347: Individual equipment area

"Three hundred billion."

"I have only one requirement: reduce costs and increase production. I want this type of tower to one day be able to be planted in every strategic location throughout the Netherworld, just like the standard long spears of the Yin soldiers."

The Institute Director received the promissory note with both hands, his soul body trembling slightly from excitement. He bowed and replied, "Your subject accepts the decree!"

"The Research Institute will certainly not fail Your Majesty's trust. A cost-reduction plan is already in its initial stages, and substitute materials for divine blood are currently being verified..."

Shang Wan Ning's lips curled slightly upward.

[This Institute Director is quite sensible.]

[She likes subordinates who are good at calculating costs.]

"Hmm, the monthly salary for everyone in the Research Institute will be tripled." Her tone lightened a little. "For those with outstanding contributions, submit the list to the Jiaotai Palace, and I will personally approve five hundred incense offerings for you."

The ghostly geniuses who had won Nobel Prizes during their lifetimes and the military industry experts specially recruited after death all had the same ghostly flames rising in their eyes.

In the Netherworld, salary in the form of incense offerings was directly related to the foundation of one's cultivation, and the incense offerings personally approved by Her Majesty were even more like a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' that could ward off disasters on the path of reincarnation.

The Institute Director's soul body solidified by thirty percent; the heart's blood he had exhausted both in life and in death finally felt real at this moment.

He bowed and led the way, saying, "Your Majesty, Secretary-General, please this way. The Individual Equipment Zone has just completed its iteration testing."

Passing through three lead-gray blast doors, the density of spiritual energy in the air soared abruptly.

The simulated light source from the dome focused on the circular display stand, where seven rows of weapon racks gleamed with a cold, hard matte finish.

"Armor-piercing series, codename 'star shatterer'." The Institute Director stopped in front of the first row of weapon racks and picked up a launcher about half an arm's length long.

The streamlined casing was covered in spatial runes, and the temperature of the tube body was a full ten degrees lower than the surroundings.

"Your Majesty, this is a spore compression shell."

"Upon instantaneous firing, the temperature reaches minus two hundred degrees. It can directly freeze and shatter the protective qi of anyone below the fifth tier."

He flicked the safety catch open with his thumb. "The tube body has a built-in spatial effect and automatically locks onto targets after firing. A third-tier cultivator can use it just by pulling the trigger, with a maximum range of thirty kilometers."

Shang Wan Ning took the 'star shatterer' and braced the base of the tube against her shoulder socket. The scope automatically latched onto her divine sense, and the dark steel target heart ten kilometers away instantly magnified hundreds of times in her vision, clearly visible.

She pulled the trigger.

"Whoosh..."

The recoil exploded violently, shaking her phoenix robe and causing its wide sleeves to flutter backward. The shrill whistle of the compression shell tearing through the yin energy was short and ear-piercing.

Ink-blue frost flowers exploded at the target's center.

A second later, the hundred-meter-thick dark steel target quietly disintegrated, shattering into ice shards all over the ground.

"It's lighter than the first-generation Type 79 rocket launcher." Ling Qi pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting streams of data.

"The individual carrying capacity can be increased to eight rounds."

Shang Wan Ning put down the 'star shatterer', a flash of appreciation in her eyes. "Not bad, both power and portability have been improved."

The Institute Director looked proud and quickly walked to the second row of weapon racks, where a spherical device slowly rose from the rack.

He held a fist-sized metal ball in his palm, its surface covered with dense pores. "Interference type, codename 'Sky Obscurer'."

"It's a vaporized preparation of Bone-Corroding Vine juice and Wangchuan River water, specifically designed to break divine sense detection. After detonation, it covers a radius of one kilometer, compressing the divine sense perception of anyone below the sixth tier to within three inches of their body."

He squeezed the safety layer of the shell with his fingers, and gray mist immediately poured out from the pores.

The gray mist surged wildly as soon as it touched the ground, swallowing half the exhibition area within three seconds.

Shang Wan Ning suppressed her own cultivation to the sixth tier and then released her divine sense. Her perception, which could usually cover the entire Research Institute, was now compressed to within three steps.

A sound of metal friction came from the gray mist, and four fifth-tier puppets lunged at Shang Wan Ning from different directions.

She circulated her spiritual energy, instantly repelling the approaching puppets. The gray mist suddenly rolled and tightened, condensing into four chains that bound the puppets' joints.

Ling Qi stood at the console, her hand just leaving the button. "Your Majesty, the fog zone has a built-in friend-or-foe identification function; friendly units can call upon the fog to restrain targets..."

"Good!!!"

The gray mist dissipated, and the Bone-Corroding Vine juice at the puppets' joints was 'hissing' as it corroded the alloy, leaving behind a large area of fine holes.

"Assault type, codename 'Swarm'."

The Institute Director pointed to the third row of weapon racks, and the rack popped out a rectangular metal box.

He slowly opened the lid, and a buzzing sound immediately rang out; hundreds of shuttle-shaped projectiles were neatly arranged in the box, their warheads flickering with eerie green spiritual patterns.

"Each projectile is parasitized by three hundred Vine Demon Insects, capable of automatically locking onto targets and piercing armor below the sixth tier."

"When the shell fragments, the demon insects will inject themselves alive into the target's meridians and energy center." The Institute Director pressed the launch button, and the metal box stand unfolded into a turret; a hundred projectiles poured toward the moving target group ahead like a rainstorm.

"Pfft, pfft, pfft..."

The muffled sounds of the projectiles drilling through the fifth-tier alloy targets merged into one. The hit targets twitched back and forth, and a circle of wandering green spots bulged on their surfaces.

Five seconds later, the green spots exploded, and the Bone-Corroding Vine pierced out from inside the alloy, instantly twisting the targets into a pile of scrap metal.

"Controlled by a fourth-tier cultivator, the limit for killing fifth-tier targets is twenty," the Institute Director added, his tone filled with pride.

Shang Wan Ning walked to the fourth row of weapon racks, where a long sword, entirely dark blue, was suspended on a magnetic base, its hilt wrapped in biological nerve bundles and glowing faintly.

"Your Majesty, this is the ultimate melee model, called the 'Styx Light Blade'." The Institute Director lowered his voice slightly. "The hilt is embedded with a micro-singularity reactor, which can extract forty percent of the user's spiritual energy and convert it into annihilation-type energy."

"The blade is in an energy state, with a constant cutting temperature of about one hundred thousand degrees."

The moment he grasped the hilt, the dark blue light blade 'hummed' as it sprang out, two feet eight inches long, the light flow collapsing into a dark brown thin line at the edge of the blade.

He casually swung it at a test pillar to the side; the pillar separated rapidly, the cut as smooth as a mirror.

The remaining thin line continued to devour the material of the cross-section.

"Old He, what about the spiritual energy consumption?" Shang Wan Ning became interested; lightsabers, which she couldn't see or touch in her past life, had actually been invented in this one.

"A fifth-tier cultivator with a full reserve of spiritual energy can sustain full-power combat for fifteen minutes."

The Institute Director extinguished the light blade and said, "It's enough to cut through the protective artifacts of a sixth-tier cultivator."

Shang Wan Ning raised her hand to signal.

The Secretary-General immediately detached the magnetic base of the 'Styx Light Blade' and presented it with both hands to the Empress.

Shang Wan Ning gripped the hilt with five fingers, and the biological nerve bundles automatically wrapped around her wrist bones.

A cold, biting sensation pierced directly into her Sea of Consciousness, and a wave of greedy suction came from inside the hilt, with spiritual energy from her energy center rapidly surging toward her right arm.

"Hum~"

The dark blue light blade surged to five feet, and Shang Wan Ning spun and slashed horizontally. The light blade traced a semicircle, and the dark iron target pillar a hundred meters ahead was severed at the waist.

As the upper half slid off, it was engulfed by the sword qi, turning into nothingness and disappearing without a trace.

"What is the production cost of this sword?" Shang Wan Ning turned her head to look at the Institute Director beside her and asked.

The Institute Director's throat rolled involuntarily, and he said with difficulty, "The cost per unit is... one point two billion incense offerings."