Chapter 550: On the right track

Returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan took out a bottle of Yuan-Gathering Elixirs, counted the elixirs inside, and poured all twelve of them into his mouth. As the elixirs entered his abdomen, the spiritual energy exploded instantly, nourishing his somewhat dried-up Dharma body, and his Dao power rose rapidly.

Spiritual energy also began to be produced continuously in the Human World Renjian Yanhuo, replenishing his Dao power.

It was just that Wei Yuan's Dharma body was extremely powerful, and his total Dao power was equivalent to the sum of dozens of ordinary Dharma Forms.

Under normal circumstances, two Yuan-Gathering Elixirs could replenish the Dao power of a Dharma Form cultivator, but here, even after swallowing a whole bottle, the replenished Dao power was not even half a percent. This bottle of Yuan-Gathering Elixirs was refined by Xu Henshui himself, and its efficacy was much stronger than ordinary Yuan-Gathering Elixirs.

Wei Yuan felt around his body again and found that the elixirs for replenishing Dao power had been eaten up. So he came to the Creation Elixir Courtyard where Xu Henshui was, and saw Xu Henshui checking a batch of newly arrived medicinal materials.

"I still need Yuan-Gathering Elixirs." Wei Yuan got straight to the point.

Xu Henshui was taken aback and said: "I refined one hundred and eight in the last furnace and gave them all to you. You've eaten them all? It hasn't been three days yet, has it?"

"I am in urgent need of replenishing my Dao power now; does Uncle-Master have any stock here?"

Xu Henshui took out an elixir box and said: "This is the Precious Fragrance Elixir I just refined. Although it is for Yu Jing's exclusive use, it seems that your Dharma body can also withstand the medicinal power. One of these elixirs is equivalent to the Dao power of twenty ordinary Dharma Forms; do you want it?"

Wei Yuan was overjoyed and naturally would not refuse. Then he asked casually about the refining of the Precious Fragrance Elixir, and Xu Henshui replied that the most ordinary Precious Fragrance Elixir sold for one thousand taels of immortal silver, an ordinary alchemist could produce four or five in one furnace, while Xu Henshui could refine Yu Jing-level elixirs when he was in the Dharma Form stage, and could produce seven in one furnace; it could only be said that he was worthy of being a candidate for the future Temple Master of the Creation Temple.

The medicinal materials for the Precious Fragrance Elixir were worth about one thousand taels of immortal silver, and an ordinary alchemist could account for four thousand taels of immortal silver after refining them into elixirs, only able to earn three times the hard-earned money with tears; this was the normal earning level of an alchemist. For Xu Henshui, anything less than ten times was unqualified.

Just because he had asked one extra question, Wei Yuan decided that as soon as the war eased up slightly, he would immediately establish Qingming's own elixir industry.

Xu Henshui still had more than twenty Precious Fragrance Elixirs on hand, so Wei Yuan took out a piece of Nether Iron weighing over a thousand jin as payment for the elixirs. This piece of Nether Iron was worth more than one hundred thousand taels of immortal silver, and for the excess part, Wei Yuan ordered another one hundred Precious Fragrance Elixirs from Xu Henshui.

Seeing the Nether Iron, Xu Henshui was also overjoyed and hurriedly took it, fearing that Wei Yuan would go back on his word, and said happily: "With these Nether Irons, I can start building the Water-Fire Dual-Phase Furnace."

Wei Yuan took the elixirs and returned to his residence, took four Precious Fragrance Elixirs in a row, and only then did he feel his Dao power was replenished, and then he entered the Nether Cold Realm again.

This time Wei Yuan had experience, summoned both the scholar and warrior Dragon Guards, and cooperated with the Long Ying to heat the Nether Iron. Wei Yuan opened the portal and summoned the two masters of the Fighting Saint Hall.

As soon as they appeared, they were instantly pressed by the surrounding invisible heavy pressure, their faces flushed, their whole bodies trembling, and they showed signs of kneeling down.

Fortunately, Wei Yuan added Dao power to them in time, offsetting the invisible traction and heavy pressure underground, so they felt a little better.

The two observed the surrounding environment, and then Long Wushuang said that the Nether Iron was beyond his ability, but the Nether Crystal underground could break hardness with skill, and it didn't need too high a cultivation, only exquisite and subtle Dao power control, which he could handle.

Han Li was different from Long Wushuang; what he learned seemed particularly miscellaneous, and he knew a little bit of everything. He stood there, looking up and observing the Nether Iron, and countless complex lines and many symbols with unclear meanings appeared faintly in his eyes.

After watching for a while, Han Li said: "The Dao of heaven and earth here is chaotic, and the pressure is extremely high. But precisely because of this, melting metal will be relatively easy. There is a type of furnace that is well-designed; although it cannot melt Nether Iron in our world, it seems it can here. It's worth a try."

Wei Yuan immediately searched the Human World Renjian Yanhuo and sure enough saw more than ten various types of furnaces. Among them, one was quite thin and tall, which was the furnace Han Li mentioned, and it also had the highest furnace temperature.

These furnaces were designed by someone in the Human World Renjian Yanhuo, and Wei Yuan checked them along the way, and sure enough, he also found elixir furnaces, wood-making platforms, and other utensils that the Human World Renjian Yanhuo could not yet use.

With Wei Yuan's permission, Han Li and Long Wushuang led seven Dao Foundation cultivators from the hall to build the furnace. The furnace used the rocks of the Human World Renjian Yanhuo as the main body, and a layer of fine Nether Crystal was laid inside to insulate it. The group of Dao Foundation cultivators rested twice before building a furnace, and then Han Li presided over it, Wei Yuan let the Kaihui Dharma Form assist, and at the same time input True Fire into the furnace.

Sure enough, deep underground, the True Fire was enhanced by the furnace formation and structure, the temperature rose significantly, and the Nether Iron treated by the Molten Gold Dao Book was almost completely melted into molten iron.

Subsequently, the mortals of the Structural and Materials Mechanics Research Institute provided a new support structure, Wei Yuan made molds one by one himself, and the inner wall of the mold was still lined with Nether Crystal. Then the melted Nether Iron in the furnace was poured into the mold, and with a hard press, it became an iron brick.

Wei Yuan first piled the iron bricks into four pillars, supporting each corner, and then paved the ground with the remaining iron bricks, and then let the Long Ying burn it with Southern Brightness Separation Fire to weld it into a complete piece of ground. Wei Yuan finally arranged an isolation formation on the ground to isolate the inside and outside, and the pressure in the entire cave finally lightened, weakening to less than one-tenth of the original.

Now this environment could allow Dao Foundation cultivators to stay for a long time, and Wei Yuan's own stay time was close to infinite.

Now Wei Yuan finally stood firm under this Nether Iron mountain and built the first small base, although this base was only the size of a room.

After the isolation formation was laid, the furnace was taken over by a group of Dao Foundation cultivators in turns, with people resting but the furnace not stopping. Wei Yuan left a gap outside the range of the isolation formation, from where he could dig down for Nether Crystals.

The freed Kaihui Dharma Form took over the Fei Ye Zhu Xian Sword for Wei Yuan to cut the Nether Iron.

After Wei Yuan mined enough Nether Crystals, he began to build the second furnace. At this time, Han Li suggested arranging a Wind-Fire Great Formation under the Long Ying's feet, which could effectively increase the power of the Southern Brightness Separation Fire.

Wei Yuan gladly adopted it. After the formation was laid, the power of the Long Ying's attack indeed greatly increased, and the time spent burning the Nether Iron soft was shortened by half.

Soon the second furnace was built, and the base expansion speed increased by another double. The excess Nether Iron was collected by Wei Yuan into the Human World Renjian Yanhuo, ready to be brought back to Qingming for use.

(No errors in the original text!)

Up to this point, the process of melting iron, cutting, melting, casting, and paving the base was formed, and the base expansion was completely on the right track.

It was not until his Dao power was exhausted again that Wei Yuan returned to Qingming. This time he dug back hundreds of thousands of jin of Nether Iron in total, and Yu Zhizhuo was already numb from looking at it and immediately began to design a new furnace.

The original furnace could only refine Nether Iron one hundred jin by one hundred jin, and it had to burn for several hours, so it could no longer handle so much Nether Iron.

Yu Zhizhuo and the Human World Renjian Yanhuo worked together, and under pressure, inspiration flowed like a spring, finally proposing the concept of the Four Symbols Furnace Array.

This array was divided into four furnaces, each standing at a corner of the formation, and the formation used spiritual objects and Dao Foundation cultivators to provide energy, uniformly providing spiritual energy and driving True Fire for the four furnaces. However, the characteristics of the four furnaces were different.

The western furnace focused on killing, and the metal refined had heavy evil Qi; the eastern one was full of vitality; the northern one was a low-temperature furnace, which was actually an auxiliary furnace, and all the heat of the True Fire in the furnace was transferred to the Vermilion Bird furnace in the south.

The core concept of the Four Symbols Furnace came from the Yin-Yang Furnace of the Heavenly Craft Hall. This furnace was divided into two, with dual furnaces as one body; the Yin furnace was auxiliary, and the Yang furnace was the main refining, transferring the firepower of the Yin furnace into the Yang furnace, so that Yu Zhizhuo could handle various Dharma Form-level materials when he was at the Dao Foundation stage.

And the Human World Renjian Yanhuo provided the idea of centralized energy supply. Connecting the Four Symbols Furnace with an array to uniformly provide energy for the four furnaces broke the restriction that furnace operation must be Fire-attribute and Metal-attribute cultivators; any cultivator could provide energy for the array, and then the array would convert it into the True Fire needed by the Four Symbols Furnace.

This was also because Nether Iron was really too difficult to melt, and the quantity Wei Yuan dug back was too large, forcing Yu Zhizhuo and the mortals in the Human World Renjian Yanhuo into a desperate situation, resulting in such a Four Symbols Furnace.

With the Four Symbols Furnace, Qingming from then on had the ability to handle Yu Jing-level materials, and it didn't even need to use Dharma Form cultivators.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 551 =====