Weapon seller in the world of magic

With Shang Ho out of the race, only 4 remained.

The next day morning;

At the imperial court filled with officials, the four contenders stood beside each other as they stared at the Emperor sitting on the throne.

Shang Fu went on to say, "The second phase is the Trial of the Wisdom. As you have been informed earlier, this trial focuses on your wisdom."

He shifted his attention to the officials and continued, "In the upcoming trial, the contenders are presented with a series of intricate puzzles, riddles, and tests of intellect. They must unravel ancient scrolls, decipher cryptic symbols, and solve complex logic puzzles. The trial focuses on their strategic thinking, problem-solving skills, and ability to make wise and sound decisions under pressure."

He shifted his attention back to the contenders and spoke, "The trial of wisdom has seven stages. Each day, one stage. The time limit will be sunset.

For the first stage of this trial, the four of you will be locked in different chambers filled with ancient scrolls. The fragmented information about the Emperor's lineage and historical events is scattered around the chamber.

You just have to collect and piece together the scrolls, arranging them in the correct chronological order. You receive a score based on how much work you have completed. For this task, the maximum score also varies according to the difficulty.

Your scores will add up as you go through a different stage of the trial on each day.

By the end of the seventh day, the one with the least score will be eliminated.

As for which room each one will go to, it depends on your choice. As the highest-scored contender during the previous trial, Prince Shang Jun would get the first choice.

Here are the five scrolls."

The Emperor gave the scrolls to Bai Xun, who then passed them to Shang Jun.

He opened one.

It basically contained the difficulty level in the form of chess pieces, like a soldier (max: 50) is the weakest and easiest difficulty, followed by the royal knight (max: 100), Captain (max: 100), General (max: 150), and Supreme Commander (max: 300).

This time, Shang Jun didn't go for the best one, assuming that it will be too difficult. He took the general level difficulty.

After him, Shang Zexi's turn came. However, he too was reluctant to choose the hardest one. He chose Captain-level difficulty.

Shang Xiang followed the same way and chose the Royal Knight difficulty, leaving the third prince with the option of two extremes.

As Shang Wei was staring at each of them, the crown prince laughed inwardly. He was delighted to see his prime opponent will end up at a disadvantage whatever choice he makes.

In the end, the third prince gave one scroll back to the supreme commander and spoke, "I will take this."

Bai Xun opened it curiously and saw that he had the soldier-level difficulty one, meaning Shang Wei will be facing the most difficult one. He personally created this trial and knew how difficult it is going to be.

Still, as a person who swore an oath to neutrality, he cannot take any sides, and he acted as if he doesn't care.

"Contenders, I believe you must have already seen the location written in your scrolls. So, you have to find your way to it. There is no prohibition for assistance. You can take the help to find your way to your respective destinations," said the Emperor before adding, "Remember, all of you have time only until the sunset. Good luck."

***

Lunaris City, Western Moon kingdom;

In the empty plot of land behind the barracks, soldiers were seen crouching on one of their knees while having ether pistols in their hands. Targets were placed about 20 meters away in the form of scarecrows.

Amidst them, there were also a couple of battle robots with rank-1 and rank-3 respectively.

Meanwhile, Mark was shouting like an officer, "Now, look at them. Don't you feel humiliated when these things could strike the target more precisely than you do? All of you can single-handedly beat them in close combat but you lose when in ranged battle. Why?

Is it because you weren't accustomed to the firearms? No.

That is an excuse for the civilian-level soldiers, not royal knights like you guys. If you couldn't handle small firearms like these, how could you handle big ones? You must have heard about the Phoenix Empire's recent war with our southern neighbor.

Before the supreme beings were involved, the Kunyu Royal Force guarded their land by not letting any foreigners into their land and even kept peace in the Gong City. How?

They were weak but they had the firearms. They mastered assault rifles and sniper rifles, which can strike targets far away that an arrow can reach.

I'm not telling you to depend on firearms. Just treat them as a tool to have an advantage over your enemies.

And how could you master the art of gun firing when you people are not trying hard enough? Put more concentration on the targets. Don't let your gaze move here and there. Don't let your hand shiver. You'll do fine. Now, again. Shoot. Go for the head."

As Mark was done with his store and learned about everything that there is about the kingdom (through Shen Ling) during the past week, he left the store in Chang Bo's hands and went to train the firearms unit comprised of 500 soldiers, in which 10 royal knights are included. He planned to make one of those royal knights a general for this division.

In the meantime, he also started a work called 'Project C'. C stands for Cerberus. He planned to create a mechanical Cerberus capable of moving on its own like a Battle Robot while equipped with several types of guns.

For now, he was using the spare parts of the destroyed robots, especially their batteries.

So far, he made four such prototypes but none of them worked so far. After a few trials and errors, he realized that the internal batteries appeared to be an issue.

The multiple batteries from different robots are the ones that make the problem.

Hence, Mark decided to take them out, and for the past three days, he was busy making an external battery as a power source. However, making it from scratch is something of an arduous task.

Hence, he dismantled the remaining batteries and merged them all to create a bigger one. Only one more shot is remaining and he doesn't want to get any failure.

The circuits and every other part went through multiple checks. And tonight will be the day he will assemble the prototype and go through testing.

Mark was excited about it and that excitement showed in today's training. He was slightly more aggressive as he trained the royal knights in handling the guns.

The evening arrived.

Back at Imperial City's imperial palace, everyone was waiting for the contenders to come out of the chambers; meanwhile, in Lunaris City's royal palace, Mark was looking forward to bedtime.

He was having tea with the King and talking about the power dynamics. All of a sudden, a holographic screen suddenly pops up in front of his eyes with a message from the system.

*Ding! You received a message from Allen Spencer.

Message: Big Bro, Queen Consort Lan Jingyi is here and she intends to talk to you. It appeared she figured out the truth about Shang Jiao's abduction.

Mark's facial expression changed when he saw that. He rose to his feet.

"What happened?" asked the King of Western Moon.

Mark replied, "I need to leave to handle an urgent situation. Please excuse me."