Wei Yuan had set a quota for himself: explore the Nether Cold Realm for two shichen each day. Originally, it had been one shichen, with the other devoted to cultivating the Myriad Manifestations of Moonlit Splendor. But now that he was excavating so much Nether Soil from the Nether Cold Realm, the cultivation progress it yielded far outstripped meditating; sitting in meditation was simply no match for digging dirt.
Today's two shichen were already used up, and inscribing the formations onto the short blade would take time. Wei Yuan planned to head back into the Nether Cold Realm tomorrow. For now, there was still a mountain of chores in the domain awaiting his attention.
Ji Liuli hurried off with the short blade. Zhang Sheng was about to leave as well when Wei Yuan called out to him.
Wei Yuan weighed his words and asked gingerly, "Teacher, given how brutal the fighting was on our side, didn't Grandmaster have anything to say?"
Zhang Sheng replied, "Patriarch Xuanyue already came, and Grandmaster Fenhai came as well. Patriarch Xuanyue just fought a battle against two Nether Shamans. What more did you expect him to say?"
Wei Yuan was taken aback. He had sensed nothing of any battle in the skies. He hurriedly asked, "Are the Patriarch and Grandmaster still fighting?"
"No, they've already left."
Wei Yuan said, "Ah, then why didn't they show themselves to meet us? Could it be that I did something wrong?"
Zhang Sheng rolled his eyes at him. "This has nothing to do with you. It's entirely because of... well, certain reasons. If they met you, wouldn't they, as elders, have to bestow some greeting gifts?"
Wei Yuan was sharp and understood immediately: so the Grandmaster and Patriarch couldn't bear to part with greeting gifts! Oh, not necessarily that they were stingy—perhaps they genuinely couldn't afford them.
The senior figures of Sky Azure Hall were all terribly obsessed with saving face. In times like this, the best approach was to pose as transcendent, otherworldly masters who brushed off their sleeves and departed once the deed was done, neatly bypassing all social niceties.
Taking his leave of Zhang Sheng, Wei Yuan went to inspect the domain. Right now, what Wei Yuan valued most within the domain was steel-forging, so he headed straight to the Weaponsmith Workshop.
The Weaponsmith Workshop had been built less than three days ago. For now, it was merely an enclosed plot of land in the core zone, fitted with a simple formation to gather spiritual qi. Currently, the workshop housed only a single smelting furnace, but fifty anvils had been set out in one breath. Fifty newly advanced Dao Foundation cultivators were swinging iron hammers, hammering blanks in unison.
Wang Yu held a small ancient chime, pacing back and forth as he struck it in a measured rhythm. Dao power was infused into each chime, purifying thoughts and focusing divine intent. Each time the chime sounded, the new Dao Foundation cultivators had to strike with their hammers—neither early nor late, neither too light nor too heavy.
At the slightest deviation, Wang Yu's Yin Eye would spot it, followed immediately by a lash from a whip. The long whip was a high-grade magical artifact that struck directly at the origin soul; no matter how robust one's physical body was, it was useless against it.
Those who were whipped turned deathly pale, trembling all over in agony. Yet they had to maintain the rhythm of forging iron; no matter how agonizing the pain, they could not falter, lest they catch another lash.
As Wang Yu patrolled, he lectured, "Only by enduring the bitterest of hardships can one rise above all others! None of you was ever supposed to forge a Dao Foundation. It is here in this domain, through the opportunity granted by the Domain Lord, that you achieved your foundations. Now that opportunity has knocked, you must seize it! Forging iron is the finest method for Foundation Solidification! So long as you forge iron eight shichen a day, thirty days a month, you will make progress after a year and enter the next stage. So don't speak to me of suffering—to step onto the immortal path is a blessing!"
The cultivators were thoroughly convinced, each working with utter solemnity.
A moment later, fifty steel plates were fully forged. The cultivators reached out in unison, telekinetically pulling fresh blanks from the air, and proceeded to repeat the process.
Wang Yu continued his patrol, inspecting at every turn, tirelessly repeating his speech every so often without the slightest hint of fatigue.
Wei Yuan watched from outside the smithy for a while, having never imagined such a scene. Yet he had to admit the efficiency was astonishingly high: every quarter-hour, fifty qualified steel plates were produced.
Just then, Cui Yu hurried over to collect some equipment. Seeing Wei Yuan there, he walked up.
Wei Yuan pointed toward Wang Yu and asked, "How long has he been at this? Doesn't he get tired?"
Cui Yu chuckled. "He started yesterday and hasn't rested once. I figure after three days he'll take half a day off and let Xu Yi take over, then get right back to it once he's rested. These Dao Foundation cultivators get half a day of rest every seven days—they've got four days left. Don't worry about him; he says this is the best way to train his Yin Eye."
With a Dao Foundation like the Yin Eye, catching slackers and checking whether steel plates met standards was child's play. And for these cultivators who originally had no hope of forming a Dao Foundation, Heaven Foundation-bearer Wang Yu was no different from an immortal in their eyes. Whatever an immortal said had to be right.
Although there were many immortal foundations within the domain, an immortal foundation was beyond their comprehension; thus, figures like Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli were ironically less renowned among them.
Dao Foundation cultivators possessed immense stamina and abundant origin soul energy; working for seven days and seven nights straight without sleep was well within their limits. Having just stepped onto the immortal path and tasted the sweet nectar of the Dao Foundation, every single one of them was desperate to advance further. Thus, let alone half a day of rest on the seventh day, even if they only rested one shichen every ten days, they would grit their teeth and endure it, viewing it merely as a minor trial on the path of cultivation.
At the other end of the Weaponsmith Workshop stood a newly built smelting furnace.
The furnace was roaring with blazing flames, having just yielded a batch of molten steel. A young master from an artifact-crafting clan inspected the quality, nodded, and two new Dao Foundation cultivators carried the ladle of molten metal to pour it into molds, where it would take shape as blanks. On the other side of the furnace sat five new Dao Foundation cultivators cross-legged, boosting the furnace's temperature with the aid of a formation.
All of them possessed fire-attribute Dao Foundations, and manipulating fire was their specialty. Maintaining a constant furnace temperature over extended periods also counted as part of Foundation Solidification.
The raw material for the furnace wasn't ore, but steel fittings stripped from Shaman armor. This bypassed numerous steps, allowing a batch of molten steel blanks to be produced in under half a shichen, perfectly matching the demand of the fifty Dao Foundation cultivators forging iron.
On yet another side of the workshop, ten Dao Foundation cultivators were tasked with rolling the steel plates into cylindrical tubes, then using Dao power to eliminate the seams, fusing the plates into seamless wholes and capping one end. Needless to say, this sort of work manipulating metal attributes was of immense benefit to their Foundation Solidification, requiring years of sustained effort.
Yun Feifei was lecturing these ten: "To practice the sword, one must thrust thousands or tens of thousands of times a day. To practice the saber, one must hack and slash hundreds or thousands of times with the exact same motion every day! By the same token, once you have rolled ten thousand steel tubes, you will naturally comprehend the essence of a metal-attribute Dao Foundation. And if you still haven't comprehended it, then roll another ten thousand!"
The newly advanced Dao Foundation cultivators listened with boiling blood, feeling as though the Great Dao lay right before their eyes. So long as they poured in sweat day after day, sweetness would surely follow bitterness, and they would take another stride along the immortal path!
Wei Yuan fell silent upon hearing this, then whispered to Cui Yu, "Does talking to them like that really work?"
Cui Yu whispered back, "No problem at all! As long as even one person in this batch achieves Foundation Solidification, the rest will only believe the reason they failed is that they haven't worked hard enough."
"But..." Wei Yuan had long seen that these cultivators possessed utterly mediocre aptitude and talent; achieving a Dao Foundation was pure fortune, and achieving Foundation Solidification would be extraordinarily difficult. Worried, he asked, "What if no one manages to achieve Foundation Solidification?"
Cui Yu replied, "Don't worry. I deliberately placed two individuals with good talent in every single group. So rest assured, someone is bound to make progress."
Only then was Wei Yuan reassured. Scions of great clans like Cui Yu truly knew their stuff.
Once the steel tubes were rolled, they formed basic gun barrels. The remaining steps—loading gunpowder and shot—naturally could not be carried out in this spark-flying Weaponsmith Workshop, nor did they require Dao Foundation cultivators; sturdy, meticulous women were more than enough.
Wei Yuan watched for a while longer and calculated that fifty barrels were produced every quarter-hour, four hundred every shichen, and forty-eight hundred a day. The Weaponsmith Workshop operated virtually around the clock—the tools never rested even when workers traded shifts—so maxing out forty-eight hundred steel barrels a day was entirely achievable.
Having calculated this figure, Wei Yuan fell silent.
With these Mortal Tier Dao Foundation cultivators so hell-bent on advancing along the immortal path, who needed machines?
Leaving the Weaponsmith Workshop, Wei Yuan skirted the main peak, intending to visit the medicine garden. As he passed the small stone hut, he was surprised to see a light still burning inside.
Wei Yuan felt a bit astonished. This was the hut Bao Yun had originally built for Xu Wenwu. After churning out thirty thousand words a day for more than ten consecutive days until he finally ran completely dry of new ideas, Xu Wenwu had left the stone hut vacant. Why was someone inside again?
Wei Yuan walked up to the hut and pushed open the door. He saw Xu Wenwu seated at the table, intently drawing something on paper, completely oblivious to Wei Yuan's arrival.
Holding a fine brush meant for small regular script, Xu Wenwu had drawn two conjoined boxy shapes on paper—a smaller one atop a larger one. A slender tube protruded from the smaller upper box, beside which he had written the character for "cannon." Around the larger box below, he had drawn a row of wheels encircled by a continuous band connecting them all.
Beside it lay another drawing he had already finished.
Wei Yuan picked it up to look. The drawing seemed to depict a woman, her facial features represented by a few dots. Her attire was exceedingly bizarre—not the typical robes worn by cultivators, but split into distinct top and bottom halves, both tight-fitting to delineate her figure.
Although Xu Wenwu's artistic skill was virtually nonexistent, his brushwork resembling crude scribbles, he had drawn it with earnest care. Consequently, eight words clearly sprang into Wei Yuan's mind: slender waist, long legs, curves front and back.
On her upper body, the woman also wore a vest—worn over her shirt, strangely enough, for reasons unknown. Perhaps to show off some personality? The vest was covered in numerous pockets, which made sense at least. In her hands, she held a crooked stick that looked somewhat similar to the immortal laurel branch.
Xu Wenwu finally finished drawing the boxy vehicle. Inspecting it with satisfaction, he set it aside and picked up another sheet of paper. Suddenly sensing a shift in the light, he turned his head and finally noticed Wei Yuan.
"What are you working on?" Wei Yuan asked gently.
Xu Wenwu flushed with embarrassment. "Last time Miss Bao asked me to write down the experiences and things I saw in my world, I only figured out what she meant later. But my writing skills are poor; half the time words fail me, and I always feel like I haven't explained things clearly.
"Seeing how perilous these past few big battles have been, and knowing I couldn't help with anything, I was really anxious. Honestly, my world has a lot of useful things; it's just that I wasn't a good student and have no idea how to manufacture them. These past two days I've been thinking: even if I can't explain them clearly in words, I can draw them! If I sketch them out, at least they can serve as a reference for you."
Wei Yuan pointed to the boxy contraption on the paper and asked, "What is this?"
Xu Wenwu perked up. "This thing is called a tank. In our world, it was this that put an end to cavalry—"
"Wasn't it the machine gun?" Wei Yuan asked, puzzled.
"Ah, was it? Seems like it was," Xu Wenwu stammered, tongue-tied.
"You wrote it yourself."
"Oh, right, I think I did write that."
Wei Yuan picked up the other drawing and asked, "And what is this?"
"Individual combat gear."
Chapter 204