MC's career as foreign lord

Following the tracks, Zhou Ren quickly arrived at the manor located in the town. The manor hadn't changed much, but the air was definitely more scorching.

That being said, the demon at least hadn't deceived him.

Zhou Ren calmly thought to himself. Before even entering the small courtyard filled with portals, he could already hear loud curses from within.

"I'm going to shove that damned Balor's head into a dretch's belly! You said this place would be full of delicious humans? You said I could experience endless pleasure here? It's all bullshit!"

"I want to shove his ass into a spider demon's head!"

The demons' voices were extremely loud, not even caring if others heard them. Fortunately, no one would come to this manor area at this time of day.

Even if someone came, they wouldn't enter his territory, perfectly timing it so that these demons could only fly into a fit of impotent rage and couldn't even discover anything.

Zhou Ren grew more curious. Since their projections were tricked into this world, why did the Balor seem so lively? Could this be a special bond between demons? Although they cursed fiercely, they still held some hope?

Then he thought of the Balor who had been locked here for ten years. Even after being locked up for a decade, he hadn't shown any particularly manic expressions. Perhaps this was one of the few pastimes for demons from the Abyss.

However, their fierce curses gave him plenty of opportunities. At least he knew that this area wasn't just home to the Balor.

He couldn't deduce their types from their words, but as soon as he walked in, he identified them: a marilith and a berserker demon.

"I smell a human aura… It's a nostalgic scent. We haven't smelled it since our Abyss was separated from the main world!"

The marilith didn't seem to take Zhou Ren seriously. When she sensed someone's presence, her face wasn't filled with panic, but rather with joy.

"If I were you, I would carefully assess the current situation before speaking!" Zhou Ren said, slowly walking towards the two demons. Their imprisoned bodies seemed even more tightly bound as the young man approached.

"It was you who noticed us. I'll give you a quick choice: release us now, and I'll simply send you to the Abyss instead of torturing your soul!" The marilith was extremely arrogant.

She pointed all six of her arms at Zhou Ren and stared intently at him, but she didn't notice the boy giving a mocking smile.

"You're not very clear about the current situation, are you? I'll make you understand your position!" He wouldn't indulge these demons.

He casually tore open a scroll, allowing the Balor in the Abyss to sense it. He grinned cruelly and pounced towards the two targets in front of him.

The two demons here also fell into silence after a brief pause. It seemed their consciousness had truly been completely transferred to the Abyss.

"You've caught two more in the last few days. Not bad work efficiency. Worth encouraging!" Zhou Ren said, picking up two buckets and stuffing the two differently shaped demons inside.

The Balor had the best burning efficiency and the highest burning speed. He hoped these two demons would burn effectively, otherwise he would have to waste time preparing magma!

Fortunately, with the help of the rails, the speed wouldn't be slow no matter where he went. Zhou Ren quickly returned to the underground cavern and saw Shia placing piles of cement on the ground.

She was flipping through the crafting guide, seemingly trying to find the standard method for making nether bricks, when she saw Zhou Ren walking over with two demons.

Shia felt that her worldview hadn't been liberated from collapsing. Demons, which other races usually avoided, had become standard means of production in Zhou Ren's hands. She didn't even know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Those two guys are slacking off in the Abyss. I need to give them a little lesson so they can work properly!" Zhou Ren said.

As for rewards, the demons' bodies in the Abyss lacked power, making them the best nourishment for themselves. As for their bodies in reality, Zhou Ren was already showing great mercy by not burning them. They still wanted revenge?

The two buckets were casually piled in the corner. The demons' bodies inside twisted for a moment, but remained motionless.

"Putting cement into the furnace will get you the most ordinary nether brick. Four nether bricks together can make a simple nether brick block!" Zhou Ren said.

They took out the furnace, put a bucket of magma inside, and a raging fire rose up, quickly turning the cement into a small nether brick.

The remaining time was naturally spent making various materials, such as the smeltery controller.

The smeltery controller and the nether brick furnace controller weren't the same thing. The smeltery was a type of creation for artisan engineering, while the nether brick furnace was a tool for firing items.

The smeltery could smelt all kinds of metals and alloys, while the nether brick furnace was more like a gigantic oven for ordinary people, capable of firing many things at once.

He wasn't planning on making a nether brick furnace now, so making a smeltery would suffice. In addition to the ordinary building blocks, he also needed a nether brick tank and a smeltery controller as the basic tools for the smeltery.

Of course, many would be needed to build a large smeltery in the future. As for the current small smeltery, only a single control tool needed to be placed.

The crafting method for the smeltery controller was also very simple: placing eight nether bricks in a circle on the workbench would get you one.

As for the nether brick tank, as an item for storing magma, it was a black tank with a glass window, used to hold magma that couldn't be contained by ordinary blocks.

The crafting method was similar to the controller: eight nether brick blocks in a circle, then a glass block in the middle as a window.

Of course, a special nether brick tank could also be made. For example, adding more glass and fewer nether bricks could create a nether brick window with a lot of glass, or a nether brick container with only a tiny bit of black.

Their transparent block sizes actually depended on how much glass there was, which didn't have much meaning besides looking better.

But women were indeed visual creatures. After discovering the differences in these things, Shia insisted on making a nether brick container, which was a giant glass block filled with a circular top window and square edge windows.

It certainly looked much more comfortable than the pure black, charred storage tank. Zhou Ren casually stuffed a demon, which was still on the ground, into it. Just one demon could fill a square block completely.

Next, of course, was the creation of the smelting furnace's drain outlet and casting spout. These two things were even simpler. The drain device only required two rows of side-by-side charred bricks, placed on the first and third rows of the crafting grid to obtain.

As for the casting spout, three charred bricks were arranged in an inverted triangle, a bit like making a bowl, and then you could get an opening to discharge liquid.

In fact, if he needed to store more molten liquid in the future, he could even make more storage tanks, which were the charred liquid tanks mentioned earlier.

Those high-temperature melted liquids would not condense in these tanks and could be released back and forth through the casting spout.

Of course, this was just one way to store molten metal. In reality, as long as the smelting furnace was large enough, all the molten liquid could be stored inside, except for some unapproved alloys.

Because of the Tinker's Construct mod, they had obtained two more special ores while mining underground, namely tin and aluminum, as well as a type of copper ingot from Tinker's Construct.

These were basic minerals for synthesizing aluminum brass, bronze, and aluminum with acid resistance. The moment these things appeared, the skeletons had already mined them down and stored them in the underground warehouse, making it very convenient for future crafting.

The last thing to be made was naturally the casting table and the casting basin.

The functions of these two things were to cast various tool components and to directly cast various liquid blocks. He used to just throw the mined minerals into the smelting furnace and then cast usable blocks through the casting basin, which was quite convenient.

The crafting methods were also very simple, both using seven charred bricks, one enclosing the top and one enclosing the bottom.

This was also the necessary material for him to expand the entire smelting furnace. With the casting basin, they could directly throw stones and cobblestones into the smelting furnace for burning, and then burn out the molten charred liquid.

This was the easiest way to make charred blocks that he had mentioned before. Now, this was just the smallest 3x3 smelting furnace, and the space that needed to be smelted was only a small nine squares.

That is, only nine stones could be smelted at a time. Fortunately, the six-armed snake demon's flames were very powerful, adding flames to the furnace, and its body gradually became unseeable in the flames, which also saved Zhou Ren's last worry.

Soon, all nine stones were turned into liquid. Xi Ya placed new stones next to her, while Zhou Ren directly opened the charred drain outlet, solidifying the charred stones one by one.

As new charred stones came into his hands, he dismantled the extra charred blocks—anyway, the things inside the furnace would not decrease because of this—and continued to expand this charred furnace.

The two of them simply worked together, and with the reduction of stones and the multiple stays in the charred storage tank, they obtained more and more charred liquid.

So much so that after placing stones once, the two of them needed to stop and rest for a while, expanding the entire smelting furnace, until it was expanded to the most extreme range, before slowly stopping.

"It's almost there now!" Zhou Ren said. Although they only made a base of 121 blocks high, the top had a full six layers, which meant that more than 700 ores could be smelted at a time, which should be enough.

"Phew!" Xi Ya exclaimed, "This is the first time I've felt that doing this is actually a physical job!"

Zhou Ren smiled, "If it weren't a physical job, there would be no way to quickly increase our own strength and your sensitivity to the elements, right?"

They looked at the huge smelting furnace in front of them, and a sense of pride couldn't help but arise. Then, he continued to stuff new stones into the smelting furnace.

"Isn't this big guy already finished? Is there anything new to do?" Xi Ya couldn't help but ask with some doubts.

"In addition to the smelting furnace, we also need to make a huge tool called the Charred Kiln. In the future, if we want to burn groups of items or blocks, we can do it directly here!"

Zhou Ren explained, "There is also something called the Tinker's Tank, which is a huge block specially used to store liquids. It also requires a lot of charred stones. In order to make more buildings, let's burn a little more, just in case!"

No matter what, it was always right to prepare a little more. Zhou Ren diligently stuffed the stones from the two boxes into the smelting furnace, while Xi Ya built a ladder and watched the gradually increasing liquid on top of the smelting furnace.

"Okay, okay, stop putting it in. If you put it in again, it will be full and overflow!" She said from above, which made Zhou Ren stop his hands from continuing to put in stones. The capacity of this furnace was not good. How could it be full after he only put in a few stacks?

Without hesitation, he directly built a new Tinker's Tank area in another place next to it, and then used a few simple liquid storage tanks and drain outlets to discharge all the liquid that reached the middle of the smelting furnace to the Tinker's Tank area.

Anyway, the crafting method of the Tinker's Tank was also very simple, and there was no need to make viewing windows. Just make charred stones and blocks for storing liquid.

Now he could burn charred stone liquid again. He put all the stones in his hand all at once before stopping, and the Tinker's Tank next to him had already stored a lot of charred liquid.

"But the charred liquid produced by the smelting furnace can only be made into charred stone bricks through molds," Zhou Ren thought again. He looked at Xi Ya and said, "Princess, would you like to experience the life of a smelting furnace worker?"

Xi Ya slapped him playfully, "Am I not experiencing it now?"

"No, no, no, we were clearly doing master builders just now!" Zhou Ren said with a smile, "It doesn't count as smelting furnace workers at all!"

"Then let's experience it!" Xi Ya said. "I hope to use the tools here to make me a brand new legendary-grade staff!"

"Hmm... then we need to use a little creativity, and maybe we need to invite two dwarven forging masters!" Zhou Ren thought, "As for now, let's perfect this furnace first!"