It had been a year ever since Krune and the two kids had arrived at the bandit den to live. They had enough supplies to live and no one to trouble them.

Or, to be more exact, there had been people knocking up the door of the bandit den multiple times ever since they noticed that the bandits had vanished. It made them suspect the likelihood that the bandits had either left the place or had been annihilated.

As for some daring ones that came to check up on the place and possibly obtain any spoils that had been left behind, Krune gave them a good scare.

Using the Cloud Whale to unleash an Air Needle that gently scrapped their cheeks was enough to scare the wits out of most. Repeat the same thing enough times, and a legend would be born to never set food near the bandit cave that was "haunted."

Once such rumors spread throughout the villages in the region, no one else tried to disturb them after that, allowing him to continue with his research.

Upon reading through the initial notes of the bandit boss, Krune immediately made a trip on the same day, retrieving the corpses of the three adult Yin Beasts and the six hatchling Yin Beasts. There were six hatchlings because he also brought in the one that burst out of the woman that gave birth.

After that, he was in pensive thought for a couple of weeks, watching their preserved bodies while gazing at the Nightmare Core in his possession. Once he completely read through the notes of the bandit boss, Krune understood the direction of research that had been done.

Surprisingly, the bandit boss was rather ambitious. He had understood the defects of Imperial Arms and had been trying to create a weapon that didn't have such limitations.

An Imperial Arms was a mystical weapon that stored energy in it. This energy usually varied between three forms: Sun, Moon, and Star.

For Imperial Arms that took on the Sun form, the effects they unleashed were based on fire. Once the Imperial Arm was depleted of energy, it needed to be exposed to the sun for a certain number of days to recharge all its lost energy.

They were generally addressed as Sun Imperial Arms and were the most popular. After all, recharging them was the easiest.

Following them were the Moon Imperial Arms, which relied upon the power of the moon. Contrasting to the previous type, the energy was frost-based. Then again, Moon Imperial Arms had one advantage that Sun Imperial Arms lacked.

It was that Nightmares always appeared during the night. So, for Imperial Meisters using the Moon Imperial Arms, they had the option of recharging their weapon during their fight. Moreover, under the influence of the power of the moon, its effect was higher.

However, they had the disadvantage of taking a longer time to recharge since the power of the moon wasn't as strong as the power of the sun. On top of that, its damage against the Nightmares was a tad inferior to the Sun Imperial Arms.

Then, there was the Star Imperial Arms, which were so rare that only the Imperial Family possessed them. Star Imperial Arms were dual-attributed, possessing the power of restriction and lightning.

The restriction was gravity-based. As for lightning, it needn't be said. They were the most effective against Nightmares. However, recharging them was really hard as it took almost a year for them to be recharged naturally.

Otherwise, the faster option was to place them under lightning strikes. Then again, lightning was unpredictable, and the chance of it landing on the Star Imperial Arms was super rare.

In any case, Star Imperial Arms were the strongest of them all. The one possessed by the Emperor was capable of taking on two Nightmares singlehandedly and emerging victorious.

Nevertheless, all Imperial Arms had the same weakness. And it was that they were emission-based. Meaning, the Imperial Meisters were still regular people, possessing the same mortal limitations as a normal human.

So, while fighting a Nightmare, they tire out quickly, which was usually taken advantage of by the Nightmare to flee. Moreover, if they suffer a hit, they bleed, which, when left untreated, caused them to be bedridden.

Nightmares were fast while Imperial Meisters weren't. On top of that, the abilities unleashed by an Imperial Arms was limited. In other words, once it was used up, the Imperial Meister was a sitting duck.

Consider the Imperial Arms of Su Zixin, Moon Flower. When activated, it condensed a flower with six petals, with each spanning half his body size.

Su Zixin was able to hurl them towards the Nightmare, controlling the trajectories of the petals as he pleased, destroying the Nightmare. However, once all six petals were used up, with the Nightmare still not being defeated, he wouldn't be able to survive after that.

If his control was even the least bit sloppy, his aim would miss, causing the petals to hit the surroundings and unnecessarily lose power.

This was an inherent disadvantage all Imperial Arms possessed: a limited number of attacks, long charging time, and the weak bodies of users.

So, the bandit boss had been planning to create a weapon that boosted a person's physique, allowing them to keep up with a Nightmare's speed while dealing close-ranged attacks, accurately targeting it.

He wished to harness as much of this power as possible. Thus, he began his project that wished to fuse the Yin Beasts and Nightmare Cores to create a weapon that would make this a reality.

Unfortunately, his direction of reason was warped since he was proceeding about in the wrong train of thought. He thought that Nightmares and Yin Beasts were completely different. Had Krune not seen what he had seen, he too would have assumed the same.

But now, he knew that a Nightmare Core was the source to produce Yin Beasts. With that, he began to research, tallying the properties of the Yin Beasts and how he could integrate them with the power of the Nightmare Core and produce something using the production method of an Imperial Arms.

For the first six months, all he did was this while training the Wang Hao and Chen Xue. Eventually, thanks to his plethora of experience, Krune attained a breakthrough, sighing as he spoke, "It seems I'll be repeating the same farm as the Motor Fishes"

"All over again!"