thefictionvixens Chapter 127 Analyzing Requirements
Chapter 127 Analyzing Requirements
"Let's go back. There's a lot of stuff that still needs to be prepared and made."
The inhabitants of Northfrost City were bewildered, for they had never experienced anything like this before. They had no idea whether the sandworm swarm's retreat meant the end of tonight's battle or was merely a break in the middle of the night.
This decision is crucial, as it determines whether the residents of Beishuang City should go home to sleep or continue defending the city walls. However, for Long You and his group, this issue is actually irrelevant.
Long You and the others ultimately did not live in this Panlong Realm world constructed by an artificial intelligence soul tool. They did not need rest; given time, all they needed to do was continuously become stronger in this world.
Leaving aside long-term goals, Long You and his group had a clear short-term objective within a month: to ensure their own survival and to prevent the fall of Beishuang City.
What else is there to say? Long You and the others need to seize every opportunity—when the sand worm swarm isn't attacking, or even when their attack isn't urgent—to create more defensive soul-guided devices for Beishuang City, enhancing its urban combat capabilities and ensuring its survival amidst the sand worm swarm's attacks, perhaps even allowing it to rise from the ashes.
Back in the blacksmith shop, Lin Zhengze, He Caitou, and Long You, three senior students from the Soul Guidance Department, began to make overall plans.
Any action will be significantly delayed if there are no prior objectives and a complete and detailed action plan.
Judging from the reaction of the sandworm swarm, Long You concluded that the bulk of tonight's battle was over.
In other words, the interim goal of "demonstrating my abilities, gaining the trust of the residents of Northfrost City, and helping them achieve victory in tonight's battle more easily" has been achieved. It's time to set the next phase, or even the overall goal for the previous month.
The goal is simple: to "win". The key question now is, how to win? To win a war, at least one of the following three factors must be present: favorable timing, advantageous location, and popular support (and you can win even if the opponent has none of these).
The issues of timing and location involve the laws of nature, which are clearly beyond the control of people like Long You. Therefore, the main focus of the discussion should be on "human factors."
Here, "human factors" can be in a narrow sense, referring to the morale and strength of the residents of North Frost City; or in a broader sense, referring to the help from the entire human alliance on the Panlong Realm continent.
Let's start with the narrow definition of "human factors." First, the morale of the residents of Northfrost City. This doesn't really need encouragement. The battle has been going on for over a year. Even setting aside the residents' instinctive fear of death, just consider their hatred for the sandworms.
How many people have perished in the insects' bellies? This level of hatred is absolutely at the level of mortal enemies. As long as there is even the slightest hope, the residents of Northfrost City would absolutely not mind grinding the sandworm swarm to dust.
So, is there hope for the residents of Beishuang City? Yes. The change in the residents' fighting spirit tonight has fully demonstrated that Long You and others have used the changes they have brought to dispel the dark clouds and summon a ray of golden sunlight for the residents of Beishuang City.
With morale resolved, let's address the issue of strength. This isn't an easy problem to solve, because improving strength is always a gradual process. Even if you had the Northern Darkness Divine Art like Duan Yu, capable of absorbing the power of others, the results would likely be inconsistent.
Beishuang City has long since exhausted its herb reserves. Not only can it no longer achieve a side-effect-free increase in strength, but it can no longer utilize methods that consume potential to improve its current strength. This essentially means that Beishuang City's ability to improve its strength can only rely on soul tools.
Teaching the residents of Beishuang City how to use soul tools in a short period of time is not an easy task, and it would also be difficult for Long You and others to produce so many soul tools that are suitable for each individual in a short time.
Therefore, the focus of soul tool production should still be on city defense soul tools. From city defense shields to city defense soul cannons, from heavy machine gun-type soul tools to rapid-fire cannon-type soul tools, from individual incendiary bomb-type soul tools to area-type soul tools such as "Thunder Domain" that can cover a certain range, all of them need to be equipped in the shortest possible time.
Tomorrow night, Long You and the others absolutely cannot accept the current defective defensive shield on the city wall. It can't even withstand the impact of a giant insect, and it can't even withstand the corrosive properties of a high-pressure water cannon—how can this be acceptable? It's utterly shameful!
Of course, the various soul tools mentioned above essentially constitute a complete city defense system. Building a complete system, no matter how quickly it's compressed, still requires a process; it can't be achieved overnight.
In other words, there needs to be a priority in the production of these soul tools. According to Long You's plan, upgrading the city defense shield is the first priority, and the second priority is the detection soul tool.
Although Long You was not a professional, he lived in an era of information explosion and was a member of a nation with a rich history of warfare, where every war case in the world could be found in their own history books. He understood the importance of a strategic perspective on warfare.
Long You would never neglect the information and intelligence work that forms the battle line of sight. Long You did not want to, and was unwilling to, experience a second time the situation where he could not find the giant sandworm at all, or whether there were other giant sandworms in the swarm.
The large stealth soul-guided reconnaissance drones have been upgraded and their numbers increased. Due to the lack of scanning instruments, it is temporarily impossible to produce a soul-guided detection device specifically for sandworms, but a soul-guided detection device capable of scanning the geological structure and determining the underground conditions is essential.
Long You prioritized ensuring sufficient reserves of high-consumption soul tools such as incendiary bombs and healing bottles, while others could be postponed depending on the situation.
Having said that, we basically have a good idea of how to improve "harmony among people" in the narrow sense. Now let's talk about "harmony among people" in the broader sense.
Northfrost City currently has fewer than nine hundred people at most, but the sand worms outside the city number at least ninety thousand. Nine hundred against ninety thousand—unless the opponent has a hundred thousand, breaking through will be difficult. To win, they need outside help.
Because the human race is in a weak position on the Panlong Realm continent, although the management between human alliances is very loose, once a human force is in danger, as long as other human forces receive a request for help, everyone will help if they can.
The reason why North Frost City is in such a terrible state is that they simply cannot report the current situation of North Frost City to the territories of other human forces, so they have no way to ask for help.
Long You and his group needed to turn the impossible into the possible. People couldn't travel on land during the day to pass through the sandworm-controlled area, so how could they travel by flying?