Chapter 524: The Stratagem Technique
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
“The bird automaton?”
When he first saw the flying bird, Meng Qi was stunned by its rough shape. It was all black, with iron plates on its wings. Its eyes had no vitality and seemed to be made out of brass. He almost mistook it for the zombie bird from the Nine Serenities. It was only after Jiang Zhiwei recognized it that Meng Qi thought,“Isn’t that the Flying Bird of the stratagem technique?”
There were a few small sects that had mastered the technique of mechanisms in his world. They could make all kinds of traps and mechanized items like the wooden ox and the wingless flying bird. But Meng Qi had never seen a bird automaton like this that could fly so freely in the air!
“Is this a portal? Have we been transported close to a sect of great stratagem techniques?”
The bird automaton glided around the mountain and into the clouds. Soon afterward, it was beyond the reach of their senses.
“A bird automaton that can fly so formidably is supposed to be from medieval times. It should have been lost long ago…” Jiang Zhiwei furrowed her brows as she spoke.
Upon hearing that, Meng Qi had other strange feelings. “Or is this a time travel door? Have we been transported back to medieval times?
“No that’s not right, the heaven and earth Vital Qi shouldn’t be so thin in the chaotic Demonic Buddha world from before.”
He looked at the village at the foot of the mountain and said with great interest, “Zhiwei, why don’t we descend the mountain and ask those people?”
The purpose of traveling was not only for fighting and challenges, but also for learning and experiencing things. Traveling thousands of miles and seeing thousands of different things was more important than just reading thousands of books.
Meng Qi’s temperament was such that seeing new things suited him very well.
Jiang Zhiwei was also very interested. She cheerfully looked at the smoke curling up at the foot of the mountain and said, “I wonder where we’ve arrived.”
They did not immediately descend the mountain, but flew to the crater of the volcano instead. They did not leave until they had closed the Plenitude Gate, put the token away, and erased their traces.
Then they flew down the mountain. Not knowing the local situation, they stopped flying before they reached the foot of the mountain and walked toward the village.
On the outskirts of the village, many fertile fields were being cleared for farming. There was a man in his 50s wearing a bamboo hat standing on the ridge of a field. In front of him, some cattle-automaton-like “wooden monsters” were dragging the plows and slowly advancing, turning the soil over.
From time to time, when the “cattle automatons” stopped, the semi-gray old man would quickly twist the mechanism. The cattle automatons then creaked again and went back to plowing. Many similar scenes in other fields could be seen in the distance.
The old man wiped away his sweat and walked back to the ridge. Suddenly, he saw a man and a woman on the main road. The man was dressed in black and carried a long sword. Handsome and smiling, he looked both relaxed and easy-going. The woman was dressed in light yellow. She was pretty and graceful and carried a long sword as well. They walked over side by side, and the skirts of their clothing drifted lightly with the wind. It was really picturesque.
Seeing Meng Qi and Jiang Zhiwei observing his fields, the old man warmly greeted them. “Are you paying a visit here?”
Although the words were slightly different, they managed to understand him. Apparently, their languages had the same origin… Meng Qi just smiled. “No, sir. We were just passing by and saw you caught up in your work. It’s really amazing, so we had to take a look for ourselves.”
The semi-gray-haired old man said with a laugh, “I guess you’re interested in these cattle automatons.”
He smacked his lips with an air of pride. “This was improved by our Scholar Xie. It’s much better than the clumsy and heavy cattle automatons that we used to use! He was admitted to be a scholar when he was only 16. Quite a few Sages and Earls said that he had a kna… what-do-you-call-it? He was bound to be a Sage and become a real automaton architect.”
“Automaton architect?” Meng Qi and Jiang Zhiwei looked at each other. “The villagers here are real experts of mechanism techniques.”
“Scholar Xie is really talented.” Meng Qi praised him after the old man finished speaking.
The old man grinned from ear to ear as if he himself had been praised. Suddenly, he spotted someone and shouted loudly, “Scholar Xie, Scholar Xie, you have a visitor!”
It was a 16- or 17-year-old teenager wearing a scarf and a black robe. He had a round face and was concentrated on helping one of the farmers fix a cattle automaton.
Hearing the old man call him, he put down his tools and made his way toward them with a brown puppy following behind.
One of the dog’s feet was made out of wood. It seemed to be a prosthetic, but it did not affect the dog’s running.
Scholar Xie stopped beside the old man, feeling reserved in front of these two fairy-like guests.
“Are you looking for me?”
“We just heard this gentleman talking about you. We’d really like to meet someone so talented in stratagem techniques,” Meng Qi said with a smile.
Scholar Xie scratched his head. “Well, I’ve just had good luck.”
His cheeks were red with a hint of a smile. He was actually delighted about all this praise.
“My name is Xie Xuan. What should I call the two of you?” he asked rather politely.
Meng Qi smiled and said, “My name is Su Meng, and this is my friend, Jiang Zhiwei.”
Just as Xie Xuan was about to say something, a man dressed in a Taoist robe arrived. He was in his 20s and carried a peach wood sword. Using his Heaven-earth Merging senses, Meng Qi found that he had no secrets at all and all of his movements were as expected. For example, he carried a dozen charms with him.
“Did you come from Mount Firemist?” He sounded unfriendly.
However, he eased his tone because he could see that the young man in front of him was smiling and appeared to be easy-going. “There are evil spirits up there. Don’t try to take a shortcut.”
“Evil spirits?” Jiang Zhiwei asked in confusion.
They had not sensed any trace of evil spirits up there. “Were they scared into hiding?”
The old man explained, “You might not know it, but two years ago, there were evil spirits lurking in Mount Firemist.”
Since the old man did not get to the point, Xie Xuan could only look at the young man in the Taoist robe and explain in detail. “Mount Firemist produces Divine Sun Stones, and a few Divine Sects and our Darkness Palace have been guarding there. Moreover, it’s been exploited since ancient times, thus there have been fewer and fewer Divine Sun Stones.
“Two years ago, when we were excavating, we found an evil spirit there. The evil spirit killed everyone present and took our Divine Sun Stones. Since then, it has haunted our village and even killed some of the Earls. After the Divine Masters and Principals came to help, it disappeared.
“In those days, we could hear screaming on the mountain every night.”
Meng Qi wanted to rub his nose because judging by the account of the evil spirit, it was mostly like to be Ze Luoju. “He did create quite a disturbance.”
But it was really interesting here because the stratagem technique was far superior to the one in his own world. Moreover, there were Taoist descendants, practitioners, Divine Masters, and exotic minerals and produce…
“I see.” Meng Qi casually answered, “We never climbed Mount Firemist, we only passed by it.”
“Well, the Divine Sun Stones on Mount Firemist have been completely extracted. I can’t stop people from going to the mountain, but if you meet the evil spirit, you’d have to depend on luck.” The man in the Taoist robe seemed resentful.
Since the Divine Sects and Darkness Palace had abandoned Mount Firemist, people still tried to enter the mountain for adventures. They could not be stopped anyway as they would simply not give up until they met the evil spirit.
Meng Qi jokingly said, “I’m not afraid of the evil spirit. The evil spirit is afraid of us. I once had a nickname, ‘the evil spirit buster’.”
“The evil spirit buster, alas…” The man in the Taoist robe forced a smile and cupped his hand in the other before his chest to say goodbye.
After walking for a few steps, Meng Qi heard him whisper, “The evil spirit buster? He really said that! Only our Divine Sect practitioners and Darkness Palace automaton architects can be called that. How can some Martial Artist say that?”
Apparently, anyone carrying a metal long sword was a Martial Artist!
“Why would I lie to you? I’ve already killed the evil spirit…” Meng Qi “innocently” looked at the clothing of that man.
At that moment, four well-structured iron and wooden mechanized horses arrived towing a carriage. The carriage stopped beside the Taoist-robed man and the driver respectfully asked, “Taoist Ouyang, aren’t you going to the state city?”
Taoist Ouyang nodded and boarded the carriage.
The carriage moved along the main road and the driver shouted to Xie Xuan with a smile, “Little scholar, come on. Don’t miss the Sage examination.”
“The Sage examination?” Meng Qi smiled, slightly surprised.
The driver explained, “You might not know this, but he was admitted as a scholar through the examinations held by the Darkness Palace when he was only 16. He really is the top genius of stratagem techniques in our state. And in less than one year, he’ll be taking the Sage examination in the state city. Well…”
Xie Xuan blushed, bowed his head, and left.
Meng Qi and Jiang Zhiwei looked at each other and discovered that they were both interested in that place. Thus, they both cupped one hand in the other before their chests and said, “We want to visit the state city as well. May we have a lift?”
Their good looks and graceful manners were really convincing. The driver patted the rear of the mechanized horses and shouted, “Alright!”
As Xie Xuan held his dog, he petted him and murmured, “You can’t go far, just wait for me at home. Be a good girl… when I become a Sage and learn better stratagem techniques, I’ll make you a mechanized wooden leg so you can travel far.”
The puppy sobbed and was reluctant to leave. It did not return home until the carriage was out of its sight. At the same time, some other automaton architects came to fix the broken cattle automatons.
The carriage was very spacious. Meng Qi and Jiang Zhiwei were sitting on one side while Taoist Ouyang and Xie Xuan were sitting on the other.
Meng Qi spoke first. He only told them anecdotes that would not expose his identity. Soon afterward, the atmosphere in the carriage was so harmonious that even the proud Taoist Ouyang joined in the conversation.
The carriage slowly stopped while they were talking merrily. Meng Qi was unable to get more information from them. At times, he felt that it was easier to just use the mental suggestion, but he did not dare to do so in front of the Darkness Palace scholar and the Divine Sect disciple because they were new here.
Upon stepping out of the carriage, Meng Qi was stunned when he saw a long, black Mechanical Carriage standing not far away from him. It was shaped like an anaconda or a dragon and it looked really spacious.
Noticing Xie Xuan and Ouyang Zheng pay the fee in copper, Jiang Zhiwei took out a piece of silver, which the driver received warmly.
They followed Xie Xuan and Ouyang Zheng to the front of the vehicle and fetched two pieces of paper from a man in a dark green robe.
“Green carriage,
“Firemist County, Yongzhou City,
“Estimated time: four and a half hours.”
Looking at such a piece of paper, Meng Qi could not find the words to describe his countenance.
Inside the Mechanical Carriage, the windows were bright and the tables were clean. There were two pairs of seats and a table in the middle.
Meng Qi and the others sat down and waited for a while. The Mechanical Carriage grew centipede-like legs and ran along the main road, crawling in and out of the mountains from time to time.
It was odd that even though the ride should have been bumpy, the passengers inside the carriage did not fee any turbulence at all. There were only a few ripples in the tea on the table.
“It’s nice to see stratagem techniques make daily life easier,” Meng Qi said to Jiang Zhiwei using the Secret-voice Sending.
Jiang Zhiwei said thoughtfully, “Before the Demonic Buddha chaotic world, we must have had things like this as well. The ‘Qi Saint’ in medieval times mastered stratagem techniques. It’s said that there were spaceships and other strange things then. But after the calamity, they were all lost.”
At that moment, a rather cold-looking man dressed in a plain robe walked to the front, carrying a long box.
Ouyang Zheng’s countenance slightly changed as he whispered, “A sword box.”
“A flying sword…” Xie Xuan was excited but afraid at the same time.
Upon seeing this person, Meng Qi frowned because using his “fortuneteller” eyes, he could see that this man’s karma contained bad luck and something bad might happen to him.