The toy store was a riot of color.
Shelves overflowed with plastic swords, foam guns, dart blasters, and things that existed solely to test a parent's patience. Li Daoxuan scanned them one by one—and the more he looked, the more his brows knitted together.
Almost none of it was usable.
Toy guns were immediately disqualified. Inside the Diorama Box, even a ten-centimeter water gun would balloon into a monstrosity hundreds of meters long—large enough to flatten Gao Family Village just by falling over.
Even rubber-band guns were useless. Ten centimeters in reality meant twenty meters in the box. No villager could even lift the trigger.
If nothing suitable could be found, his last option would be barbaric improvisation: snapping toothpicks into one-centimeter segments and dropping them into the box as spears.
But even that would be of limited value.
The villagers had no martial training, no formation discipline. Spears in their hands would simply mean they died holding longer sticks.
What they needed—desperately—were projectile weapons.
Weapons that let you kill without being killed first.
"Projectile… projectile…"
Li Daoxuan's gaze swept the shelves again.
Then—
His eyes lit up.
In the most neglected corner of the store, half-hidden behind plastic dinosaurs and glittery wands, sat a small box of miniature plastic catapults.
Three centimeters long.
Crude. Entirely plastic.
Their mechanism was laughably simple—no springs, no gears. Just plastic elasticity. Press the throwing arm down with a finger, release it, and the arm snapped upward under its own rebound.
Li Daoxuan stared.
Then grinned.
"How fun," he muttered. "How did I miss toys like this when I was a kid?"
He scooped up the entire box and walked to the counter.
"Boss," he said, "how much for these?"
The shop owner glanced over. "One yuan each."
Li Daoxuan stared at the cheap plastic. "This? One yuan? For this workmanship?"
The owner shrugged. "Take the whole box, then. Fifty pieces. Twenty-five yuan."
Li Daoxuan didn't argue. He scanned the code, paid, and left.
Back home, seated before the Diorama Box, Li Daoxuan saw Gao Family Village in a state of intense activity.
The women had divided themselves into two groups.
One group cooked—real food, hearty food—feeding the men before battle.
The other tended the oil.
Rapeseed oil bubbled violently in cauldrons no larger than two millimeters across. Steam rose. Faces glistened with sweat. No one complained.
The men worked even harder.
Stones and timber left over from constructing the Dao Xuan Tianzun Grotto were hauled to the walls. Logs were stacked for rolling. Heavy rocks were positioned for dropping.
On the walls, Bai Yuan stood surrounded by villagers, gesturing sharply.
"Hold the spear like this. Palm steady. If they climb—don't swing. Thrust down. Gravity is your ally."
Li Daoxuan leaned closer to the box, amused.
Nearby, elders and children knelt inside the grotto, praying fervently before the sacred statue, begging Dao Xuan Tianzun to protect the village.
This.
This chaos, effort, fear, and belief—this was exactly what Li Daoxuan loved watching.
He congratulated himself quietly.
If he had simply wiped out the bandits earlier, none of this would exist.
No growth. No resolve. No story.
"All right," he said softly. "Time to help."
Li Daoxuan spoke clearly, his voice descending into the box.
"Gao Yiye. Tell everyone to prepare. I'm sending weapons."
Gao Yiye startled—then her eyes shone.
She turned and shouted with all her strength, "Everyone listen! Dao Xuan Tianzun is about to bestow weapons upon us!"
The reaction was immediate.
More than a hundred villagers straightened, expressions solemn. Young men listening to Bai Yuan stopped mid-instruction and lifted their heads reverently.
Bai Yuan nearly choked.
"I'm teaching these people how to fight," he muttered angrily, "and they should at least pretend to respect me. Instead, one sentence from that woman and they all start staring at the sky. Absurd!"
He sneered internally.
Classic cult theatrics.
Next, she'll dance around, chant nonsense, pull a pile of rusty blades from storage, and call them divine gifts.
He'd seen it all before.
Then Gao Chuwu shouted, "Look!"
"It's coming down!"
"Dao Xuan Tianzun—welcome!"
The villagers of Gao Family Village dropped to their knees in unison.
Bai Yuan's group froze, stunned.
Bai Yuan slowly looked up.
A cloud hovered overhead—low, impossibly low, barely seventy zhang above the ground. And within it, something enormous descended.
Green.
Perfectly square.
With a gigantic scoop.
For a heartbeat, Bai Yuan couldn't process what he was seeing.
Then a more terrifying thought struck him.
How… was it descending?
There were no ropes. No pulleys.
Could this truly be—
The object settled gently onto the ground.
Only then did Bai Yuan see it clearly.
Two zhang long. Two zhang wide. Square-bodied. A long throwing arm mounted by a strange mechanism.
"A… catapult?" he blurted. "That's a catapult! A very strange-looking one!"
He recognized it instantly.
Others did not.
Villagers and tenants alike stared blankly, unable to make sense of the device.
Gao Yiye raised her voice. "Everyone listen! This is called a catapult. Place a stone in the scoop. Then activate the mechanism beside it, and it will throw the stone forward."
The crowd stared.
"???"
She continued, unfazed. "Li Da! Dao Xuan Tianzun orders you to bring your iron hammer and stand by the mechanism. When I give the signal, strike it with all your strength."
Li Da answered loudly, hoisting his hammer and taking position.
Li Daoxuan, from above, gently placed a stone into the scoop.
To him, it was tiny—like a pill.
To the villagers, a massive stone materialized out of thin air and settled into place.
"Wow—!"
Bai Yuan's pupils shrank.
Gao Yiye shouted, "Strike!"
Li Da swung.
The hammer hit.
The mechanism released.
The throwing arm snapped upward with a violent whoosh.
The stone screamed through the air, flying from one end of the village to the other before slamming into the ground with a thunderous crash. Dust exploded. Pebbles leapt.
Silence.
Then—
Cheers erupted.
"A divine weapon!"
"A celestial artifact!"
Bai Yuan exhaled slowly.
"A bunch of ignorant fools," he said stiffly. "That's just a battlefield catapult."
Yet even as he spoke, his eyes drifted upward toward the cloud.
Awe crept in, unwanted.
That catapult… had descended from the heavens.
Perhaps.
Just perhaps.
It really was a celestial artifact.