Chapter 386 - 191: Shotgun, Ah

The Smelting Workshop turned ore into Metal Ingots. After the first batch of Copper Ingots was produced, the system sent another prompt about a new building: the Processing Workshop.

[Processing Workshop]

[Introduction: This is the most important building in Mechanical Technology! From now on, all basic materials will come from here!]

[Construction Requirements: Skeleton*500 units, Stone*500 units, Wood*500 units]

[Area Occupied: 100 units]

’How is this a workshop? It’s practically a whole factory complex! An area of 100 units... that’s almost as big as the Great Tomb!’

’Alright, fine. A bigger area just makes it more convenient to build things. Let’s do it!’

After a busy night, Li Ziyu finally unlocked the first firearm, the "Three-Eyed Fire Stick." The name was quite fitting. The thing was a pain to load, and after firing three shots, it was basically just a club—perfect for whacking people.

[Three-Eyed Fire Stick]

[Introduction: Hahaha... this thing is trash. If you don’t load the Ammunition beforehand, it can only be used as a stick on the battlefield. It has poor accuracy and poor penetration. Its greatest use is probably scaring away Wild Beasts.]

[Manufacturing · Three-Eyed Fire Stick*3: Skeleton*1 unit, Mixed Material Long Tube*6, Gears*6]

Li Ziyu couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he read the system’s Introduction. He didn’t have high hopes for the Three-Eyed Fire Stick anyway. The most basic firearm truly wasn’t very useful—it wasn’t even as good as a Hand Crossbow.

Still, it was a bit better than the Three-Eyed Fire Gun from ancient history. The system provided Fixed Ammunition, and the Three-Eyed Fire Stick was equipped with Inner Activation and a Trigger, making it much more convenient to use. Even so, using Fixed Ammunition was still quite troublesome for the Undead, meaning they could only get one round of shots off on the battlefield.

Li Ziyu didn’t mind, though. As the most basic firearm, the Three-Eyed Fire Stick couldn’t even be considered transitional equipment. He had no intention of mass-equipping the Undead with them anyway. He was looking forward to the firearms that would come later!

The appearance of the Three-Eyed Fire Stick sparked Li Ziyu’s enthusiasm. He decided to go into seclusion and focus on unlocking technology, striving to develop even more powerful Weapons and tech.

...

When you’re focused, you never notice the passage of time. More than ten days flew by in a flash. Li Ziyu had locked himself in his room, tirelessly unlocking all sorts of technology every day. The only ones who saw him were the two Little Cat Girls who attended to him, Mengmeng and Meng Ni, and the four Fox Maiden Ghosts.

Fortunately, everything in the Wasteland was stable, and nothing had happened that was beyond his control, so he didn’t have to divide his attention.

Liu Xingxing and Zhang Peng had returned at one point and were surprised to see two new building complexes on the Bone Plate Platform. They wanted to see Li Ziyu, but Mengmeng told them he was in seclusion. The two knew their boss must be busy with something important, so they didn’t insist. After resting for a day, they left.

One day, the door to the room opened, and Li Ziyu walked out, his face alight with joy. In his hand, he held a gun—a shotgun that fused Undead and mechanical-punk styles.

The white bone gleamed with a metallic luster, brass and bone fused together. Strange tubes ran along its surface, creating a bizarrely harmonious look. The overall shape of the gun’s body was similar to a Winchester Defender shotgun, only a bit longer and thicker, measuring about 1.2 meters in length.

[Jet Shooter-1]

[Introduction: A shotgun developed by the Skeleton Undead through Mechanical Technology. It is fed via a horizontal tube magazine and can store 7 special shotgun shells. It has a single-fire mode. When researching the Shooter, the Undead were only focused on increasing its power, ignoring everything else. As a result, the Shooter has impressive Attack Power, but its attack speed is rather slow.]

[Manufacturing Jet Shooter-1: Skeleton*1 unit, Gears*3, Mixed Material Long Tube*4, Mixed Material Parts*20]

[Manufacturing · Jet Shooter Special Ammunition (Common · Shotgun Shell · High Power)*10: Mixed Material Bone*1 unit, High-Explosive Powder*10 units, Metal Pellets*200, Mixed Material Parts*10]

The Jet Shooter-1 was a huge improvement over the Three-Eyed Fire Stick. Li Ziyu wanted to test the gun’s power for himself, so he took the freshly-made Jet Shooter-1 up to the roof and had an Undead set up a thick wooden plank as a target.

He picked up the heavy, special Ammunition and pressed the shells into the magazine one by one. Next, all he had to do was rack the fore-end... Rack... Rack... Rack... ’Damn it, why won’t it move?!’

Li Ziyu gritted his teeth, pulling on the fore-end with all his might to chamber a round. But after struggling for what felt like an eternity, he still couldn’t get it to budge.

’I refuse to believe it. Is it really this hard to chamber a round?’

Li Ziyu braced the muzzle against the ground, clamped the gun’s body between his legs, and used both hands to heave the fore-end upward. KA-CLICK!

The sound of the round chambering made Li Ziyu pause. A look of joy flashed in his eyes. ’Success!’

He quickly lifted the gun to inspect it. Sure enough, a round was chambered. ’Jeez, what were the Undead thinking, making it take this much effort to chamber a round?’

He raised the gun, imitating moves from the movies, pressed the stock to his shoulder, and aimed at the thick wooden plank. Just as he was about to pull the Trigger, his finger froze. He lowered the gun and scratched his head.

’Wait, no, I shouldn’t be the one to do this. It was this hard just to chamber a round; who knows how powerful it is? The system Introduction said the Undead specifically increased its power when they designed it. As everyone knows, the more powerful the gun, the stronger the recoil. I don’t want to fire one shot and completely wreck my shoulder.’

Besides, in either his past life or this one, he had never fired a gun. Or rather, this was the first time he’d ever even touched one.