44 The Chariot and the Crossbow.

After hearing Samael's explanation, the General didn't want to waste time and asked the Second Colonel to take Samael to meet the Blacksmith of the stronghold and discuss about the creation of this weapon.

Moments later, Samael and the Second Colonel met with the blacksmiths to discuss the creation of this new weapon.

When Samael unveiled the designs, all the blacksmith in the room got overly excited and grabbed the paper right from his hands and begun discussing with each other about the process of making this weapon.

"This...is a revolutionary weapon!"

"The design of the mechanism."

"And the output! It's simply in a league above any other ranged weapon!"

One after another, the blacksmiths expressed their surprise and reaction to the design.

"Who designed this!?" Finally one of them asked the important question.

All the blacksmith within the room turned to Samael and the Second Colonel, demanding to get an answer.

The Second Colonel then turned to Samael which shocked the blacksmiths.

"This...boy did?" One of them reacted and for a while there was a silence in the room before one of them reacted.

They then quickly rushed towards Samael and started bombarding him with questions about how he thought of this in the first place, how he figured out the repeating mechanism. These blacksmiths surrounded Samael, pushing away the Second Colonel in the midst of their excitement.

Samael definitely understood why these blacksmith reacted like so, they've dedicated themselves into forging, creating weapons of war and in some sense they have mastered creating the weapons you could see today but what he presented was something they've never seen or heard off.

An entirely new invention and from the looks of it on the designed on the paper this has been refined countless times. And yet they've never heard of it! How could they not get excited?

Nevertheless...this is getting annoying.

Out from Samael, a wave of force erupted and forced these blacksmiths to take a step back. This action stunned them for a bit but it did the trick, it silenced them.

"Now then, can we all sit down and talk like civilized men?" Samael calmed down himself and smiled at the blacksmith.

These blacksmiths looked at Samael and some of them even swallowed their saliva in fear. To them not only is this young man a genius for drafting this magnificent weapon but also a powerful individual. He is truly someone blessed by the heavens so they were scared that they might anger him somehow and take it out on them.

But after hearing Samael's words, they all chuckled although nervous, they still sat down and awaited Samael's instruction.

"Good...Now then, let's talk about this weapon, The Raven's Bow's construction shall we?"

Immediately, all the blacksmith got quiet after Samael spoke. One of them asked.

"Young man, what material should we use forge the casing?"

And Samael replied "Ideally Deep Blue Titanium would be used for the casing and Purple elastic Bamboo would be used for the bow itself with the string made from processed Archaic Beast materials. But do we have these materials?"

Hearing his question, the Blacksmiths then turned to one another, discussing the issue of the materials.

Then one of them answered after a while "We have enough Deep Blue Titanium but the Purple elastic Bamboo is an expensive material and comparing the stocks we have to the indicated length of the bow, we'd only have enough to build six of these Raven's claw."

Now there's an issue, there was not enough Purple elastic Bamboo. But luckily the Second Colonel cut in.

"There's a city, only three hours away by horse that we may able to buy Purple elastic Bamboo at."

"Great! send some of your men to buy more of it and if there's not enough White Ash Tree is a good substitute." Samael added. This way, they would have more option.

"Are there more we should buy?" Before going, the Second Colonel asked.

Samael thought for a while before turning to the blacksmiths again. "What about the Archaic Beast Materials?"

"Specifically what would we need?" the Blacksmiths threw the question back.

"Just the skin, then buy these materials so we can process the skin." Samael added before writting a few minor materials on a sheet of paper.

He gave this paper to the Second Colonel who quickly rushed out to give his men the order.

Samael was left with the Blacksmiths and they went to their forge, luckily these blacksmiths shared one whole building with five individual forge and numerous weapon making equipment. When they got there, one of the blacksmith, who seemed to be the leader of their group, divided their numbers.

From the original fifteen, two of them was tasked with bringing the materials over, five were to start the forge, another five were standing in before the fire with their hammers and three of them were out to fetch water.

When every was assigned to their tasked, things started to move.

The moment the Deep Blue Titanium was brought to the shop, all five who were standing by with their hammers, fed the material inside the forge to heat it. With the forge empowered by the flames of some Flame Elemental Blacksmiths, the material turned hot read after a long while.

Following the instructions, written on the designs, the thickness of the metal case was about half an inch. After being forged into a flat square shape, it is then continued to be hammered for another two to three heats so there will be less impurity within the material. When that's done they would then forge it into shape before being grinder and finally tempered.

Forging the case was the easiest part but the other, smaller and intricate components would test the skills of these blacksmiths. Luckily, they were up to the challenge and was thrilled to test themselves. With them like this, Samael knew that he will be able to leave it to them.

Samael then left the forge and followed the map towards the Woodcraft pavilion, which the General wrote.

Along the way, Samael saw both Julius and Julian, the Clyde brothers.

"Hey, where you going?" Julian asked.

Samael then looked at the map and gave it to him. Julian looked at the map and understood. "Oh, so you're going to get the chariots built eh? We'll go with you."

So the two of them joined Samael and they walked towards the Woodcraft pavilion. Along the way, Samael noticed that Julius was always looking around and seemed like he wanted to ask something. He sighed and turned to him.

"You got something say, then say it."

"Who? Me?" Julius was a bit surprised and pointed at himself as he asked.

"Who else? You're looking like a troubled child who lost his toy." Samael chuckled.

"I am not. Since, you're asking...about yesterday. Your plan?" Julius said.

Samael then responded "What about it?"

"I get your reasoning but what i don't understand why did you introduce this new weapon?" Julius asked.

To the side Julian was also curious, ever since Samael told them of his plans this was the one thing he didn't understand. He had some ideas but without Samael outright telling them, it would remain as an assumption.

Samael stopped walking which made the other two look at him strangely as he looked up to the skies. "Why do humans wage war?"

Julius answered "For their people."

Samael laughed a bit and said "Well, that's an oversimplification. But it's true, humans or kingdoms wage war for their people, for land to farm and build houses upon, for riches and fame..." he paused and continued.

"Wars are done with soldiers, armies! But even hundreds of thousands of soldiers will never be a match for a cultivator with a high level of cultivation. There are countless records of heroes who have turned the tides of war by themselves, they ultimately won the war by themselves."

After getting there, Julian interrupted with a question. "What's wrong with that?"

"Everything!" Samael said and left the two brothers stupefied.

"By placing it upon themselves to end the war, they've just made themselves into a deterrent against their enemies."

"And?" Julian asked.

"What if they died?" Samael spoke, which left the two brothers to contemplate as Samael continued.

"If they died, then things would just return to the way it was. Sure the their side would've prospered during the days when their Hero is alive but that doesn't mean their enemies didn't." Here, Samael turned around and continued walking towards the Woodcraft pavilion.

"War is not won by a single person alone but by armies comprised of people. War is won by collective effort not by one individual. Even if we fight the enemy experts and won, their side would just keep sending and sending their experts and our side would respond in kind as well till this war escalate! The number of casualties would rise till we could build a mountain of corpses."

Samael sighed and continued "But if we raise the capability of the Kingdom itself?"

"It will be able to fight it's own battles without needing our help." Julian spoke, answering Samael's question as he finally realized what Samael was intending.

"That is why the agreement we had with the enemies are important, as long as we abide to our word then this war will remain as natural as possible with the only variables are the soldiers and weapons." Samael ended his speech.

Julian stared at Samael's back and was amazed with how insightful Samael was towards this war as a whole. He didn't see it merely as a state of two nation at odds with each other but rather as a intricate game, where he was already considering the future of the empire.

Just from this Julian already knew that Samael will be someone who will change the Empire as a whole.

Soon enough they've arrived at the Woodcraft Pavilion at which Samael presented the design of the Chariot. The craftsmen had similar reaction to the Blacksmiths when they saw this design but they quickly died down because this was not as intricate as the Raven's Bow.

"Make sure there's a compartment where huge amount of arrows can be placed and have straps on the side that can hold five spears and three swords."

"When would you need it?" The craftsman asked.

"A day at most, can you make ten?" Samael asked, he new asking for more would be impossible but ten chariots was the lowest he could go.

"Easy, we'll have it done in time." The Craftsman placed his hand on his chest, you could see the confidence in his eyes.

"I'll leave it to you." Samael nodded.

They then walked back to the Blacksmiths where he saw a couple of blacksmiths sitting idly while the more intricate forging was being done by the other blacksmiths.

"Oh, young master, you're back." They called out.

Samael returned a greeting and asked. "Nothing to do?"

The Blacksmith scratched his head with a smile as he answered. "Unfortunately, that kind of fancy forging is my not my area of expertise."

"Luckily, i have something here that is easy to forge. Interested?" Samael tauntingly smiled.

"Of course!" This Blacksmith was definitely excited and the other idle blacksmith then saw the commotion he caused and came to look.

Samael unfolded this new design, it was a simple, crude but effective weapon. Built from affordable, scrap materials.

It was a can filled with explosive powder and scrap metal or nails, it is then attached to a wooden pole with the intention of being thrown like a spear. A wick would be inserted in the can so when lighted and thrown, the can would explode and dozen of shrapnel or nails would blast out at all the surrounding enemies.

It was definitely a crude and improvised grenade.

"Damn, I don't know what's going through that head of yours that you're able to think of unconventional weapons such as this but i like it! We'll have this done together with the Raven Bow." The blacksmith promised, he then told the other idle blacksmith of this other new weapon and they began to work on it while the other blacksmiths were busy on the parts for the Raven's bow.

With this, Samael and the Clyde brothers, went back to their individual rooms. Along the way Julian was once again stunned with out Samael was able to think out of the box by coming up with these weapons.

When he asked him about how he thought of that Shrapnel Spear, Samael answered.

"No matter what it is, it must always conform with the rules of the world. The power we gain from our cultivation only allows us to bend and stretch these laws but not break it...As long as you understand how the rules of the world work, then you too will be able to come up with new weapons."

Hearing this, Julian pondered about it as he went back in his room. There, he repeated Samael's words in his mind and he had a sudden epiphany. He then practiced his cultivation while slowly understanding how his Flame Element worked with the rules of the world.

What can he do and cannot do? Julian began to push himself to the limit of his imagination.

In truth, Samael didn't come up with these weapons. It came from his clan, as a clan that deals primarily with war or things of the sorts, they have invented numerous weapons that could very well be called "God Slaying weapons." and the Raven bow is just one of the most basic weapon with a few adjustments.

In the end, Samael cultivated like the rest of his friends as they wait for the completion of the new weapons that will bring the dawn of a new era of war...