Chapter 46
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Chapter 46: New Weapon
Compared to the setbacks in bow and arrow research and development, the progress on the new weapon here was much smoother.
It was so smooth that in less than an hour, Luo Ji had already made the first sample.
That is right, after taking a step back, the new weapon Luo Ji chose to make was the sling!
Simply put, this meant slingers.
Which was probably the oldest ranged unit in human civilization, right?
He did not know or research how humans made slings in ancient times, but the structure and production of a sling were clearly much simpler than a bow and arrow.
He instructed someone to find a palm-sized piece of tough animal hide and four animal tendons to use as ropes.
Considering durability, he twisted two tendons together in a spiral weave to make one rope.
Then, using a stone spear, he forcefully poked four small holes along the edge of the animal hide, one on each side.
After threading the woven tendons through the holes and knotting them, a simple sling was completed.
[System Notification: Congratulations player ‘Luo Ji’ for successfully crafting ‘Sling.’ You have gained 30 civilization points and 3 military points]
The system’s reminder boosted Luo Ji’s confidence.
Carrying the newly completed sling, he excitedly walked towards the outside of the tribe.
You had to test a new weapon to know if it was good or not.
The 5 members of the Armament Department followed closely.
They were clearly very curious about this simple-looking yet never seen before new weapon in their chief’s hands.
On the way to the testing ground, Luo Ji did not let the five of them remain idle.
They collected many stones of suitable size along the path to serve as ammunition for the slings.
At the same time, he called over Luo Yong, Zhao Pan, and others who were training.
After all, he had made this sling for the warriors in the tribe to use.
However, their tribe currently had a shortage of manpower, and Luo Ji could not increase the number of tribal warriors in a short time.
Given this situation, the candidates for slingers could only be chosen from the existing tribal warriors.
However, four of the wolf warriors were currently at the Black Rock Tribe, so there were only fourteen warriors at the Mirror Tribe at the moment.
After a period of rigorous training, the fourteen tribal warriors finally had a sense of being disciplined and well-trained.
Standing neatly in a row, they gave a much more reliable feeling.
Without unnecessary talk, Luo Ji personally demonstrated.
After all, among this group, he was the only one who had some understanding of this newly made sling.
Holding one end of the sling in his hand, he placed a round stone, roughly the size of a tennis ball, on the animal hide section.
To be honest, Luo Ji was quite nervous.
He had never actually used a sling before.
What if he messed up and accidentally injured himself?
Wouldn’t that be incredibly embarrassing for him as the chief?
“Calm down.”
He comforted himself inwardly.
After casually adjusting his breathing, Luo Ji’s mood quickly settled.
“It should be the same principle as twirling a pen.”
“It’s just using the centrifugal force generated by spinning…”
Thinking of this, Luo Ji gently swung the hand holding the sling a couple of times to get a feel for it.
Then, with a burst of force, the sling in his hand immediately began to rotate rapidly, making whistling sounds.
Luo Ji’s actions caused a stir among the people behind him.
Eyes filled with curiosity instantly focused on the constantly spinning sling.
Without further delay, and with a mindset of ‘get it over with,’ because being embarrassed would only last for a moment.
Luo Ji seized an opportunity and suddenly whipped the rapidly spinning sling in his hand into the distance!
The stone placed on the animal hide section immediately flew out with a ‘swoosh.’
His strength was decent, coupled with the acceleration from centrifugal force, the stone flew very far.
Seeing this, Luo Ji finally breathed a sigh of relief.
At the same time, he secretly felt happy that he had not been foolish enough to place a target opposite him earlier, otherwise, given his accuracy just now, it would have been enough to make him burst into tears.
“Ahem!”
Luo Ji gave a heavy cough and turned around expressionlessly.
Feeling the gazes filled with astonishment, excitement, and admiration, his self-esteem was greatly satisfied.
“In summary, that’s how it is. Who wants to give it a try?”
“Me, me!”
Hearing this, Luo Yong, who had been eager to try for a long time, quickly expressed his desire.
Luo Ji did not mind.
He directly handed the sling in his hand to Luo Yong. After explaining the key points of operation to him, he let him try it himself.
The difficulty of the sling itself lay in how to control accuracy to hit a target relatively precisely.
Just throwing the stone bullet out was not very difficult.
He watched as Luo Yong placed the stone and very smoothly got the sling spinning.
His strength was great.
Just swinging it around to spin gave off a sense of astonishing power.
However, before Luo Ji could even sigh for another second, he heard a dull ‘bang.’
The stone bullet, carrying astonishing power, heavily smashed into the ground, directly creating a small pit the size of a bowl opening.
The estimated range was probably… hmm, 5 meters…
“Pfft!”
At that moment, Luo Ji could not hold back at all and accidentally laughed out loud.
Luo Yong’s face instantly turned completely red.
Although Luo Ji had not specified a standard, looking at the distance the stone bullet flew when Luo Ji demonstrated, and then looking at his own, anyone could see how poorly he had performed just now.
As a ranged weapon, what was the point of a range of about 5 meters?
It was less efficient than just rushing forward with a stone spear for melee combat.
The smile on his face slightly subsided.
Luo Ji walked forward 2 steps and patted Luo Yong’s shoulder.
“Alright, next person.”
“Everyone come and get familiar with it.’
“Afterward, I will pick four or five people among you who are the best at using this sling to specialize in it.”
Luo Yong’s problem just now was clearly due to using excessive force and not timing it correctly, which resulted in that frankly comical range.
But it did not matter.
As a fierce general who could charge at the front, Luo Ji had no intention of having Luo Yong switch to being a slinger anyway.
However, not letting him try at all would also be unreasonable.
This was a good opportunity to use that moment to dispel that notion for him.
After comforting Luo Yong a few words and publicly stating that both slingers and melee warriors had their own advantages and there was no distinction between strong and weak.
Luo Ji turned around and instructed the people from the Armament Department to make several more slings according to this design.
Then, he let them practice on their own first.
Although the various developments within the tribe had recently gotten on track, his daily work was still not easy.
After such a long time, the defensive structures on the outer periphery of the Mirror Tribe were already close to being half-built.
It was time for him, as the chief, to go back and continue his struggle with his ‘pulley system.’
At the same time, the design blueprints for the entire city gate also needed to be drawn quickly.
