Chapter 0957: Eccentric names
Ning Cheng knew very well that he would have to refine this pill furnace if he wanted to take it away. He naturally couldn’t refine such a pill furnace by standing on its bottom. In other words, he would also have to enter the inside, just like the other cultivators.
But it also carried significant risk. Once someone else managed to refine the pill furnace first, the others inside it would immediately turn into sacrifices for the one who refined it first.
After hesitating for just a moment, Ning Cheng also entered the inside. If he missed out on such a good pill furnace, who knows when he would get another such chance? Or even if he would ever get another opportunity?
When Ning Cheng rushed down from the furnace’s foot, his spiritual consciousness saw two words etched at the bottom, ‘No Furnace’.
Was that the name of this pill furnace? Ning Cheng couldn’t help but feel a little dazed. This pill furnace looked astonishingly imposing, indicating an extraordinary origin. Yet, it actually had such a weird name, ‘No Furnace[1]’. If one only heard the words, one would have thought it to be a coal furnace.
But whether it was called ‘No Furnace’ or something else, it didn’t matter. If he felt that the name of this furnace was weird, he could just change it once he obtained it. The most important thing right now was to grab the furnace before anyone else.
A few moments later, Ning Cheng arrived at the mouth of the pill furnace. This pill furnace was suspended a few feet above the ground but upside down, with the mouth facing the floor. It made it possible to enter it from all sides. But one would have to face an even more terrifying temperature inside.
Because of this, several cultivators began to hesitate after arriving here. After all, if they forcefully tried to go in, they would most likely fall in the furnace.
However, Ning Cheng didn’t hesitate and directly rushed into the furnace through the inverted mouth. Since he decided to get it, he had to see it through quickly and promptly leave.
As soon as he entered the furnace, the rich furnace of pills and the terrifying temperatures came blasting together. Ning Cheng quickly brought out the Everlasting Blue Thunder City’s projection to shield Yan Ji. The temperatures here didn’t affect him, but it might make Yan Ji’s condition even worse.
After taking out the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, Ning Cheng didn’t immediately charge upwards. This pill furnace was indeed a spacial treasure, and the space inside it was so large that it was as if someone had plucked the sky from outside and placed it inside here upside down.
As Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness swept out, forbidden restrictions and array formations appeared within it.
In just a dozen breaths, Ning Cheng couldn’t help but feel slightly surprised. He had figured out the origin point of the dao rhythm here, and it was just diagonally across from him. In other words, he had to move from this side of the pill furnace to the side directly opposite to him; it was the only way to reach it.
Ning Cheng couldn’t help but feel excited. Within this pill furnace, he, a Dao Sculpting Pill Deity, had a far stronger sense of pill rhythm compared to the average person. Perhaps others needed to slowly search the area to find the source of the dao rhythm, but he had easily sensed it.
Nine times out of ten, the source of the dao rhythm would also be the place from where one could refine the pill furnace.
Thinking of this, Ning Cheng immediately rushed over.
Ning Cheng wasn’t the only cultivator who entered the pill furnace. Therefore, as he flew through the interior of the pill furnace, Ning Cheng brushed past a few cultivators from time to time. Many of them immediately noticed that the Everlasting Blue Thunder City protecting Ning Cheng was a mighty treasure. However, since this was still the interior of the pill furnace, and Ning Cheng’s power felt beyond them, no one decided to act on their covetous intentions.
Most of the cultivators who came in had a preconceived notion that to refine the pill furnace, the fastest way would be to do so from the ‘bottom’ of the pill furnace. Therefore, cultivators who had reached the bottom of the furnace immediately took out their artefacts and weapons to guard them while trying to refine the furnace.
One also could see some scattered pills suspended in various parts of the furnace. However, these pills also had a layer of protection around them formed out of the pill furnace’s restrictions. As such, they weren’t affected by the fluctuating temperatures from the pill flame.
Many of the cultivators, who realised that they had a slim to none chance of refining the pill furnace or obtaining the pill flame, started to go for the pills scattered within it. Once someone found a top-grade spirit pill, these cultivators wouldn’t hesitate to bring out their weapons and start a bloody fight.
Ning Cheng wasn’t surprised at seeing these cultivators fighting. There were simply too few top-grade spirit pills here. Moreover, as more and more top-grade spirit pills were discovered, it wouldn’t be a strange sight for people to try and grab them. However, Ning Cheng remained indifferent to them. His goal wasn’t these pills but the pill flame and the pill furnace. So he definitely wouldn’t waste time grabbing these pills, even if they were precious.
In less than a dozen breaths, Ning Cheng appeared at a corner of the pill furnace. He noticed an extremely powerful restriction here but also saw that someone had opened it.
Did someone go in already? Ning Cheng instantly realised something. Looks like there was another highly skilled alchemist here. From its looks, this person also sensed the dao rhythm originating from this place just like him. But more importantly, this person also seemed to have a profound understanding of array formations. In just a short time, this fellow had managed to break through the forbidden restriction here.
Ning Cheng didn’t hesitate to take out several dozen array flags and arranged them around the forbidden restriction. This pill furnace’s corner gave out a burst of clicking-like sounds in just a few moments, and a gap suddenly appeared. Ning Cheng quickly rushed into the opening while collecting the array flags.
A refreshing aroma suddenly washed over him, and Ning Cheng couldn’t help but inhale deeply. But before he could regain his senses, a powerful killing intent blasted over from the side.
The Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort covering Ning Cheng automatically solidified, and lightning trails erupted from the Blue Thunder Fort.
“Boom-Boom-Boom……” Dozens of white knife lights slammed on the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort. Still, the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort managed to neutralise all the knife lights with its lightning arcs.
Ning Cheng didn’t even wait for the cultivator, who had snuck up on him, to make another move. Instead, the same instant the knife lights got neutralised, he took a step sideways and blasted out a fist.
A strange fluctuation spread out from Ning Cheng’s fist, and the laws within the surroundings seemed to issue slight clicking-like noises. In the next instant, the laws within this area turned chaotic.
“Die.” Ning Cheng’s fist seemed to have reassembled the laws around it into a new law, and a raging spirit essence gathered at the tip of his fist in a blink of an eye.
Under this fist, time suddenly came to a stop, and even space seemed to have disappeared.
The cultivator who had attacked Ning Cheng felt horrified. If the laws around him had remained unchanged, he could have dodged this fist that had condensed the laws of time and space. Even if it contained immense power, it, at most, would have only grazed him.
But now, he found that his spirit techniques suddenly had a piece missing. A spirit technique just a bit short of being completed simply couldn’t form under such chaotic laws.
“Boom…. Boom…..” The fist covered with terrifying spirit essence made contact with the cultivator who had tried to sneak up on him. With a bloody explosion of gore and blood, the cultivator died under Ning Cheng’s fist without even having the time to escape with his essence spirit.
Ning Cheng drew in a deep breath before looking at his fist. A late-stage Dao Sculpting cultivator had tried to attack him but ended up dead under his punch. Looks like the dao that he had sculpted was indeed completely different from ordinary dao. This also meant that his power was definitely not comparable to ordinary Dao Sculpting cultivators.
Only then did Ning Cheng have the chance to look around him. The area he stood in wasn’t too big. It had a few jade strips neatly stored in a corner over a shelf and three pill furnaces placed together at another corner.
As an artefact-crafting master, Ning Cheng could see the difference between these three furnaces at a glance. The three furnaces were arranged from the weakest to the strongest, and each of them emitted bursts of different dao rhythms.
Ning Cheng walked over to the weakest one, and when his hand touched it, five large golden letters appeared on the furnace’s body. ‘Primal Chaos’s First Furnace’
Ning Cheng felt a little dumbfounded. Although this pill furnace was a little stronger than his Traceless Furnace, to call it ‘Primal Chaos’s First Furnace’ felt like a joke. He believed that he hadn’t made a mistake with the evaluation. It was a rather ordinary pill furnace, at least when compared to the two pill furnaces next to it.
Shaking his head, Ning Cheng put away the ‘Primal Chaos’s First Furnace’ into his ring. He then walked towards the second furnace, which was stronger and of better quality than the first. As soon as Ning Cheng stopped in front of this furnace, a few more large golden characters appeared on the furnace’s body, ‘World’s Second Furnace’.
At this point, Ning Cheng wasn’t even in the mood to think about it. He put this ‘World’s Second Furnace’ directly into his ring and walked towards the third pill furnace.
Once again, five prominent characters appeared on the furnace’s body, ‘Can Only Be Called Third’.
Ning Cheng couldn’t help but feel speechless. The best of the three pill furnaces here was named ‘Can Only Be Called Third’, and the worst was named ‘Primal Chaos’s First Furnace’. Together with the one outside named ‘No Furnace’, Ning Cheng realised that the owner of these furnaces was an eccentric fellow.
Ning Cheng threw all the three furnaces into his ring. But suddenly, the location where these three furnaces were in just a moment ago emitted a burst of fluctuations. An instant later, another forbidden restriction appeared in front of Ning Cheng. Ning Cheng stared at this forbidden restriction in shock and didn’t move for a long time.
He wasn’t shocked because of the sudden appearance of a forbidden restriction. Ning Cheng could easily create such a set-up. But what surprised him was what was inside the forbidden restriction. It was a fist-sized ball of lime green liquid suspended on top of a mini pill furnace. He had never seen anything like it.
Was it pill marrow? It took a while before Ning Cheng returned to his senses and muttered to himself. He didn’t care much about the mini-pill furnace but instead stared at this lime green liquid.
Pill marrow wasn’t a rare treasure per se, but its value was definitely not inferior to any rare treasure. Primarily because of its almost unobtainable trait and its non-consistent function.
Pill marrow only appeared in a pill furnace and only in top-quality furnaces used by top-tier pill masters. As a pill master continued refining batches after batches of pills, the essence of spirit herb would continue to coalesce in the furnace. Finally, a clump of pill marrow would gradually form in the furnace after many years of use.
Typically, this ball of essence would be the size of a dragon-eyed fruit and would sell for an extremely high price. An egg-sized ball of pill marrow would drive people crazy. But a fist-sized pill marrow it could potentially plunge the world into a bloodbath.
Ning Cheng felt overjoyed. Even if he couldn’t refine a pill to revive Yan Ji, Yan Ji could still wake up with the help of this pill marrow.
After understanding that this was a pill marrow, Ning Cheng immediately rushed up. He tore open the restriction covering it and collected this ball of pill marrow into a jade box.
Although this pill marrow might be a treasure, Ning Cheng didn’t dare give it to Yan Ji before figuring out the primary function. If the previous owner of this pill furnace primarily refined poisonous pills, this ball of pill marrow wouldn’t be something that saved lives but hastened them.
After taking away the pill marrow, Ning Cheng then took a look at the small pill furnace. It also contained the exact two words on its body, ‘No Furnace’.
Ning Cheng understood that this small furnace was the key to refine the large pill furnace outside. Thinking of the many cultivators rushing in to grab the furnace, Ning Cheng didn’t hesitate and spat out a mouthful of essence blood onto the small pill furnace. The next moment, his majestic spiritual consciousness rushed inside to start refining it.
[1] The characters ‘No Furnace/ 没炉 – Mei Lu’ is the same as one used for ‘Coal Furnace/ 没炉 – Mei Lu’ in modern-day China. The difference, if any, would be a slightly different way the characters are pronounced based on the context.
