Yet now, even cultivators scrambled after government posts. How could ordinary folk ever believe that their ancestors once stood shoulder to shoulder with gods and fiends?
"I understand." He Lingchuan drew the medicinal fluid from his robe and tipped five drops into Elder Liang's empty vial.
Elder Liang glanced at his disciple, who promptly darted out of the tent.
A quarter of an hour later, the young man returned, cradling a wooden bead in both hands.
This was the bead of undersea wood that housed a beast soul.
He Lingchuan took it and peered inside; it seemed to be the soul of a giant ape.
Not bad. No substitution of inferior goods. The deal was done.
Elder Liang offered him a brief smile, his expression steadying once more into cool detachment.
Watching the elder's retreating back, He Lingchuan shrugged.
Though nearly three thousand years of history were tangled, one could not lay all the blame on gods and fiends seducing mortal hearts, nor on ordinary people forgetting their heritage. The immortal sects and Daoist orders had pulled their share of underhanded stunts, not only eroding the monumental deeds of their forebears but also squandering whatever goodwill the common folk had held for them.
These were truths Elder Liang deliberately omitted. But He Lingchuan had devoured books by the armful in the Wenxuan Pavilion of the Panlong dreamscape, and having read plenty on the subject, he was hardly one to swallow a single side of the story.
See? Reading random books really did pay off.
After that, he wolfed down his breakfast and set off through the encampment to track down a certain person.
Half an hour later, he headed over to see Lingguang.
The monkey had claimed an entire tent to itself for its deep research, hanging up a virtual "strangers keep out" sign. Out of respect for Young Master He and deference to its remarkable medical talent, the logistics officer had not made a fuss over how it had turned the whole camp upside down the night before.
The moment He Lingchuan stepped inside, Lingguang spun around with glaring eyes, ready to screech a curse, but the instant it saw who it was, its snout drew back.
"Worked anything out yet?"
Lingguang withered at once. "It still needs time."
Seeing its bloodshot eyes, He Lingchuan knew it had stayed up all night without a wink of sleep. "Even the ancient immortals couldn't figure out its secrets, and you expect to crack it in one night? Take a break. And while you're at it, lend me your pill furnace."
The monkey bristled instantly with suspicion. As a medicine ape, the furnace was its very lifeblood. "What do you want with it?"
"I need to forge a treasure, and I don't have a suitable furnace on hand. Just let me borrow it for a bit. It won't take long."
"Whatever medicine you need, I'll brew it for you."
"I'm forging a tool. Can you do that?" He Lingchuan swept his gaze across the tent but saw no sign of the furnace.
The monkey looked even more astonished. "Artifact crafting? You?" Why forge artifacts here on the front line? Why not wait until they returned to Dunyu City and seek out Li Fubo?
"Hurry up, stop dragging your feet! I won't ruin your precious furnace!" He Lingchuan said impatiently. "I'm just making a bronze automaton—simple as can be!"
"A bronze automaton?" Lingguang stared blankly. "My furnace isn't big enough for that."
"A small one." He Lingchuan gestured with his hand. "Only half the size of my palm."
Under his repeated badgering, Lingguang reluctantly pulled a toy-sized, three-legged furnace from its pouch, set it on the ground, and rattled off an incantation.
The brass furnace expanded in a flash until it stood roughly six feet tall, its surface polished to a mirror shine.
It was clear how lovingly Lingguang maintained it.
Back in the Panlong dreamscape, He Lingchuan had pored over the Gold-Armored Bronze Automaton Technique, turning every detail over in his mind again and again. After all, the crafting materials were exorbitantly expensive; if even a single mistake occurred, he could not afford to swallow the loss.
Fortunately, this secret technique had one redeeming feature:
The true difficulty of the automaton lay in how its master controlled it, whereas forging the physical vessel was surprisingly straightforward, taking only four or five steps.
For a raw novice like him, it was exceptionally forgiving.
With the furnace lit and the heat brought to the right intensity, He Lingchuan followed the diagram from the secret scroll, adding wujin, refined iron, and other materials one by one.
While examining the blueprint in the dreamscape, he had realized that out of the seven or eight materials required to craft the automaton, he already had six on hand!
They were leftover scraps from the re-forging of the Fusheng saber. He had not had time to clean out his storage ring, and now they served as ready-to-use materials. The wujin and refined iron in particular were paramount; without them, the automaton would be mere bronze sludge, lacking any structural skeleton.
As for the one or two missing components, the automaton's shell simply would not be quite as thick, and its movements might be a touch less nimble. The manual also noted that if the craftsman gained deeper insights later, additional materials could be added to customize an even more distinctive automaton.
At this stage, He Lingchuan had no need for distinctive flair. All he wanted was a sturdy frame of bronze hide and iron bone that could guard, fight, and lend support.
He understood Lingguang's surprise, but after last night's dream, Wen Daolun's reminder that a lingering catastrophe hung over him—one far from easy to dispel—had amplified his sense of urgency. He resolved to craft the automaton as swiftly as possible.
There was no such thing as perfect preparation in this world; whatever served best right now was the best choice.
He kept prodding Lingguang to stoke the furnace higher, or the wujin would never melt. Luckily, the ape's prized furnace was up to the task; certain esoteric pills required the addition of metals and stubborn hardwoods, so while an ordinary herb-brewing pot could reach only four or five hundred degrees and fail to melt even iron, this treasure had far greater capacity.
As the temperature climbed, Lingguang grew increasingly cautious, having no idea where the furnace's limit lay. Fortunately, the stubborn wujin finally began to soften. While Lingguang carefully regulated the flames, He Lingchuan produced a set of molds from his robe. "Pour it in here."
Lingguang held its tongue, but its eyes practically screamed, *Where did you get that?*
The entire mold assembly was roughly the size of two palms, shaped into a humanoid cavity with multiple layers and modular sections—a thoroughly standard metal-casting mold.
This was the chaotic front line of a battlefield. Where on earth had He Lingchuan managed to scrounge up a complete set of molds on such short notice?
He grinned. "Remember the fellow yesterday who summoned that blue-turban construct to pummel the bull?"
Lingguang nodded.
"He had one. I borrowed it for two taels of silver—have to return it once I'm done." That man had not crafted a gold-armored bronze automaton, but large-scale summoned constructs shared a broadly similar shape, so a universal mold was good enough.
It was the inside that counted. Men cared about inner substance!
The monkey rolled its eyes. What kind of person was this?
Next came the pouring, done layer by layer and section by section. Fortunately, an apothecary's furnace already had separate internal compartments to prevent cross-contamination of medicinal properties. He Lingchuan directed Lingguang to pour the refined iron, red copper, frost silver, and wujin into their corresponding molds to form the skeleton, muscles, tendons, and vitality of the automaton.
The monkey's hands were steady, and He Lingchuan chanted his arts swiftly, allowing no room for error.
Once the foundational skeleton was cast and before the molten iron had completely set, He Lingchuan sliced open his wrist to draw some blood, completing the master-binding ritual. He then dipped his fingers in the blood to engrave talismans across the iron frame.
Each glyph was smaller than a fly's head, written in the ancient immortal language. In that moment, he felt deeply grateful to Sun Fuling; her relentless tutoring over the past few days had given him a rock-solid grasp of the script, enabling him to trace every symbol without a single error during these critical, fleeting moments.
A single mistake would have meant melting down the entire automaton and starting over.
Just before the skeleton solidified, he completed the final glyph.
The remaining steps proceeded smoothly. Once all the molten metal had set, he had a complete set of components for a bronze automaton.
He Lingchuan assembled the customized automaton piece by piece, installed the beast soul he had just acquired to serve as its core intellect, and slotted a small shard of profound crystal into the center of its back. Then he began chanting the incantation to establish control.
Supposedly, the initial connection was paramount; whether the construct would respond seamlessly as an extension of his own limbs in the future all depended on this first contact.
Under his repeated trials, perhaps worn down by his persistence, the little bronze automaton finally tilted its head, looked up at He Lingchuan, and raised its middle finger.
This was indeed a gesture its master had commanded it to perform—except He Lingchuan had intended for it to raise its index finger.
"It worked! It worked!" He Lingchuan clapped his hands, a surge of excitement sweeping through him that matched only the thrill of receiving his very first toy seventeen or eighteen years ago. As for popping up the wrong finger, that was a trivial glitch; a bit more calibration and practice should smooth it out. Or perhaps it was simply because he had cut corners during the forging and omitted two ingredients.
Lingguang watched with wide eyes, drenched in sweat from managing the flames. "How big can it grow?"
"At least ten feet tall, I'd say."
Man and monkey exchanged a glance, speaking in unison: "Let's go outside and test it!"
Outside the tent, the personal guards felt their hearts skip a beat.
What kind of havoc were these two troublemakers plotting now? Had they not stirred up enough chaos last night?
***
Baili Qing's deputy general, Fu Xin, led a dozen personal guards north, trekking along mountain paths for an entire day before reaching Xinqiao Township.
Before they could even enter the settlement, two men sprang from the roadside thicket.
Startled, Fu Xin drew his blade, only to realize they were his own men.
One of them said, "General Hong ordered the two of us to wait here and receive General Baili."
Fu Xin's grip on his hilt tightened. "General Baili has already fallen in battle. From the quarry... we are all that's left."
The two men blanched. "The rest—where are the others?"
Fu Xin shook his head.
Pained expressions washed over the pair. Fu Xin asked bitterly, "You rode out with Hong Chenglüe. Tell me—did you intercept the imperial troops advancing from the west?"
The two soldiers exchanged glances, neither uttering a word.
Fu Xin had his answer. Gritting his teeth, he said, "Lead the way."
The two still asked out of routine, "Are there pursuers behind you?"
"None. We checked several times!" A muscle twitched in Fu Xin's cheek. "Lead the way, now!"
The pair led them into the mountain forest, slipping off toward the northeast.
"Hong Chenglüe isn't in Xinqiao Township?" Fu Xin abandoned all courtesy now, addressing the general by name.
"No, General Hong chose another location."
The dozen or so men ventured deeper into the wilderness, though game trails remained discernible, and Fu Xin spotted a number of fresh hoofprints.
After trekking for another eight to ten hours, climbing halfway up a mountain, their guides finally announced that they had arrived.
"Here?"
Fu Xin looked up at the stronghold above.
Palisade walls, chevaux-de-frise, watchtowers, drawgates—it possessed everything, and it appeared well-weathered, clearly not something erected overnight.
Following the guides inside, he did not miss the marks of blade-hacks and axe-chops scattered everywhere, along with poorly scrubbed bloodstains.
The mountain fortress contained seventeen or eighteen interconnected row houses built with thick earthen walls, narrow doors, and small, high-set windows—plainly a cross between fortified watchtowers and living quarters.
Most tellingly, the place bore traces of long-term habitation.
"What was this place originally?"
"A bandit den," the guiding soldier replied. "Locally, it's known as Mount Jinyin. We took the bandits' lair just last night. General Hong says this is where we'll be staying for now."
Chapter 286