Chapter 325 — Bad News

Mo Weitian was stunned for a long while before he came back to himself and said, "What would Lord Bing suggest?"

"I think the two of us could work together," Bing said calmly. "The Mo family has disciples in abundance; picking out a portion of them to form a corps should be no difficulty. Even the lowest-grade corps would be of enormous benefit to the Mo family. If our cooperation goes smoothly, I intend to hand this corps to the Mo family for expansion outward. The Mo family cannot dwell in the Soul Zone forever."

Mo Weitian trembled from head to foot; hot blood rushed to his head, and for a moment his breathing stopped.

To leave the Soul Zone!

It was the wish of how many generations of Mo family heads. This ancient house of mechanisms had always hoped for a place to settle. Convenient as the Soul Zone was in many respects, its drawbacks were just as many—its energy density, its resources—it was not suited to the development of a family.

Mo Weitian drew a deep breath and forced down the surge in his heart. "The Jackal Constellation?"

"No." Bing shook his head. "A great house like the Mo family could hardly be contained by anything less than a planet—a whole constellation, perhaps. Even though the Jackal Constellation is under our control, we could not possibly hand a planet over to the Mo family."

Mo Weitian was not surprised. Had the other party truly meant that, he would instead have begun to weigh seriously whether cooperating with these people was wise. Carving out a plot of land for the Mo family in the Jackal Constellation would be no great problem, but giving them an entire planet would surely provoke fierce resistance from the local powers of the Jackal Constellation—that would be digging their own grave.

"Where has Lord Bing set his sights?" Mo Weitian asked in return.

"A dwelling place for the Mo family must be opened up with Mo blood," Bing said bluntly. "We can provide officers, but we will not take part in it. I trust the Mo family's ability. A competent mechanism corps may not be able to take a whole constellation, but seizing one planet among the Nineteen Provinces of the Northern Sky should be no great difficulty."

"What must we pay?" Mo Weitian asked coolly.

"The Mo family will be our spokesman in the field of mechanisms," Bing said calmly. "We need such a spokesman. Once the Mo family's mechanism corps shows itself, I believe mechanism arts will quickly return to everyone's sight. By then, our advantage will no longer be so great."

At the words "the Mo family's mechanism corps," Mo Weitian's heart gave a violent leap, but what Bing said next calmed him and brought him to his senses. Bing's thinking coincided with his own. For all that the Mo family was an old house in the field of mechanisms, that was merely the monkey playing king when no tiger is on the mountain. Mechanism arts had been in decline for many years, and the giants naturally would not pour strength into it. But once they realized how powerful mechanism arts could be, they would begin to pour it in.

The potential and the power of the giants were terrifyingly hopeless.

The great majority of the Sky Road's resources lay in their hands; before them, any gap in technique was no obstacle at all.

"Lord Bing speaks truly," Mo Weitian sighed. "If we can seize the initiative first, that alone is good enough."

"The initiative is precisely what we want," Bing said, crafty and calculating. "If the Mo family's operation succeeds, it will shake the whole field of mechanisms. Mechanism soul armor can flow outward in great quantities, and talent will flow toward the Mo family. We must hold this initiative before anyone else can react. Pitting our resources against the giants is a contest we cannot win; the one thing in which we may surpass them is people."

Mo Weitian was enlightened all at once, and then found the whole thing marvellous. The only thing to doubt was whether this required an exceptionally keen eye—and whether Bing had such an eye, Mo Weitian was not greatly confident. But clearly, Bing was probably the man who best understood mechanism corps at present.

"That method is good," Mo Weitian nodded.

"I will give the Mo family head a very simple method of assessment. Whoever passes it may all be brought over," Bing wasted few words. "The corps's special training will take about five months. Of course, the soul general cards and mechanism soul armor required must be paid for by the Mo family. In addition, when necessary, we reserve the right to deploy this corps."

Mo Weitian weighed it briefly, then agreed. With the Mo family's present strength, no giant would think them worth a glance. If the Mo family could migrate out of the Soul Zone, he would be willing to pay a price far greater than this.

Bing was well satisfied with such progress. In his eyes the most valuable thing about the Mo family was its reputation in the field of mechanisms and its sales channels for mechanism soul armor; as for the rest, he did not care. The Mo family's corps was likewise a cannon-fodder corps—of great significance to the Mo family, of none at all to Bing.

Before an elite corps, a cannon-fodder corps was no better than dross.

Still, assembling an elite corps was not so easy either, and Bing could only proceed slowly.

With the agreement struck, Mo Weitian did not linger, but hurried back to the Mo family. Had he known that Tang Tang and the others had come into direct conflict with Guangming Yan, he would never have dared agree.

No one had expected Tang Tang to refuse to hand over the Anhao Sword. In many eyes, the situation in the Jackal Constellation had now settled. Many even believed that Tang Tang, having stood so forcefully against Black Soul, ought to draw the attention of Guangming Yan's higher-ups, and that her future was boundless.

After seeing Mo Weitian off, Sailei hurried over and asked point-blank, "Where did you get the blueprints?"

Bing glanced around, saw that no one was there, and said in a low voice, "I found a barracks that had long been abandoned."

Sailei's eyes flew wide, her face full of disbelief, a tremor in her voice: "The Southern Cross Corps?"

"Mm." Bing nodded, holding nothing back.

"I want to go!" Sailei said decisively.

"You can't go." Bing explained patiently. "We got in by a special route. Only Tang Tang can enter; even I was only brought along. He can take only soul generals in with him."

Sailei's face was full of unwillingness. "There's no other way?"

"I can't think of any other way," Bing said frankly.

Sailei could not help but wilt, her face all regret, and she said listlessly, "I still have to study these blueprints. There are already several places I can repair. Hmph—if I can't go, then I can't go. A place like a ruin, who cares for it? Once I've mastered it, I'll upgrade the Xuanshu City base, and it will be absolutely better than that broken ruin!"

With that she flounced off in a huff.

Bing let out a breath. It seemed that repairing Barracks No. 07 was no short-term affair. But the most important reason for his visit this time had been to hand the blueprints to Sailei; that done, he prepared to return to the new recruit barracks.

Before he left, however, Dingdang returned, travel-stained, bringing bad news.

"Swallowtail Camp?" Bing's expression turned grave.

"Yes. They are a force operating in Coma Berenices, one of the Nineteen Provinces of the Northern Sky," Dingdang explained. "If they hadn't been quietly inquiring after our intelligence, I would never have known that they too were eyeing the Jackal Constellation. And then I came by a piece of uncertain information."

"Uncertain information?" Both Bing and Pipa were drawn by her choice of words.