Chapter 537: Spirit Snake Venom Blade
When Meng Chao revealed Bai Shan’s real colors, he spoke endlessly like a running stream, but when he heard her question before she was going to be killed, he fell silent and did not say anything.
It was not because he could not think of anything to defend himself.
It was not as if Bai Shan’s question was flawless and a logical reason for her to end up as the monsters’ claw.
Instead, it was because Bai Shan’s experiences cut into Meng Chao’s brain like a dagger, causing him to face a question he had been unwilling to face since he returned to the past.
‘In my previous life, Dragon City charged to its own apocalypse under the lead of the mega corporations.
‘Now that I returned from the past, how should I face Sky Pillar, Universe, Soaring Dragon, Thundercloud, and the other five mega corporations as well as the nine great cultivation families and peerless elites behind them?’
In the past, Meng Chao used the excuse that he was still young and weak, that his cultivation realm was low, that he did not have clear memories of the past, and that the threat of the monster civilization hanging above Dragon City like a roaring thundercloud was too much.
He could not get in touch with the mega corporations and the peerless elites, and he had to focus on dealing with the monsters. Because of that, he could only ignore the nine giants who controlled Dragon City.
But once they won the northern offense and the Monster War gradually started on the path to another ending, they were about to win the pitched battle and send the monster civilization to eventual perishment. At most, the enemy would be able to struggle for a few more hours.
Meng Chao had improved by leaps and bounds through multiple encounters with death and became one of the leading forces of the Golden Era in Dragon City. He could no longer ignore the situation and delude himself.
However, asking him to provide an answer as well as solve the problem with the mega corporations right then was still too much. It was still beyond his power.
Bai Shan misunderstood his silence.
“Do you want to say that those rich people are born with the right to enjoy everything, because all the enjoyment in their lives is given to them by their fathers, grandfathers, and the peerless elites risking their lives to fight?” She smiled coldly. “But the powerful aren’t the only ones fighting. Everyone living in Dragon City is doing everything they can to live.
“My mother hunched in the illegal workshop and squinted at her work while she smeared poison on the blades and bullets. She worked to the point where her teeth, bones, nerves, and flesh corroded and she died a miserable death.
“There are also plenty of villagers who ended up as garbage bugs because they had to look for resources that couldn’t even be considered as a snack in the leftovers thrown away by the outside world. While doing it, they faced corrosion and pollution and bacteria and microorganisms growing in the trash that could infect them with all sorts of diseases.
“A number of villagers help the outside world test brand new weapons and cultivation methods. The side effects from that are as powerful as the power they contain. The slightest carelessness can cause spirit energy deviation, while the crystals in the weapons sometimes explode and blow them to pieces.
“The work we did and the suffering we went through is in no way inferior to what the superhumans face in the wild. Besides, the weapons they swing and the bullets they fire are created by us, who offered up our precious lives to make them. So why is it that we can’t enjoy the same lives as they do?
“Fine. I know that there is a different degree to the contributions we make. The contribution of killing an Apocalyptic Beast is clearly much greater than what my mother could offer, despite the fact that she had to rot away after being corroded by poison in the illegal forgery.
“But we’re not greedy. We don’t want to live in huge mansions, eat delicious food, enjoy the most modern medical technology or gene medicine, or live carefree, hope-filled lives.
“We’ve never thought about enjoying such lavish lives before. We just want to live normal lives that give us the slightest bit of dignity and safety. We want to feel like real humans. That would be enough for us.
“We’re all Dragon Citizens. We’re all humans who transmigrated from Earth. We should have to face the problem of resources and monster invasions together, so why is it that some people can live lavish lives in palaces and wear nice clothes while others can only curl up in places that are like rats’ nests, tapping away at joints that are as bloated as b.a.l.l.s, and quietly endure the pain of poison invading their nerves and bones? Is that fair?”
Meng Chao was quiet for a long time. In the end, he could only heave a long sigh and say, “I think I can understand why you ended up joining the monsters.”
“No. You don’t understand. You’re from the outside, so you would never understand,” Bai Shan retorted coldly.
“If it was just that bit of unfairness and those mega corporations ignoring us, those peerless elites as well as the rich people not knowing our existence and only caring about enjoying their lives, I might be resentful, full of pain, and may even give up on hope, but after that, I would accept my fate. It’s my own fault that I was born here and not in a rich family, right?
“I wouldn’t end up joining the monsters and fighting against those high-and-mighty, important people. I would still not go over those moral limits.
“However, as I gained a deeper understanding of the outside world and the nine great mega corporations through the internet, as I worked with Zhang Tie and helped Wild Wolf continue expanding Wild Wolves’ sphere of influence, and as we slowly took over Leprosy Village, I finally discovered something that I had never dreamed of.
“Meng Chao, have you heard about Spirit Snake Venom Blade?”
Meng Chao instinctively nodded.
Once Dragon City transmigrated to the Other World, humans had modified and created more than ten thousand weapons to fight against the zombies, monsters, and the horrible environment. Most of them were strange-looking weapons developed through great imagination, but in real battles, it was found that they looked good on paper but were just fanciful illusions.
However, there was a batch of weapons that withstood the most brutal battlefields and the most vicious monsters. They became well-known masterpieces and the best in the market.
Spirit Snake Venom Blade was the best representative of the batch.
This saber had runic symbols carved on it and crystals embedded in it. Poison was also hidden deep in the runic symbols, which could be activated through the crystals released by spirit energy. It was a beginner-level spirit energy weapon created by Sky Pillar Corporation.
It had started off as a company mining crystals and refining metals, but just like the other eight of the nine great mega corporations, after acc.u.mulating enough wealth through their main business, Sky Pillar Corporation immediately extended its claws to the other important territories related to Dragon City’s survival.
The current and future Dragon City were at war. Weapons production and crystal mining were both important industries.
Sky Pillar Corporation had a firm grip over the high-grade crystals and rare metals. It slowly developed outstanding smelting, creation, and processing technologies. It was, thus, only natural for them to venture into the weapons development field a well. Spirit Snake Venom Blade was a hit product that the weapons forgery under Sky Pillar Corporation focused on creating during the early days of the transmigration.
The formula to create the unique alloy for Spirit Snake Venom Blade was Sky Pillar Corporation’s secret up to this date.
This alloy could ensure the hardness, durability, and malleability of the metal while it remained like a wooden block and a sponge. There were a lot of gaps between the particles, allowing it to be able to absorb and retain acid and poison.
As long as they used Sky Pillar Corporation’s unique liquid injection technology, which was basically sci-fi technology at that time, the saber was able to absorb acid and poison. When it was used to kill monsters, aside from dealing physical damage, the saber would double down by adding corrosive damage. It could even deal triple damage via also adding poison, so its damage would be 300% higher than of a normal weapon!
No one could resist the temptation of delivering three times the normal damage.
Countless superhumans sought Spirit Snake Venom Blade like bees going after honey.
During the first few years, Spirit Snake Venom Blade was a limited product. People even had to pay twice the price if they bought it off the hands of scalpers.
Sky Pillar Corporation relied on Spirit Snake Venom Blade to set up a brand called Spirit Snake, which helped them smoothly join the market of weapons forging. Soon, they gained a steady foothold in the territory.
By now, the weapons developers under Sky Pillar Corporation had developed dozens of light and heavy weapons. They had even started developing motorized armor and light self-thinking fighting vehicles. This territory became the second pillar holding the corporation alongside crystal mining and refinement.
‘Oh, that’s right.’
Meng Chao looked at his feet. Suddenly, he noticed that the dagger Bai Shan had kept close to her heart and used to ambush him was the newest product of the Spirit Snake Venom Blade. It was a lightweight dagger—Phantom Snake.
However, Meng Chao could not understand why Bai Shan would suddenly mention Spirit Snake Venom Blade.
“My mother produced Spirit Snake Venom Blades.” Bai Shan sucked in a deep breath and spoke calmly. “She died slowly of poison because she worked day and night to produce Spirit Snake Venom Blades.”
“…!” Meng Chao instinctively thought that it was impossible.
Whether the daily growth of the mega corporations was good or bad for Dragon City’s future was a debatable thing, but it was certain that Sky Pillar Corporation was a mega corporation with a huge business. It paid great attention to its image, the benefits of its workers, the production environment, and the process of production.
Many top students who graduated from the ace courses in the famous universities and awakened to supernatural abilities racked their brains on how to join the mega corporations.
Veteran hunters like Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong would rather work for an insurance company under a mega corporation than join the secret police or the abnormal beast research department.
All of them did it because they wanted the high salary, great benefits, great working environment, and the responsibility these mega corporations held to provide their employees with continuous education. They would not have to worry about anything if they worked there!
This was especially the case within Sky Pillar Corporation.
Meng Chao was quite close to Lu Siya. Through her, he had a general understanding of how Sky Pillar Corporation operated.
This was especially the case last year. He had worked with Soul Break Saber Luo Wu and Luo Hai to produce Surging Lightning. After the Broken Star Club promoted it, the sales surged up, and they were gradually unable to keep up with productions.
Many industries took a fancy to Surging Lightning’s brand and extended olive branches to work with them.
Among them were the weapons manufacturers from Sky Pillar Corporation.
Meng Chao, Luo Wu, and Luo Hai went to observe Sky Pillar Corporation’s weapons development center.
The research tower itself reached the clouds, and the workshops were all clean. The variety of food offered in the employees’ cafeteria was also enough to make Meng Chao broaden his horizons, and his stomach was filled to the brim during that trip.
Once he filled his stomach, he could not help but sigh. As expected of one of the nine pillars supporting Dragon City!
He just could not imagine Sky Pillar Corporation’s Spirit Snake Venom Blades being produced in the dirty, disorderly, and horrible workshops of Leprosy Village, especially since they were the hit products of the weapons development department.