Da Ming: The system granted me immortality; I clock in every day.

In late autumn in the capital, the morning frost whitened the black tiles of thousands of households.

What should have been a chilly season was instead a bustling scene of activity and people working up a sweat in the former West Garden, now the Qintian Pavilion.

Dozens of enormous blast furnaces, each three meters tall, rose from the ground, burning high-quality coal transported from Shanxi, turning half the sky a fiery red.

Bare-chested, muscular blacksmiths from the Ming Dynasty were chanting in unison, wielding heavy hammers to repeatedly forge pieces of red-hot steel.

The deafening pounding, accompanied by the wheezing of the bellows, intertwined to form a rugged yet stirring earthly battle song.

Not far from these blast furnaces, there is a row of spacious and bright blue brick halls.

Li Changqing, wearing the same faded blue cloth robe he never wore before, was lying on a bamboo reclining chair under the eaves of the hall.

[Ding! Today's attendance complete. Attribute point gained +1.]

"Add to the spirit."

He silently recited a sentence in his heart without any ripples.

A refreshing breeze, like the melting snow of early spring, drifted gently from the depths of the mind, shutting out the pungent smell of burnt coals and the noise around it.

He held a steaming bowl of Junshan Silver Needle tea in his hand, his eyes half-closed, seemingly asleep but not quite, displaying a carefree and leisurely demeanor.

That's right, even though he has achieved immortality and is invincible among humans, he is still checking in.

Inside the main hall, a heated argument broke the brief tranquility under the eaves.

"Absurd! This is utterly ridiculous!"

An old Taoist priest, dressed in a gray robe and with a wooden hairpin in his hair, was pointing at a blueprint on the table, his face flushed, and he was cursing loudly.

This person, whose Daoist name is Xuanqing, is an elder of formations from Penglai Immortal Island who was forced to surrender.

Now he has been incorporated into the Qintiange Pavilion and become a "craftsman" under the supervision of others.

Elder Xuanqing, his beard trembling with rage, roared at an elderly Ming Dynasty craftsman opposite him, dressed in short clothes and with calloused hands:

"This Gale Formation is a celestial array that draws upon the energy of the Xun wind from heaven and earth! The array's core must be carved from the finest Hetian jade and nurtured by the true essence of a cultivator for forty-nine days before it can gather energy and generate wind!"

"You ignorant mortal, how dare you attempt to carve such a divine array onto those crude ship masts with a chisel? How can such scrap metal bear the essence of immortals! This is blasphemy against the Great Dao!"

The old craftsman standing opposite him was surnamed Lu. He was one of the top craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty shipyard and was known for his fiery temper.

Upon hearing this, Master Lu spat a mouthful of phlegm on the ground without any politeness, and sneered repeatedly.

"What kind of blasphemy is this! You old bastard, what do you know about shipbuilding! Our Ming Dynasty's thousand-ton treasure ships, when they encounter raging storms and towering waves at sea, the masts withstand forces of ten thousand jun!"

"You hang a fragile piece of warm jade on it, and it'll crumble into dust in the wind. What will you use to hold the wind? Your head?"

Master Lu slapped the drawing of the array onto the table, making it vibrate.

"I don't care what your true or false essence is. Lord Li has given the order that our Ming warships should be able to travel a hundred miles even without wind."

"This formation, even if you use your teeth, you'd better bite your way to that steel mast forged through a thousand hammers! If you can't do it, my iron hammer won't recognize you as some kind of immortal!"

"You...you crude and barbaric bastard!!"

Elder Xuanqing was so angry that he trembled all over. He pointed at Master Lu, but dared not actually use his magic to hurt him.

After all, outside the Qintian Pavilion lies the green-robed killing god who could even crush the sect leader into a bloody mist with a single step.

"Gentlemen, why are you so angry so early in the morning?"

A gentle, languid voice came from outside the hall.

Li Changqing, carrying a teacup, slowly strolled into the main hall.

His black cloth shoes with their thousand-layer soles stepped on the blue bricks without making a sound, yet the tense atmosphere in the hall instantly froze.

Upon seeing Li Changqing, Elder Xuanqing was like a mouse seeing a cat; the arrogance of a senior immortal elder vanished instantly.

His knees buckled, and he quickly bowed deeply, not daring to even lift his head.

"Senior... I did not mean to cause a disturbance. It was this mortal craftsman who had a wild idea and forced me to do something that violated the common sense of the formation."

When Master Lu saw Li Changqing arrive, he wasn't particularly afraid. He simply bowed respectfully and loudly complained.

"Lord Li, please be the judge. This old bastard is clinging to his island's rules, insisting that formations can only be engraved on jade. Our Ming Dynasty's treasure ships are meant for sea battles; bumps and knocks are inevitable. How can we possibly support those delicate contraptions!"

Li Changqing walked to the table, put down the teacup, and looked at Elder Xuanqing's face, which was filled with grievance and fear.

"Xuanqing".

Li Changqing extended two slender fingers and gently tapped on the drawing.

"What do you think celestial spirit is?"

Elder Xuanqing's forehead was covered in cold sweat as he answered tremblingly, "Replying to Senior... Spiritual energy is born from heaven and earth, and gathers in things of exceptional quality. Jade is the essence of heaven and earth, gentle in nature, and best able to accommodate the operation of spiritual energy in formations."

"As for refined steel and cast iron, they are full of the mundane smoke and turbidity of the mortal world, and their texture is hard and rigid. Once spiritual energy is injected, it will be blocked and dissipated..."

"Pedantic."

Li Changqing uttered two words calmly, directly interrupting Xuanqing's explanation.

He turned his head and looked out the window at the blazing blast furnace, his deep eyes revealing a wisdom that seemed to understand the essence of all things.

"Heaven and earth are ruthless, treating all things like straw dogs. In the eyes of Heaven, the crystal-clear warm jade and the molten iron flowing in this blast furnace are both just grains of sand in this world; how can there be a distinction between noble and lowly?"

"You've been on the island for too long, and you've become bound by those fancy but impractical rules, forgetting even the principle that everything can carry the Way."

Li Changqing casually picked up an ordinary iron chisel from the tool rack beside him, and then picked up a piece of fine steel ingot that had just cooled down.

"Steel is rigid and difficult for spiritual energy to circulate, so let's find a way to make it less rigid."

He didn't use any earth-shattering cultivation techniques; he simply used his wrist strength to quickly slash the chisel across the piece of refined steel.

In the blink of an eye, accompanied by a piercing metallic scraping sound, the rudimentary form of a "Gathering Wind Array," simplified to its extreme yet imbued with profound Daoist charm, was deeply etched into the hard steel ingot.

"Master Lu the Craftsman".

Li Changqing tossed the carved steel ingot to Master Lu.

"Have the craftsmen make a mold of the patterns on this wind-gathering array. When casting the mast next time, add 20% crushed spirit stone powder to the molten iron and melt it together. In this way, the steel mast itself will become a huge piece of spirit material."

"Not only is it incredibly sturdy, but the array patterns are also perfectly integrated with the mast, so no matter how strong the storm is, it won't be able to damage it in the slightest."

Master Lu took the steel ingot, stroking the patterns on it as if it were a priceless treasure, his eyes blazing with fanatical light.

"Brilliant! Brilliant indeed! Adding spirit stones to molten iron—only Lord Li could come up with such an idea! I'll go and test it out right away!"

Master Lu, carrying the steel ingot, rushed out of the main hall like a gust of wind. His energetic appearance hardly resembled that of an old man over sixty.

Elder Xuanqing stared blankly at Master Lu's retreating figure, then glanced at Li Changqing, his lips moving slightly.

Molten iron mixed with spirit stones?

Such a wasteful and crude method of weapon forging would be considered heretical and would result in the loss of cultivation in their Penglai Immortal Sect.

But ironically, a casual remark from this unfathomable senior could actually turn something rotten into something miraculous.

"What are you still standing there for?"

Li Changqing picked up the teacup on the table and blew away the foam.

"Go and keep an eye on the heat. If the casting of this first array mast fails, I'll throw your old bones into the blast furnace and add fuel to the fire."

Elder Xuanqing shivered.

He didn't dare utter a single word of nonsense and scrambled to follow them to the blast furnace, running faster than a rabbit.

The main hall became quiet again.

Li Changqing shook his head, picked up his teacup, and slowly walked to the bamboo chair under the eaves of the corridor, where he lay down again.

Although life at the Qintian Pavilion was a bit noisy, it was also full of the unique vitality of the mortal world.

Watching those lofty immortal techniques gradually dismantle and blend through the wisdom and sweat of mortals, eventually transforming into the giant sails on Ming Dynasty warships and the patterns on cannons.

The feeling of personally driving the transformation of a civilization is far more interesting than hiding in the deep mountains and forests to cultivate oneself.