Tremble! My System Manufactures Modern Weapons

CHAPTER 6

The giant royal plaza was packed with only the representatives of every single major house, rich merchant guild, and high-tier cultivation organization. Everyone stood tightly together beneath the massive golden banners of the empire that fluttered lazily in the cold wind.

Everyone in the entire province knew the truth about these urgent imperial events. Royal meetings like this were only called for very difficult challenges that led to great, life-changing rewards.

Right at the absolute front of the grand courtyard stood Chloe Sterling, looking highly beautiful but incredibly mean. Her small arm was wrapped proudly and tightly around Young Master Brandon, and her eyes scanned the crowd with extreme satisfaction.

Young Master Brandon lifted his chin in supreme arrogance, looking down on every single person who walked past them on the stone path. He adjusted his expensive red cuffs, his face full of an unyielding, arrogant pride that made nearby lesser cultivators look away in shame.

Brandon and Chloe completely believed that Lady Vivienne was dead and buried deep inside the dark mountain pass. Lady Vivienne had always won the previous royal challenges easily, but they thought she was gone forever now along with that trash Dustin.

Because of this beautiful lie, Brandon was completely sure that he was destined to receive the Emperor's royal reward today. There was no one left in the city to compete with his high talent.

"Once I solve today's challenge, no one in this city will be qualified to stand beside me," Brandon squeezed Chloe's hand confidently, his face full of an unyielding, arrogant pride.

"I know you will do it, Brandon, honey," Chloe giggled softly, leaning her head against his expensive silk shoulder with deep, smug affection. "You are the brightest genius in the whole realm."

"That worthless servant Dustin is finally a corpse, and now we are on our way to the absolute top of the world," Chloe whispered, her eyes sparkling with raw greed.

Brandon let out a proud laugh, entirely unaware that the massive crowd directly behind them was suddenly parting in a wave of total, petrified silence.

A sudden, freezing breeze swept through the grand royal plaza, and the loud talking of thousands of people completely died down.

Chloe's proud smile froze completely on her beautiful face as she heard a sharp, terrifying gasp from her father standing right next to her.

She turned her head slowly, her silver eyes widening in pure, unadulterated horror as she looked at the entrance gates.

Lady Vivienne walked calmly through the heavy iron gates of the plaza, her magnificent silver robes shimmering beautifully under the light without a single speck of dirt.

She was completely unharmed, her posture full of absolute royal dignity, and she did not look like someone who had been ambushed at all.

But what made Chloe's breath catch violently in her bleeding throat was the tall person walking right beside the Archduchess.

It was Dustin Vance, standing straight and strong.

It was the very man they had personally beaten, shattered, and sentenced to a bloody death in the mud just yesterday afternoon.

He was wearing clean clothes, his face perfectly calm, and his freezing, unyielding gaze locked directly onto the trembling faces of Chloe and Young Master Brandon.

The entire royal plaza exploded into a wild, screeching hurricane of loud, terrified whispers and frantic finger-pointing.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Patriarch Sterling gasped, his face turning a deathly shade of pale as his knees shook. "How on earth are they still alive and breathing?!"

"This is completely impossible!" Chloe shrieked, her voice cracking with an intense, sudden wave of pure panic as she stepped back. "Brandon, look at him! His legs were totally destroyed by your spiritual weapon yesterday! How is he walking?!"

"He should be a dead corpse in the dirt!" Brandon roared fiercely, his knuckles turning white as his hands began to shake with deep fury. "No one can survive three stab wounds to the lungs without high cultivation! What kind of forbidden dark magic is this?!"

Dustin simply looked at their pale, terrified faces from across the courtyard and let out a low, bone-chilling smile.

Suddenly, the cold, mechanical blue interface of the system violently flashed across his vision, burning new text straight into his ice-cold mind with consecutive alert sounds.

[DING! 500 Anger Points harvested from Chloe Sterling’s intense public shock!]

[DING! 800 Anger Points harvested from Young Master Brandon’s sudden, unbridled fury!]

[DING! 1,500 Anger Points harvested from the surrounding crowd’s complete confusion and panic!]

The massive harvest of points had officially begun, and Dustin’s balance was growing rapidly with every single passing millisecond.

He did not say a word to them; he simply kept his steady, unyielding gaze locked on his former fiancée, enjoying the palpable sense of terror in her eyes.

Chloe felt a cold sweat breaking out across her skin, her heart pounding against her ribs with a deep, primitive dread.

"Brandon, he is looking at us," Chloe whispered frantically, her hands trembling as she clutched his arm. "His eyes... they do not look like the eyes of a slave anymore."

"Be quiet, Chloe! He is still just a powerless servant with zero cultivation energy!" Brandon hissed through his teeth, trying to suppress his own rising terror. "I don't care how he survived the assassins. He cannot do anything to a Seventh Meridian master in front of the throne."

The heavy brass horns of the palace suddenly blew, and a wave of absolute silence descended over the grand plaza.

The High Emperor finally rose from his massive golden throne, his face grave and his presence radiating a suffocating power that made everyone drop to their knees.

He gestured with his long, jeweled hand toward a gigantic crystal cage sitting right in the center of the platform.

Inside the massive cage rested a giant, two-meter-tall black egg completely covered in glowing golden runes that flickered wildly across the surface like lines of lightning.

The golden runes released a heavy, terrifying spiritual pressure that caused many lower-tier cultivators to struggle to breathe.

The Emperor spoke, his deep, rumbling voice shaking the stone floor of the plaza and echoing off the high marble walls of the palace.

"Three months ago, my royal hunters discovered this ancient egg deep within the dangerous Fallen Dragon Valley," the Emperor announced clearly. "Every single grandmaster, beast tamer, alchemist, and formation expert in the empire has tried and failed to hatch this beast."

"Yet, the powerful creature inside is clearly still alive, though its lifeforce is fading with every passing day," the Emperor added gravely. "Whoever successfully awakens the beast inside today shall receive ten million top-grade spirit stones and a supreme royal title."

"You will also receive my personal, permanent favor and any request you desire," the Emperor promised, his eyes scanning the crowd.

The entire plaza erupted into a wild frenzy of excitement, everyone desperately wanting to claim the massive reward to lift their house to dominance.

One after another, the most famous experts in the province stepped forward to try their luck on the grand platform.

A famous elder from the Beast Taming Pavilion poured his animal magic into the cage, but the egg remained completely still and did not move.

A royal alchemist tried to use a rare, glowing spiritual liquid to wake the dragon, but the liquid dried up instantly and turned into gray smoke.

A legendary formation grandmaster chanted ancient spells for ten minutes, but he left the stage completely humiliated as the runes flashed red against his hands.

"Move aside, you useless old fools," Brandon sneered loudly, stepping out from the front row with extreme confidence as the crowd cheered.

He radiated a massive wave of golden spiritual energy, his face twisted in a smug grin as he looked back at Dustin.

"This junior shall easily succeed where everyone else has failed," Brandon stated proudly to the royal council.

He closed his eyes, and a massive explosion of golden energy burst from his core, filling the air with a bright, blinding light that amazed the spectators.

He slammed both of his hands against the crystal cage, pouring his entire Seventh Meridian cultivation straight into the black shell.

The crowd gasped in absolute awe as the golden light began to swirl wildly around the runes of the dragon egg.

Chloe’s eyes filled with a smug, unyielding admiration as she looked down at Dustin standing quietly in the back corner.

"See that, you useless trash?" Chloe sneered loudly toward Dustin. "That is what a real, powerful man looks like. You can never match him."

"A real man? Pfff," Dustin whispered to himself, a low, dangerous smile creeping onto his pale lips as he stood beside Vivienne.

"The man whose breakthroughs were completely funded by my stolen silver coins? The man who needed assassins to kill a broken, powerless man?" Dustin thought, his eyes turning cold.

The irony of her words was so utterly ridiculous that Dustin almost laughed out loud right there in front of the nobles.

Brandon continued to pour every single ounce of his energy into the egg, his face turning a dark shade of red.

One minute passed. Three minutes passed. Five minutes passed, but the black egg did not show any signs of opening.

Suddenly, a sharp, loud sound echoed through the courtyard. CRACK!

The surrounding nobles gasped in sudden excitement, and Brandon grinned widely, thinking he won.

But the egg did not hatch; instead, it suddenly released a violent, catastrophic feedback shockwave of raw, unadulterated energy. BOOM!

The massive explosion tore through the crystal cage, launching Brandon backward through the air like a broken leaf in a storm.

His expensive silk robes instantly exploded into tattered rags, and his long hair was completely burned away by the fiery flash.

He crashed headfirst into the hard stone floor, skidding across the mud until he stopped right at Chloe's feet, his body smoking.

The entire plaza fell into a sudden, horrifying silence before a wave of suppressed noble laughter began to spread through the lords.

Even the royal ministers struggled to hide their smiles as they looked down at the bald, smoking genius lying in the dirt.

Brandon's face turned an ugly shade of purple with intense, unbridled humiliation as he pushed himself up from the ground, coughing up black smoke.

Chloe looked like she wanted to completely disappear into the dirt, her face red with absolute shame.

The blue system screen box suddenly flashed with a giant text alert right in front of Dustin’s face, adding to his balance.

[DING! 20,000 Anger Points harvested from Young Master Brandon's extreme public humiliation! Total balance: 22,000 points!]

Lady Vivienne stepped forward from the front row, her silver robes swaying smoothly as she looked at the Emperor.

"Allow me to try, Your Majesty," Vivienne said, her silver energy surging gracefully around her body as she placed her hand on the cold cage.

The sheer spiritual pressure of her power shook the stones of the plaza, causing the golden runes on the egg to flash brightly.

For a brief moment, the black dragon egg responded, trembling slightly under her touch, but the reaction completely vanished within a single second.

Vivienne frowned deeply, letting out a small, disappointed sigh as she realized even her high power could not do it.

She walked back calmly to the corner, turning her beautiful silver eyes toward Dustin with a worried, protective expression.

"Dustin, do not go up there," Vivienne warned him softly, her hand gently touching his ragged sleeve. "This is not something ordinary people or cultivators can solve with raw energy. The feedback will tear your body apart if you touch it."

But Dustin simply looked at her and let out a calm, reassuring smile, his eyes steady.

"No, My Lady," Dustin answered smoothly, his voice full of a deep, unyielding confidence. "This is exactly something I can solve with my strange tools."

The moment Dustin took a step forward from the back of the crowd, the entire plaza erupted into loud, mocking laughter.

"A servant?" a noble lord scoffed. "He doesn't even cultivate a single thread of spiritual Qi! He is a total nobody!"

"Has the physical humiliation completely damaged his tiny brain?" Brandon burst into a loud, manic laugh from the floor, wiping the soot from his bare, burned scalp.

"You want to hatch a royal dragon, you worthless, broke cripple?!" Brandon roared fiercely. "I am a Seventh Meridian master and I failed! You will be vaporized into black ash by the feedback, trash!"

Chloe looked at Dustin like he was a completely insane lunatic who was simply looking for a quick way to die.

"Don't make a fool of yourself, Dustin," Chloe sneered coldly. "Go back to the kitchen where you belong."

Dustin completely ignored every single one of them, his mind focused on the blue interface of his system.

He rapidly flipped through the items in the technology store until his eyes locked onto an advanced premium device from a future world.

"System, purchase the Thermal Life-Scanner from the advanced military catalog right now," Dustin ordered mentally, his eyes flashing.

[Ding! 5,000 Anger Points spent. Advanced Thermal Life-Scanner purchased. Spawning item now.]

In a fraction of a second, a strange, compact bronze tablet mysteriously appeared directly in Dustin's solid grip, its screen dark.

To the surrounding ancient cultivators, the modern piece of technology looked like nothing more than a weird, flat piece of scrap iron.

"What on earth is that strange toy?" Julian Sterling laughed from the side, shaking his head with disdain. "Is he planning to hatch a legendary dragon egg using standard carpentry tools? He is a complete clown!"

Dustin did not answer; he walked directly past the guards and stepped straight up to the massive crystal cage.

He lifted the bronze tablet, his finger clicking the power switch as the advanced screen lit up with a sharp, high-tech hum.

The modern thermal life-scanner activated instantly, revealing a terrifying, hidden truth to Dustin's eyes on the digital interface.

The creature inside the black shell was not refusing to hatch because of a lack of spiritual cultivation energy.

The royal dragon was actively dying from a severe energy drain.

Someone had secretly, meticulously placed a massive, inverted draining formation directly beneath the stones of the platform, siphoning the dragon's lifeforce away every single minute.

Dustin's eyes narrowed into sharp slits of ice as he tracked the glowing lines on his high-tech screen.

The central core of this illegal, life-stealing array was hidden directly and strategically beneath the Emperor's throne platform.

Dustin slowly lifted his head, his cold gaze shifting from the tablet straight to the pale face of the High Emperor.

Because suddenly, this high-stakes trial wasn't just about hatching a beast anymore; a massive plot was unfolding.

Someone within the supreme court was secretly attempting to murder a royal dragon right under the Emperor's nose.

And perhaps, they were planning to use that stolen energy to overthrow the Emperor himself?

"There is a great treason happening right under your eyes, Your Majesty," Dustin said loudly, his voice echoing across the silent plaza as he pointed his bronze tablet straight at the altar. "This dragon egg is not refusing to hatch—it is being murdered by an illegal draining formation hidden directly beneath your royal throne!"