mtl008 Chapter 312 Composite Array
Chapter 312 Composite Array
Chapter 312 Composite Array
Shi Potian didn't claim to be a witness; instead, he fabricated some stories, even saying he had fought the big man before. Since there was no way to verify it now that he was dead, he could say whatever he wanted, half-truths and half-lies.
"Earth-level Blood Fiends are experts at the third to fourth level of the Heaven-level. This organization's power is indeed extraordinary. They rarely show themselves in the martial world, no wonder they haven't been discovered for nearly a hundred years!"
"Does the chief really just see them as an ordinary assassination organization? Hasn't he noticed anything unusual about them?"
"What Master Shi means is..." Steward Yu was puzzled by what Shi Potian meant.
"An assassination organization, driven by neither fame nor fortune, acts ruthlessly, strangely, and arrogantly. For a century, it has dared to defy the world, relentlessly pursuing and intercepting talented young people from all over the country. What is its purpose?"
"Isn't this robbery?" Steward Yu was quite surprised.
"With the wealth and resources of your Qiu family, you should easily have been able to obtain the list of participants who died unexpectedly over the past century, including their backgrounds and cultivation levels. But I don't understand why you haven't done so. Even your Qiu family, one of the Six Hegemons of Tianxuan, doesn't have such statistics. I imagine other aristocratic families and empires aren't much better off. Every aristocratic family and empire only cares about its own interests, ignoring this major event that has been planned for over a century—the extinction of the human race's lineage—and there are probably even those who gloat. No wonder a lowly assassination organization has survived for a thousand years. When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. Haven't you thought about the future?"
"It's not that serious. In each Dragon Chef Competition, only a few people are killed. Although it's not a good thing for everyone, hundreds or thousands of martial artists die every day on the Tianxuan Continent. What can an assassination organization do? The consequences shouldn't be as alarmist as you say!"
"Indeed, the number of people assassinated is not large, but they all have one thing in common. I wonder if Steward Yu has noticed it?"
“Those who can be noticed by assassination organizations are naturally some outstanding juniors. The talented people of our Qiu family who died were all top-notch among their peers. After growing up, they will naturally become the backbone of our Qiu family. But what can we do when they are dead? We are also furious. If we can find those assassins, we will naturally help them avenge them, but the problem is that it is very difficult to find them. The family cannot keep wasting time on this matter.”
"It seems Chief Steward Yu still hasn't grasped the truth. Here's what I'll say: I'll give you a heads-up, and you can decide for yourselves whether I'm exaggerating. I'll state two points: First, all these people were killed after participating in the Dragon Chef Competition, and they all achieved good results in the competition. Second, all of them received invitations from the Feather Palace, but they all declined."
As for the secrets behind this, I believe Qiu Jin's abilities should be more than enough to uncover them. I won't elaborate further. Thank you for the tea, Steward! I have other matters to attend to; farewell!
Seeing that Steward Yu didn't seem to care much about these matters, Shi Potian said no more and got up to take his leave.
"Very well, we hope that Master Shi will visit our Qiu family often in the future! Show him out!" Steward Yu called his subordinates to take Shi Potian away.
After Shi Potian left, Steward Yu sat in his chair and pondered for a while. Then he called over a few subordinates and gave them some instructions to carry out.
According to the rules of the Qiu family auction house, Shi Potian was led away from the Qiu family building through a secret passage and secretly traveled by carriage to the Fuyuan Restaurant. Mo Wen and Master Fu had already returned to the hotel. The three of them exchanged views in the backyard and finally decided to wait until the next afternoon to leave. This way, Xia Xiuming and Li Xiangrong, who had come from Liang Kingdom to meet them, would also arrive. Both of them were at the third level of the Heavenly Rank, so even if they encountered a powerful enemy like Wen Yanwang, they would be able to handle it.
This time, Shi Potian deliberately didn't erase the marks left by the Blood Wolf Hall. Instead, he took out ten boxes of Earth Flame Crystals and asked Mo Wen to identify which boxes had markings. He kept one box with a mark separately and entrusted the rest to Mo Wen for safekeeping. This time, their opponent was quite strong; Wen Yanwang's cultivation was estimated to be above Shi Potian's, making him somewhat difficult to deal with. Therefore, they had to change their plan just in case.
While Shi Potian and his group were collecting materials for refining weapons, Li Mubai, Dugu Xian, the two elders of the White Ape Clan, along with Lei Ye and Shui Ye who had been called to help, were building a smelting platform under the guidance of Tie Qiao. The entire platform enclosed the area around the Cold Pool and the Red Spring, with an area exceeding 100 zhang in both length and width. The platform was constructed from huge stones, with wedges driven into each stone slab for reinforcement. The stones used to build the platform were all quarried from the Fire Cloud Cave. Because the entrance to the Fire Cloud Cave was always emitting thick smoke and was located 20 to 30 zhang above the ground, it was inconvenient to enter or exit. The quarrying for the platform allowed them to carve out a passage next to the original cave entrance, directly connecting it to the refining platform under construction.
The Yin-Yang Furnace has been lit and is currently being tested. Mo Yuming is attempting to operate it according to the method taught by Tieqiao. After activating the Five Elements Fire Gathering Array under the furnace with energy spirit stones, it begins to operate under Mo Yuming's control. The array absorbs the surrounding five elements spiritual energy into the furnace, transforming it into a blazing spiritual fire. Inside the furnace are thousands of kilograms of ordinary iron ore, and Mo Yuming is diligently controlling the Yin-Yang Furnace to smelt the ore.
This enormous Yin-Yang Furnace is perhaps the largest iron-smelting furnace currently existing on the Tianxuan Continent. Apart from the blast furnace in Wangxiang Town, there are basically no other iron-smelting furnaces that can compare with it.
Controlling the furnace fire is an extreme test of a weapon refiner's skill, especially with such a massive furnace. Even refining ordinary iron ore, which has the lowest requirements for furnace fire, was extremely difficult for Mo Yuming. He carefully observed the changes in the furnace fire, his hands resting on the array's core, using his profound skills to control the array's operating speed. He kept the spiritual fire within the furnace at the most suitable size, as the size of the spiritual fire directly affected the efficiency of iron ore purification. If the spiritual fire was too large, it would not only consume too many energy spirit stones, increasing costs, but it would also evaporate much of the iron element, reducing the yield of pure iron. If the spiritual fire was too small, many impurities in the ore would remain unrefined, also affecting the quality of the iron.
Mo Yuming carefully operated the magic array. After more than an hour of refining, he finally refined all the more than 1,000 catties of iron ore. Nearly 800 catties of pure ordinary iron were extracted from the furnace. The efficiency of this refining was already very high. Even if Tie Qiao came to refine it, he could only extract more than 800 catties at most.
Although Mo Yuming was exhausted and drenched in sweat, he wanted to forge the iron ingot into a wedge as quickly as possible before it cooled down. Forging iron while it's hot is a basic principle for weapon refiners, saving both costs and the time and effort of reheating.
Mo Yuming closed his eyes and concentrated. After exhaling a long breath, he circulated his profound internal energy, picked up a tool, and began forging a red-hot iron ingot. Mo Yuming used the Huo family's Blazing Sun Hammer Technique. This technique involves building up the force with each strike, until the tenth strike, when the final strike is ten times stronger than the first. When this technique is mastered, it produces astonishing results. Often, forging an ordinary iron ingot in a single pass is enough to meet the requirements for iron smelting. It is an excellent technique for smelting ordinary iron.
However, this hammering technique was extremely taxing on one's spiritual energy. Mo Yuming gritted his teeth and only managed to swing the hammer once, refining a piece of ordinary iron before his spiritual energy was exhausted, and he could no longer continue. He had no choice but to put down his tools and find a place to rest and recover his strength.
Thus, Mo Yuming continued to refine ore, process and smelt iron, and make iron wedges for Tieqiao and the others to use. Treating iron smelting as a form of cultivation, Mo Yuming's progress was extremely rapid. In just a few days, Mo Yuming's iron smelting skills and fire-attribute profound art cultivation had both improved significantly. His fire-attribute profound art finally broke through the eighth-level bottleneck and advanced to the early ninth level.
Unlike alchemy, weapon crafting only utilizes fire elemental power, so during his time in the Valley of Heartbreak, only fire-based profound techniques improved the fastest. Secondly, his soul power increased. Because controlling the Yin-Yang Furnace consumed a great deal of soul power, Mo Yuming needed to constantly cultivate the Soul Wheel Technique to replenish it. Recently, Mo Yuming felt that when cultivating his soul power, he had a clearer understanding of the Soul Wheel Technique, using it more flexibly and effectively. The benefit was that the outline of his sea of consciousness became clearer, no longer a blurry mess; the dark gray soul power seemed denser; and the crystal brain fragments within his sea of consciousness were being refined much faster. Several crystal brain fragments had noticeably shrunk.
Li Mubai and the others built the platform very quickly. Dugu Xian stood in front of the rock wall below Huoyun Cave and used his bare hands as knives. Under the wind of his palms, the hard rock was cut off as easily as a hot knife through butter. Square stones, each five feet long, five feet wide, and three feet thick, weighing several thousand kilograms, were cut off as if they were tofu.
The two white ape elders were responsible for transporting the stones to the designated location. The white ape elders were incredibly strong, and they could carry the stones, which weighed several thousand kilograms, with both hands. Li Mubai and Lei Ye used their internal energy to further process the stones. Their palms were like hot irons, and the pits and bumps on the stones were melted and smoothed like bronze mirrors after they touched them.
Qiu Shui and Tie Qiao were in charge of laying the stones. When Qiu Shui brought a square stone close together, Tie Qiao would insert a red-hot iron wedge into the groove between the two stones and then hammer the wedge in to make the two square stones fit together tightly.
The platform, spanning hundreds of feet in diameter, was laid out in just seven days by seven Heavenly Realm experts working together. Next to the entrance of the Fire Cloud Cave, a passage, over ten feet high and wide, was also carved out, leading directly from the valley floor into the depths of the cave.
After the platform was built, the next task was for Li Mubai to construct a giant defensive array. Dugu Xian and Mo Yuming couldn't help with the array's setup and could only watch from the sidelines. The only one who could assist was Tieqiao, who had some knowledge of arrays. Under Li Mubai's guidance, Tieqiao personally crafted the array plates, each made from the finest black iron and attribute-enhancing ores. Li Mubai placed the prepared plates in different positions, then drew runes around them and laid various energy stones at the array's core. The entire giant array used a total of 180 array plates and thousands of energy stones of various sizes.
With the help of the iron bridge, Li Mubai spent a full ten days constructing the entire magic array. While the array wasn't large in area, its complexity was the limit of what Li Mubai could build. Even the renowned Maplefire Sky City's defensive array couldn't surpass it. Although Maplefire Sky City's array was much larger, its defensive strength and isolation effect were incomparable to this magic array. Just in case, everyone went all out.
Even Li Mubai appeared somewhat nervous the moment the grand formation was activated. As the energy within the formation's core circulated, each formation plate emitted a dazzling, multicolored light. Beams of energy shot up from the ground, converging a hundred feet into a massive sphere of light. Moments later, the sphere exploded like fireworks, releasing countless tiny rays of light that reflected down, forming a hemispherical shield that enveloped the entire hundred-foot-wide refining platform. Once all the rays merged, the beams of light began to fade, slowly disappearing into nothingness. A moment later, the light forming the shield also dimmed. The formation plates on the ground vanished along with it, and finally, no trace of any formation-related components remained on the refining platform. It was as if nothing had ever existed there.
"Did it work?" Dugu Xian asked.
"It's done, Brother Xian, you try it out and see how strong it is!"
Li Mubai said.
Dugu Xian slowly walked to the edge of the weapon-refining platform and stretched his hand forward. When it was halfway out, an invisible light barrier blocked his path. Shi Potian withdrew his hand and then quickly pushed it forward with a palm strike.
'bang'
After a muffled thud, a ripple-like pattern appeared in front of his palm, which then disappeared after spreading several feet.
"Indeed impressive. I used all my strength in that palm strike just now, and it only caused a shockwave a few feet long on this magic array. This shows that its defensive power is indeed formidable."
"I'll give it a try too!" Tieqiao walked to the edge of the magic circle, channeled his inner energy, and forcefully struck out with his palm. A ball of scorching fire shot out like a cannonball onto the light screen.
'boom'
The fireball exploded on the light screen with a loud bang, scattering sparks everywhere, but the light screen only rippled for less than a foot before returning to normal.
'laugh'
Qiu Shui also unleashed a frost palm strike at the light screen, but apart from producing a loud bang, it only stirred up very small ripples.
“The powerful earth-elemental profound arts, the domineering fire-elemental profound arts, and the fierce water-elemental profound arts did not have any effect on the formation, so the metal-elemental and wood-elemental profound arts are probably not much stronger either. Therefore, we are not afraid of the spread of the five elements' energy field, but when the meteorite spirit treasure is formed, it will naturally emit profound light. I wonder if this formation barrier can block it?” Tieqiao asked worriedly.