Chapter 205: The Alchemy Furnace
Chapter 205: The Alchemy Furnace
Elder Yu took care of the Qian family's matters, Master Chen oversaw the Artifact Forge, and Mo Hua needed only to focus on drawing arrays.
Construction of the Alchemy Emporium was proceeding swiftly, and Mo Hua's array drawing was keeping pace.
Since it was the same building array, Mo Hua simply had to draw it again.
It took Mo Hua over half a month to finish drawing the array for the Alchemy Emporium.
Master Ban was overjoyed and hummed off-key as he led his artisans and craftsmen to complete the finishing touches.
Mo Hua also intended to invite Old Man Feng to take a look.
After all, the Alchemy Emporium would be under Old Man Feng's care going forward.
When Mo Hua went to find Old Man Feng, he was still at the Apricot Forest Hall, diagnosing and prescribing medicines for loose cultivators. Occasionally, he would also fire up the furnace to refine pills.
Old Man Feng usually spent most of his time at the Apricot Forest Hall, treating patients and refining pills.
Unless he was making a house call, he generally didn't go out.
Mo Hua informed Old Man Feng about the progress of the Alchemy Emporium.
"So soon?"
Old Man Feng was a little surprised. He had originally thought that such a massive project as the Alchemy Emporium would take at least three to four months to establish initially, and it would take at least half a year to complete fully.
Moreover, the Alchemy Emporium was the second phase, and the Artifact Forge had to be completed first.
However, upon second thought, it was good to be quick. He also wanted to see what the Alchemy Emporium looked like.
"Wait for me a moment," Old Man Feng said to Mo Hua. After seeing a few more patients, he instructed several disciples to take over the hall before making some simple preparations and accompanying Mo Hua to the Alchemy Emporium.
When they arrived at the Artifact Forge, Old Man Feng's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the premises, both inside and out. "Did you draw this array?" he asked in surprise.
Mo Hua nodded, "Yes!"
"Did you draw it alone?"
"I drew it alone!" Mo Hua replied.
Old Man Feng smiled, "Not bad. No wonder everyone calls you 'Little Array Master'."
Mo Hua felt a little embarrassed and laughed sheepishly.
The layout of the Alchemy Emporium was identical to that of the Artifact Forge—spacious and well-organized.
Old Man Feng was extremely satisfied.
With such a large Alchemy Emporium, they could refine a vast number of pills.
Loose cultivators would then be able to afford pills, whether for injuries or illnesses, and their urgent needs could be met.
With cheaper pills, many loose cultivators could stock up for daily use, ensuring they had a means to cope with emergencies.
This was indeed a great boon for the loose cultivators of Tongxian City.
Old Man Feng stroked his long white beard and nodded with contentment.
Before leaving, Old Man Feng went to inspect the artifact furnace.
The moment he saw it, he froze.
He circled the large artifact furnace, frowning as he examined it closely, before turning to Mo Hua with a look of disbelief. "A First-Rank Compound Array?"
"Grandpa Feng, you have a sharp eye to notice it at a glance!" Mo Hua exclaimed in surprise.
Usually, cultivators couldn't even recognize a First-Rank array.
For Old Man Feng to identify it as a First-Rank Compound Array just by looking at it from a distance, his discernment was already quite high.
After all, Old Man Feng was not an array master.
"Did you draw this as well?" Old Man Feng asked hesitantly.
Mo Hua nodded, "Yes."
Old Man Feng was at a loss for words.
He had never underestimated Mo Hua's array skills, and he had always held Mo Hua's talent in arrays in high regard. But he felt that it shouldn't be this outrageous.
A First-Rank Compound Array...
In his life, he had met only a handful of First-Rank array masters capable of drawing a First-Rank Compound Array.
Old Man Feng stood stunned for a moment, then his attention shifted to the pure furnace fire.
It was a vivid scarlet, glowing brightly as if it had substance, instantly capturing Old Man Feng's full attention.
"Elder Yu said that it's even stronger than the fire produced by Qi Refiners," Mo Hua explained.
Old Man Feng knew this very well, and he stood there for a long time, staring at the furnace fire.
Aside from his dedication to alchemy and healing, Old Man Feng had always been content with a simple life. But now, he couldn't help himself. Pointing at the furnace, he asked Mo Hua, "Can you... make one for me too?"
Mo Hua also wanted to make a large first-grade pill furnace for Old Man Feng.
However, this pill furnace was not easy to create.
A regular first-grade tool-forging furnace couldn't serve as the array medium for the first-grade molten fire array, and a standard first-grade pill furnace wouldn't be able to sustain the prolonged operation of the array either.
Moreover, the array used on the pill furnace was inherently more complex than the one on the tool-forging furnace.
The tool-forging furnace only needed to focus on providing fire, with other array effects serving as supplementary functions. On the other hand, the pill furnace had to consider the wooden nature of medicinal herbs and the harmony between spiritual energies in addition to fire supply.
Consequently, the compound array used in the pill furnace would be more challenging.
This also implied that the pill furnace, serving as the array medium, had to be of high quality, crafted with exceptional forging techniques, and built to a substantial scale.
Mo Hua asked Elder Yu if there was a suitable pill furnace available.
Elder Yu was a bit perplexed. The large tool-forging furnace they had acquired earlier was a stroke of luck, a fortuitous find.
But a large first-grade pill furnace? That was a different story.
Mo Hua had no choice but to be honest with Old Man Feng.
While he could resolve the array-related issues, he was helpless when it came to the pill furnace itself.
Old Man Feng pondered for a moment before asking, "Can you forge it yourselves?"
"We can, but do you have a forging manual?" Mo Hua asked.
Old Man Feng thought about it and replied, "I do!"
"You really do?" Mo Hua was taken aback.
Old Man Feng went inside, opened a storage box in the corner of the room, and pulled out a piece of wax-yellow parchment from the bottom. The parchment detailed the forging process for a large pill furnace.
Mo Hua glanced at the manual and exclaimed in surprise, "Grandpa Feng, where did you get this?"
The design of this large pill furnace was exceptionally standardized, capable of accommodating extremely complex arrays, and it was clearly not from an ordinary lineage.
Old Man Feng sighed, "This is passed down from my master. Before he passed away, he imparted all of this to me. Since I had no use for it, it's been sitting at the bottom of this box for seven or eight decades. If you hadn't brought it up, I would've forgotten about it. It would've probably ended up in my coffin."
"Can you take a look and see if it's usable?" Old Man Feng added.
Mo Hua examined the manual carefully once more and said, "The array design is fine, but I don't understand the forging part. I'll need to consult with Master Chen and the others."
Old Man Feng nodded. "Then go ahead and ask them."
Mo Hua took the pill furnace forging manual to Master Chen.
Master Chen took one look and his eyes lit up. "What a manual! What a manual!"
"Can we forge it?" Mo Hua asked.
Master Chen stroked his beard and said slowly, "It's challenging, but not impossible. I'll need to discuss this with the other masters."
"And we'll need to consult with Elder Yu as well," Master Chen added. "Forging this pill furnace will require a lot of fine iron and some special ores like Molten Fire Stone and Golden Vein Ore. We'll need Elder Yu's help in gathering those materials."
Elder Yu readily agreed, and once all the preparations were made, Master Chen and the other masters spent several more days studying the manual before they finally started the forging process.
This pill furnace was the most intricate spiritual artifact that Master Chen and his colleagues had ever attempted to forge.
Although Mo Hua didn't witness the entire process, he knew that they had failed numerous times along the way.
In the end, despite some minor flaws, they successfully forged the pill furnace.
(End of Chapter)
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