Upon returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan took out a bottle of Origin Gathering Pills. After counting the pills inside, he tipped all twelve into his mouth at once. As soon as they entered his stomach, their spiritual energy erupted, nourishing his somewhat parched dharma body and swiftly replenishing his Dao power.
Spiritual energy also began to pour steadily out of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to restore his reserves.
Yet Wei Yuan's dharma body was exceptionally formidable; the sheer volume of his Dao power was equivalent to that of several dozen ordinary dharma idol cultivators combined.
Under normal circumstances, two Origin Gathering Pills were enough to completely refill the Dao power of a dharma idol cultivator. For Wei Yuan, swallowing an entire bottle restored less than five percent. And this batch of Origin Gathering Pills had been personally concocted by Xu Henshui, making its potency far superior to ordinary ones.
Wei Yuan patted down his robes and found he was completely out of pills to replenish Dao power. He made his way to the Creation Alchemy Courtyard where Xu Henshui resided, finding him inspecting a newly arrived shipment of medicinal herbs.
"I need more Origin Gathering Pills," Wei Yuan said, getting straight to the point.
Xu Henshui was startled. "My last batch produced one hundred and eight pills, and I gave them all to you. You've already finished them? It hasn't even been three days, has it?"
"I urgently need to restore my Dao power right now. Martial Uncle, do you have any in stock?"
Xu Henshui produced a pill box. "Inside are Precious Fragrance Pills I just finished refining. Although they are meant specifically for the Scenery Command realm, your dharma body seems sturdy enough to withstand their potency. A single pill holds the Dao power equivalent to twenty ordinary dharma idols. Do you want them?"
Wei Yuan was overjoyed and naturally would not refuse. He casually inquired about the refining process for the Precious Fragrance Pill, and Xu Henshui explained that the most ordinary Precious Fragrance Pill sold for a thousand taels of immortal silver. A regular alchemist could yield four or five per batch, whereas Xu Henshui had already been able to concoct Scenery Command-tier pills while still in the dharma idol realm, reliably yielding seven per cauldron. He truly lived up to his status as a prospective successor to the Monastery of Creation.
The ingredients for a batch of Precious Fragrance Pills were worth around a thousand taels of immortal silver. After concocting them, an ordinary alchemist could bring in four thousand taels of immortal silver—tearfully pocketing three times their cost as hard-earned sweat and blood money. That was the normal earning standard for an alchemist. For Xu Henshui, anything under a tenfold return was considered a failure.
Just because of that offhand question, Wei Yuan decided that the moment the war calmed down even slightly, he would immediately set up Qingming's own alchemy industry.
Xu Henshui still had over twenty Precious Fragrance Pills on hand. Wei Yuan produced a chunk of nether iron weighing over a thousand jin to pay for them. That piece was worth well over a hundred thousand taels of immortal silver, so for the surplus value, Wei Yuan placed an advance order with Xu Henshui for a hundred more Precious Fragrance Pills.
Seeing the nether iron, Xu Henshui was likewise thrilled. He hurried to take it, terrified Wei Yuan might regret the trade, and beamed. "With this nether iron, I can finally start forging my Furnace of Water and Fire Dual Phases!"
Wei Yuan took the pills back to his quarters and swallowed four in succession before finally feeling his Dao power fully restored. Then, he entered the Nether Cold Realm once more.
Having gained experience this time, Wei Yuan summoned both his scholar and martial dragon guards to assist Longying in heating the nether iron. Wei Yuan then opened a portal and summoned both hall masters of the Battle Saint Hall.
The moment they appeared, the invisible, crushing pressure in the surroundings flushed their faces crimson. Their entire bodies trembled, on the verge of collapsing to their knees.
Fortunately, Wei Yuan acted swiftly to reinforce them with his Dao power, counteracting the invisible subterranean drag and crushing pressure, which allowed them to catch their breath.
The two observed their surroundings. Long Wushuang soon remarked that working with the nether iron was beyond his capabilities; however, the underground nether crystal could be cracked with finesse rather than brute force. It did not require exceptionally high cultivation, only minute, delicate control of Dao power, which was well within his wheelhouse.
Han Li differed from Long Wushuang. His learning seemed exceptionally eclectic, with a bit of knowledge about everything. He stood there gazing upward at the nether iron, faint traces of countless intricate lines and obscure symbols flickering in his eyes.
After studying it for a moment, Han Li said, "The heavenly and earthly Dao here are chaotic, and the pressure is immense. Yet precisely because of this, smelting metal will actually be relatively easier. There is a furnace design that works quite well. While it cannot melt nether iron in our world, it seems feasible here. It's worth a try."
Wei Yuan immediately searched the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World and indeed found more than a dozen different furnace designs. Among them was a tall, slender one—the exact furnace Han Li had mentioned, and the one capable of reaching the highest temperature.
These furnaces had been designed by unknown individuals within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. While checking, Wei Yuan also discovered pill cauldrons, carpentry benches, and various other apparatuses that the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World had no use for yet.
With Wei Yuan's approval, Han Li and Long Wushuang led seven Dao Foundation cultivators from the hall to construct the furnace. The main structure was built from rock from the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, lined with an inner layer of crushed nether crystal for heat insulation.
The Dao Foundation cultivators took two rests before finally erecting a single furnace. Then, with Han Li presiding and Wei Yuan directing a wisdom-awakened dharma idol to assist, they channeled true fire into the furnace together.
Sure enough, deep underground, the true fire was amplified by both the furnace's array and its structure, driving the temperature dramatically higher. The nether iron pretreated with the Gold-Melting Dao Scripture was already on the verge of completely melting into molten iron.
Immediately after, mortals from the Institute of Structural and Materials Mechanics provided a new support structure. Wei Yuan crafted molds with his own hands, their inner walls likewise lined with nether crystal. Pouring the molten nether iron from the furnace into a mold and pressing it firmly produced an iron brick.
Wei Yuan first used the iron bricks to build four pillars, propping up each corner of the cavern. He then paved the ground with the remaining bricks and had Longying scorch them with Nanming Li Fire, welding them into a single, seamless floor. Finally, Wei Yuan laid an isolation array across the ground to seal off the inside from the outside. The crushing pressure filling the entire cavern abruptly eased, dropping to less than a tenth of its original weight.
The environment was now hospitable enough for Dao Foundation cultivators to remain for extended periods, while Wei Yuan could stay almost indefinitely.
Wei Yuan had finally gained a firm foothold beneath this mountain of nether iron, establishing his first small outpost—even if it was only the size of a single room.
Once the isolation array was in place, the furnace was handed over to the Dao Foundation cultivators in rotating shifts, keeping the fire burning even when the people rested. Wei Yuan left a gap outside the bounds of the isolation array, allowing them to dig downward for nether crystal.
With its hands freed, the wisdom-awakened dharma idol took hold of the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword in Wei Yuan's stead to slice through the nether iron.
After mining a sufficient quantity of nether crystal, Wei Yuan began constructing a second furnace. Han Li then suggested setting up a Wind and Fire Grand Array beneath Longying's feet, which would effectively enhance the might of the Nanming Li Fire.
Wei Yuan gladly accepted the advice. Once the array was established, Longying's flames surged in power, cutting the time needed to soften the nether iron by half.
Before long, the second furnace was completed, doubling the rate of the outpost's expansion once more. The surplus nether iron was gathered into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, ready to be taken back to Qingming for use.
With that, the complete pipeline—softening, cutting, melting, casting, and paving the outpost—had taken shape. The outpost's expansion had stepped firmly onto the right track.
Only when his Dao power was depleted once more did Wei Yuan return to Qingming. This time, he brought back several hundred thousand jin of nether iron. Yu Zhizhuo had grown numb to the sight and immediately set to work designing new smelting furnaces.
The original furnaces could only refine nether iron a hundred jin at a time, requiring several hours of burning for each batch. They could no longer handle such enormous quantities of nether iron.
Under intense pressure, Yu Zhizhuo collaborated closely with the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, inspiration pouring forth until he finally proposed the concept of the Four Symbols Smelting Furnace Array.
This array consisted of four furnaces, each positioned at one of its corners. Powered by spiritual materials and Dao Foundation cultivators, the array collectively channeled spiritual energy and drove true fire into the four furnaces. Each of the four furnaces, however, possessed distinct characteristics.
The western furnace governed slaughter and conflict, yielding metal heavy with baleful aura; the eastern furnace brimmed with vitality; the northern furnace was a low-temperature auxiliary furnace whose true fire heat was transferred entirely to the Vermilion Bird Furnace in the south.
The core concept of the Four Symbols Furnace Array was derived from the Yin-Yang Furnace of the Hall of Heavenly Craft. That setup consisted of two furnaces integrated into a single whole, where the Yin Furnace served as an auxiliary and the Yang Furnace handled the primary refinement, funneling the Yin Furnace's firepower into the Yang Furnace. That design had allowed Yu Zhizhuo to process various dharma idol-tier materials while still in the Dao Foundation realm.
The Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, meanwhile, contributed the concept of centralized power distribution. Linking the Four Symbols Furnaces through an array to provide centralized energy broke the restriction requiring furnace operators to be fire- or metal-aligned cultivators. Any cultivator could now supply power to the array, which then converted it into the specific true fire required by each furnace.
Nether iron was simply too difficult to smelt, and the sheer quantity Wei Yuan brought back had driven Yu Zhizhuo and the mortals of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to their absolute limits, culminating in the birth of the Four Symbols Furnace.
With the Four Symbols Furnace in place, Qingming gained the capability to process Scenery Command-tier materials from then on—without even needing to mobilize dharma idol cultivators.
Chapter 548