Chapter 363: Xing Xing Tongyou

In the vast storehouse, various iron materials and weapons were piled up like small hills—over the past year or more, Liu Zheng had purchased an unknown quantity of iron.

Li Yuan stood amidst it all, his right hand pressing down lightly.

Weng~

In an instant, light burst forth.

Li Yuan focused with all his might, yet only felt his vision blur.

Cold Iron, White Silver, Gold, Red Gold, Refined Gold... various iron materials vanished in the blink of an eye.

"My gold..."

Over eight hundred thousand taels of gold worth of various iron materials vanished in an instant; Li Yuan felt a sudden pang in his heart, but before he could feel the pain, he immediately dropped into a cross-legged seat.

Honglonglong~

The next moment, that tremendous roar, as if exploding from the depths of his soul, came crashing in; the terrifying vibration spread from the inside out, shaking Li Yuan until his scalp went numb and his whole body trembled.

"Pu!"

That was all it took—Li Yuan had already spat out a mouthful of filthy blood; in his dazed state, he saw himself sitting cross-legged on the ground, and was shocked to find that the tremor had knocked his divine soul right out of his body?

"This roar grows louder each time."

Even with his divine soul separated from his body, Li Yuan could still feel the tremendous vibration; he felt as if he had been thrown into a boiling sea, or was falling into a boundless abyss, and an immense terror rose unbidden in his heart.

Wuwu~

He did not know how long it had been before Li Yuan came back to himself from his daze; his divine soul was still drifting outside, while his cross-legged body continued to tremble violently.

Not just his mouth and nose—filthy blood poured from all seven orifices.

"Shua!"

Li Yuan's heart clenched, and his divine soul immediately returned to his body.

Then, a pain like his soul being torn apart surged up, forcing him to cry out and smash a crater into the warehouse floor.

"That damn near killed this Daoist master!"

Amidst the swirling dust, Li Yuan gasped for breath in great gulps; only after quite a while did he recover. Within his body, the medicinal power of Longhu Longhu Dadan spread, his injuries healed rapidly, and the searing pain gradually faded.

"That sound is getting louder and louder."

Li Yuan was lost in thought for a long while before finally closing his eyes.

【Eighth-Grade Weapon Master: Li Yuan】

【Number of Weapons Controllable: Eight】

【Activated: Divine Fire Weapon-Fusing Furnace (Eighth Grade), Divine Fire Weapon-Forging Platform (Eighth Grade), Xing Xing Tongyou (Not Activated)】

Weng~

The gray stone platform rapidly expanded, the Weapon Mastery radiant and resplendent.

Like a river of stars shrouding the stone platform, eight great stars blazed with light.

"If the roar had been this loud when I first advanced, I probably would have died on the spot..."

Gazing at the surging darkness all around, Li Yuan's heart pounded unceasingly; that roar from nowhere filled him with an indescribable dread.

After multiple advancements, the stone platform—once so cramped that two hammers barely fit—now had a diameter exceeding a hundred and fifty meters, and was exceedingly spacious.

The Divine Fire Weapon-Forging Platform and Divine Fire Weapon-Fusing Furnace stood on either side, with the Listening-Wood and others in the center; after Li Yuan surveyed the area, he saw the new objects that had appeared after his Weapon Mastery advanced to the eighth grade.

"Xing Xing Tongyou."

Li Yuan looked ahead; at the edge of the stone platform, a circular archway resembling a bridge tunnel had appeared, roughly three meters tall, entirely dark in color, its outline only visible under the starlight of the Weapon Mastery.

"This thing..."

Li Yuan approached cautiously; the archway stood at the very edge of the stone platform, with fathomless darkness on either side, enough to make anyone's heart tremble at the sight.

Within the archway was utter darkness, its destination unknown.

Weng~

Li Yuan reached out, picked up a long sword, and lightly tapped the archway with its blade; it was as if he heard the sound of a bronze bell being struck.

He tapped here and there, experimenting, and discovered that there was indeed a path within the corridor, level with the stone platform—but the darkness was truly absolute; once the sword's blade entered the corridor's range, he could sense absolutely nothing of it.

"This thing—where does the other end lead?"

After a long while, Li Yuan tried reaching out to lightly touch the archway; in the past, when the Forging Platform and Fusing Furnace had appeared, touching them had given him some lingering information—

but this time, there was none.

"It must be because it hasn't been activated?"

Fearing the unknown, Daoist Master Li was deeply wary; he tried multiple times, even tossing a weapon inside and fishing it back out with a long spear.

In the end, he confirmed that walking into the corridor would not cause him to fall into an abyss—but as for actually going in, that was absolutely impossible; who knew if after a few steps he might plunge into the darkness.

"Does it only activate after the Weapon Mastery advances to the ninth grade?"

After pondering for a good while, Li Yuan still had no clue; after some thought, he moved a censer over to block the archway.

"Could that roar have come from behind this archway?"

Li Yuan muttered to himself uneasily, but for the moment, he had not detected any strange sounds.

"Next time the Weapon Mastery advances, I'll have to take a look..."

Having a plan in mind, Li Yuan temporarily set the matter aside; but when he thought of the materials needed to advance the Weapon Mastery to the ninth grade, he could not help but feel a headache coming on.

"Five thousand jin of gold, three thousand taels of red gold, three hundred taels of refined gold, and one tael of the Essence of a Hundred Metals."

Silver Iron had been excluded; in terms of total quantity, it was much less, yet Li Yuan's heart sank slightly—he was not afraid of numbers in the thousands or tens of thousands; what he feared were the small numbers.

The scene back in Gao Liu County, where he had nearly worried himself white-headed over a single tael of refined gold, was still fresh in Li Yuan's memory.

"The Essence of a Hundred Metals—what on earth is that?"

As a quasi-Divine Craftsman, Li Yuan would not dare claim to recognize every iron material under heaven, but he did have some impression of most of the heavenly materials and earthly treasures needed to forge divine weapons.

The Essence of a Hundred Metals, however, he had never even heard of.

「A bit troublesome.

Li Yuan gathered his thoughts and felt the changes after the Martial Stele advanced.

The interval for switching weapon mastery had been further reduced, now less than an hour; he could switch through thirty combinations a day, fully meeting his needs.

Additionally, the Weapon Forging Platform and Divine Fire Furnace could now forge eighth-tier weapons.

Then, there was this Xing Xing Tongyou corridor.

From the seventh to the eighth tier, there was no substantial change, yet the cost had risen by this much; he felt somewhat depressed, thinking this was very much in the style of the ancestors from his past life.

Believe it or not, get lost.

「Better than nothing, I suppose. 」

Li Yuan noticed that perhaps because the money had come easily, spending several hundred thousand taels of gold at once didn't really pain him.

But thinking about it, he felt relieved.

With his current Wu Gong and status, earning money no longer required the bitter toil of smithing.

「The Xing Xing Tongyou corridor—surely there can't actually be an ancestor sitting at the other end, right? 」

Although he chanted about the ancestors all day, Li Yuan felt that if there really were an ancestor at the other end of the corridor, he'd probably be scared to death.

【Mm, leaving behind a relic treasury, some inheritance or other, that would be fine......

Turning his thoughts, Li Yuan went to the other side, lit the Divine Fire Weapon-Forging Furnace, and threw in the boots he had accumulated, combining three into one. Soon, accompanied by a soft chime,

a flash of pure yellow light swept across the bottom of the furnace.

「Sixteen failures, and it worked—only wasted one extra sixth-tier incense offering. 」

With such a wild variety of boots being combined, ending up with this success rate still left Li Yuan fairly satisfied.

【Divine Fire Hundred-Beast Boots (Sixth-Tier)】

【...... Boots crafted from the hides of a hundred beasts, refined through divine fire—a supreme spirit boot, faintly imbued with spiritual wonder】

【Mastery Requirement: Martial Stele Master's Bloodline】

【Mastery Effect: Seventh-Tier (Gold): Extreme Speed

Sixth-Tier (Yellow): Swift as Thunder

Fifth-Tier (Pale Yellow): Rooted to the Earth, Light as a Goose Feather】

Quasi-Divine Weapon?

Li Yuan was startled; the depression in his heart instantly lifted considerably. He tossed the boots into the air, filling the gap left after the Martial Stele advanced to eighth-tier.

「Swish~」

In the storeroom, Li Yuan tapped his foot lightly; in the next instant, he was over ten zhang away.

「Huh? These boots......

Li Yuan's eyes lit up.

With his current physique and lightness skill, this distance naturally

amounted to nothing, but he hadn't exerted any force just now—merely the strength of a normal step.

「~」

Li Yuan tapped his foot again, this time putting in a bit more effort. In the next instant, he was at the storeroom door. His figure spun as he gradually increased his force,

and after a few steps, a burst of air exploded within the storeroom, blasting iron materials and weapons flying sideways.

「The boost from this pair of Hundred-Beast Spirit Boots also seems to be based on my own speed... the increase is huge! 」

After several attempts, Li Yuan sensed the benefit: this increase based on his own speed could stack with the Divine Foot Sutra.

With just this one pair of boots, his speed compared to before could probably more than double!

「Good stuff! 」

This unexpected delight immediately lifted Li Yuan's mood greatly; the boost from this pair of boots was far greater than that from mastering five pairs of famous-grade boots before.

「If I had these boots back then, Brother Zhongli Wang Luan wouldn't even be able to touch my back. With this speed, ordinary Grandmasters shouldn't be able to catch me, right? 」

Li Yuan briefly recalled.

If Brother Zhongli Wang Luan had no hidden means of instantaneous burst speed, then he definitely couldn't catch him—but the Old Dragon Head was a different story.

Cloaked in true astral qi, moving several zhang in an instant, a speed like a meteor—he reckoned he couldn't manage that yet.

「If I cultivate the Cloud Dragon Nine Appearances to Great Perfection, perhaps I could dodge Wan Wan Zhuliu's first Demon-Slaying Blade. 」

Li Yuan opened his eyes, tidied up the messy storeroom—mainly putting the various iron materials in order. The main reason he had built this storeroom was still to conceal the advancement of his hall weapons.

Iron materials worth several hundred thousand taels of gold, all moved into the small courtyard and then suddenly vanishing, would be rather conspicuous.

「Hoo~」

A moment later, Li Yuan took out several bottles and jars; these contained the blood of spirit beasts—of course, not the blood of a spirit beast king.

Following the ritual of the Heavenly Bestowal Calculation, he sprinkled the blood in all four directions.

Every time the Martial Stele, or the Martial Sound Seal, advanced, he would perform a Heavenly Bestowal ritual; whether it worked or not was just a few jars of spirit beast blood.

「No reaction...... perhaps I have to wait until the Martial Sound Seal also advances to seventh-tier? 」

The ritual failed, but Li Yuan wasn't disappointed. He pondered for a while, then pushed the door open and stepped out. The rain was falling harder, the world shrouded in a misty haze.

Strolling through the rain, waiting for his emotions to settle, Li Yuan turned and went back inside.

Inside, Liu Zheng had wine and dishes prepared, seeming to have waited quite a while. He poured Li Yuan a cup of Hundred Grass Brew, then took out the account books and reported various income and expenses.

After more than a year of opening, the Weapon Forging Shop's profits had become quite considerable.

This was thanks to the imminent Martial Arts Tournament of All Paths; hundreds or thousands of Jianghu Sect had arrived, bringing a flood of business—arms trade was second only to elixirs.

After the meal, Liu Zheng cleared the dishes, cupped his fists, and took his leave.

Li Yuan closed the door, listened to the rain outside, sat cross-legged on the bed, and with a thought, entered the Mystic Whale Mi Jing.

He was preparing to challenge the Mystic Whale Gate's true disciple trial.