At this moment, Ji Liuli was in Zhang Sheng's room. The table before them was covered with components of various sizes, with crates of gunpowder stacked beside it.
The parts on the table came in all shapes; the larger ones were the size of watermelons, while more than a dozen of the smallest would have to be bundled together to match the thickness of a strand of hair. Wei Yuan did not recognize a single one, let alone know their purposes.
Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli each held a sheet of jade paper and were reading intently. Both had their brows tightly knit, pondering as they read.
Not daring to disturb them, Wei Yuan stepped lightly into the room. He swept his divine sense across the jade paper and discovered that it was actually the accounts written by Xu Wenwu. Wei Yuan already knew those writings by heart, having categorized most of them as useless trash.
What could possibly be so baffling about such things that his eldest senior sister and master had to rack their brains over them?
Wei Yuan stood quietly to the side, waiting for Eldest Senior Sister to have a free moment.
Ji Liuli suddenly shook her head vigorously and said, "Forget it, let's think about something achievable for now. Hmm, Little Wei Yuan, what is it?"
Wei Yuan explained that he had exchanged merits for a Thunder Crystal Wood sapling and wanted to ask Eldest Senior Sister to set up a formation.
Ji Liuli said, "Then I'll go help Little Wei Yuan plant his tree first to clear my head. You keep thinking it over."
Zhang Sheng nodded, his divine sense never leaving the jade paper.
Wei Yuan naturally knew his teacher's temperament; once Zhang Sheng began researching something, he would forget all about eating and sleeping.
The two flew to the northeast of the domain and selected a small, rocky hill, where Wei Yuan inserted the Thunder Crystal Wood sapling into the soil. The moment the Thunder Crystal Wood entered the earth, a tiny arc of lightning flashed within its trunk, and several slender rootlets extended from beneath, burrowing deep into the ground.
Ji Liuli surveyed the orientations, placed spiritual items, and began setting up a formation to attract and bind lightning.
Such work was second nature to Ji Liuli and required no thought at all. Wei Yuan took this opportunity to ask what she and Zhang Sheng had been studying.
Ji Liuli said, "We were studying the method of refining steel. The mortals of that world can produce over a thousand dan of refined steel in a single furnace without spiritual power or the aid of formations. It is truly unbelievable. Oh, I'll demonstrate, and you'll understand."
Ji Liuli casually drew up several rocks and clenched her hand in empty air. The stones instantly disintegrated into powder, and different powders converged into clusters, creating more than a dozen clumps of rock dust floating in midair, varying in size.
"There are iron and copper veins beneath this ground. These rocks contained quite a bit of iron, and I've already filtered out the raw iron."
With a flick of her fingers, Ji Liuli dispersed the other clumps, leaving only the ball of iron. Sweeping his divine sense over it, Wei Yuan sensed that it was almost entirely iron, with less than ten percent impurities.
The clump of iron powder hovered above Ji Liuli's palm. A gout of flame surged from her hand, turning the iron powder incandescent red in an instant before it melted into a soft mass.
Ji Liuli made a drawing motion with her left hand, pulling a substantial amount of impurities from the molten iron until only a ball of exceptionally pure liquid iron remained, with fewer than one part in a hundred of impurities.
"This is iron. We cultivators discern the properties of matter, and we can directly adjust those properties using our divine sense and Dao power."
Several kinds of powder appeared in Ji Liuli's left hand. With a gentle puff of breath, she sent the powders into the molten iron, distributing them evenly throughout. The color of the flame shifted from red to blue, and then to pure white. The iron mass completely turned into liquid iron, constrained into a sphere by Dao power.
"This is steel."
The temperature of the molten sphere surged and plummeted repeatedly. Ji Liuli added a bit more powder, and after repeating the process several times, the temperature dropped straight down to ambient, transforming it into a steel sphere shimmering with a faint cyan luster.
"This is refined steel."
Wei Yuan nodded. These principles had all been taught in their Theory of Arts classes back then, except the students' cultivation had been shallow at the time, so they had to rely on furnace fire to raise temperatures and could only process a tiny bit at a time when adjusting the properties of matter. Wei Yuan had toiled for half a day back then only to produce two liang of refined steel of mediocre quality. How could they compare to Ji Liuli, who refined over a hundred jin of refined steel with a casual wave of her hand?
Refined steel was the pinnacle of mortal materials, but it was far from the end of the road.
If other immortal materials were added and nurtured with Dao power, refined steel could transform into spiritual material, much like the difference between immortal silver and mortal silver.
Ji Liuli said, "With my cultivation, I can only refine a thousand jin of refined steel at a time, which comes out to less than ten dan. Yet the mortals of that world can produce over a thousand dan of refined steel in a single furnace. Doesn't that mean all my years of cultivation are inferior to mere mortals?"
"That... of course, it can't be compared like that," Wei Yuan said.
Yet after Ji Liuli's demonstration, Wei Yuan began to understand. Pondering, he remarked, "We use divine sense to distinguish the properties of matter, and then use Dao power to adjust the composition of the material according to those properties. There is a limit to how much material one can process at a time; any more, and one cannot ensure the uniform distribution of materials or the balance of properties. If those mortals smelt a thousand dan of refined steel in one heat, wouldn't the raw ore charged into the furnace amount to two thousand dan? How do they ensure the balance of properties within the material?"
Ji Liuli said, "That is one aspect. The second is temperature. Ordinary mortal flames struggle even to melt iron, let alone refined steel. When we forge artifacts, we employ earth fire, heavenly fire, Dao fire, or spiritual fire. Aside from specific special uses, many of these flames naturally melt metal and stone, and refined steel is trivial for them. But these flames require control by divine sense and support from Dao power. That world is made up of mere mortals—how do they control furnace temperatures?"
The difficulty varied vastly depending on the amount charged into the furnace. Smelting ten jin at a time versus smelting a thousand jin was already worlds apart, to say nothing of a thousand dan or more per furnace. Following this train of thought, Wei Yuan grew increasingly alarmed the more he considered it.
Wei Yuan said slowly, "The mortals of that world can produce a thousand dan of refined steel furnace after furnace, with consistent quality. It seems they must be able to gauge the furnace temperature with precision, possess means to ensure the temperature rises or falls within a specific range, and simultaneously guarantee that the temperature throughout the charge remains uniform and the properties balanced. There is simply too much involved in this."
Ji Liuli nodded. "Indeed. Broken down into details, each aspect could probably become an entire field of study. That world must have reached a corresponding level of sophistication in every respect to ultimately produce a thousand dan of refined steel in a single heat."
Wei Yuan said, "Xu Wenwu was uneducated and accomplished nothing in that world. There are probably many fields he has never even heard of."
Ji Liuli said, "No matter. We only need to know what the mortals of that world have achieved. The speed at which our divine senses operate is hundreds or thousands of times faster than that of mortals. What mortals can do, we can naturally do as well."
Wei Yuan also found this reasonable. Take a furnace producing a thousand dan of refined steel: now that they knew such a thing existed, they could study it slowly and achieve it sooner or later. Never mind a thousand dan—even ten thousand or a hundred thousand dan, if mortals could do it, there was no reason cultivators could not.
As they talked to this point, Wei Yuan recalled another matter: the amount of Dao power required to heat a thousand dan of raw materials until they melted into liquid iron would be extraordinary. Yet the mortals of that world seemed to rely heavily on electricity.
Speaking of this, Ji Liuli said, "We also possess many means beyond the reach of mortals—feng shui and karmic luck, for example. You already have karmic luck upon you, and coupled with the grand feng shui formation I laid down, many things naturally fall into place. See? No one told you to, yet didn't you just exchange for a Thunder Crystal Wood and bring it back?"
Chapter 165