During the period before the semester officially began, Chen Ming did his best to familiarize himself with the personnel structure of the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy, hoping to find familiar names among the students.
In the end, however, he found very little.
Dugu Yan was seven years older than Tang San, and Chen Ming himself was the same age as Tang San. Logically speaking, with Chen Ming now eight years old, Dugu Yan should have been fifteen and already enrolled in the academy.
Yet, there was no trace of her.
Instead, it was her future teammates who had already arrived—Yu Tianheng of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, the Black Turtle Spirit Masters Shi Mo and Shi Mo, as well as Ye Lingling of the Nine Heart Begonia—all of them were already studying at the academy, seniors to Chen Ming.
He couldn't quite understand why Dugu Yan's enrollment had been delayed, but since he hadn't yet had the chance to interact with her, he decided to use this time to study medicine and various miscellaneous skills.
Where ordinary people would relax after exhausting themselves from cultivation, Chen Ming simply switched to a different kind of training.
Medicine, mechanical engineering, musical instruments, tea arts, etiquette, painting and calligraphy…
The academy's library contained not only texts on Spirit Master cultivation, but also a wealth of books on these auxiliary disciplines. Chen Ming selected what interested him, studying diligently while also attempting to recreate fragments of technology from his previous life to generate future benefits for himself.
After all, in this world, talent itself was a form of currency—a kind of recognition.
Without a powerful background to rely on, Chen Ming needed to demonstrate extraordinary value and ability. Only by doing so could his future actions appear reasonable and justified.
Moreover, displaying exceptional talent despite having a clean but unremarkable background was, in itself, a rare and valuable trait.
During the first month, drawing upon carpentry and blacksmithing techniques he had learned, Chen Ming successfully recreated a prototype of the Spinning Jenny within his training grounds, and soon after improved it into a water-powered spinning machine.
As for the state of the textile industry in the Douluo Continent… it was roughly comparable to Earth's around the 10th century. Industrialization was out of the question, and even manual textile production was relatively underdeveloped.
The Spinning Jenny could produce thread at eight times the efficiency of manual labor, while the water-powered version increased that to nearly forty times.
No matter how cheap labor might be in this world, a gap of that magnitude was impossible to ignore. Even the most stubborn traditionalist would understand which path held the future.
Chen Ming was already planning ahead—whether to establish his own spinning workshop or collaborate with others, using these machines to generate massive profits.
After all, while gold soul coins in this era couldn't buy truly priceless treasures, having enough of them could still solve the vast majority of problems and eliminate countless inconveniences.
As for more advanced machinery like the spinning mule, Chen Ming was fully capable of recreating it—but he deliberately held back. He had no intention of triggering the kind of societal upheaval that, in another world, had led to tragedies like "sheep eating men."
Similarly, technologies such as high-purity alcohol distillation, sugar refinement, salt processing, porcelain firing, and soap production—he could replicate all of them in a short time if he wished.
But their value was simply too great.
Chen Ming couldn't guarantee that he would survive after revealing such things. For now, he could only wait for the right opportunity in the future to "invent" them in this world. Until then, at most, he would make limited personal use of them.
By the second month, after carefully studying the technological level of this world, Chen Ming recreated a Han Dynasty-style bed crossbow and a simplified handheld crossbow from the Northern and Southern Dynasties. He then, through Qin Ming's connection, arranged a meeting with the three Board of Education members.
Inside one of the academy's training grounds, Chen Ming finally met them in person.
Bai Baoshan was a short, chubby elder whose waist and height were almost identical, his face perpetually carrying a kindly, smiling expression.
Meng Shenji, on the other hand, appeared lean to the point of frailty, his white hair and beard lending him the air of a venerable elder.
As for Zhi Lin, he looked the most ordinary in build, yet his eyes held a peculiar, almost inscrutable gleam.
The three were all curious—why had Chen Ming repeatedly requested to meet them?
After offering a polite greeting, Chen Ming gave them his answer through action.
He began demonstrating the power of the bed crossbow and the handheld crossbow.
Working alone, he loaded the heavy bolt into the bed crossbow, tightened the windlass until it was fully drawn, and then aimed at a massive boulder he had prepared in advance.
With a sharp release—
the bolt shot forward.
The bolt, tipped with refined iron, drove deep into the massive stone. Given Chen Ming's current size, he could have even stepped directly onto the bolt's shaft and stood there without it giving way.
As for the handheld crossbow, its target was a dried log. The moment the trigger was released, the bolt pierced cleanly into the wood, leaving only a short section of the shaft protruding outside.
After witnessing the destructive power of the bed crossbow, the three Board of Education members of the Heaven Dou Emperial Academy were visibly stunned, their initial curiosity quickly turning into genuine astonishment. One after another, they began praising Chen Ming's ingenuity.
Under Chen Ming's guidance, the three of them even took turns manually loading the bed crossbow and hand crossbow, then firing at targets themselves. Bai Baoshan even summoned his Heaven Star Furnace Martial Soul, allowing the other two to test-fire the weapons against it.
Feeling the feedback from his Martial Soul, Bai Baoshan's expression shifted with surprise.
The bed crossbow could easily pierce through the protective Spirit Power of a Spirit Ancestor, while the handheld crossbow—though not as absurdly overpowered as the Godly Zhuge Crossbow—was still more than capable of killing a Spirit Grand Master.
For the Heaven Dou Empire, whose military strength in terms of Spirit Masters lagged behind that of the Star Luo Empire, these two inventions were nothing short of a powerful boost.
One might think they were merely primitive bed crossbows from the Han and Northern and Southern Dynasties, but the Douluo Continent's mechanical engineering was, frankly, completely improvised.
A master craftsman like Lou Gao could create mechanisms that required almost no external power source and even forge inner armor capable of withstanding Spirit Emperor-level attacks.
Yet paradoxically, something as fundamental as a crossbow had never truly taken root.
Ranged weapons here were limited to bows, thrown spears, and at best, crude fixed stone-throwing devices. In terms of sophistication, they didn't even match the traction trebuchets of ancient eras.
As for metallurgy, it was similarly peculiar—roughly comparable to the Qin and Han periods. Skilled craftsmen could hammer out incredibly durable metalwork, but that relied more on Spirit Power and the unique materials of this world than on systematic technological advancement.
To put it bluntly, the technical foundation itself was… lacking.
By contrast, the crossbows Chen Ming recreated were simple in structure, easy to understand, and devastatingly effective. Their only real requirements were materials and the strength needed to operate the windlass—but in this world, neither was a significant issue.
Materials? The Douluo world had extraordinary metals and Spirit Beast resources in abundance—enough to sustain such production for thousands, even tens of thousands of years.
Strength? If one person couldn't manage it, then two could. If that wasn't enough, Spirit Masters could step in. There would always be a way to operate it.
Under such circumstances, the bed crossbow Chen Ming had produced was nothing less than a weapon of national significance. Without hesitation, the three Board Of Education members took both crossbows and prepared to present them directly to the emperor, Emperor Xue Ye.
(According to my detailed reading of Douluo I, every "crossbow" mentioned refers to Zhuge-style repeating crossbows and their bolts. Not a single true bed crossbow appears anywhere, which strongly suggests the Douluo world genuinely never developed this technology.
Also, when Tang San cooperated with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, every component was manufactured by them while he only handled assembly. If proper bed crossbows had existed, the structure would have been reverse-engineered long ago.
By the time of Douluo Dalu II, the way Tang Sect mechanisms were enhanced was by Soul Engineering principles, and the destructive boost of ninth-grade fixed-type soul tools was achieved using… gunpowder. Yes, gunpowder. The Douluo world is fascinating, isn't it.)
At first, when Xue Ye was informed that this was merely an "invention" by a special student from a rural background, his reaction was one of clear disdain. Being summoned out of his private chambers for such a matter left him visibly displeased, feeling that it was hardly worthy of his attention as emperor.
Still, out of respect for the three board members, he refrained from outright refusal, offering only perfunctory responses.
But the moment he watched them personally load the crossbows and fire at the targets, his expression changed.
The indifference vanished.
Xue Ye straightened in his seat, stepping forward to examine the weapons himself. Running his hands over the mechanisms, he activated both the bed crossbow and the handheld crossbow personally.
And then, just like that, his attitude shifted completely.
Praise came freely, his previously aged and weary face now flushed with an energy reminiscent of youth. A rare, unrestrained smile spread across his features.
These weapons might not threaten high-level Spirit Masters—but even someone as removed from mundane affairs as Xue Ye could immediately recognize one thing:
Compared to cultivating Spirit Masters, the cost of producing these weapons was negligible.
On that very day, as the bed crossbow and handheld crossbow were delivered into the palace, Chen Ming himself was summoned—personally, and without delay—into the imperial court.
...
Drop some POWERSTONES to push the story forward!
PS: Read Advance Chapters at https://www.patreon.com/c/ReadJin