Chapter 854: Robbery
The Martyr’s Palace took to the skies in the dark night and traversed the golden twilight clouds over the Eastern Sea.
At this moment, there were close to a hundred sailors and technicians rushing about the airship, most of them people Song Zining had brought.
The palace’s control didn’t take too many people with Qianye around, so most of the staff were engineers working to install all kinds of equipment and facilities. At the very least, a small sealed area had formed around the Earth Dragon’s heart, and a dozen or so lower cabins had been constructed—these engineers wouldn’t need to sleep out in the open any longer.
The five kinetic sails had been fully installed, which eased Qianye’s work quite a bit in terms of control. He only needed to maintain the airship itself in a state of flight, while the crew adjusted their bearing via the sails. This form of steering was naturally less flexible compared to controlling the Martyr’s Palace itself, but it freed Qianye from having to pay constant attention to the direction.
As someone seeing the dragonship in action for the first time, Ji Tianqing was fairly excited about everything. She scuttled through every part of the vessel with Song Zining in tow, asking countless questions everywhere. At first, Song Zining had wanted to push this responsibility onto Qianye, but after visiting a couple of places, he felt that he had no choice but to face the lady himself. That was because her questions were all related to supply, demand, and prices.
After running once around the airship, Her Excellency Miss Tianqing’s grand plans formally came into being. According to her elderly grace, the Martyr’s Palace should be built into a peerless super warship that could suppress any Evernight airship. Those, whatever, Apocalypse or Eternal Darkness should kneel before the Martyr’s Palace or flee on sight.
Of course, Miss Tianqing wasn’t quite satisfied with the vessel’s name, either. She felt that the name Martyr’s Palace wasn’t tyrannical enough and that it should be changed to H.M.S. Tianqing for perfection.
When the young miss threw out her construction plans, it was definitely more powerful than Bluemoon’s original design. To speak nothing of the other stuff, the earth-dragon powered main-cannon of hers that could destroy any regular battleship in one shot from fifty kilometers away had never appeared in this world before.
According to her concept, this legendary giant cannon wasn’t an impossible feat. It was just that the price involved would also go well beyond human imagination and feasibility. Disregarding whether or not it could really be constructed, the funds required to purchase all the parts would exceed Bluemoon’s entire budget projection.
In other words, the capital required to reconstruct the entire Martyr’s Palace wasn’t enough to build Miss Tianqing’s ideal cannon—and that was only the value of the components. More often than not, the processing and engineering for main cannons were more expensive than the parts themselves.
No wonder Song Zining’s expression turned increasingly ashen as Ji Tianqing grew more and more excited. This was only the main cannon. Naturally, there were other auxiliary equipment that had to accompany the weapon. In the end, this so-called H.M.S. Tianqing would probably require a heavenly monarch to control.
This kind of fantasy-grade warship was indeed boundless in power and could probably shoot through Twilight Continent on its own. The problem was that its construction costs would equal half of the imperial fleet, something the empire had accumulated over centuries.
Qianye was completely puzzled as he listened in from the sidelines. It was probably a good thing that he couldn’t understand many of the things Ji Tianqing was talking about. Song Zining, on the other hand, was inexplicably distressed and anxious.
Miss Tianqing wasn’t daydreaming, though. The plans she had proposed were actually things that could be done, at least in theory. The only problem was that the cost would be too high.
The Song clan had always been extremely wealthy. The seventh young master was more or less influenced by his upbringing and possessed a similar character. He had built the Ningyuan Group from the ground up and led it to great success, even gaining connections with the Twin Paragons of the empire. In terms of fortune, it could be said that Song Zining was number one among the younger generation.
Hence, the words “too expensive” were as heavy as a mountain to him. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.
After listening for some time, Qianye finally understood what was going on and he couldn’t help but cut short Ji Tianqing’s grandiose speech. “This… Tianqing… we really can’t afford that.”
“No one’s telling you to pay up on the spot, what are you afraid of?”
“We can’t afford it in the future, either.”
“Go and rob! What are the neutral lands for if not to rob money and women?”
Qianye was also defeated before the young miss’ bandit-like intent.
Ji Tianqing slapped Qianye firmly on the shoulder. “It’s all settled then! We can take our time thinking about the remodeling plans, just change the name to H.M.S. Tianqing for now. That doesn’t cost money, does it?”
Qianye glanced at the girl’s hand on his shoulder and frowned. Ji Tianqing gave him another pat, saying, “What? Don’t tell me you’re going to scream molester?”
He didn’t scream, but he did fall into deep contemplation.
“Boring." A pouty Ji Tianqing muttered thus before running off to see other stuff on the airship.
Song Zining came over to offer words of consolation. “Don’t think too much, I can’t evade her, either.”
People at their level of combat arts could sense external objects approaching. One would need to be completely unguarded in order to perform an intimate action like slapping each other’s shoulders. Yet, Ji Tianqing’s seemingly casual slap was actually an outstanding secret art that could mask all hostile intent, thus preventing the target’s reaction.
With Ji Tianqing’s ability, it wouldn’t be a problem for her to quickly raise her origin power to the max. This also meant that she could heavily injure Qianye and Song Zining at any given moment.
It would seem the seventh young master had openly accepted this fact. That was why he had come over to console Qianye.
Who would’ve thought that Qianye would roll his eyes at him, saying, “You might not be able to evade her, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.”
Startled, Song Zining asked, “Then why did you look like you were so dejected?”
“To make her speak less.”
“... Qianye, you’ve really learned bad things.”
The Martyr’s Palace flew quietly through the night and unknowingly arrived above Southern Blue. It hovered around the edge of the void, at a distance even a divine champion couldn’t sense.
Three figures flew out of the palace and charged toward the city below—Ji Tianqing, Qianye, and Song Zining.
The three went through a complete freefall in the beginning. After falling halfway and reaching less than a thousand meters from the ground, Song Zining suddenly opened his folding fan. The trio was surrounded by the faint glow of spring and a warm breeze, almost as though there was a giant, invisible hand supporting their bodies and breaking the momentum of their fall.
It was just that the three were falling too violently and the seventh young master just had to project some beautiful scenery at the expense of increased workload. Hence, his face turned pale from exhaustion not long afterward.
Qianye snorted as his own domain flickered into being. The power of the great ocean vortex was as sturdy as the mountains and actually slowed down their fall. The maelstrom’s power canceled out the fall little by little until they were descending rather gently.
Qianye was still far inferior in terms of softness. Song Zining’s Three Thousand Flying Leaves art was as gentle and silent as spring water, while Qianye’s Oceanic Vortex was firm and fierce. Even Ji Tianqing was surprised by the latter's ability to utilize his domain to such a level.
As surprised as she was, the young miss seemed to have no intention of putting in any effort. She clung onto Qianye with an attitude that said if we die, we die together.
During this kind of high altitude jump, bringing someone along was neither too hard nor too easy. Qianye had no other choice but to let her treat him as a manual laborer.
Qianye’s domain erupted as the three of them were a hundred or so meters from the ground. This time, however, the near-linear force forced them into a horizontal flight toward the city center.
The moment Qianye released his domain, two auras—a stronger one and a weaker one—surged up from the city lord’s residence. The more powerful one was naturally Ji Rui’s and the other was Guan Zhongliu’s. It was just that the latter’s aura had weakened quite a bit, quite likely a consequence of the shockwave produced by the Wolf King.
Qianye was about to speak when Song Zining said coldly, “Ignore them!”
“Exactly!” Ji Tianqing wanted nothing more than to sow chaos.
Helpless to do anything, Qianye stood hovering over the city and locked onto a certain objective.
Many mercenary corps had set up their base of operation in Southern Blue. These bases were actually no more than large courtyards and weren’t even allowed to build cannon turrets. In truth, not many of them could afford cannon turrets, especially the large ones that required support from a kinetic tower.
Qianye memorized the distribution of mercenary corps in just a glance, quickly picking out several candidate targets to compare and contrast. Just as he was matching them against the information from his memory, Song Zining dived down all of a sudden.
“Let’s go, what are you waiting for!?” Ji Tianqing followed hot on his heels with Qianye in tow.
“You’ve finished selecting?” Qianye, who felt his strategic skills had improved, was greatly set back.
“What’s there to pick? Just grab the biggest one!”
Qianye was beaten down even more. It would seem thinking too much wasn’t a good idea. either.
Frost Wolf Mercenary Corps was one of the most famous corps in Southern Blue, the absolute pride of their leader of the same name, Frost Wolf. He was also intelligent enough to know that their fame was limited to Southern Blue and that they were nothing outside of the city.
Hence, he had always adopted a stable strategy and followed firmly in the city lord’s footsteps, only doing business with the major merchants of the city. Although the profits generated from such deals weren't much, the risk was always quite small as well. Frost Wolf had grown bigger and bigger over the span of a dozen years. Even their courtyard had been expanded twice. Frost Wolf was recently pondering whether it was time to build a couple of cannon towers. The defense was secondary; the primary issue was to display one’s might.
At this moment, there were two miniature cannon tower models on the table in front of him. They were highly realistic and could be disassembled to reveal the internal components. The parts that could be adjusted or moved was clearly indicated.
Looking at these two cannon towers, he felt both delighted and worried.
Just as he was fretting about this matter, he heard a massive bang as the chamber door was kicked flying!
The development was too sudden and devoid of all warning signs. As a rank-thirteen expert himself, Frost Wolf sensed nothing up until his door was kicked down.
Outside of the door, Ji Tianqing lowered her raised leg and walked in with large strides. Observing every part of the room, she said, “Quite well maintained I must say.”
Frost Wolf took two steps back, and with his back pressed against the wall, he asked, “You are?”
Whoever it was, he knew he wasn’t this person’s match.
“We’re here to rob,” thus said Miss Tianqing.