Ming Dynasty, New Rome, and Infinite Divine Machine

[I'm going to keep quiet for a while. I'm afraid he'll detect me. You deal with him yourself. I'll watch.]

"What do you want to see me for?" Shangluo looked at the person who came in. The balcony was more than a hundred meters in the air. Such a big person couldn't have climbed up from the balcony just to see the scenery.

"Can I come up and talk first?" He asked Shangluo before entering Shangluo's private space.

With Shangluo's permission, he jumped over the guardrail and landed steadily on the ground.

"Huh, I'm actually a little afraid of heights. It's quite scary out there so high up."

"I think you're scarier! How the hell did you get up here? Can't you take the stairs to find me?"

"Those Mayans kept me under surveillance in the room, following me wherever I went. When I tried to come to your floor, they said I couldn't come here without a room card. So I had no choice but to resort to this desperate measure and climb up from the outside of the building. Listen, Shangluo, I have something important to tell you. You can't make this pill anymore."

"Wait, do you know that I am making medicine?" Shangluo finally confirmed that these Jinyiwei were indeed cultivators, and they were definitely not ordinary cultivators.

Finally finding someone who knew the business, he hurriedly asked Wen Yuan, "Is there something wrong with my recipe?"

"On the contrary—your formula is correct! It's precisely because of this that I had to come up and stop you. Shangluo, you're too impatient. This isn't how you refine an elixir, and this isn't the right mindset for a cultivator. You need to first learn the mind method and internal skills, gradually stabilizing your Dao foundation and Dao heart. Once you achieve unity between nature and man, and capture that wisp of destiny, then you can forge the foundation-building elixir."

Chapter 30 Danfang

"You actually know that this is the Foundation Establishment Pill?" Shangluo didn't expect that he could directly say the name.

"Of course everyone knows the name. What's important is what happens next."

"Then the formula of the Foundation Establishment Pill isn't a secret?"

"Yes and no. Foundation-building pills do exist, but I don't know anyone who has successfully built their foundation with them, at least not these few people so far. Pick up any copy of Baopuzi or any other book on alchemy, and you'll find similar recipes. They're recorded as various names like Huandan and Jindan, used to build different foundations, but one thing remains the same: alchemy isn't like stewing red-braised pork. As long as you get the recipe and steps right, you can eat the braised pork every time. But alchemy is different. Each refining process is unique, and each time you refine it, you must capture your own state of mind. What's your current state of mind?"

"I want to make an elixir?" Shang Luo reviewed his state of mind and gave a clear answer, "That's right, my current state of mind is to make an elixir."

"This is absolutely unacceptable! I smelled the scent of osmanthus wood upstairs, so I came up to stop you immediately - you can't make pills just for the sake of making pills, that's too utilitarian. You can only make something like a red pill, without any spiritual energy, only evil energy. This won't help you build your foundation at all, it will only lead you astray in your alchemy. You seem to be getting more and more right, there really is hope..."

He looked up at the sky and said, "If I had known this would happen, I shouldn't have come here alone. I should have asked my master to do it. But even he is biding his time and hasn't started practicing yet."

After saying this, he looked Shangluo in the eyes again and said, "Please believe me, alchemy is not just stewing meat or soup. Your inner fire is too strong right now, and you can't make a golden elixir at all. You didn't even crush these herbs yourself, nor did you prepare the right fuel yourself. These were all prepared for you by others, and you didn't even infuse them with your own spiritual energy."

"But I did some divination. I started refining pills because of the result of divination."

"Huh?" Wen Yuan was stunned for a moment. "That hits a point I'm blind to. Are you saying this is your destiny? How did you divine it?"

"That's right. I have my own way. I even found the recipe for the elixir through divination."

"Can divination reveal something as specific as a pill formula?!" Wen Yuan was completely shocked. "They say the secrets of heaven are fleeting, so how could it possibly reveal a detailed pill formula? If such a thing were truly possible, the old Emperor Jiajing would have ascended to heaven long ago."

"But Heaven did tell me," Shangluo pointed to the pot in front of him, where his blood was boiling. Everything had been prepared step by step, and everything was proceeding according to the "divine secrets" revealed.

"Fuck! I hadn't noticed!" Wen Yuan's pupils suddenly twitched, as if she had seen something terrifying:

"What are you using as a Huachi? Why does it smell like blood? You're not using your own essence, energy, and blood, are you?"

"Ah, this... is not okay? It's my blood, not someone else's."

"You're refining a demon pill! How can you use your own blood to refine it? If you refine it like this, something terrible will happen!"

"But the divination said it's this recipe."

"Well..." Wen Yuan didn't know what to do. "It looks like your pill is working, but it's still a little short of perfection. Regardless, there must be divine will and Dao Qi in it. If I delay you from capturing Dao Qi, I'll be committing a great sin."

When he said this, even Shangluo was a little panicked:

"Wen Yuan. Oh no, Fellow Daoist Wen! You are knowledgeable, right? So what should I do now? Should I continue to build my foundation?"

"It's hard to predict God's will." Wen Yuan shook her head. "It's hard for me to say, and I don't know how to put it. But I can ask for you."

"So should I wait here? Or should I stop for a while?"

"Once you start refining the elixir, you can't stop. You have to finish it. Things born from nature and nurtured by nature will condense into something new within the elixir furnace. Whatever condenses is considered your luck, because it is your 'self-made thing' that you have seized from the good fortune of heaven and earth. However, considering your cultivation level, it shouldn't be a big problem. How about this."

He suggested, "Wait for me for a moment. I'll call my master and ask him."

"How long until you get back? I'm afraid the liquid will boil away before you get back."

"Keep the heat at this level and don't move. I'll be right back! If my master can't make up his mind, he can ask his master too."

After saying this, he turned around and was about to flip down - but after taking a look down, he retracted his head.

"No, I'm a little afraid of heights. Shangluo, can I leave your place?"

"Go ahead." Shangluo stood up and made room for him.

Wen Yuan thanked him and walked in through the door.

As he walked, his eyes were fixed on the blood cauldron. He simply couldn't bear to look at it, but he was also afraid. He would never dare to refine such a thing.

"Be careful, be careful." He told Shangluo, then walked out quickly.

The large cauldron before him was still seething with blood. Small bubbles were already forming. The smell had also changed from the initial rusty smell to a strong, bloody odor. The bloody odor, mixed with the pungent scent of osmanthus wood, made Shangluo's eyes redden.

"Hey, hey, hey, Miss Apollonia, is there something wrong? Is there something wrong with the recipe you gave? You scared all the professionals! And why does the stuff in this pot look so wrong the more I look at it? Is this really a Foundation Establishment Pill, not some demon pill recipe?"

Apollonia fell into a long silence. "That's what God said. I just conveyed God's will."

"What about bloodletting?"

[Bleeding is your own choice. However, destiny also anticipated your choice, because you divined this entire matter. What you seek is the elixir that can help you build your foundation. Even if these in the furnace can't directly help you build your foundation, they will definitely be very useful to you. So, proceed at your own pace. This is your own destiny, divined for yourself. Don't let others sway you.]

She paused, as if glancing around:

These materials, gathered for you by others, the unprocessed wood, and the improvised cauldron. They may seem random, but they are likely part of your destiny. I don't believe in rules; I simply believe everyone has their own path. So, go for it. Perhaps this is the path you should choose.

Chapter 31 Dan Cheng

The pill is ready.

Shangluo didn't know if the refining was complete. But the blood in the pot had evaporated. He had to either add another packet or stop here.

【Do you want to continue going inside? 】

"Forget it. I now understand why no one uses blood to make pills. One person can only use 400 milliliters, and any more is simply unbearable. Even if I use a low fire, it won't last for more than a few hours. And if I use the blood of several more people to make the pill, I don't dare to imagine what will happen. Let's stop here. And you've calculated it. Am I doing the right thing?"

[That Jinyiwei also said the recipe is fine, so it should be fine. It's just that the time for refining the elixir might be wrong—you're using your own blood to make the elixir anyway, so why bother with the time?]

"Okay." Looking at the results in front of him, Shangluo always felt something was wrong.

Inside the large cauldron in front of me was a mass of dark red, pitch-black matter. It was like making a pot of sugar color and then leaving it there unused, only to evaporate and dry up the next day, leaving this structure.

Of course, these things in front of me did not have the attractive color of sugar at all. They were just dark red blood mixed with a lot of minerals. It was not aggregated into a pill at all, but was muddy, a mass of blood-red mud.

"So, are you sure this thing is edible? Is this what medicinal pills are supposed to look like? Why do I feel like I just made a bunch of medicinal dregs?"

"Well, maybe you're missing the calcination step. You need to put these crude products into a real alchemy furnace to burn and solidify them before they can become elixirs. Why not wait for him to come back and ask him? I only know the recipe, but you still have to master the actual operation yourself."

Shangluo didn't just sit there and wait. He used a bamboo knife to slowly gather the red mud in the furnace and formed it into a ball, but it still couldn't take shape.

"My master asked you to continue practicing. Don't stop, okay?" Wen Yuan's voice suddenly appeared behind him.

"Wow! How come you walk without making any sound?"

"Whether there's sound or not just depends on whether you can hear it. My master always complains that my footsteps are too loud when I'm wandering around. He gets annoyed just by me being around. That's the downside of the Thunder Refining Technique: a bad temper. You probably haven't strengthened your five senses because you practice a different technique than I do. Which style do you practice?"

"Don't you know I haven't practiced before?" Shangluo asked him back. He remembered that this was the first question Wen Yuan asked after climbing up from the balcony.

"You really haven't practiced before?! I thought you just didn't have a master and practiced it yourself. Raise your hand, I'll take your pulse."

He sat down next to Shangluo and held his wrist.

Feeling a cold breath probing along his wrist, Shangluo asked, "How is it? Do you know?"

"Hmm," Wen Yuan closed her eyes and thought for a long time, "something's not right. Maybe my experience is too shallow, because I have only read a few martial arts books circulated among the Jinyiwei. But your performance is completely different from theirs. I don't feel any energy flowing through your body at all."

"What do you mean?"

"That's right. It's like there's nothing. But the ability you displayed does seem like you can sense true energy. After all, you fixed the generators in the garrison before—you can't be talking to a machine, right? Haha~hahaha~~"

“.” Shangluo was stunned.

"???" Wen Yuan's smile froze in place. "Are you really talking to a machine?"

"Well, maybe, it can be understood this way."

"Wait a minute." Wen Yuan reached to her waist and took out her jade token. "Look at what it says."

Shangluo felt the jade token with his hand: "Seems a bit... anxious? It seems like something is always pulling him, and it's a very strong attraction. Which direction is it?"

He reached to his waist and took out his badge.

The moment the two plaques came within their respective visual ranges—with a snap, they were drawn together like magnets, even though they were half a meter apart. Lightning flickered faintly through the gaps, and the tightly sealed plaques were stuck together, unable to be pried apart.

"Do you really know?" Wen Yuan was stunned. This was a situation he had never encountered before.

"But this isn't a machine, is it? Aren't these just two signs?"

"Although this isn't a machine, it's a magical instrument," Wen Yuan replied. "It's a yin-yang plaque, crafted from mammoth tusk and white jade. The two instruments are bound together by a yin-yang inscription, so when they meet, they'll be drawn together. This is something the Jinyiwei use as a token of trust when they meet. So, are you really talking to the instrument? What did it say?"

Shangluo expressed his feelings: "He didn't say anything, it just expressed a vague emotion."

"Unbelievable, truly unbelievable." Wen Yuan held up two plaques, but he couldn't sense any meaning behind them. "Is my cultivation inadequate? Or are you practicing some strange technique I'm unaware of? I can't figure it out. Putting that aside, have you finished refining your elixir?"

"It's here." Shangluo made room for Wen Yuan to look at what was inside the furnace.

"Oh~~ It looks quite good, there's some genuine energy in it." To his surprise, Wen Yuan actually gave it a good review, as if the furnace was actually full of good elixirs.

"This is the foundation-building pill?"

"Although it doesn't look like it to the naked eye, the approach is correct. But it might still be a little short of the right temperature to form a pill. It might need some medicinal ingredients, or it might need to be calcined for a while longer. Let me explain to you why."

Wen Yuan gave him an example: "You know about industrial machine tools, right? Ming Dynasty technology is the best in the world because we're world-leading in craftsmanship. And industrial machine tools can't produce equipment with higher precision than our own. Similarly, in Theravada Buddhism, there's the concept of 'Sravaka Arhats.' This view holds that the only way to attain enlightenment is to hear the Dharma from a Buddha who has already attained enlightenment, hence the term 'Sravaka Arhats.' But there's a problem here."

He pointed at the elixir, "When I pinched your pulse, I clearly couldn't feel any flow of true energy. But the elixir you refined with your blood, combined with some ordinary materials, actually has true energy flowing through it. Although it's still a little short of a successful elixir, it's only one step away. It's truly incredible. Could this be the power of creation? Legend has it that when ascending to heaven, the heavens will send down a thunder tribulation. Thunder tribulation is the power drawn from above. Only after undergoing the training of thunder tribulation can one truly ascend to the immortal path. Thunder tribulation is the realm bestowed by creation. But can you really use these things to draw the power of creation?"

Chapter 32 Immortal Root

"Is this possible?"

"It's not impossible. The power of creation can appear anywhere. Take Sun Wukong on Mount Huaguo for example. If he really existed, then Sun Wukong was born and raised by nature, a gathering of the power of creation. So when Sun Wukong first met the Dragon King of the East China Sea, he told him that he was a 'natural saint.' But are you Sun Wukong? You don't look like one. You don't have facial hair. Or perhaps you have good fortune helping you, or a powerful being protecting you?"

Wen Yuan speculated on many possibilities, but he himself couldn't figure it out. Shangluo's elixir seemed to appear out of thin air, inexplicably sensing the "created power of heaven and earth," generating "true qi" out of nothing.

"How about you try to make medicine first. If not, we can replace it with a better furnace, or take it back to the capital and think of a solution." Wen Yuan suggested.

"It's okay to try, but how do you eat this lump?"

"Don't worry, don't worry, I brought it for you." He took out a small bag from behind. The bag was labeled "high-gluten flour". It was produced in the food processing plant of the San Francisco Garrison.

He shook the flour and pointed at the red mud in the pot: "Pour the flour in. It will just be enough to make the red mud into balls. That's it."

“Use flour???”

"Yeah, why can't you use flour? Flour is the essence of whole grains and cereals, and it's not considered an impurity anywhere. You can also add starch and honey. Otherwise, how do you think those pills on the market are made?"

"No." Shangluo shook his head. "The recipe doesn't mention flour, so I can't add flour."

"That makes sense." Wen Yuan put the flour away. "You have some good fortune in this, and I don't know where it came from. There's only a ray of good fortune in the world, and it's hard to come by. Our approach is to leave it alone as long as it works. Tsk, my master always fails to refine the elixir, and I've always wondered if he's too rigid and doesn't dare to go beyond the line. If he knew you could refine an elixir of this caliber, he'd probably be so pissed he'd have a stomachache. He still hasn't dared to refine an elixir."

"Oh, right." Shangluo raised his head and asked him, "What did your master say? You were on the phone for a long time."

"He immediately made a phone call back to the capital, and then immediately asked me to come back and tell me not to stop. As expected, you really did refine this pill. Is this roughly one revolution? It may take another revolution before it becomes a golden pill. So it's best not to eat it now. Building a foundation is not that simple. Wait until we get it back to Yujing and we have prepared everything for you before you eat it. You must know that the spiritual energy between heaven and earth is only a thin line. If you succeed in building a foundation, the empire will have one more top-notch fighter. We all hope that you can succeed so that we can pave the way for others. And if anything goes wrong with you, other fellow disciples will be able to save you in time."

"Did he mention the 270 million?"

"270 million?" Wen Yuan scratched his head. "What 270 million? You're not talking about those welding stations that exploded, are you?"

"Yeah, yeah, what about those?"

"Hey!" Wen Yuan slapped her thigh. "I thought you were running away, why are you worried about this? That's just the Thunder Dragon exploding the warehouse. You know the Thunder Dragon exploding the warehouse, right? It's just like the Fire Dragon burning the warehouse, a traditional craft of our Ming Dynasty. It's not that much. Only 50 taels."

"50 taels? I can't even pay that back!"

"Who said you should pay it back? You are our guard's military craftsman, the court will take responsibility for you. Don't worry, the court is very rich, no one will pursue this matter with you. After all, even the radishes have been eaten by everyone."

"Radish?" Shangluo blinked. "What radish?"

"Ah! Oh, right, I forgot to mention it. Do you know why I was so surprised when I saw you using human blood to make the elixir? Because you didn't use the ready-made spiritual objects, so there was no need to use blood at all."

"You mean? Turnips? Those turnips from San Francisco?"

"correct."