As I peeked through the cave where I was crafting, I saw something moving down below, looking at it, it was a lion alright. It was definitely still trying to locate the source of the explosive sound that the gun made.
The lion was massive in size, I've seen lions in zoos, and thought a lion in the zoo is majestic and huge, compared to this one, the zoo lion is no larger than a newborn kitten. This thing was massive, and its name was spot on.
It had bone armor all over its body, acting like a suite of protection made of sturdy bones. It had a purple mane that adorned its head giving I a majestic bearing, as for the rest of its body, it was fully armored up to the teeth. Its own face had bone armor, and only the grim red eyes of his were visible.
Though how I managed to see the lion's eyes who was at least a hundred meters down wasn't just due to how amazing a cultivator's sight was, no because the lion was staring me in the eye directly, it had already located me and was now on the prowl.
It crouched down, then powered by its massive hind legs, it jumped and reached the cave in one single jump, where it slowly walked forward towards me.
X was about to challenge the lion, but I aimed the gun directly into the lion's face. The lion didn't deem the 'tool' in my hand worth the effort of being warry of it, simply because it wasn't a spirit sword nor did it give off any menacing presence. Poor kitty.
I pressed the trigger and my shoulder once again threatened to pop out of its socket.
The bullet shot faster than the sound of the explosion and smacked into the lion's skull. Two impressive things happened right here. The first was, the bullet couldn't penetrate through the lion's armored skull, and the second was the fact that the lion stuttered then fell to his side. Concussed.
It definitely sounded like the lion was struck to the head with a heavy sledgehammer, as the lion began frothing at the mouth and shuddering, trying to move to no avail.
I thought about using poison breath on the lion and end his misery, but decided against it. This lion was acting on instinct, and it would be a shame to just kill me for no reason. His armor is rather expensive, but I'm not low on money right now. Nor do I need it, as it appears that whatever the armor-making X was, it was already far sturdier than the bone armor on the lion and I wouldn't kill the beast for armor I won't use myself.
I sat down in front of the concussed lion and waited for it to regain its bearing. After a couple of hours, the lion had long since stopped spasming.
I sighed saying, "If you're gonna keep playing dead, I might as well kill you right now."
Almost immediately the lion stood on all four and began backing away while growling, his ears were flat on his head, afraid.
"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead," I said, "Now sit down!" I called and the lion surprisingly understood me.
'hmm, it seems that creatures of the sixth tier understand language, though they definitely can't speak they're able to discern the meaning behind my words.'
The lion looked intently at me, then around the cave, as if studying the things I had been using trying to understand how it was dealt such a blow without it being able to comprehend how much power had come from such a little item.
"You shouldn't have tried your luck against me, still I feel bad for hurting you, here," I said as I threw a pill next to the lion's paw.
He looked worried at first, but after a sniff, the lion gently picked up the 'treat' with its jaws and gulped it in.
Soon the lion crouched and looked at me with its big red menacing eyes, trying to mimic a kitten wanting treats. Somehow this felt creepy.
"That's the only one you'll get, now, off you go," I shooed the lion away and it turned with its tail between its legs and jumped down the cave.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself, 'Dude that was a fregging lion!'
Unable to even comprehend what just happened, I decided against trying to understand what goes on in the mind of lions, it then began the second part of my trials.
The bullet made from Meteorite steel was good, but they weren't the best, they easily broke when in contact with tough material, for example, the lion's bones were tougher than stone and the bullet was squished flat against his thick skull. But that's not bad, a metal that can bend and break is good on its own, not just for the shards that it will create when in contact with flesh, but if I hollowed the bullets, I can place poison pills within them.
For now, the weapon made of Meteorite Steel is rather impressive, it didn't bend, break or overheat, but I'll definitely need to upgrade it. This is but a prototype and it's already doing amazing work. But the fact that I can't use more power from the spirit stones is problematic.
I thought about making a gun that can use the entire power of a High-Grade Spirit Stone to shoot one single bullet but then shook my head, just one percent is already taxing on my shoulder, I'd rather not risk blowing my entire arm off on some crazy thought.
Then, as my eyes landed on X, I grinned evilly. If X was capable of human emotions, I'd swear he'd shudder at what I have in store for him.
"X come over," I said and then he sat in front of me. I pulled one of his arms off and began working on it. I used Creeping demise to hollow his forearm creating a cylindrical hollow within it. Then fitted in a small Rotating Bullet Magazine inside it. I fastened it with a few pieces of metal that I welded using the heat from my own poison Qi, then installed a barrel that went from the hollow in his forearm and ended at the palm of his hands.
Afterward, I added another part where I placed a High-Grade Spirit Stone within the chamber, linked it to the rotating bullet chamber, and had the whole arm fitted with a gun inside it.
X's can now shoot bullets, and I made sure to keep the gun circuit separated from the 'Mind' circuit of X. But linked them in a sense to have X able to use the gun within his arm whenever he wished.
"Try it," I asked X," and he immediately pointed at a wall with his open palm, and shot six bullets in quick successions. The bullets all penetrated through the same hole the first one went through, with frightening accuracy.
"Damn, DeadShot would feel proud…" I spoke as a wide grin was plastered across my face.
"You don't need no swords X, you'll be my little terminator, give me that second arm!" I said and continued working on X, modifying and changing things, adding and removing. At one point, I could have sworn I went too far.
A month had gone by, and in this month two things happened. The first was the occasional visits from the Armored Lion, yes, the little bugger kept coming back pestering me about pills. Thought I would have chased him off, he came back with some really tempting things. He was smart, and I believe that when he saw the metals spread around my cave the first time I came, he went around the Concave Desert, locating metals, armors, and old weapons that he could find, most I would become from some idiotic cultivators who tried to challenge him. And he even brought holding bags, the poor kitten didn't know how to open them, and when I opened them, (after having the poison god's blessing that those pouches won't kill me) I gave the lion any pills I found there. It was his reward.
He didn't wish to take any of the spiritual herbs and was more than content with the pills I gave him.
The second thing was, the atmosphere, the skies above the Concave Desert became blood red. It seems that there was something happening in this desert, especially since I actually saw a couple of cultivators rushing over their own weapons a few miles away from me. Many others came after them and no one cared enough to come and check up on me.
I felt a few divine senses scanning my surrounding, and when they landed on the armored lion, the divine sense immediately disappeared. It seems that the owners of this divine sense didn't wish to bother the armored lion and the man that kept it as a 'pet.'
I continued working on X, and when he was fully fitted with guns, and hidden weapons I deemed my work done. I had inscribed so much on X that it was becoming cumbersome to add more inscriptions on him without having the whole thing backfire at me or cause a programming failure of epic proportions.
My method of extensive detailed writing was good at making X more precise, but the fact that I wrote so many of the codes made a huge problem for me. I needed to update my inscription methods. Something like the barrier the Laughing Slaughtered had installed, it had a lot of inscriptions so many of them in fact that they were layered one above the other, though his words were far fewer than the ones I would usually write to make the same exact command, his were more detailed and more direct. It was as if he was writing less and meaning more. I'll need to upgrade my understanding of inscriptions soon.
After finishing with X, and having installed guns in his arms, additional pockets to keep extra spiritual stones in case of emergencies, and a self-destruction mechanism. Yes, I needed that in case X finds himself in the wrong hands, I don't want anyone taking X away and I'd rather have him blow up than have my secrets exposed. Still, I won't be losing X even if he blew himself up. Though the self-destruct mechanism was installed, I made a conscious eject mechanism. So when X decided it would be best to blow up, he'll escape with his consciousness in one of his arms that I fitted with a 'flying' inscription that will run away and come to me.
I still have many other things to explore such as explosives and more. And I didn't spare any time working on them.