Weapon System 29: Hammer (1)

Zhang Mingjing slept for four hours, and upon waking, he read about the five-dimensional space thinking model crafting poetry and scenes.

“A beauty offers a cup of wine with her jade-like hand, the young man closes his eyes and blows on it, yet the cup turns out to be a tragedy, drunkenness reveals the truth to the legs—tsk, tsk, what a drinker!”

Such a straightforward sentence was easy for Zhang Mingjing to understand. Swaying as he sat up, he complained, “Why don’t you help me sober up instead of mocking me?”

“After four hours in dreamland, the effects of the wine have faded. Why trouble me?”

“This wine... is really something!”

“The wine is nothing! Wine doesn’t intoxicate people, people intoxicate themselves!”

“What do you mean?”

“Vanity is the first drunkenness, a beautiful disciple the second, and youthful stirrings the third.”

“Enough, enough! I’ve just woken up; spare me your flowery talk—I really can’t take it!”

“This tone or that tone is simply the depth of lakes and mountains—wherever you find them, the moon’s reflection in the water, the shadow of osmanthus by the pond.”

“Brother, what does that mean? I’m just a high-schooler; can’t you speak in a way I understand?”

“Katherine is a rare, talented beauty, like the elegant mountain scenery leaving its reflection in your heart, which is like a still lake.”

“Come on! I really can’t stand your way of talking. Why is my life filled with such eccentric people and bizarre events?... I’m heading back.”

“Why be so shy? You’re in the prime of youth—it’s perfectly normal to have some romantic thoughts!”

Zhang Mingjing scratched his head and shook it. To say he didn’t find Katherine beautiful would be false, but as for having thoughts about her—he truly didn’t, at least not for now.

The five-dimensional space thinking model teased him about it, and he was helpless, so he fell silent, as was his usual manner with such matters.

After a while, the five-dimensional space thinking model grew quiet. Zhang Mingjing asked, “Finished joking?”

“Joking with you is boring, so it’s not that I’m done—it’s that I have to stop!”

“Go away!”

Zhang Mingjing picked up the statue of his ancestral master and looked at the half bottle of Maotai left. Shaking his head, he sighed, “I actually drank so much! Today I was really manly.”

Suddenly, curiosity struck him, so he asked the five-dimensional space thinking model in a literary tone, “Have you ever experienced that feeling—a beauty appears, unforgettable, and after a day without seeing her, you’re consumed with longing?”

“Alas! We don’t even dare keep pets, for fear of attachment and heartbreak at parting, let alone experiencing ‘after crossing the vast sea, no other water compares; apart from Mount Wu, no other clouds suffice.’”

“Hahaha...”

Hearing this, Zhang Mingjing burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’ve never even dated, yet you jest about love between men and women—doesn’t that stretch things too far?”

“The myriad things of heaven and earth are shaped differently. I may not have loved, but I’ve studied it! Why can’t I joke with you?”

“All you do is binge dramas—how is that research?” Zhang Mingjing retorted, then suddenly asked, “If you don’t even have romantic feelings, then how did you come to be?”

...

After the apprenticeship ceremony, Zhang Mingjing invited Katherine and Jeremy to the city sports complex over the following week. There, he implanted programs to activate their major energy circuits and meridians, then sent them back to practice diligently and encouraged them to study some martial arts.

He often mocked himself, “I don’t even practice martial arts, yet I make others practice!”

But for now, that was all he could teach them.

Another half month passed in a blink. During this time, Zhang Mingjing secretly collaborated with the God of War squad to eliminate two monsters and collected a considerable amount of energy. However, he didn’t use this energy immediately, instead storing it up—he wanted the five-dimensional space thinking model to forge a hammer for him.

But crafting a powerful hammer required vast amounts of stored energy. Merely storing it in his own energy channels and dantian, his small mortal body was simply too limited, no matter how optimized—it couldn’t reach the ideal state.

At this point, the five-dimensional space thinking model finally developed an energy storage system, searching the city and its surroundings for numerous energy reservoirs: trees, animals, boulders, buildings, segments of abandoned network cables, surplus computer space—even those who had undergone transformation, immortals, adepts, Katherine, Jeremy, and all the God of War warriors were chosen. In short, whether organic or inorganic, any space in the city and its environs that could store energy was utilized. They were linked into an invisible network, with collected energy coded and temporarily stored in their bodies, ready for use and returning to its source after. Thus, Zhang Mingjing gained an incredible energy cloud storage space.

“This is so, so, so bizarre!... So, so, so extravagant!” When he heard of it, Zhang Mingjing was so excited he didn’t sleep for two days and nights.

“Will it harm them?” he asked.

“In a certain sense, people and objects are all energy reservoirs. As long as you don’t exceed saturation, it’s not only harmless but beneficial—strengthening the body, preventing illness, and even warding off spirits.”

“Uh, warding off spirits? Come on!... But what if something storing energy has an issue? What happens to the energy inside?”

“They’re networked now. If a reservoir fails, the energy automatically transfers to another.”

“That’s amazing! I can’t believe you thought of this—I’m impressed!”

...

Today, three monsters broke through layer after layer of defenses and approached the southern town.

The God of War squad was now equipped with large electromagnetic cannons. The three-meter-long projectiles seemed able to pierce monsters easily, but who could say for sure? Each batch of monsters evolved, their keratin layers growing tougher and constantly overturning human understanding—so who would dare guarantee anything?

Zhang Mingjing sat at home, listening to the adept deliver a battlefield briefing.

“According to the God of War satellite intel, the electromagnetic cannon has fired three shots, hitting monsters at fifty and ninety-five kilometers, with one shot missing. Data collected by Little Tyrant shows the monsters were merely knocked down—the injuries were like superficial wounds.”

“It seems the electromagnetic cannons aren’t very effective—this batch’s keratin is even thicker.”

“Yes! Little Tyrant says the one at fifty kilometers has an average keratin thickness of about seventy centimeters.”

“How fast is it?”

“Twenty-seven kilometers per hour.”

“So, to enhance their resistance, they sacrificed speed! With such thick skin, my drill laser sword can’t finish it quickly. How far is the third monster? How fast?”

“One hundred twenty kilometers away, moving underwater at about thirty kilometers per hour.”

“Before it arrives, we must eliminate the one at fifty kilometers first.”

By now, Zhang Mingjing was dressed in his Taoist robe, hat, and mask, and he told the adept, “Contact Katherine and Jeremy.”

“Yes!”

...

Zhang Mingjing knew there was a reservoir outside town, not far from the monster. The monster would pass by the reservoir’s edge; if they could make it fall in, it wouldn’t surface for a while, giving him time to use his drill laser sword to bore through its hide.

“But how do we make the monster fall into the reservoir?” Jeremy asked.

“Give this intel to your captain, then ask the army to focus their firepower and drive it in, then bombard it with artillery until the monster is dead.”

“Will this kill it?” Katherine asked.

“Don’t worry—I’m here!”

“Yes!”

Jeremy and Katherine relayed the plan to their captain, who made the decision in seconds and began gathering firepower to bombard the monster. Meanwhile, Zhang Mingjing sped toward the reservoir on his motorcycle.

...

As the monster passed the reservoir’s edge, just twenty meters away, intense artillery forced it toward the water. At last, it slipped in by accident, struggling fiercely—clearly it wouldn’t escape for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, the barrage turned the reservoir into a powder keg, explosions everywhere.

From a kilometer away, Zhang Mingjing directed his drill laser arrow to penetrate the monster’s hide.

“It’s tough—will it take two minutes?” he asked the five-dimensional space thinking model.

“I think so!”

“Master, how’s it going over there?” Katherine asked.

“This monster should be finished, but in three hours, another will emerge from West Lake.”

“West Lake again!”

“Yes! So you and Jeremy should prepare more ammunition and come help me then.”

“Yes!”

Two minutes later, Zhang Mingjing’s drill laser sword killed the monster in the reservoir, seizing ninety percent of its energy.

“Is this energy enough?” he asked the five-dimensional space thinking model, exhilarated.

“It’s enough! The hammer forged from this energy won’t knock out a monster in three blows, but ten blows to its head should leave it half dead.”

“Excellent! Now I don’t fear the next two monsters.”

“But making the hammer stronger isn’t possible yet!”

“Why not?”

“Not enough energy reservoirs.”