Casting immortality in the furnace

Chapter 13 Divergence

On October 3rd, the weather is clear and sunny, making it an auspicious day for offering sacrifices, praying for blessings, and opening businesses.

When Fan Zhou got up early to practice his sword, he saw Qin Zhiyuan directing several people to set up the altar, hanging up bright red silk, placing fruits and offerings, and lighting incense burners to release purple smoke.

When he and Liu Ergou returned after practicing their swordsmanship, the altar had already been set up.

After breakfast, all the disciples gathered under the altar, their expressions solemn.

Qin Zhiyuan and Shen Yusheng stood at the front, representing the disciples of the Sword Furnace to offer incense to the ancestral masters of all generations, and to pray to the mountain gods, river gods, spirits and demons of this place, who were about to start construction and hoped for their full assistance.

Finally, the group brought a huge red-maned wild boar to the foot of the altar, where Qin Zhiyuan personally slaughtered it, offering the boar's head as a sacrifice, and sprinkling its blood on the ancestral tablet.

After a simple yet solemn ceremony, Qin Zhiyuan divided his eighty disciples into eight teams.

Each squad is led by a platoon leader and assisted by two corporals, who are responsible for leading the rest of the team in their work.

Two squads are combined into one large squad, led by a squad leader.

As for the deacons, they were responsible for supervising the disciples and assisting Qin Zhiyuan.

"start!"

With a wave of Qin Zhiyuan's hand, the eighty disciples instantly sprang into action.

Fan Zhou and Liu Ergou were assigned to the same squad. They followed the squad leader to the newly built warehouse, received tools such as axes, long saws, and hemp ropes, and finally went up the mountain together to cut down trees.

Before construction began, the squad leader introduced himself:

"My name is Han Jiangyue, and I am a disciple of the Sword Furnace Wuxiang Peak. You can just call me Senior Brother Han."

Everyone cupped their hands and greeted him as "Senior Brother Han".

Han Jiangyue was young, tall and slender, with fair skin and regular features. She looked to be only twenty-two or twenty-three years old. A small hammer was embroidered on the chest of her clothes.

Han Jiangyue's eyes sparkled, and she smiled:

"I'm planning to choose two of you to be corporals to assist me with my work. Who among you is willing to take on this challenge?"

"I!"

A short, thin man who looked to be in his thirties raised his hand and said, "I have experience in land reclamation in other markets as well."

"Okay, what's your name?" Han Jiangyue answered directly. He had already checked and this person had the strength of the third level of the Fetal Breathing Realm, which ranked him among the top three among the miscellaneous disciples under his command. He could easily become a squad leader.

The short, thin man said happily, "Senior Brother Han, my name is Zhang Kai, Zhang as in bow and long, and Kai as in opening a door."

Han Jiangyue nodded slightly. Seeing that no one else spoke, she had no choice but to personally appoint an elderly man with dark skin surnamed Sun as another squad leader.

After exchanging names, the group paired up and began working.

Fan Zhou was still with Liu Ergou.

Because they were the weakest, Han Jiangyue assigned them to prune the branches off the large trees that the others had already cut down.

With this, the land reclamation work of Langdang Mountain Market officially began.

Fan Zhou and his colleagues started work at 1:15 AM and finished at 3:45 PM every day.

Unlike before when there was no supervision, now there is a monthly target. If the task is not completed, a demerit will be recorded, and if it is repeated too many times, wages will be deducted.

Similarly, there are rewards for exceeding the task requirements.

This also caused some conflicts within Fan Zhou's team.

Zhang Kai requires everyone to work hard and strive to exceed their daily targets, so that everyone will receive a bonus at the end of the month.

But Lao Sun disagreed. He advocated that everyone should do as much as they were assigned, and that no one should slack off, as long as they could complete their tasks every day.

In the end, the two of them ended up arguing with Han Jiangyue.

Han Jiangyue actually preferred to do more, after all, he had only recently been promoted to a junior worker and hoped to do the work assigned by Qin Zhiyuan well.

But he didn't want to force others to do the work.

So he proposed that those who were willing to do more work should follow Zhang Kai, and those who were not willing to do more work should follow Lao Sun, thus dividing the entire team into two groups.

In the end, six people were willing to work harder for more pay, while four were not.

Fan Zhou and Liu Ergou were both unwilling.

Because they still need to practice swordsmanship at 5 PM, they don't want to delay their cultivation time by doing chores.

Zhang Kai was very satisfied with the result. After all, Fan Zhou and Liu Ergou had no cultivation. Even if they joined them, they would only be a hindrance. In the end, they might even have to share their rewards, which was not worth it at all.

Now that the two of them are with Lao Sun, it's perfect for them to annoy him—it's like a double blessing!

"Hmph, now you'll have to do more work whether you want to or not!"

Before leaving, Zhang Kai couldn't resist making a sarcastic remark about Lao Sun.

Old Sun had obviously thought of this as well, and his already dark face turned even darker.

He looked at Fan Zhou and the other person expressionlessly:

"Get to work! What are you standing there for?!"

Fan Zhou never expected that in the end, he and Liu Ergou would become the most disliked people in this farce.

But he didn't care.

He and Liu Ergou were the least capable and received the lowest salaries, so it wasn't worth it for them to do more work.

"Right now, spiritual practice should be the top priority!"

Fan Zhou was single-minded; he spent his days practicing swordsmanship and working, and his nights catching blood centipedes in the mountains.

The only pity is that we haven't been able to catch any big blood centipedes; we've mostly caught small ones.

As the weather gets colder, the blood centipedes will go into hibernation, making them even harder to catch.

.........

Half a month passed quickly, and everything proceeded smoothly.

That evening, Fan Zhou practiced the Nine Forms Sword as usual.

But this time, he clearly sensed something was different.

There's always a slight itchy feeling inside my body, like a tapeworm crawling around inside, leaving a faint warmth.

"Could this be essence and vital energy?"

Fan Zhou's spirits lifted. He had taken those three essence-nourishing pills during this period, and he could vaguely sense the existence of essence.

"We're so close! Let's get this over with today!"

Fan Zhou gritted his teeth and continued practicing his swordsmanship, focusing on feeling the energy within his body. He didn't respond when Liu Ergou called him to go eat.

As darkness gradually enveloped his figure, the sky darkened.

His muscles creaked and groaned, and wisps of white steam rose from his head. The sensation of that vital energy within him became increasingly real.

"Pop".

He seemed to hear a soft sound, and that wisp of energy finally leaped out of the water like a cunning fish, and was firmly captured by him!

"It's done!"

Fan Zhou clearly sensed that wisp of essence sinking into his lower dantian, and he laughed excitedly.

Everything is difficult at the beginning. With this bit of essence as a starting point, it will be much easier to gather more essence later!

Once the essence and energy are condensed into a single stream that can travel throughout the entire body, one has truly entered the first level of embryonic breathing—the Qi Gathering Realm.

Once one's vital energy is cultivated to the point of being as responsive as an arm or finger, and one can absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, one can be considered to have achieved the Great Perfection of Qi Gathering.

Fan Zhou let out a long breath, feeling completely relaxed.

During this time, he watched others perform magic and practice their skills every day, and he was always worried about what would happen if he couldn't even do the most basic thing of gathering his essence.

Fortunately, the thing I was worried about didn't happen.

Despite his lack of talent, he still took the first step on the path of cultivation!

"The next step is to continue conserving and nourishing your essence and energy, and cultivate it to the point where you can circulate it at will!"

Fan Zhou sorted out his thoughts and set out the plan for the second step.

"Besides that, there's..."

He focused his mind on the Heavenly Craft Furnace in his abdomen; the Ten Styles Sword had 36 days left to store his essence and blood.

"The next step is to find a way to speed up the forging of the Ten-Style Sword."

"The blood centipede wine is ready now, let's try it out later."

Fan Zhou made up his mind and regained his composure.

"Coo coo—!"

At the same time, a loud rumbling sound came from his stomach. The burning hunger almost made Fan Zhou's vision go black, so he quickly sat down on the ground to calm down.

"Oh no, it's past lunchtime. I wonder if there will be any food left in the cafeteria if I go now."

Just then, Liu Ergou returned after finishing his meal, carrying a large bowl with a plate on top of it.

"Ergou, you're truly my good brother!" Fan Zhou was almost in tears at this moment.

This guy actually thought of bringing him food, and even covered it with a plate to keep it warm.

"Why are you sitting on the ground?" Liu Ergou asked Fan Zhou in confusion.

Fan Zhou quickly stood up, took the large bowl from his hands, and said happily:

"Ergou, you're getting smarter and smarter... Hey, why didn't you bring your chopsticks?"

Liu Ergou was even more puzzled: "Why are you using chopsticks? Centipedes don't eat with their hands."

Fan Zhou's smile froze. He removed the covered plate, revealing a large bowl filled with blood underneath.

Liu Ergou said, "I saw you didn't go to the canteen, so I brought the blood back for you."

Fan Zhou fell silent.

He has been raising the blood centipedes he caught these past few days, waiting to set a trap to catch blood chickens when he goes hunting in the mountains with Hou Yi another day. So every day he asks for some animal blood from the canteen to feed the centipedes.

Fan Zhou gently reminded him, "Er Gou, actually... I didn't eat dinner either."

Liu Ergou looked at him smugly: "I know, I saved some food for you in the cafeteria!"

"What?" Fan Zhou looked at Liu Ergou in disbelief.

"Then why didn't you bring my food back!"

Liu Ergou was taken aback: "Then the centipede will go hungry, won't it?"

Fan Zhou: "...Six."