5 Chapter 5

The scratching and howling only earned a squint of annoyance from Qiqi who snorted at the loud noises ringing out and then she looked back at me from the armored window. "The Night Crawler's will not be able to enter, do not worry." She said blandly before shaking her head as she looked at me in something akin to exasperation as she continued. "How do you not know of the monsters?" She questioned with incredulity within her normally so dull voice.

I just shrugged and at her continued stare I just said wryly. "I just don't."

And she sighed and literally face palmed at my ignorance apparently before she took a breath to begin speaking. "Normally even children know of the neverborn, monsterkin, and the other subspecies of monsters... But here in Liyue most monster's are of the spiritual variety, mostly ghost's like myself but drenched in corruption and becoming wriaths or a grudge bearer." She began to explain before looking towards the armored window that even now was still radiating the scratching noises of monstere's trying make their way within.

Qiqi, dipped her head towards the window and said blandly. "Outside beating at your window according to the pressure of the blows on the plate, are the Hellbat's. Oversized bats with venomous fang's and claws that typically fly in swarms of thousands at minimum, and they typically spend the day within the caves's dotting the mountains of Liyue and are one of our actual defense mechanisms as no larger swarms of other monster's can cross the mountains at night without calling upon the hellbat swarms upon themselves." She explained and then shrugged with a tiny smile crossing her lips as she continued.

"Of course... They are still monsters, so they are troublesome at best and will typically end up killing a couple of people once a month that doesn't get to cover or their protection gets broken into during the night." Qiqi finished explaining the Hellbats seemingly and then visibly shifted in place with her purple eye's sharpening onto my form as she stated bluntly.

"If you are to live within this world without whatever that was previously protecting you from the truth, I highly recommend you take up at least Martial Arts and gain Ki so you can defend yourself and most importantly... Go to the library and learn about the danger's of the world." She finished, and like before when she tired of conversation she broke apart into motes of light to disappear without me getting another word in.

Leaving me alone in the room. To utterly fail at getting any fucking sleep.

No seriously... I want anyone to try to sleep knowing creepy crawlers were within their walls, and loudly scratching at your walls so they could devour you.

-

To say the least, I didn't sleep well that night. But the following late morning after dawn had come and the monsters outside had returned back to their caves, allowing me to get a few of hours of rest before I groggily got up, cleaned up, and ate a light early lunch to get my day started.

As I got my stuff altogether to hit the streets of Liyue, I paused as I left the house and as I wondered if I should in fact go to Keqing with my prototype gun, or should I go to the library and research the monsters of the world or even try to join a dojo to get a martial arts manual... "Dammit, there's too much to do right now." I muttered with a sigh as I realized it circled back to me lacking resources.

If had a lot more wealth I could hire teachers to teach me martial arts, along with settling up caravans and such to start making factories outside of Liyue, lastly of course, with enough resources I would love to see a martial artist or cultivator fight a dozen AI controlled minigun turrets with explosive and armor-piercing rounds.

So with the core of my issues amounting to being literally poor, I decided to try to rectify that by going to the person with access to the moneybags of the kingdom. Keqing herself, may not have been rich personally, though I somewhat doubted that. As she gave me a decent-quality spirit stone that literally bought me a house without much care... Either way, weapon contracts were always an extremely lucrative side of the business.

After a good trip across Liyue with the heavy ass steel shotgun strapped to my back and the magazines in a bag I carried over my shoulder I went back to the Liyue Qixing's office and started to talk to one of the Millelith and astoundingly without issues I was lead directly to Keqing.

As I came back into the office that I had my previous meeting with Keqing, she smiled genially in welcome while saying so. "I hope your first night in Liyue went safely." She spoke and I wryly smiled in turn at how that very much was the case.

Either way, I coughed and spoke up. "I made sure to get shelter before night fell too deeply and the Hellbats came out, either way, thank you for your concern but as you advised me yesterday," I said before pulling the large A12 design shotgun on the table between us. "I using the blueprints of my previous work, got a quick prototype of my previous weapon projects completed, and wanted to see what such a weapon would be worth to the Millelith," I explained making raise an elegant purple eyebrow at the alien-looking weapon in front of her.

She folded her hands together and inclined her head towards the weapon and said evenly. "Then sell it to me, Jake."

I smiled and then took out the magazines and explained how the cartridges would send a payload of various ammunition types in the direction of the barrel of the gun. "Though as a reminder, I made this weapon to be welded by people with a bit of a base in martial arts or just being very strong to begin with," I explained with a wry smile.

With this caliber of a shotgun... I didn't want to be the one shooting it honestly. I liked my shoulder still in its socket.

Keqing took in the gun for a second before shrugging. "Very well, let us see its effects on the archery range." She said with finality as she stood up and then lead me to the Millelith's training grounds which were behind her office funny enough.

There were long rows of archery stands and targets down the range with several archers carefully training their archery talent with precise drawing and sending arrows down the range to slam into their targets of choice.

I coughed and then handed out to Keqing a couple small wads of cloth I made out of some wax covered in a silk-like cloth as I announced. "This weapon system is... Terribly loud." I said frankly and she shook her head with a small smile as she proudly stated.

"I am capable of controlling my senses and protecting them from sonic attacks, do not worry about me and just hit the targets down range." She told me and I shrugged and then mounted the shotgun on a stand of dirt to help with the recoil a bit as I slotted in the bird shot.

"This ammo type is bird shot, which with each shot shooting several hundred small pellets of cheap iron downrange with makes it perfect for shredding through large crowds of lightly armored targets or flyers," I explained quickly and then with a fucking ear-ringing explosive noise of a bang, a plume of thin smoke was shot out of the barrel of the gun as the 6 gauge bird shot sent its storm of tiny pellets down range to pepper the target down range that sent up a plum of dust as the pellets tore apart the straw and sand target.

But as I shot the shotgun, even with it mounted slightly to help with the recoil a bit and even the A12's recoil management system. the recoil fucking bucked up into my shoulder my eye's winced at the pain at each shot as I emptied the twenty-round drum magazines into the distance and by the time I was halfway through the target was falling apart with the sand leaking out of the many holes tore through its form.

All was going well even though my shoulder was sore as hell after showing off the more typical shells in slugs and other things. Until I got to the dragon breath rounds.

"So this round uses a special chemical reaction which allows the rounds to burn hotter than non-supernatural flames," I explained with a wide grin coming across my face as I stood up and with the shotgun placed against my shoulder I unloaded a stream of Dragon's Breath rounds down the range sending the chunks of molten magnesium burning with blinding light across the field.

I looked over to Keqing with a grin at having enjoyed shooting the dragon's breath and her face was twitching at the sight of all the targets on fire. But as she got control over her expression she took a breath and was just about to answer but instead a bunch of the archer's came over and began asking about what the hell weapons we were testing and I said the kicker. "Oh this is a possible weapons system I am testing with Lady Keqing to see if it can work for the Millelith and be ordered in mass." I said cunningly and the men looked to Keqing with all but shiny eye's as one called weakly.

"Boss! Those weapons don't use spiritual energy and having a fire-creating weapon that doesn't need those cultivators to fuel the explosive seals and crap would be so damned good for night patrols outside the city!" The brave archer reported and Keqing's eye twitched at how her subordinate gave higher value to my invention.

But I raise a hand as I said frankly. "None of my materials use spiritual or magical materials so they are rather cheap. And I already have a system to which to mass produce a couple thousand rounds a day without issue on my own." I reported and Keqing rolled her eyes before she looked at the brave archer.

"Jake, show Lee here how to use your gun I want to see how he works it with a martial arts foundation so the shooter won't be flinching and being pushed back with each shot." Keqing ordered and I knew I had my contract, as I showed the young man how to properly hold the shotgun and then within a minute he was blasting a hail of shot down range just tearing apart the still burning targets.