Chapter 274: The Mercury Daoist

"You are unfamiliar with this, and unclear about that, so why did your Royal Father contact you?"

Xu Jia pinched his chubby little face.

"Royal Father asked me to help him; I have also achieved the Earth Immortal stage and condensed my first Water Virtue Dragon Scale, which also fits the Water Virtue ecosystem."

"The ecosystem of the five virtues of water is divided into the Ocean, Lake, River and Stream, Well, and heavenly Qi such as Frost Snow Rain Hail."

"What Royal Father controls is the Ocean; the Ocean has ocean currents, and ocean currents bring Water Qi. Water Qi can reach any place—it can be a Lake, it can be a River, or any other place."

"The one in the Shangjie who manages the counts of wind and rain is Pingxin Zhenhai Niangniang. She originated from the sea, and the ocean currents of sea transport began with her; what Royal Father wants to learn is her."

"But these ocean currents are, after all, rootless water. Once they land, it is difficult to change the Earth Vein and Water Vein, so Royal Father brought us three thousand six hundred-plus brothers out."

"It is just that not many have become successful... Many of my brothers and sisters can only give birth; they gave birth to many common Carp Species... Many were even caught and wiped out because their meat was delicious..."

Xu Jia sighed with emotion: You Dragon Race are truly capable of reproducing. The old flood dragon of Poyang is sowing seeds crazily; you came from the Shangjie, and you haven't abandoned this tradition, huh?

"Nowadays, there are actually not many who have truly condensed any one of the Water Virtues... Most are still distributed in the north, the Huanghe, the Wei River, the Luo River..."

Ao Jin followed Xu Jia and said: "We are actually latecomers; this realm actually had dragons long ago, and there are several Dragon Nests... The most numerous are Mountain Dragons, followed by Poison Dragons, and the fewest are Feather Dragons. But as for Carp Dragons, we are the only branch. We cultivate Water Virtue and are entirely of the Innate Divine Dao; we are the only ones..."

"Royal Father said to let me assist him, which means he will transport a large amount of Water Qi every year, and I am to prepare to receive it. This water contains a large amount of Heavenly Origin Qi, which can be intercepted and stored in the Water Mansion, or it can help push it to other places."

Xu Jia roughly understood the meaning, but he always felt that this Dragon King's efforts were leaning towards being in vain, or that he had taken the wrong path.

Although the Water Origin Power is very important for strengthening Water Virtue and nourishing all things, everything has its limits; in any case, it is better to have a balance of Yin Yang Five Elements.

At least from Xu Jia's perspective of the Heaven and Earth Great Human Body and the human body as a small heaven and earth, this Dragon King wants to take on the role of "bone marrow." The ocean current rich in Origin Qi is the blood it creates, and at the same time, it also takes on the role of the heart.

At least in Xu Jia's view, this is very difficult to operate, unless a new "embryo" is gestated. Only when the new embryo seizes the nutrients of the mother body to develop and grow is it possible to ascend according to the Divine Path. But this method is essentially parasitism, it is Possession, and the original will of heaven and earth would kill this embryo.

When the Great Heng Dynasty and the Yellow Heaven Sect conferred the masses of gods, they should have wanted to activate heaven and earth, but they failed.

However, they left behind some legacy, at least this realm has had those who ascended, and it is enough for some people to cultivate, and it even produced Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. The Dharma Realm is also relatively complete; it is a world rich in spirituality.

But such a world is only the lowest level of the Desire Realm and cannot be counted as a world.

According to the Buddhist saying, it is one of the Ganges Sand Number Small Worlds.

"Fine, you just receive this current of Origin Qi. It is estimated that the matter of hiring your old man will not be accomplished; he might be in the South Sea now, breeding the tribe on one hand and suppressing the Sea Eye on the other, breathing together with the Sea Eye..."

Xu Jia had also studied it; whether it is Fire Method or water methods, they all communicate with the spiritual energy of the Dharma Realm, and spiritual energy exists only by the mind.

Perhaps when the real world is in sync with the Dharma Realm and absorbs enough energy, the conditions for "ascension" can be achieved.

Ao Jin tilted his head: "Then should I communicate with my brothers?"

"Forget it, none of your family is reliable." Xu Jia thought it over and decided to rely on himself.

Ao Jin thought about it and agreed: "That's true, I'm not familiar with them either."

Ao Jin is of the Innate Divine Dao, sitting in command of the Water Vein, breathing together with the Xin River Water Mansion.

But in fact, the "Incense God" or Primitive Demon God of the Yellow Heaven Sect could also achieve this effect, but the effect of a single one is average. It probably requires arranging the deity as an Array Eye to succeed.

But conferring gods requires faith, and great faith must have great unification, and great unification must have strong military strength and logistical capabilities.

Borrowing the False to Cultivate the True is actually binding oneself to a dynasty, but after establishing a dynasty, the struggle between royal power and divine power will begin again. This is a vicious cycle.

Xu Jia sent Ao Jin back to the Xin River, then shuttled through the Dharma Realm and arrived at Yushan. The peak of Three Pure Ones Mountain already had traces of construction.

Xu Jia was not concerned with how the project was progressing; even if this Three Pure Ones Palace had enough money, it would take at least three years to complete the main structure. The interior decoration, murals, various statues, flowers, and plants might take five years to be fully arranged.

Summoning the two snake mothers, Chang Yuying and Chang Yu'e, Xu Jia wanted to pass on the Divine Path methods of the Yellow Heaven Sect to them, letting them sit in command of the Yushan spirit cave and use the original Genyue Turbid Qi method to awaken the spirituality of the great mountain.

And the spirituality of the great mountain is the Mountain God, and the Mountain God is the Chang Yu whom Xu Jia enfeoffed.

Because Chang Yu stole too much of the origin of the Yushan Dragon Vein, after becoming the Mountain God, he underwent the five-hundred-year Earth Immortal calamity to repay the Origin Qi of Yushan, petrifying into a strange peak.

The two mother snakes coiled around the petrified Chang Yu. Chang Yu's petrified mountain peak was very spiritual; the first thing many people saw was: "Wow! It looks like a mountain-crossing snake!"

This is the strange peak scene of "Giant Python Emerging from the Mountain" in Three Pure Ones Mountain today.

His Primordial Spirit is sleeping inside.

"How is Chang Yu? Can you two sense him?"

"Husband's nature and spirit are hidden beneath the earth, just like a newly born snake egg. It might hatch, or it might just stay in the state of an egg like this. Even if we search from the Dharma Realm, we have not truly found Husband's Primordial Spirit."

Xu Jia listened and was thoughtful: "At the foot of Yushan, I have already buried the Earth Soul of Cai Yu in a feng shui auspicious spot. He was also stiffened back then, and then underwent Corpse Severance to achieve the sublimation of the Primordial Spirit, but he failed by a little bit and is currently making amends."

"Now you can help make this amendment."

Xu Jia told them the method of Divine Path cultivation: "Although you are not the Yushan Mountain God, you are also of the Earth Virtue Gouchen Tengshe kind. Perhaps you can learn Ao Jin's method of the Innate Divine Dao, swallowing and spitting Earth Qi, and making new preparations for creating a Blessed Land in the future."

After saying this, Xu Jia took out the Dragon-Shaped Imperial Jade. Huang Muchun said this thing was the core of the original Jade Brilliance Cave Heaven. A Cave Heaven established with it could have a way to communicate with the Form Realm or even the Formless Realm. The Origin Qi of the Shangjie would sink into the Cave Heaven, and the Immortals of the Shangjie might also descend to the Cave Heaven to roam. A Cave Heaven True Person, upon cultivating to a certain level, could also use their Primordial Spirit to travel to the Shangjie.

"The true use of this thing is to construct a Cave Heaven Blessed Land and create a Daochang; it is a true treasure of the Divine Path."

"You can use this to cultivate and awaken Chang Yu's nature and spirit as soon as possible. As long as the nature and spirit are awakened, it is equivalent to passing the Calamity. As a Mountain God, it does not matter if he needs a physical body. The Innate Origin Qi in the mountain, or the Innate Divine Steel, or the Genyue Turbid Qi, based on the enfeoffment and the resonance with the spirituality of the Yushan Dharma Realm, will all reconstruct a shell for him, thereby embarking on the path of an Earth Deity."

Although Chang Yuying and Chang Yu'e both had two or three hundred years of Daoist Practice, they mostly grew their physical bodies and were huge in size. They did not follow the path of transforming into humans, so their wisdom was slightly insufficient, and they did not fully understand Xu Jia's meaning.

But they also knew that this Imperial Jade was a good thing.

"I will have the Daoists of Shanju Guan hold a Jiao Ritual for the return of the Mountain God to sacrifice to Chang Yu. It will be on the Mid-Autumn Festival. On the Mid-Autumn full moon, Taiyin Star Lord will bestow blessings on the world, and the spiritual energy of the Dharma Realm will reach its peak, and Chang Yu will also wake up completely."

"Mid-Autumn? When is that? How much longer?"

"Not much longer, so you must hurry." Xu Jia combined the Divine Path methods of the Yellow Heaven Sect with the Genyue Turbid Qi method. The breathing method is only to take in Qi and not exhale it, while the Divine Path breathing method is to feed back—taking it into the body and then returning it to heaven and earth. The two snake mothers then coiled around the Giant Python Mountain, where Chang Yu petrified, with their mouths biting their tails, forming a circle, and the Heaven and Earth Imperial Jade was in the center of this circle.

The Qi of Genyue, one in and one out, cycled back and forth, gathering here and also gathering inside the Giant Python Mountain.

"Hum."

"It's working!" Chang Yuying was pleasantly surprised. Just after the first cycle of operation, she felt the joy of her husband's nature and spirit.

And Xu Jia also felt the strengthening of the spirituality of Three Pure Ones Mountain. The deity of the Yuyu Blessed Land within his own body seemed to be restless, wanting to break out of the Inner Landscape and connect with the External Scene.

It was just that Xu Jia's Heavenly Spirit Root, the Ginseng Fruit Tree, had not yet built a Heavenly Spirit Bridge.

It was mainly because Xu Jia did not want to sit here for hundreds of years without moving, just acting as an Earth Immortal and managing only this one Blessed Land.

Only others provide for oneself; how could one provide for others? Opening up a Blessed Land or Cave Heaven is what Chang Yu, the Mountain God, should do, not himself.

As the resonance between Chang Yuying, Chang Yu'e and Yushan, or simply the Giant Python Mountain, deepened, the Giant Python Mountain also seemed to begin to breathe.

Begin to comb through the Earth Qi of the Yushan Earth Veins, nurturing vigorous life-giving Qi and auspicious Qi.

After giving instructions for this matter, Xu Jia did not remain idle and arrived at Shanju Guan.

Just then, he suddenly heard a sound: "Boom!"

Immediately, a small mushroom cloud appeared, and a Daoist emerged from within, fully armed—he had actually put on a helmet and was wearing armor... yet one could still see blood flowing and burns in many places...

However, it did not matter; he simply took off his armor, then took out medicine and smeared it on his wounds, looking as if he were accustomed to it.

"What were you doing just now?"

"Ah? True Person Xu!" This Shanju Guan Daoist was not a Scripture Master Daoist that Xu Jia was familiar with, nor was he any other head of the group.

"We are refining external thunder."

Ever since Xu Jia obtained the Heavenly Dipper Thunder Fire Method from Cai Yu last time, Shanju Guan itself had also filled in a portion of its heritage.

"Isn't the Heavenly Dipper Thunder Fire external medicine supposed to be more stable after being refined? Why does it explode at the slightest provocation?"

This Daoist said: "Last time I saw you, True Person Xu, taking saltpeter to make acid and dissolving silver to refine medicine, we thought of improving it. Later, we discovered that nitric acid and mercury, added to distilled alcohol, produce a gunpowder that is a very good material for external thunder, with immense power. It is just that we haven't found the most stable formula, so it keeps exploding."

"It is much easier to use than ordinary black powder!"

Xu Jia was shocked: "You have already started working on these things?"

To tell the truth, chemical engineering capable of industrial preparation of nitric acid is the beginning of all liquid and solid explosives. If one can make explosives, one can also make chemical fertilizers.

Xu Jia had not originally intended to let these Daoists develop gunpowder technology so quickly, but thinking about it, they had already unlocked this technology long ago. Back then, Cai Yu could already refine Jade Porcelain Divine Thunder, with power comparable to a hand grenade. How could these disciples and grand-disciples be any worse? They were all multi-talented, knowing music, brewing wine, refining pills, and preparing gunpowder external thunder.

"This thing is called Thunder Mercury; it is very, very unstable. First of all, our alcohol cannot be made anhydrous; we need extremely high-purity alcohol to refine it."

"That is no problem. We have already prepared it using alchemy methods, gathering its Qi and using its spirit... It is the same as gathering and refining Dandanqi during alchemy. As for the fire-alcohol liquid, let alone drinking it, even a drop on the skin gives the feeling of being consumed by a raging fire."

Good heavens! Xu Jia looked him up and down: "Nowadays you shouldn't need to go blast mountains to mine jade anymore, why study this stuff?"

"If we don't mine jade, we can mine iron, copper, any ore will do... This is definitely useful."

Thunder Mercury is suitable for small-scale use, as a primer for bullets or cannons.

But as for firearms and cannons, modern craftsmen certainly cannot build many. Fortunately, Xu Jia had already obtained the blueprints for a lathe. Once the Household Officials finished making the Three-Eyed Fire Musket, he could use it as a seed to initiate enlightenment and carry out deeper improvements. Copying what they have over in America certainly wouldn't work; he could only see what they had here and build accordingly.

However, besides technology, industry also requires energy. For example, the Household Officials of the Salt and Iron Bureau use coke to smelt copper and steel.

Although Jiangnan West Circuit is not short of coal—one could even say it is very abundant—the mining technology is still not up to par.

The history of coal use in ancient China, for instance in his previous life, could be traced back to the Han Dynasty; Li Daoyuan's *Commentary on the Water Classic* had already written about blast furnaces for burning coal.

It is just that coal has a high sulfur content, so using it for iron smelting makes the iron brittle and hard.

Iron smelting is not difficult, but steelmaking is. What Xu Jia wants is to smelt large quantities of high-quality steel.

Steelmaking is not that easy; otherwise, the backyard steelmaking movement would not have been declared a failure.

However, the Ming Dynasty discovered that coal could also be calcined, just like burning charcoal. The calcined coal had a greatly reduced sulfur content and became coke. They also discovered that besides lime, fluorite was also a very good flux.

It is just that by the Qing Dynasty, these smelting technologies had instead fallen into regression.

The Great Ning Dynasty here has developed industrial technology that is inferior to the Ming Dynasty, and even worse than the Song Dynasty... It is highly probable that because humans, ghosts, demons, and gods live together in chaos, to a greater or lesser extent, individuals possess the possibility of pursuing power, and the imperial court and religions also control transcendent power.

Ordinary firearms have limited damage against demons and ghosts. The power of Heavenly Dipper Thunder Fire is not bad, but not everyone can learn the Tiangang Great Sage external thunder method.

"Let the Golden Toad allocate money for you to research; go burn the money!" Xu Jia said: "This thing you are researching is very useful, but your knowledge is not systematic. I can teach you some things in this regard."

This Daoist's eyes lit up: "Really? I want to make cannons more powerful than the Ancestor's Jade Porcelain Divine Thunder, and more powerful than the imperial court's Weiyuan Great General Cannon. They all use lead bullets; they shoot far, but they don't explode. If only they could explode after being fired..."

Good heavens! You are still a heavy-truth fanatic? The firearms of World War I were generally not considered very advanced, but by the time of World War II, they were already considered weapons of mass destruction.

It is just a pity that Yushan Dexing does not yet have this industrial strength, because Xu Jia has not yet completed capital integration, completed Land Annexation, or brought it under state ownership to concentrate power to do great things.

The current economic model is still a small-scale peasant pastoral economy, which lacks an industrial foundation. Xu Jia still relies mainly on the traditional industrial technology of the Household Officials. Even with full-scale production, he can only arm a small portion of people on a small scale.

"Go to the Salt and Iron Bureau," Xu Jia said. "What is your name? I will remember you."

"Ah? True Person Xu, you have chatted with me for so long, and you don't even know my name? And here I was, considering you a soulmate, especially since the improved version of the saltpeter-silver Jade Porcelain Divine Thunder you refined before also has immense power!"

"I am the Daoist named Leizhenzi, Lu Zhenqi."

Very good, they are all of the 'Yu' generation.

(End of this chapter)