With the welcome distraction of picking up a new weapon, I stand up from the table, waving at the others that show that I’ll be heading over there.

Xun is the one to speak up among the snickering from their group.

“Don’t get lost~. We’ll be following along in a bit.”

She then dives her head back into their conspiring talks… that I won’t be listening into.

Alright, now time to figure out what I should pick for a weapon.

I’ve been avoiding this ever since I found out that I can’t use my qi for combat methods. Of course, that includes empowering weapons with qi. Defensive techniques are available, but most methods have an offensive component built in.

Shields are an option, which I’ll be looking out for. But I have a feeling there might be something special here.

I zoom through her area, turning from corner to corner. Obviously, with my scan, getting lost won’t be a problem. The size of this home is fascinating, with spacious areas eagerly awaiting furnishings.

I’m curious about what she’ll put in these areas. It might be worth stopping by again in a year or two. Maybe I’ll even get a chance to see some futuristic gear.

Feeling eager, I cannot help but let a smile cross my face as I continue.

Not long after, I finally find myself at the weapons area. Which is easy to identify as I move out to a massive open courtyard, still surrounded by the walls of the house.

With training facilities, weights, and a line of weapons along one enormous wall, it’s easy to tell where to go. Not only that, but I can see the rest of the group hanging out and talking. Discussing their cool new weapons, while trying them out at one arena in the courtyard.

But there’s really only one section that really catches my attention. The exotic weapons area.

While large swathes of the wall of weapons have swords, shields, spears, and even some katanas, there’s another smaller section that has whips, nunchucks, and other items.

One thing I soon realize is that many of these are in this section because they are non-standard to the world. To my surprise, many varieties of weapons used in Asian cultures of my world are not widely used here. Potentially, because of the existence of qi.

Of course, that doesn't mean they couldn't utilize them, it's just that techniques passed down usually assume that the user will have ready access to the weapon type. A sword technique is much easier to acquire than an Emeici technique.

But none of that matters to me, because there’s one thing sitting out here that I know that Xun had to have worked on herself. Since there is little precedent out here for it.

A cannon.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Taking up a good 10 meters. It doesn’t look like any specific cannon from my world, though it seems more similar to 18th century style ones, but with some interesting additions.

Instead of an area to have a fuse, it has slots for spirit stones, though I can see alternate ways for it to still fire outside of qi related actions.

I also see that it’s made of many varieties of metals from this world. All set in certain proportions to handle quick and repeated stresses from explosions.

From the way it’s built, it seems to be meant to fire one cannonball at a time, but repeatedly, within seconds. However, it doesn’t have a way to load the cannonballs. Not that fast, at least.

As I inspect and peek around at its parts, I can see a bag hanging off the side of it.

A space inventory bag. Overflowing with an absurd number of cannonballs and seemingly optimized to only carry them. Likely, being the reason so many of them can be in there.

… the power of this would be immense, even if it’s just throwing metal without any explosives in it. Not only that, this thing is 10 meters!

And it doesn’t need a fast-reloading mechanism. Since the space bag can deposit it right into the bore.

While these cannonballs aren’t massive, they are dense and it seems the cannon can switch between having a large bore and a smaller one. This means that I could switch between a cannon shotgun or a fast-moving single projectile.

Considering my strength and that I have a space bracelet, maybe I should just treat this as a gun? Though, now I’m considering whether I could fire the cannon from inside the space storage and just have the cannonballs come soaring out…

Right when I start expanding on my ideas of world domination, I can sense a group teleporting in beside me.

“Well, well. Looks like you found my personal antique project. As soon as you left, I knew that you’d want this one. I didn’t have time to put it away before you guys came.”

Contrary to my thoughts, it seems like she wasn't intending on giving this away. I suddenly feel a sense of regret that it wasn't meant to be. Hiding it from her, physically, at least.

However, Xun is a genius. And it wouldn’t take one, to see how close I’ve been standing to it this whole time.

“… sigh. if you’d like, I want you to have it.”

Her lips purse before she offers it to me. I feel a bit of guilt at this.

“You don’t have to. I can definitely see you’ve poured a lot of money and effort into it. Especially considering what it must have taken to get this made.”

She gives a way, appearing to be already letting go of it.

“Yeah… but as you probably already know, there are plenty of vastly superior versions of this that are possible. But this looks similar to the first one I had ever seen. And I couldn’t help but try my hand at it, since there's a bit of free time here.

“I’m sure you already have quite a few plans that have similar designs to the other, better versions that will be far stronger than this. If this can help you make those faster, then I would be happy to grant this towards that cause.”

How the heck did she find out about… ah. She simply figured it out. Her being a regressor threw me off a bit from her natural, but completely absurd, genius aspects.

If anyone would have figured out what I was thinking about, then it would be her.

Also, Ai and them were just talking with her. Since she and her family are irreplaceable allies, that wouldn’t count as a breach of the contract to tell her.

It makes me wonder what else they talked about.

Either way, I’m quite pleased that I can take the cannon with me. By which I show my deep affection, by walking over to her, opening my arms, and lifting her up.

Yep, I scooped her up in a hug.

And then spun her around, like a princess.

She appears briefly shocked, but then exclaims with delight.

“WOOOOOOOOOOOO, yes, yes, yes! This was totally worth every stone!”

In addition to some extra words that have caused other effects. Ones that I only noticed once I set her down.

I can sense the others enviously looking at her. Also wanting to be picked up.

After tucking away the cannon for my secret evil plans, I realize it’s now time to see what everyone else will pick for their weapons.

I wonder what their choices will be…