resonate with the spiritual Qi and the energy of the Heaven and Earth. In addition to all that, the imagery that had appeared were incredibly strange and different in all aspects. They were even more exaggerated than the emerging imagery that was shown when the little universe from ‘Saint Seiya’ [1] had exploded. Who could actually use scientific logic to explain the theory behind this? And how could they explain to him the kinds of chemical transformations that had taken place during his martial arts training and cultivation of the energy of the Heaven and Earth?

The tool that he had used to start the fire was a flint and steel. For a person who was used to using a lighter, using a flint and steel to start a fire was too inconvenient, but he was already out of options. This was because in this world apart from using flint and steel; there existed another tool called a ‘match’ which was used for the same purpose. Making the match wasn’t cheap and was more time-consuming. Using it once would diminish their numbers by one, so usually, only rich households such as the Hong Clan or the Lu Clan would use it on a daily basis. Other than that, there was the fire lighting method commonly used by the military and the majority of the ordinary households, the relatively cheap and ever so convenient, portable flint and steel.

Yan Liqiang opened the waterproof leather cover of the embroidered pouch which contained the flint and steel and took out the flint and the tinder that it carried. Then holding the flint with his left hand, he pressed the tinder that was between the flint and his finger, while he grasping onto the embroidered pouch with his other hand. Striking the edge of the steel against the flint, he produced sparks from the flint with each strike. And after repetitively striking them together for a couple of more times, the produced sparks finally ignited the tinder and a flame was born.

After taking in a deep breath, Yan Liqiang placed one end of the completed fire rope into the flame.

The cotton paper of the exterior of the fire rope suddenly ignited...

It happened within the blink of an eye, barely even taking two seconds, the ignited fire rope burnt to the area where he set the gunpowder he created.

Yan Liqiang held his breath, his eyes widening...

There wasn’t any sound of gunpowder being ignited!

There weren’t any violent chemical reactions taking place!

Which meant it was impossible to create an explosion...

The cotton paper was still burning so the fire rope was as well. It was burning at a slow pace, similar to burning an incense, only that it was burning at a rate faster than the incense.

Smoke was coming out of the ignited fire rope and the fumes were full of the strong and concentrated smell of sulfur. This was precisely the same smell that sulfur would produce when set on fire.

Yan Liqiang was expectantly waiting for the explosive light, but what came to him in the end, was a smothered fart, instead.

It didn’t take long for the fire rope to burn until the end, leaving behind a pile of ashes. Among the ash pile, there were still traces of carbon powder and saltpeter powder which hadn’t been burnt completely.

Yan Liqiang was shocked. Could it be that this recipe was useless in this world?

He once again took out another fire rope to test again only to discover that the end result was the same.

Both the carbon and sulfur powder came from the Weaponsmiths Quarter so there shouldn’t be any issue with the raw materials. Also, when he bought the saltpeter, he had inspected it himself, so there shouldn’t be any fault there as well.

So if there were no issues with the raw materials and the recipe was correct, then was the item produced gunpowder or not?

Yan Liqiang was unwilling to give up just like that. He proceeded to take out the remaining three packets of unused carbon, sulfur and saltpeter powder from his clothes. He then began to carry out several different combination tests. After relentlessly testing over and over again for almost an entire morning, Yan Liqiang finally came to understand a certain truth more than four hours later. Although he didn’t understand why it turned out so, he was finally able to verify that in this world, it was indeed impossible to formulate gunpowder.

This wasn’t the only issue. According to Yan Liqiang’s knowledge, natural lodestone and magnetite practically couldn’t be found in this world.

Though compasses existed in this world, the magnetic needle of the compass found here was instead forged from a material called starry steel. Starry steel was basically a kind of iron from meteorites which fell from Heaven. There weren’t much in numbers so they were extremely costly. A small piece could only be found once in awhile. When compared with the worth of the starry steel, it was worth more than twenty times the price of gold.

What did this mean?

Without gunpowder, there wouldn’t be any hot weapons and firearms and cannons would never exist. Moreover, without a sufficient supply of natural lodestones and magnetite, that would mean that in the future, this world wouldn’t be able to harness generated electricity.

The ones to dictate this world would forever be martial power and cold weapons...