Lord: Starting with Summoning the Regular Army of Earth

Faced with the furious Li Xiulan, the gossiping women immediately fell silent.

The neighbors all knew about Li Xiulan's fiery temper, and besides, they were completely in the wrong for gossiping behind her back, so they were too embarrassed to refute her. After all, they would see each other all the time, and it wouldn't be good to make things too awkward.

Just then, Li Xiulan's phone rang. It was a voice call from her son, so she stopped arguing and turned to walk towards the door.

"Tsk tsk, they got so angry, it seems we were right."

"You've hit a nerve."

"Let's not talk about this anymore. She's had a tough time too. I bet she's been running around for Lao Guo these past few days."

After Li Xiulan entered the courtyard, she answered her son's voice call. His anxious voice immediately came through: "Mom! What happened to Dad? I saw it online!"

Li Xiulan's heart skipped a beat: "Online? What did you see online?"

"The video! The video of my dad being taken away by the police has gone viral!" Guo Xiaolei said quickly.

"It's trending?" Li Xiulan was stunned.

"Yeah, the views must be in the millions. Lots of people are curious about what happened to this old carpenter who got taken away by the police. There are even marketing accounts spreading rumors that my dad used metasequoia wood, and fabricated stories saying his skills are so exceptional he was recruited by the government—all sorts of versions. I checked my dad's Douyin account; his followers have gone from a few thousand to almost 30,000. The comment section is exploding! Some are guessing he committed a crime, some are making jokes, and many are praising his craftsmanship… Mom, is this really true? My dad really got taken away by the police? Is he okay?"

Hearing her son's tone, which was both worried and excited, Li Xiulan didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

She sighed, explained the whole story in detail, and told him not to talk about it outside and to keep it a secret.

Guo Xiaolei was stunned on the other end of the phone, and after a long while, he murmured, "My God... really? My dad's experience... is too surreal! He really was drafted by the government!"

"Hey? By the way, Xiaolei, who recorded the video of your dad being taken away?" Li Xiulan came back to her senses, somewhat puzzled.

"It seems that during my dad's live stream, a die-hard fan recorded the screen. He originally wanted to record the details of him making that dougong (a type of bracket system) model for study, but he ended up recording the whole process of the police coming in and taking him away. That fan posted the video to my dad's fan group, and someone somehow took a clip, added a title like 'Ten years of carpentry, no one cares; one day he enters the police force, and the world knows,' and posted it. As a result, various marketing accounts used it as a meme and interpreted it in various ways, making it go viral. Mom, my dad is really going to become an internet celebrity now."

……

As for Jinshi Ridge, with the implementation of the work point system, the enthusiasm of the people for labor has soared to unprecedented heights.

The entire system is operating smoothly thanks to the joint efforts of Will and the logistics and information integration team.

On the first day of work point redemption, the people exchanged their earned work points for real food, cloth, and salt. The smiles and sense of pride on their faces were unlike anything they had ever seen before.

Old Sam used his work points to buy his grandson cheese and dried fish to supplement his nutrition, while Carl bought his mother cloth and salt.

These small acts of happiness have made the people more accepting of the work point system and more motivated to work hard and strive for their own happy lives.

As time passed day by day, the entire Emberstone Ridge underwent a visible transformation, and all the defensive fortifications were nearing completion.

Under the leadership of Tang Yuanshan and others, the blacksmith shop also completed the small-scale production of the first batch of basic weapons.

共打造出单手剑15把、砍刀20把、长矛头30个、改良钩镰枪头10个，以及超过400枚标準三棱箭镞等。

The woodworking workshop successfully produced its first batch of 20 short bows with moderate tension using local tough wood. Although the range was not far, the accuracy was acceptable.

Furthermore, all weapons have been lightweighted and ergonomically optimized to suit the physical characteristics of goblins.

The reconnaissance team and some guards have already been given priority to change into new uniforms.

After the Jinshi gunpowder project was approved, Professor Wang Qinian also made initial progress in his research on the energy properties of Jinshi.

He used charcoal powder and a small amount of sulfur purchased by Conrad, mixed them with ash powder in a special ratio, and produced a significant deflagration effect.

This undoubtedly opened a crack in the door to the era of "firearms" for Jinshiling.

Of course, at present, it is still impossible to completely solve the problem of safe and reliable grinding methods for large-scale production to achieve mass production results.

Further efforts are needed to overcome the challenges in grinding methods and design solutions for grinding and screening equipment.

In addition, the development and utilization of resources such as limestone and clay are progressing slowly due to a lack of manpower and a lack of urgency. At present, only the initial mining has been completed, and the construction of simple kilns for burning lime, as well as brick and tile kilns and pottery kilns, is about to be put on the agenda.

Construction is expected to begin after the defensive fortifications are completed.

But they weren't idle during this time. In the process of exploring resources, they also discovered a natural spring. By diverting the water here, they could completely replace the original source of the Tears Creek and solve the water pollution problem.

Economically, the "Soap Project" is also operating at full capacity, with increased investment in funds and personnel, as well as increasingly mature and standardized mass production processes.

The overall production efficiency has been greatly improved. In just a few days, more than 200 bars of soap with stable quality have been successfully produced, including 50 bars of soap with added fragrances and pigments, making them exquisite and beautiful in appearance.

These things would be just ordinary daily necessities on Earth, but in Emberstone Ridge they would be like gold and silver bricks.

In fact, the saponification reaction also produces another valuable "treasure" - glycerin.

However, given the current "chemical conditions" at Jinshiling, it is extremely difficult to extract high-purity glycerol that can be used directly and safely from saponification waste liquid, and this is not something that can be achieved in the short term.

That morning, Matthew and Conrad prepared to travel to Ironrock again to sell their "products".

Good news came from the woodworking workshop—the prototype of the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow was successfully completed.

Will excitedly shared the good news with Matthew. Although he came from a family of magicians and had seen all sorts of magical items since childhood, he was still amazed by this magical crossbow that was made simply from some wood without any magic.

When Matthew and Conrad arrived at the woodworking shop, it was quite a lively place.

Besides a group of goblins, there were also Old John and his son, as well as Carl and several other young men who were originally responsible for cutting down trees and transporting timber.

In the center of the crowd, Sun Zhengwu was swinging a strangely shaped wooden device.

The thing had a compact crossbow body, a protruding lever, and most notably a rectangular wooden box mounted on top of the crossbow body.

"This is... a crossbow?" Conrad frowned slightly. He had seen many types of crossbows in his life, but this was the first time he had seen one with a case.

……