Tian Yuan War Chronicles: The Path of Artifacts to Ascension – Chapter 26

Ch 26: This Matter Is Not Over

The two of them cultivated diligently on the Spirit Stone Mine for half a year, and their cultivation also ushered in a long-awaited breakthrough. Lin Yu advanced to the Tenth Level of Qi Refining, and Hua Kong also broke through to the Great Perfection of the Eighth Level of Qi Refining.

However, just when they thought the strange events in the Great Lake at the beginning of the year were over, unexpectedly, some rumors suddenly spread again.

It is said that the existence in the Great Lake involved a top expert from the Seven Sun Sect in ancient times, and that the mine vein was to be reserved for him and could no longer be mined.

Originally, Lin Lan and her senior brothers and sisters were just listening to it as a joke, but when Martial Uncle Feng came to issue a gag order in person, they finally realized that the matter involved was indeed a bit big.

In the end, they were told that this matter could no longer be mentioned to others, nor should they discuss it again, just pretend that this matter never happened.

Not long after the gag order was issued, the vast area within the scope of that mine vein was blocked by the Tian Yuan Sect, and Nascent Soul Elders from the sect were sent to guard it.

Originally, Lin Lan and his party thought that this matter had come to an end, and they could return to the sect to report after spending another half a year on this mine.

However, the newly arrived order shattered their beautiful dream of muddling through, because this mine vein was forbidden to be mined, and they needed to open up new Spirit Stone Mines to supplement the lost output.

The group, who were originally responsible for the smooth progress of the mining of this mine vein, were directly requisitioned to be responsible for the security work of the new mine exploration and opening.

So the group once again boarded Martial Uncle Feng’s Flying Boat and flew towards the next place where a new Spirit Stone Mine vein might be found.

As soon as they arrived, the group walked down from the Flying Boat, and unsurprisingly, it was a desolate mountain ridge.

All Spirit Stone Mines are in the wild, but compared with the Spirit Stone Mines that have already begun to be mined, there are no living facilities here.

In addition, this place is close to a Great Wilderness in the southeastern part of the continent, and from time to time, there are untamed Demon Beasts running over. In order to protect the safety of those disciples who are good at prospecting, they must be driven away or killed in time.

In general, this job is not easy. Demon Beasts do not care whether you are a Small Cultivation, Mid-Cultivation, or Great Cultivation, and they do not choose opponents according to level. If you threaten it, it will kill you.

In addition, Demon Beasts, as native creatures of the Seven Yang World, are simply nourished by the essence of the sun and moon. Not to mention that each one is thick-skinned and fleshy, they also generally have quite high intelligence.

Some Demon Beasts can even eventually embark on the path of cultivation and become fellow travelers on the path to Ascension for cultivators.

Many cultivators have Spirit Beasts, which are domesticated from Demon Beasts, so cultivators generally do not treat them as animals.

From a certain point of view, cultivators regard Spirit Beasts as their own kind, so they generally do not kill Demon Beasts unless it is absolutely necessary.

But Demon Beasts are still a kind of Spiritual Object after all. It is not a person. If you tell it to leave, it will not leave. If you tell it not to hunt down fellow disciples who are prospecting, it will not listen to you.

Moreover, once Demon Beasts taste the flesh and blood of cultivators, they will become addicted and continue to hunt down cultivators, so that some Demon Beasts embark on the evil path and become powerful Demon Beasts that are enemies of cultivators.

Therefore, once a Demon Beast is found to be harming cultivators, it must be eliminated even at a great cost.

What Lin Yu and Hua Kong did not expect was that the job, which was only slightly challenging, almost caused Lin Lan, who was already in the early stage of Foundation Establishment, to collapse.

The reason is very simple! There is no place to bathe or go to the toilet here!

As a Princess, although Lin Lan has suffered quite a bit since entering the path of cultivation, her living standards have never been lowered.

There is not even a place to go to the toilet here. Other female cultivators can go to the forest alone or together to solve it, but she is very embarrassed and will hesitate for a long time before walking into the forest.

Although she finally decided to Bigu and no longer eat, she still needs to go into the forest from time to time. There are often snakes, rats, insects, and ants in the forest, but these things that even mortals would not be afraid of make her extremely frightened.

In the end, this matter and bathing became the boulder that overwhelmed her, making her often angry.

But as a woman, she was ashamed to speak up. Every time she wanted Lin Yu and Hua Kong to help her solve this matter, she finally gave up and did not speak.

“Lan Mei has been a little strange recently!”, Lin Yu said to Hua Kong after the two returned from their mission that day.

“I think so too! But what could be here that could make her angry?”, Hua Kong said.

“I’m also strange!”, the two rough men who regarded defecating in the forest as a pleasure racked their brains but couldn’t figure it out.

“Why don’t you ask the female cultivators who are traveling with us? Don’t they all like to gossip?”, Lin Yu said.

“Okay! You go! I’m not familiar with them”, Hua Kong shirked the responsibility.

“Hmph! Little chick!”, Lin Yu teased.

“Bah! Old lecher!”, Hua Kong would not admit defeat.

Lin Yu, as a prince and grandson, has a very good external image, and female cultivators are willing to talk to him. Sure enough, women understand women better. After chatting with the female cultivators, he finally figured out the whole story.

“What did you find out?”, Hua Kong asked, looking at Lin Yu’s strange expression.

“I don’t know if I should tell you”, Lin Yu said awkwardly.

“Hmm~~?”, Hua Kong became even more interested.

In the end, after working hard for a day and a night, with the blessing of Hua Kong’s construction skills, a small room with a toilet on the lower level and a bath on the upper level was completed.

Because of this, Lin Yu and Hua Kong also gained a little fame among the female cultivators. The price they paid for this was that they had to transform into night soil workers from time to time to clean up the cesspool and sewage pit under the room.

Of course, Lin Lan’s mood returned to its usual calm and coldness, which made the two of them feel a lot more at ease.

Finally, after nearly half a year of hard work, the prospecting disciples determined the location of the new mine vein and dug out high-purity Spirit Stone Mine samples.

A large-scale mining construction team came over, and the task of Lin Lan and his party was coming to an end.

Some time before leaving, someone suggested hunting a small Demon Beast to take back and domesticate.

Some people went together, but Lin Lan was not interested. The Old Ancestor once told her that she was a High-Grade Gold Spiritual Root, and her requirements for Spirit Beasts were relatively high, which was hard to come by.

In the end, when the half-year period arrived, Martial Uncle Feng took everyone back to the Tian Yuan Sect.

During this half year, Lin Yu and Hua Kong still gained a lot. Although the progress of their cultivation was relatively small, their combat experience increased.

Hua Kong even specially tested the effect of his Bird Shooting Tube on Demon Beasts, and it was indeed good.

Basically, three attacks can kill a Demon Beast, which has attracted the attention of other cultivators. Hua Kong can only say that he bought it from the auction to get away with it.

But Hua Kong also discovered some defects in the Bird Shooting Tube, such as the small Steel Pipe being too slow to replace in an emergency.

The structure of the Small Steel Pipe is slightly complicated, and a bump or collision may cause the launch to fail or even detonate in advance, and once it almost injured himself.

To this end, after returning to the Small Courtyard, Hua Kong fixed the Mortal Fire Crystal Powder in a small copper buckle and fixed it in the middle of the tail of the Small Steel Pipe, so as to avoid it running to other parts of the Small Steel Pipe and reduce the possibility of accidentally hitting and igniting the Bird-Shooting Powder.

As for the problem that the Small Steel Pipe is too slow to replace, Hua Kong has no solution for the time being and can only slowly figure it out in the future.

At present, his main direction of improvement is to simplify the structure of the Small Steel Pipe. The arrow in the Small Steel Pipe is indeed too complicated. It is not only inconvenient to manufacture, but also inconvenient to use and store.

But the reason why the arrow is so complicated is to increase the steel tail feathers, but the tail feathers are to make the arrow rotate to increase accuracy. Is there any other way?

Hua Kong didn’t have any good ideas, so he put it aside and concentrated on cultivation.

One day, Hua Kong was managing vegetables and fruits in the vegetable field behind the Small Courtyard. It had just rained, and the mountain behind the courtyard was shrouded in smoke, which was quite like a fairyland.

When he observed carefully, he suddenly found that at a slightly curved place on the mountain, the smoke would rotate when it passed through it, even turning into circles.

He suddenly thought, isn’t the smoke produced when the Bird-Shooting Powder is launched also smoke? It’s just faster and more urgent!

What will happen if the smoke rotates? Will the arrow rotate with it? If that’s the case, wouldn’t tail feathers be unnecessary?

Hua Kong then built an earthen stove in the back of the Small Courtyard to see what kind of chimney would make the passing smoke rotate.

He recalled the scene he saw that day when the smoke crossed the mountain. Curved! A piece was missing from the mountain, and it was curved by the wind and rain. When the cloud mist reached there, it was guided to spin in circles.

How to create a curve in the chimney? Hua Kong first used mud and porcelain pieces to stick a straight line inside the chimney, but the smoke obviously would not spin in circles.

He then removed the porcelain pieces and this time pasted them slightly curved, and sure enough, it had a little effect.

Then Hua Kong turned the chimney into a circular shape and pasted several rows of porcelain pieces inside. Each piece was slightly skewed to the right than the previous one, and he kept pasting until the chimney opening. The smoke really started to spin, which made Hua Kong very happy.

But Hua Kong knew that such a Steel Pipe could not launch arrows, but he thought that the porcelain pieces did not have to be as wide as the inner wall of the chimney, and they should also be able to make the smoke rotate.

So he shortened the porcelain pieces and increased the number of rows pasted to six rows. The smoke passing through the chimney was indeed still rotating.

At this point, Hua Kong knew in his heart how to modify the Steel Pipe. As long as he could make the smoke form a rotating trend in the chimney, the rotation of the smoke would be amplified and accelerated in the process of advancing under this trend.

So Hua Kong used a modification tool to carve out rotating grooves on the inner wall of the Steel Pipe, and the smoke would accelerate its rotation under the guidance of this arc.

But will the arrow wrapped in smoke rotate? Hua Kong was not sure.

Hua Kong found an arrow, cut off the tail feather part and stuffed it into the Small Steel Pipe. After pulling the crossbow trigger, Hua Kong found that the arrow did rotate.

But the arrow flew very unsteadily and had no accuracy at all. Not only could it not shoot far, but using this kind of arrow to launch would damage the Steel Pipe quickly.

Hua Kong thought that this kind of arrow would not bump up and down in the Steel Pipe when it had tail feathers, but once it had no tail feathers, it would bump around in the Steel Pipe.

Then don’t let it bump around. Hua Kong cast the arrow into a cylindrical shape, so that it would fit the inner wall of the Steel Pipe better, so that it would not collide everywhere in the Steel Pipe.

Hua Kong tried it again, and when he probed with his Divine Sense when firing, it really started to rotate, and the accuracy was very good!

But Hua Kong knew that this kind of arrow was definitely not good, because there had never been an arrow like a round stick, but the Steel Pipe could not shoot out an arrow like a crossbow bolt.

Hua Kong compromised and slightly polished the front end of the round stick to make it smooth, like a hemisphere.

Hua Kong tried it, and it was simply amazing! This kind of arrow can rotate under the propulsion of smoke, and it will not bump around in the Steel Pipe and damage the Steel Pipe.

Therefore, its accuracy is particularly good, even better than the previous type of arrow, and the speed is much faster!

Although Hua Kong spent a lot of time modifying the Bird Shooting Tube, he did not neglect his cultivation. He only did these things in his spare time from cultivation.

In the past two years, he and Lin Yu have made great progress in their realms.

Lin Yu has entered the early stage of the Twelfth Level of Qi Refining, while Hua Kong has entered the Great Perfection of the Tenth Level of Qi Refining.

And their master, Princess Lin Lan, has entered the middle level of the early stage of Foundation Establishment and is looking for an opportunity to enter the Great Perfection of the early stage of Foundation Establishment.