Chapter 552

Due to the massive scale of large guilds, most resources are consumed internally, so it’s safe to conclude that these four Epic items must have been listed by a mid-sized guild or a lone wolf.

A few hours later, all fifteen Perfect items and four Epics were sold. As expected, [Sacred Body Transformation] fetched the highest price, soaring to 210,000 game coins—double that of a typical Epic item.

[Child of the Weather ID] came second, selling for 190,000. Surprisingly to Li Cheng, the frustratingly restrictive item [Eternal Pursuit Snail] also sold for 180,000.

Probably meant to be used in tandem with other item skills—like using strong control effects (stun, time stop, slow, push/pull) to pin the target in place, then unleashing the snail for an instant kill.

After deducting purchase costs and the embezzled funds from the Celestial Anvil’s ledger, the profit from the four Epics and fifteen Perfects allowed Li Cheng to pay in full for the [Eight Trigrams Alchemical Cannon], with nearly 100,000 game coins remaining in his personal account.

“Hohoho, one card gave me a Legendary item and still left me with a net profit of 100,000 game coins—insane.”

Sitting in the recliner of the Celestial Anvil’s office, Li Cheng sincerely marveled: this VIP mall card could refresh high-quality items, offer discounts, and let him profit handsomely from the price difference—it was simply too satisfying.

Heart pounding, hands trembling, as he opened his inventory, *thud*—a cauldron landed before him.

It stood about two meters tall, shaped like a gourd, its color dark gold. Three legs supported its base; the lower body bore an inscription of a poem, and around its widest middle section were three nested sets of perforated bronze rings.

The bronze rings interlocked, rotating alternately clockwise and counterclockwise without pause, continuously forming the Eight Trigrams pattern of Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, Dui.

Every three seconds, the perforated rings would form an opening, just large enough to insert materials into the furnace.

As for how to use it—

Li Cheng activated his Half-Caterpillar Form, enhanced his strength, wrapped both arms around the narrow middle of the bronze furnace, and slowly lifted it.

Clang.

The lid atop the furnace automatically popped open, revealing a black, cannon-like muzzle.

A 310,000-game-coin offensive Legendary item—firing it might just blow the Celestial Anvil or the 3D warehouse sky-high.

Li Cheng promptly stowed the furnace, walked out of the Celestial Anvil as if nothing had happened, and teleported to the Toy Factory via a teleport booth.

He also called along Hui Yu—such a fun, explosive activity wouldn’t be complete without her; otherwise, she’d nag him for days.

Instead of testing near the Toy Factory, they boarded a Marginal Fighter, flew several hundred kilometers out, then retrieved the Alchemical Cannon.

They set up high-definition high-speed cameras around the area and installed a metal-fiber concrete target wall at a distance to test the cannon’s power.

“Test Log 001, Test Item: Determining the boundary of the Eight Trigrams Alchemical Cannon. Input: A 10cm diameter ordinary wooden ball.”

Hui Yu rummaged out a lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses, donned them with solemn seriousness, dressed as a researcher, and took notes with pen and paper: “D-Class Personnel, place the wooden ball into the bronze furnace, rotate the cannon’s direction, and fire at the target wall.”

“You’re giving orders now?”

Li Cheng’s eye twitched as he tossed the ball into the furnace. The high-speed camera clearly showed the ball disintegrating into particles the instant it entered, transforming into an amorphous flame.

Simultaneously, his player panel deducted five Spirit Points; the furnace shuddered violently and fired a fireball at 3 Mach, striking the distant concrete target wall dead center.

Boom!

A small amount of concrete flaked off the target wall. Hui Yu tapped a few keys on her laptop, pulling up the camera data from the other side of the wall.

Based on the explosion’s fireball diameter, flame velocity, and depth of the crater, she assessed the blast power: “Equivalent to 1.3 kilograms of TNT?”

“1.3 kilograms? That’s reasonable.”

Li Cheng rubbed his chin. The wooden ball was pine wood; multiplying its mass by its calorific value yielded roughly 5.5 megajoules—just over a kilogram of TNT.

The furnace’s interior left no residue, confirming this point.

“Try a coal ball.”

He pulled out another 10cm-diameter coal ball, tossed it into the furnace, and fired again. The result was nearly identical: equivalent to 4.4 kilograms of TNT, still consuming five Spirit Points.

“Explosive power equals half a 155mm shell.”

Hui Yu scratched her head with her pen, slightly disappointed: “Kind of underwhelming.”

At his current level as a Mechanist, Li Cheng could summon dozens or even hundreds of tanks with a wave of his hand—he’d grown accustomed to dismissing ordinary 155mm shells.

“Don’t think that way. The wooden ball and coal ball are both ordinary items with no supernatural elements; both consumed five Spirit Points—the lowest tier.”

They continued testing and found that liquids like gasoline, diesel, and liquefied petroleum gas could also be refined into cannonballs by the Eight Trigrams Alchemical Cannon, with power proportional to their calorific value.

But if the mundane object was too large—like a gas tank or electric vehicle—the cannon rejected it, refusing to accept it.

“Test Log 025, Input: Lowest-tier Battlefield Item.”

Li Cheng had specifically bought many cheap, low-quality, unsellable junk items from the black market. The first was the Broken-quality [Stinking Frozen Salted Fish].

Literally, it was a frozen, rotten salted fish, pitch-black, older than Li Cheng himself. Extremely durable, its hardness rivaled steel.

When tossed into the Eight Trigrams Cannon, it was instantly refined—but instead of a fireball, it fired several cut pieces of salted fish meat.

Thud!

All the fish-blocks embedded themselves deep into the concrete wall, then erupted with extremely cold yellow smoke—composed of hydrogen sulfide and various carcinogens.

“Holy shit, biochemical weapon.”

Hui Yu’s expression was priceless. Broken-quality items were so inferior that even new players rarely pulled them from crates; they were usually just picked up casually from script worlds and existed in massive quantities.

“This consumed seven Spirit Points—slightly higher than mundane items. Continue testing.”

Li Cheng pulled out a Common-quality skill scroll: [Undead Horde Overrun], which summoned five zombies to attack a target.

According to the description, these zombies weren’t the fast, jumping ones from [World War Z] or [Train to Busan], but true-to-origin animated corpses—slow, sluggish, hence the Common quality.

The scroll was tossed into the Eight Trigrams Furnace, turning into a wisp of black smoke, then violently fired. Upon hitting the concrete wall, it split into five Lickers—mutant zombies that clawed furiously around the wall.

“From regular zombies to Lickers—big upgrade!”

Hui Yu’s eyes widened. The Lickers lasted over two minutes before vanishing, leaving deep gouges in the concrete wall—a massive buff compared to the original scroll.

“Not just an upgrade—it bypassed usage conditions, reduced cost, and eliminated cooldown.”

Li Cheng pondered, then pulled out two Rare-quality identical consumable scrolls: [Magic Missiles], and fed them one after another into the Eight Trigrams Cannon.

Normally, each scroll released seven mana missiles. But when fed into the cannon, the output took two forms: one large missile capable of flipping the concrete wall, and twenty-one smaller missiles that chipped away large chunks.

Both scrolls came from the Witch Alliance Guild, yet their final effects differed. Could the reason lie in the Eight Trigrams pattern formed during rotation?

Two consumable spell scrolls, both from the Witch Alliance Guild, produced different final effects; the cause may be related to the Eight Trigrams pattern formed by rotation when thrown into the cauldron?

Test Log 035, Input: Rare-quality item [Dead Language Translator]—insert coin to translate Gothic, Hunnic, and other dead languages. Trigram pattern: Zhen Thunder, Li Fire—Feng.

Output: A transparent, non-corporeal projectile. Upon impact, it triggered a 172-decibel high-frequency sonic wave, far exceeding human tolerance thresholds.

Analysis revealed the sound wave contained numerous dialogues spoken in dead languages.

Hui Yu’s note: According to research, the dialogues seemed mostly curses?

Test Log 036, Input: Supernatural material [Tai Sui Flesh]—a slime composite, nutritionally similar to mushrooms, commonly used in potion crafting, worth 20 game coins. Trigram pattern: Gen Mountain, Kan Water—Meng.

Output: A yellow-green viscous projectile. On impact, it formed a 30-meter-diameter viscous swamp.

Hui Yu’s note: Clean and hygienic. During the New Year, you gotta eat viscous rice.

Test Log 037, Input: Supernatural material [Buddha’s Bone]—a relic from a temple in the Southern Dynasties script world, worth 450 game coins. Trigram pattern: Zhen Thunder, Kan Water—Jie.

Output: A swastika-shaped projectile. On impact, it summoned a giant Buddha silhouette that slammed a palm down, shattering the target wall.

Hui Yu’s note: Thank goodness it wasn’t the reversed swastika.

Test Log 037, Input: Another Buddha’s Bone from the same batch, mixed with three modern-made Buddha’s Bones (ash mixed with quartz sand).

Output: The same giant Buddha silhouette projectile as before. The three modern bones remained inside the furnace, unrefined.

Hui Yu’s note: Only one material can be accepted per use, and the Eight Trigrams Furnace has some form of perception—it can detect counterfeit or substandard items? More testing needed.

Test Log 050, Input: [Luminous Pearl]—a radioactive gem taken from the late Qing Dynasty imperial palace; multiple nobles died of cancer after contact, marked as supernatural due to residual resentment, worth 190 game coins. Trigram pattern: Dui Marsh, Kun Earth—Cui.

Output: A solid spherical projectile, slightly more powerful than a depleted uranium penetrator, causing 4,000 millisieverts of radiation contamination at the target location.

Hui Yu’s note: Uranium, you’re my rad-gas. Also, the Eight Trigrams Cannon’s evaluation criteria differ from the Battlefield System: item value correlates with projectile power, but isn’t decisive.

Test Log 067, Input: Battlefield Item [Monster Truck]—originally a Perfect item, shaped like a toy, with an effect that summoned a self-driving pickup truck that spewed fire and fired micro-missiles. Severely damaged during a script mission, lost all effects, now reduced to a pile of two-meter-wide iron blocks, selling for only 388 game coins. Trigram pattern: Kun Earth, Xun Wind—Sheng.

Output: The two-meter-wide [Monster Truck] wreckage was directly shrunk and refined by the Eight Trigrams Furnace into a palm-sized toy car. When fired, the toy rapidly expanded mid-air into an Ideal i8 electric vehicle, smashing the concrete target wall.

It then smashed three more walls before vanishing.

Hui Yu’s note: Another hidden mechanic discovered—the Eight Trigrams Furnace can absorb supernatural materials larger than itself. But why an Ideal i8? Could the furnace be online, accessing information?

After round after round of testing, half a day had passed. This was unquestionably Li Cheng’s third most complex item—its rules rivaled only the Toy Factory and the Glove of Compassionate Soul Infusion.

His Spirit Points depleted, Li Cheng rubbed his throbbing temples and murmured: “We can reasonably conclude that the Eight Trigrams Alchemical Cannon’s upper limit rivals the Glove of Compassionate Soul Infusion—maximizing offense, turning unwanted junk into cannonballs.”

“The more mysterious the input material, the greater the power.”

Among all tests, the most powerful projectile came from the 10,000-game-coin supernatural material [Poseidon Statue]—literally a marble statue stolen from a Greek script world temple.

When fired, it generated water pressure equivalent to several ten-thousand-meter-deep ocean depths, crushing all target walls into powder.

It also left behind deep-sea creatures like Sun Jellyfish and Abyssal Lionfish at the site.

The top-tier projectile’s power equaled a light-speed elbow strike. But the cost was staggering—one shot cost 10,000 game coins. A single cannon blast, ten thousand gold pieces. This wasn’t artillery—it was burning cash.

“Good news: the Eight Trigrams Furnace isn’t just for offense—it can be used for defense.”

Hui Yu bit her pen thoughtfully, tapping her notebook. “Input healing potions, and it creates a mist projectile that spreads healing effects over a wide area for allies.”

“Input shield skill scrolls, and it fires a light-shield projectile that envelops your position.”

Dressed in her lab coat, gold-rimmed glasses on, Hui Yu’s IQ seemed to have spiked. She spoke confidently: “The Eight Trigrams Cannon is inherently a strategic battlefield weapon.”

“Its cooldown is only three seconds. Whether you spam garbage with your bottomless funds, or fire high-mystery projectiles for maximum impact—it delivers decisive blows.”

She paused suddenly, staring intently at the furnace, eyes gleaming with anticipation.

The cooldown is only three seconds—whether relying on our wealth to endlessly fire garbage using scrap and junk, or investing high-mystery materials to launch high-power shells, both achieve a decisive effect.

After so long together, Li Cheng knew exactly what she was thinking the moment she shifted her hips. He rolled his eyes, flicked her forehead: “You can’t use yourself as a test subject.”

“I’ll just use a bit of my fingernail clippings!”

Hui Yu clung to him like a koala. “Just 0.5 grams—or even 0.1 grams.”

“Still no.”

Li Cheng’s face hardened. For years, aside from installing GPUs and chips into stitched dolls, Hui Yu’s weight had remained unchanged. Nanometal couldn’t regenerate—it couldn’t afford to be consumed.

Once you have a hydraulic press at home, you only have a hydraulic press. To prevent Hui Yu from dismantling his home, Li Cheng swiftly stowed the Eight Trigrams Furnace and forbade her from conducting experiments in his absence.

Li Cheng frowned; for a long time, apart from installing graphics cards and chips using stitched dolls, Hui Yu’s weight had remained essentially unchanged. Nanometal could not regenerate and could not withstand consumption.

Once a hydraulic press was in the house, nothing else mattered; to prevent Hui Yu from tearing the place apart, Li Cheng promptly put away the Bagua Furnace and strictly forbade her from conducting secret experiments when he was away.

"This won't work, that won't work—I just wanted to try throwing something in to see if it could create a nuclear mushroom cloud."

On the way back to the toy factory, Hui Yu pouted in the back seat of the edge fighter, gazing out the window, "Li Cheng, you big dummy. Whatever, Li Cheng's happy every day."

??

So it's "There's a Big Li Cheng at the Edge of the Clouds," is it?"

Li Cheng's face darkened. After returning to the toy factory, he sent Hui Yu to supervise the intelligent machines, while he examined the remaining rewards from the [Zero Reset] quest.

(End of Chapter)