Chapter 237: Brainstorming About the Ship

Next, after tossing the Heaven Mending Pill into his mouth, Long Xuan employed his Split Soul to practice One Mind Dual Use.

On one hand, he refined the medicinal power of the Heaven Mending Pill; on the other, he studied the Pill Formula for the Soul Restoring Pill.

He had tried it before; the Split Soul could not perceive Progress, so he could only set aside the matter of researching the ship for now and first focus on the Soul Restoring Pill, which could repair the soul.

Repairing the soul was the top priority; its order of precedence definitely had to rank before building the great ship.

Under conditions of highly concentrated attention, time always passed quickly; in a flash, two months had gone by.

Hard work pays off; through his unremitting efforts, after spending two months in the Soul Study, he finally managed to grind out the Pill Formula for the Soul Restoring Pill.

There was no need to worry about the Main Material for the Soul Restoring Pill; although the Soul Nourishing Wood remained in the Medicine Garden and he had not brought it with him,

he still carried leaves of the Soul Nourishing Wood on his person, after all, this was the rations for the Heavenly Dream Dragon Silkworm, so he always kept some on hand.

However, while the Main Material was easy to resolve, the remaining ingredients were not; apart from the Main Material, he currently possessed not a single one of the other ingredients listed on the Pill Formula.

The Soul Restoring Pill required a full seven thousand portions of Spirit Medicine, among which were countless Rare Spirit Medicines of astonishing value, even including a heap of Thousand-Year Spirit Medicines, making them extremely difficult to collect.

This time, he had no way to take a shortcut through the Third Young Master again; he could only waste a large amount of time collecting them bit by bit, and he did not know how long it would take to finish gathering them all.

In the time that followed, he dispatched his Clone to gather materials for refining the Soul Restoring Pill in various places, while simultaneously beginning his research into the technology for the great ship.

Once a ship grows large enough, it ceases to be merely a Spirit Tool; it becomes a combination of a Spirit Tool and an Array Formation, counting as another category of treasure entirely.

How could combining Tool Patterns with Array Patterns be an easy matter? Therefore, not just any faction could build a great ship simply because they wanted to.

Great ship technology was truly a technical craft; very, very few factions possessed mastery over the technology to build great ships.

Long Xuan named his unborn great ship the Divine Dragon Ship.

Since he had mastered the technology to utilize solar energy from the Empress Tomb, he certainly intended to equip the Divine Dragon Ship with it.

The materials for the Five Elements Reversal Great Array Array Disk had already been collected in full, and he also needed to arrange the Five Elements Reversal Great Formation on the ship to further enhance the defensive power of the Divine Dragon Ship.

Long Xuan was confident he could resolve the issue of the Divine Dragon Ship's defensive power; the only thing that troubled him was the ship's propulsion problem, for a ship's propulsion issue was truly the top priority.

There were many methods in this world to boost a ship's propulsion, such as hanging sails on the ship and then using an Array Formation to generate fierce gales, resulting in ship speeds fast enough to surpass imagination.

One could also carve an Array Formation onto the bottom of the ship to reduce the Hull's weight, or even use an Array Formation to manipulate the seawater's movement, letting the seawater push the Hull forward, making the ship fly swiftly.

Some Spirit Ships even possessed automatically rotating oars, allowing for rapid navigation without requiring human labor.

In this miraculous world, the means to provide propulsion for a ship were truly too numerous to count.

The only difficulty was that the surface area of the Hull was limited, so the Array Formations providing propulsion for the ship could only number one, or perhaps two or three types.

Once too many Array Formations for speed were carved onto the ship, it would inevitably lead to insufficient space for Defense Array Formations, thereby reducing the ship's defensive power.

With the Hull area limited, one could not have both; whether to build a sturdy ship or a fast ship required choosing one or the other, or else averaging the allocation would result in all the ship's attributes becoming quite mediocre.

Moreover, the Array Formations needed on the ship far exceeded just these two types, which required the shipbuilder to meticulously calculate the Array Formations on the ship's body; one could not simply carve whatever Array Formation one wished.

However, Long Xuan immediately decided that his Divine Dragon Ship must possess every single Array Formation that provided propulsion, and his Divine Dragon Ship absolutely had to become the fastest ship of its same rank.

As for the problem of having too many Array Formations to carve, he did not need to consider it at all; under the Heavenly Mechanism Eye, he could carve as many Array Formations as he wished, and his Divine Dragon Ship could accommodate them all.

Thus, Long Xuan did not need to rack his brains over how to layout the Array Formations like other shipbuilders; he encountered no hesitation whatsoever, and before long, he had completed the draft sketch of the Divine Dragon Ship.

Long Xuan raised this pencil sketch depicting a great ship, revealing a smile of satisfaction.

The appearance of the Divine Dragon Ship was now finally determined by him.

After all, his soul did not belong to this world, so the form and structure of this ship referenced many aspects from his Past Life, even including three massive propellers on the Hull.

It must be known that propellers were items from his Past Life, nonexistent in this world; this was undoubtedly a tremendous innovation for this world.

Since this world already possessed the technology to make oars slide automatically, referencing this technology to make the propellers spin would not be difficult, and the speed might even be faster than in his Past Life.

He believed that the propulsion provided by propellers would definitely exceed that of oar propulsion, so developing propeller technology was very necessary.

If only he truly understood nuclear energy; otherwise, he would have insisted on researching nuclear power, and at that time, his ship would have been even more terrifying.

Additionally, on a whim, he also designed a Giant Cannon for the Divine Dragon Ship; on this draft sketch of the Divine Dragon Ship, this Giant Cannon was extremely large and very conspicuous, looking at once as though its power was astonishing.

As the Divine Dragon Ship was a deep-sea warship, how could it suffice without cannons? Therefore, Long Xuan let his imagination run wild and simply designed a type of Giant Cannon himself.

He had seen the Spirit Stone Cannons of the Great Yin Dynasty, and the Long Clan had captured quite a few, so he understood Spirit Stone Cannon technology.

But the power of the Spirit Stone Cannon was still a bit too small; he decided to mindlessly increase the volume of the Spirit Stone Cannon until it was so large it could only be fixed onto the ship and could not be moved by human strength.

Once the cannon's volume increased, the required cannonballs would be larger, and the explosive power of the cannonballs would naturally be greater; this was an obvious fact.

Moreover, Long Xuan also planned to improve upon the technology of the Spirit Stone Cannon.

For instance, the Spirit Stone Cannon could only consume Lower Grade Spirit Stones; in his view, Lower Grade Spirit Stones contained too little energy, so what if one used Upper Grade Spirit Stones or Top Grade Spirit Stones instead?

As soon as this idea emerged, Long Xuan could not wait to try it out.

Using Top Grade Spirit Stones as cannonballs was absolutely the idea of a ghostly genius; no normal person would dare to be so wasteful, so naturally, such technology did not exist in this world.

Of course, Long Xuan was also reluctant to use Top Grade Spirit Stones as cannonballs, but he could afford to use Upper Grade Spirit Stones as cannonballs; occasionally firing a few shots at sea would be nice, and when idle with nothing to do, listening to the bang would be just like setting off firecrackers.

But the tier of Top Grade Spirit Stones absolutely could not be canceled; one might not use them, but one absolutely could not lack them.

In case one encountered a powerful enemy that could not be opposed by force, a Giant Cannon using Top Grade Spirit Stones as cannonballs might unexpectedly produce a miraculous effect.

Under such whimsical ideas, the Gu World First Giant Cannon was about to be born; no one knew what kind of sensation his Giant Cannon would cause when the time came.

This was not all; Long Xuan also wondered if he could use a Gravity Array to press the Divine Dragon Ship down into the water, allowing it to undergo a second form transformation, changing into the form of a submarine, enabling the Divine Dragon Ship to travel underwater just like a submarine.

He did not know whether the concept of a submarine existed in this world, but he felt it was worth a try; this might be another great innovation in the field of shipbuilding. Long Xuan's eyes brightened slightly.

Next, while refining the medicinal power of the Heaven Mending Pill and studying the blueprints for the Divine Dragon Ship, Long Xuan simultaneously had the Alchemy Rabbit and his various Clones frantically refine pills, accumulating resources for building the Divine Dragon Ship and materials for refining the Soul Restoring Pill.

The matter of refining the Soul Restoring Pill still ranked above building the Divine Dragon Ship, so Long Xuan had always prioritized collecting the materials for the Soul Restoring Pill.

As for the materials needed to refine the Three-Legged Golden Toad, his Wealth was limited, so he could only set that aside for now.

Refining the Three-Legged Golden Toad required a quantity of two hundred thousand materials; after his demonic modification, the Gu Formula would surely require far more than two hundred thousand materials, and among these, no one knew how many Top Grade Spirit Insects would be needed—how could his current family assets easily bear such a cost? He could only plan for the long term.

Coincidentally, his current location was right by the sea, and nearby there was a coastal City named Star Sea City, which was the largest Port of the Xuanyue Empire, as well as the largest shipyard of the Xuanyue Empire, and also the largest trading port for maritime trade with various Great Regions; countless ships of all sizes were docked here.

Therefore, whenever Long Xuan encountered something he did not understand, he could simply go to the Original Realm and copy those great ships, then dismantle those great ships in the Illusion Realm; what technology could he possibly fail to understand?

Thus, his Progress in researching the blueprints for the Divine Dragon Ship could be described as divinely fast; throughout the entire process, he encountered no hesitation whatsoever, accomplishing it all in one seamless breath.

Any difficult problem could be resolved by him very easily; within the Soul Study, it took him merely four months to successfully complete the research on the Divine Dragon Ship blueprints.

He successfully developed both the Giant Cannon technology and the propeller technology.

Now that all materials are ready, he can begin building the ship.

Long Xuan was extremely excited, eager to throw himself into the work and build this ship, far ahead of anything in this world.

At the same time, during these six months of total time, his Aptitude was finally restored—truly a double blessing.

But there were also bad consequences: because he sent his Clone to sell Pills everywhere to quickly gather Soul Restoring Pill materials and shipbuilding materials.

Since most Gu Cultivators in this area were concentrated in Star Sea City, the Flame Clone simply rented a small shop in the city to run a Pill business.

However, the Pill Shop became wildly popular before long, with business so hectic every day that customers flooded in, nearly wearing down the threshold.

Because at the same price, the Pills Long Xuan crafted had far superior potency than those of his rivals; those who had bought his Pills naturally stuck to this one shop, becoming loyal repeat customers.

Good wine needs no bush—though Long Xuan made no promotion upon opening, after a period of word-of-mouth spread, his reputation soared.

Now everyone in the city knew that a highly skilled Alchemist had arrived in Star Sea City, whose Alchemy Technique was the most outstanding in the city, widely acclaimed by Gu Cultivators as the Star Sea City First Alchemist, whose Alchemy was divine, with not a single other Alchemist in Star Sea City able to match him.

Flattery! This is pure flattery! They're flattering me to death! When Long Xuan heard he'd inexplicably become the Star Sea City First Alchemist, he went numb.

He never expected that a mere Second Grade Alchemist like himself could directly earn the title of Star Sea City First Alchemist.

This title invites jealousy from fellow Alchemists—it's far too conspicuous—he truly didn't want it!

"Didn't I tell you to hold back on your Alchemy! How did I close myself off for a few months and you end up causing me such a huge mess?!"

Inside the World Tree Seed, Long Xuan immediately scowled and kicked the Flame Clone.

The Flame Clone scratched his head, bewildered: "I held back, didn't I? I really only used three-tenths of my strength—if I held back more, the failure rate would rise and waste too many materials!"

Long Xuan was speechless…

"Fine! If you're going to be flashy, then be flashy—it's not life-or-death. How's the collection of Soul Restoring Pill materials going these past four months? How much is still missing?" Long Xuan sighed helplessly, remembering his real task, and asked again.

"I hung a full list of the materials we need on the wall of the Pill Shop, so those wanting to buy Pills must exchange them for the materials listed."

"This method of gathering materials was swift—I've already collected most of the Soul Restoring Pill materials."

"But without offering Pills of higher value, the rarest materials are clearly impossible to obtain."

"Especially those Thousand-Year Spirit Medicines—very few are willing to trade, unless you offer something that truly excites them."

"We're still missing the final hundred materials for the Soul Restoring Pill—all of them are the highest-value items on the Pill Formula, mostly Thousand-Year Spirit Medicines, extremely hard to collect."

"To gather these hundred materials, we'll likely need to attend a very high-tier trading assembly."

"I heard that in half a month, Star Sea City will host a trading assembly for Cultivation Stage: Essence Refining Gu Cultivators—it's an exceptionally high-tier event."

"As far as I know, Star Sea City is the largest Port of the Xuanyue Empire, gathering Gu Cultivators from all regions, with thriving commerce and exceptionally complete supplies."

"If we bring something compelling enough, we can surely gather all the Soul Restoring Pill materials in this city."

"And all the rare materials needed to forge the Divine Dragon Ship can also be fully collected here, since this is the Xuanyue Empire's largest shipyard—it all depends on how much you're willing to spend."

"The trading assembly in half a month will draw a massive crowd of Gu Cultivators from all regions; only the extremely wealthy and powerful may attend—it's our perfect opportunity."

"But we need to prepare a large quantity of trade items that can be presented—ideally items universally irresistible to all Cultivation Stage: Essence Refining Gu Cultivators."

(End of Chapter)