At the moment, Ji Liuli was in Zhang Sheng’s room. The table in front of them was covered in various parts, with boxes of gunpowder stacked on each side of the table.

The parts on the table came in all shapes and sizes. The largest was as big as a watermelon, while the smallest were so tiny that a dozen of them tied together would barely be as thick as a strand of hair. Wei Yuan did not recognize a single one of these parts, let alone their purpose.

Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli were holding a piece of jade paper each and reading it intently. Both had their brows furrowed in concentration as they read and pondered.

Wei Yuan dared not disturb them. He tiptoed into the room before scanning the jade papers with his perception. To his surprise, it was the accounts of Xu Wenwu’s experiences. Xu Wenwu had read them countless times already and considered most of them mere rubbish.

What could possibly be so difficult about them that Big Senior Sister and Master had to pore over them with such intensity?

Wei Yuan stood quietly nearby and waited patiently for Ji Liuli to be free.

Ji Liuli suddenly shook her head vigorously and said, “Forget it. We should focus on what we can actually do at the moment. Do you need anything, Little Wei Yuan?”

Wei Yuan explained that he had exchanged for a Thunder Crystal Tree sapling and would like her help in setting up the accompanying array. So, Ji Liuli said, “Alright! I’m going to help Little Wei Yuan plant his tree and clear my head. You take your time.”

Zhang Sheng nodded almost absently, his perception still firmly affixed to the jade paper.

Wei Yuan knew his Master’s temperament as a matter of course. Once he became engrossed in something, he would even forget to eat and sleep.

The duo flew to the northeast side of the realm and found a small hill that was covered in rocks. Wei Yuan then planted the Thunder Crystal Tree sapling into the soil. The moment the plant touched the earth, a tiny arc of lightning flashed within its trunk. Several thin roots extended downward, beginning to grow deep into the ground.

Meanwhile, Ji Liuli was surveying the surroundings. Once ready, she arranged the spirit objects and began setting up the array to attract and contain lightning.

This sort of work was second nature to Ji Liuli; she didn’t even need to think about it. Wei Yuan took this opportunity to ask her what she and Zhang Sheng had been studying earlier.

Ji Liuli answered, “We were studying the method to refine steel. In that world, the mortals were capable of producing over a thousand stones[1] of refined steel in a single furnace without using spirit energy or the aid of arrays. It’s truly baffling. Here, I’ll demonstrate it to you. You’ll understand once you’ve seen it.”

Ji Liuli casually picked up a couple stones and clenched her fist, crushing them into powder instantly. The powders then coalesced into a dozen or so separate clumps of varying sizes, floating in the air.

“There are iron and copper veins beneath this land, and these stones contain quite a bit of iron. I’ve already sifted out the raw iron.”

Ji Liuli dispersed the stone clumps, leaving behind the one and only iron clump. When Wei Yuan scanned it with his perception, he confirmed that it was almost all iron with less than ten percent of impurities.

A jet of flame shot out of Ji Liuli’s palm as the clump of iron powder hovered above it. In an instant, the clump turned bright red, melted, and transformed into a soft mass.

Ji Liuli then withdrew her left hand, drawing out even more impurities from the molten iron. What remained was a mass of extremely pure molten iron with less than one percent of impurities remaining.

“This is iron. We cultivators can discern the properties of a certain material and directly adjust them using our perception and Dao energy.”

Next, several more types of powder appeared in Ji Liuli’s left hand. With a gentle puff, they were blown into the molten iron and distributed evenly throughout. At the same time, the flame’s color shifted from red to blue, then blue to pure white. The clump of molten iron melted completely before it was condensed into a sphere by Daoist energy.

“This is steel.”

The molten iron’s temperature nosedived without warning, and Ji Liuli added a bit of powder into it. She would repeat this process a couple more times until its temperature dropped all the way to room temperature, solidifying into a steel ball that glowed with a faint blue light.

“This is refined steel.”

Wei Yuan nodded. He had learned about these principles during his Techniques Theory classes. At the time, everyone’s cultivation was still poor, so they had to rely on furnace fires to heat the metal and could only adjust its properties in small increments at a time. Back then, he had to toil for hours just to produce two taels of refined steel, and even that was of mediocre quality. He could not possibly compare to Ji Liuli, who could produce over a hundred catties of refined steel with a mere wave of her hand.

Refined steel was the pinnacle of mundane materials, but it was far from the end of the road. If other immortal materials were added, refined, and nurtured with Dao energy, then the refined steel could be transformed into a spirit material. The difference between the two was like that of mundane silver and immortal silver.

Ji Liuli said, “At my cultivation level, I can only refine a thousand catties of refined steel, or less than ten stones. On the other hand, the mortals of that world could refine over a thousand stones of refined steel in one furnace. Doesn’t this mean that I’m no match for some mortals despite my many years of cultivation?”

“That... is hardly a fair comparison,” Wei Yuan remarked.

That said, he was starting to understand what was troubling her and his Master after witnessing the demonstration. “We cultivators rely on our perception to identify the properties of a certain object and adjust them accordingly using our Dao energy. There’s also a limit to how much material we can process at once; any more than that, and we can’t guarantee that the properties will be evenly distributed or balanced.

“If those mortals can smelt a thousand stones of refined steel in a single furnace, doesn’t that mean they’re feeding two thousand stones of various ores into it? How do they ensure the internal balance of properties within the material?”

Ji Liuli said, “That is one point. The second point is temperature. Ordinary fire struggles to melt iron, let alone refined steel. When we forge artifacts, we use earth fire, heavenly fire, Dao fire, and spirit fire. Excluding certain specialized applications, most of these flames are naturally hot enough to melt metals, stones, and definitely refined steel. However, these flames all require perception to control, and Dao energy to sustain. The people of that world are merely mortals, so how are they controlling the fire’s temperature?”

The difficulty also varied depending on the amount of materials that was loaded into a furnace. The difference in difficulty between refining ten catties and one thousand catties of any metal at a time was already like night and day, let alone a thousand stones. The more Wei Yuan thought about it, the more he grew alarmed.

Wei Yuan said slowly, “The mortals in that world can produce a thousand stones of refined steel per furnace, with consistent quality. It would seem that they are capable of measuring the furnace temperature precisely. They also possess methods to increase or decrease the furnace temperature to a specific range, while simultaneously maintaining a constant temperature and uniform material properties across the entire batch. The sheer number of complexities that are involved in this are unthinkable.

Ji Liuli nodded. “Yes. If we were to break these complexities down one by one, I suspect that each one could easily become a field of study in its own right. That world must have reached a corresponding level of advancement in every aspect to be capable of refining a thousand stones of refined steel in a single furnace.”

Wei Yuan said, “Xu Wenwu is largely illiterate and unskilled. There are likely many fields he’s never even heard of.”

Ji Liuli replied, “It doesn’t matter. We only need to know what the mortals in that world have achieved. Our minds operate hundreds or thousands of times faster than that of mortals. If they can do it, we can do it as well.” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Wei Yuan agreed. For example, now that they knew it was possible to produce a thousand stones of refined steel from a single furnace, they could study it gradually and eventually achieve it themselves. Forget a thousand stones, it could be ten thousand stones or even a hundred thousand stones—if mortals could do it, there was no reason cultivators couldn’t.

It was at this moment Wei Yuan recalled another matter: it would require an immense amount of Dao energy to refine a thousand stones of raw material into molten iron. Yet in Xu Wenwu’s world, many mortals seemed to rely on electricity.

When he mentioned this, Ji Liuli said, “We also possess many methods that mortals cannot hope to match. Fengshui and fortune are two such examples. Fortune is already on your side, and I have set up a great fengshui array. Many things will simply fall into place naturally. For example, no one asked you to exchange for a Thunder Crystal Tree sapling, yet you have done it at exactly the time we need it, no?”

1. I should’ve mentioned this earlier but one stone—not English stone—is about 31 kg, so one thousand stones is 31,000 kg. ☜