Chapter 2315 A Foundry
Days continued to pass as Lin Mu continued his attempts at making the perfect arrow.
The others were also hard at work, with Daoist Chu having decent success. Crown Princess Shang and Ziran though were still in the heavy experimentation phase and were still extracting and refining poisons. The process was not exactly streamlined and there were several failures in it too.
After all Alchemy wasn't an easy occupation. Though with each failure they were learning and Crown Princess Shang was improving her skills in it. Ziran's insights were quite helpful to her and while he might not be as good of an Alchemist as her, he still had a lot more experience than her.
The half elf had also interacted with thousands of other alchemists from various worlds and seen many herbs and pills, thus even if he didn't have the proficiency, he could still advise and assist her through it all. Not to mention his elven blood also helped in it.
Wood elves were natural experts with herbs and good at making medicine while the Dark Elves were experts with poisons. Thus both his elven bloodlines were made for this. His senses could thus pick out on fine changes that weren't known by Crown Princess Shang right away and he could further guide the process.
It was as if Ziran was the eyes while Crown Princess Shang was the hands in the entire process.
An entire month passed like this before their companions who had gone out to survey sent word of their return.
Daoist Chu, Crown Princess Shang and Ziran had gathered in the meeting hall, while waiting for the return of others.
"How long till they arrive?" Crown Princess Shang asked.
"They shouldn't be far." Daoist Chu said. "Lady Kang will probably the first to return as she has Little Shrubby with her." "That's true." Crown Princess Shang nodded. "Though do you think the things went well?" she wondered.
"Well, considering that they didn't send any messages in this one month, I reckon there weren't any situations that went too bad. They should have handled it all well." Daoist Chu guessed.
"Still… where's Daoist Mu Lin?" Ziran asked, seeing that their fourth member hasn't arrived. "Did he not respond?" "He should have gotten the message too." Daoist Chu spoke furrowing his brows. "Is he busy perhaps?" "I'll try sending him a message." Ziran said before taking out his jade slip. He held it for a minute but got no response.
"Strange… he usually replies quick." Ziran muttered.
"Maybe… we should go check up on him." Crown Princess Shang suggested.
"I guess we can do that." Ziran agreed.
They didn't know how far Lin Mu had progressed or what he had been doing, thus they reckoned it was best to see him directly.
Going up to his room, they knocked on the shut door. With the formations that were set up, they couldn't open it physically from the outside and needed for Lin Mu to open from the inside. Two minutes passed, but they got no response.
"Is he perhaps cultivating?" Crown Princess Shang wondered.
"Hmm… if he's deep in cultivation it would make sense that he hasn't been able to respond." Ziran thought too.
"Maybe we can just check up on him again when everyone is he—" before Daoist Chu could finish his words though, the formations on the door suddenly shifted.
~SHUA~
The stone door started to move and allowed them entry.
"It's open!" Crown Princess Shang exclaimed.
But as soon as the formations were lifted, a gush of scalding hot air blew over them.
"Heavens!" All three of them retreated, putting up their defenses.
"My hair almost got burned," Crown Princess Shang was startled.
"Mine already did…" Daoist Chu looked at his long side burns that had turned into ashes, leaving him with a fade now.
"What was that?" Crown Princess Shang was shocked. "It's almost like there's a—"
"Furnace burning." Ziran spoke, narrowing his eyes.
He was the first one to approach it again, though this time he had his defenses up. The air coming from the room was still burning hot, but he could take it now.
The other two also followed after him and they finally reached the inside, that had changed drastically.
"This… This is an entire foundry!?" Daoist Chu's eyes went wide.
In front of them now stood a wide open area. It was about six hundred meters wide in both length and breadth while also being over two hundred meters tall!
The place they were standing right now was actually a balcony attached to the top of a stairwell. The floor itself was far below them.
But the most shocking part was the large furnace that took up half of the entire hall. About a hundred meter area of the hall was turned into a lava pool that continued to bubble while several trenches extended from it that carried the said lava.
This lava was brought to a large crucible that was being heated by it. The crucible was glowing red and molten metal could be seen inside it.
On the other half, several sets of workbenches were set up, along with a forge and an anvil.
Runes could be seen all over the walls of the hall, as the formations worked hard to maintain the integrity of the hall. Despite that though, random bursts of flames were common that scorched the walls, burning away the runes.
Though the runes would fix themselves after a few seconds, and the process repeated.
In the middle of all this stood Lin Mu.
He was wearing only some loose fitting pants while muscular torso was bare. Searing hot magma floated around him while a shield shaped Dao Shell hovered above him. In his right hand, he held a rock hammer while in his left hand he held a red hot metal rod.
His body glowed in a golden light as he hammered the metal rod, his muscles rippling with each strike.
~CLANG~CLANG~CLANG~
Sparks flew all around him along with flames, as the trio watched him with wide eyes.