The convoy of the Heavenly Craft Sect was a parade of wooden miracles.
Huge, multi-legged wooden oxen lumbered through the snow, their joints creaking with the sound of grinding timber and magical formations. Hovering alongside them were disciples riding disk-shaped artifacts, their robes fluttering in the wind. The lead carriage was a floating pagoda, ornate and carved with dragons, propelled by a visible hum of wind spirits trapped in jade lanterns.
To the citizens of Beiluo, who had grown used to the brutal, angular silhouettes of steel trucks and concrete bunkers, this looked like a circus from a forgotten age.
Jiang Chen stood at the newly repaired South Gate. He wore his dress uniform—a sharp grey trench coat with silver buttons. Behind him stood a line of M35 Trucks, idling loudly. The contrast was stark: The polished wood and glowing jade of the Cultivators versus the dirty steel and diesel fumes of the Industrialists.
The floating pagoda descended. A ramp extended, and an old man stepped out. He wore robes stained with oil and soot, his fingers calloused and covered in burn scars. A row of magnifying lenses was strapped to his forehead.
This was Master Gongshu, an Elder of the Heavenly Craft Sect, renowned for building the Indestructible Gates of the Imperial Capital.
Gongshu ignored Jiang Chen. He walked straight past the Prince and knelt beside the tire of an M35 Truck. He touched the rubber. He tapped the steel rim.
"Vulcanized sap," Gongshu muttered, adjusting his lenses. "Steel alloy... low carbon content, but uniform density. Strange. Where are the runes?"
He crawled under the chassis, looking for the movement array.
"There is no Spirit Stone housing," Gongshu's voice echoed from under the truck. "How does it move? Is there a captured beast soul in the axles?"
"It drinks dead plants," Jiang Chen said, stepping forward.
Gongshu crawled out, wiping grease on his expensive robes. He looked at Jiang Chen with the eyes of a mad scientist finding a new specimen.
"Dead plants?" Gongshu scoffed. "You mean Alchemical Oil? That is volatile. It explodes."
"Precisely," Jiang Chen signaled Li. "Open the hood."
Li unlatched the hood of the truck.
Gongshu leaned in. He saw the Inline-6 Diesel Engine. It was a mess of pipes, belts, and cast iron. It looked ugly compared to the elegant clockwork of the Heavenly Craft puppets.
"Start it," Jiang Chen ordered.
Li turned the key.
CHUG-CHUG-CHUG-VROOOM.
The engine roared to life. The fan belt spun. The block vibrated. Black smoke puffed from the exhaust stack.
Gongshu flinched, covering his nose. "It coughs! It smells of poison!"
"It produces 140 Horsepower," Jiang Chen said. "And it requires zero Qi to operate. A mortal child can drive this across the continent, provided he has fuel."
Gongshu froze.
"Zero... Qi?"
The Elder looked at his own wooden oxen. They required Spirit Stones to move. They required disciples to maintain the formations. They were works of art, but they were expensive.
If this "Engine" could move heavy loads without consuming spiritual energy...
"Administrator Jiang," Gongshu stood up, his demeanor shifting from curiosity to business. "My Sect is... interested in this 'Explosion Art'. We wish to purchase a prototype."
"Not for sale," Jiang Chen lied smoothly. "This is proprietary technology of the Imperial Industries. However..."
He gestured to the warehouse behind him.
"I am willing to license an older model. The Single-Cylinder 4-Stroke Engine. Perfect for powering water pumps, mills, or small carts."
He led the caravan into the warehouse. Inside, rows of simple, rugged engines sat on pallets. They were Tier 1 tech—obsolete to Jiang Chen, who was already looking at Turbines, but revolutionary to a world stuck in the magical medieval era.
Gongshu examined a small engine. He turned the flywheel. He inspected the spark plug.
"It is... crude," Gongshu admitted. "But the metalwork is impossible to replicate by hand. You cast this in a single piece?"
"Mass production," Jiang Chen said. "Now, let's talk price."
"We have Spirit Stones," Gongshu offered. "High Grade."
"I have plenty of stones," Jiang Chen waved his hand dismissively (a bluff, he always needed energy). "I need materials."
He pulled out a list he had prepared. It wasn't gold or jewels. It was a list of specific, obscure ores that most cultivators considered trash because they didn't conduct Qi well.
Wolframite (Tungsten).
Bauxite (Aluminum).
Quartz (Silicon).
Pitchblende (Uranium).
Gongshu read the list and frowned. "Heavy Earth? Glass sand? Poison Rock? Why do you want this garbage?"
"To build better engines," Jiang Chen said. "100 tons of raw ore for 50 engines."
Gongshu laughed. He felt like he was robbing the Prince. 50 self-moving artifacts for a pile of useless rocks?
"Done!" Gongshu shouted, afraid Jiang Chen would change his mind. "We have tons of Pitchblende clogging our mines. It makes the miners sick. You can have it all!"
"Excellent," Jiang Chen smiled. It was the smile of a predator.
The deal was struck. The Heavenly Craft disciples began unloading crates of "trash" ore from their spatial bags, piling it high in the snow. In exchange, they loaded the greasy, loud engines onto their pristine wooden carriages.
As the sun began to set, Master Gongshu stood by his pagoda, holding a blueprint for a Model T chassis Jiang Chen had thrown in as a "gift."
"You are a strange man, Jiang Chen," Gongshu said. "You abandon the Dao to play with fire and iron. You will hit a wall. Metal has no soul. It cannot ascend."
Jiang Chen looked at the pile of Pitchblende—raw Uranium ore.
"Metal doesn't need to ascend, Master Gongshu," Jiang Chen replied quietly. "It just needs to reach critical mass."
As the Heavenly Craft convoy flew away, convinced they had swindled the ignorant Prince, Jiang Chen turned to the System interface.
"System," he touched the pile of uranium ore. "Scan."
[Resource Identified: Raw Uranium-235.][Quantity: Sufficient for Enrichment.][Tier 3 Unlock Requirements: MET.]
Jiang Chen's eyes glowed with the reflection of the blue interface.
"Unlock Tier 3: The Atomic Age."
[Processing...][Blueprint Unlocked: Centrifuge Array.][Blueprint Unlocked: Steam Turbine Generator.][Blueprint Unlocked: The Manhattan Project (Warhead).]
Old Wu walked up, looking at the dirty rocks. "Master, did we make a profit? Those engines cost us steel to make."
"Old Wu," Jiang Chen picked up a rock that sizzled slightly against his glove. "We just traded firecrackers for the power of the sun."
He looked toward the south, where the White Cloud Sect was likely gathering their armies.
"Let them cultivate for a thousand years," Jiang Chen whispered. "I'm going to split the atom."
But before he could celebrate the dawn of the nuclear age, the ground beneath his feet trembled. Not the rhythmic thrum of the Earth Shaker, but a chaotic, panicked vibration.
A soldier from the Signal Corps ran out of the comms bunker, headphones askew.
"Administrator! Priority One Alert!"
"Report," Jiang Chen snapped, dropping the rock.
"It's not the Sect. It's the Western Border. Our drone patrols... they went dark."
"Malfunction?"
"No, Sir." The soldier's face was pale. "Before the feed cut, we saw... fog. Green fog. Moving against the wind. And inside the fog..."
He hesitated.
"Dead men walking."
Jiang Chen narrowed his eyes. Green fog. Undead.
"The Corpse Refiners," Jiang Chen recognized the description from the Empire's archives. A demonic sect from the west, known for turning entire cities into zombie plagues.
"They must have smelled the war," Jiang Chen deduced. "They are coming to scavenge the bodies."
He looked at the Uranium. It would take weeks to enrich. He didn't have weeks.
"Cancel the celebration," Jiang Chen ordered. "Tell the chemical plant to switch production."
"To what, Sir? More mustard gas?"
"No," Jiang Chen turned toward the bunker. "Napalm. Lots of it. The dead don't breathe, but they burn."