Mysterious Black Stone, Furnace Stirs

The night wind howled, carrying the faint clamor and chaotic aura drifting from the distant Leopard Garden as it swept through the silent corners of the Lin Family estate.

A black shadow flashed over the eaves like lightning, landing soundlessly within that dilapidated little courtyard. It was none other than Lin Chen, returning with a full haul.

He swiftly slipped inside, bolted the creaking wooden door behind him, then leaned against it and slowly, soundlessly let out a long breath of stale air.

Only now did his heart, which had been pounding wildly with excitement and tension, settle somewhat.

That had been too thrilling!

Though tonight's operation had been fraught with danger and had nearly exposed him several times, the final results had far surpassed his expectations!

Five mature Crimson Sun Grass plants!

Nearly a thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones! Several precious Mid-grade Spirit Stones!

A pile of valuable medicinal pills!

Several low-tier magical artifacts and talismans he could not recognize!

There were even several seemingly extraordinary ancient books that Lin Bao had carefully hoarded!

Of course, what excited and concerned him most was still the mysterious black brocade box he had kept close to his body—the one that had triggered such a violent reaction from the Myriad Dao Furnace!

"Whew..." Lin Chen took another deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

Now was not the time to gloat. The Leopard Garden had been robbed, and the theft of the Crimson Sun Grass in particular would certainly cause a tremendous uproar within the Lin Family! Great Elder Lin Zhenhong would undoubtedly fly into a rage and mobilize every resource to investigate! Though Lin Chen had acted discreetly enough and left behind no direct evidence, given Lin Zhenhong's old fox's cunning and his hatred for him, there was no guarantee that suspicion would not fall upon him.

Over the next few days, he had to keep an even lower profile! Be even more cautious! He could not reveal the slightest flaw!

At the same time, he needed to turn these "spoils of war" into strength as quickly as possible! Only becoming stronger himself was the foundation for facing every crisis!

With that thought, Lin Chen stopped hesitating. He walked over to the battered wooden table in the room and carefully took out the storage pouch from his robes, the five Crimson Sun Grass plants, and that mysterious black brocade box.

Under the dim lamplight, the crimson leaves of the Crimson Sun Grass, like burning flames, gave off an enticing scorching aura and rich medicinal fragrance, making the entire room seem several degrees warmer.

Lin Chen's gaze first fell upon the five precious second-tier spirit herbs.

These were truly good things! They contained pure yang energy. Not only could they heal injuries and prolong life, but they could also greatly raise the cultivation and physical strength of Body Tempering Realm martial artists! They were especially priceless to martial artists who cultivated fire-attribute techniques or needed to temper their yang energy!

Although the optimized version of the Basic Qi Refining Art that Lin Chen cultivated was not a purely fire-attribute technique, the Myriad Dao Furnace could refine all things! Energy of any attribute could be perfectly purified and transformed by it into the pure energy best suited to him!

"I'll first use the Spirit Stones and Crimson Sun Grass to push my cultivation to the peak of the fifth level, then perhaps attempt to break through to the sixth!" Lin Chen quickly made his decision.

He carefully set the five Crimson Sun Grass plants aside, then dumped all the Spirit Stones he had looted from the storage pouch, along with those he had left from before, onto the table in one go.

Clatter!

Nearly a thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones, along with several Mid-grade Spirit Stones the size of pigeon eggs that emitted even stronger energy fluctuations, piled together in the dim light and gleamed enticingly, forming a small "mountain of Spirit Stones"!

So many Spirit Stones were enough to drive any outer disciple—or even inner disciple—of the Lin Family mad!

A fiery gleam flashed through Lin Chen's eyes, but he did not immediately begin refining the Spirit Stones.

Instead, his gaze turned toward the black brocade box that had been making his heart itch all this time!

Anything capable of provoking such an intense reaction from the Myriad Dao Furnace was absolutely no ordinary object!

He carefully picked up the brocade box, cool to the touch and made of some unusual material, and examined it closely once more. Its surface was smooth and without any patterns. Only along the edge of the lid were several extremely fine, nearly imperceptible runes, seemingly meant to block aura or energy detection.

Lin Chen tried probing the inside of the brocade box with his Spiritual Power, but it was like a clay ox vanishing into the sea. An invisible barrier blocked it completely, leaving him unable to glimpse anything within.

"Just as I thought, there's something strange about it." Lin Chen's eyes narrowed. The more mysterious it was, the more it proved the preciousness of what lay inside!

He no longer hesitated and gently opened the brocade box.

Buzz...

An indescribable, ancient and obscure yet strangely profound fluctuation—seemingly from the primordial dawn of time and containing some ultimate truth of heaven and earth—instantly spread from within the brocade box!

It was not a powerful burst of energy, yet it made Lin Chen's mind tremble violently! It was as though his very soul had been washed and stirred by something!

He hurriedly focused his eyes on it!

There, resting quietly upon the brocade box's silk lining, was a black stone roughly the size of an infant's fist.

The stone was pitch-black throughout, its surface rough and utterly unremarkable, like an ordinary rock casually tossed by the roadside.

Yet unlike any other stone, nine holes of varying sizes and depths had naturally formed upon its surface!

The arrangement of those nine openings appeared chaotic, yet it faintly conformed to some profound law, as if they were traces left by the natural evolution of the Great Dao of heaven and earth!

Thread after thread of an exceedingly faint yet exceptionally pure aura, like the primordial source aura born when chaos first opened, slowly drifted out from those nine openings. Intertwined with that ancient and obscure fluctuation, it formed an indescribably mysterious charm!

"Nine openings... black stone?" Lin Chen's heart gave a violent leap!

Though his knowledge was shallow, he had once seen scattered records about wondrous treasures of heaven and earth in the family's tattered miscellanies and ancient books.

Among them seemed to be mention of a legendary object known as the Nine-Orifice Wonder Stone!

It was said that this wonder stone had been born from the chaos at the dawn of heaven and earth. It naturally possessed nine openings and secretly accorded with the Nine Palaces, Eight Trigrams, and the ultimate principles of heaven and earth! Each opening seemed to connect to a small world or some primordial law! If one could comprehend its mysteries, one could ascend to the heavens in a single step and wield supreme power!

Of course, that was merely a legend. It was said that true Nine-Orifice Wonder Stones had long since vanished in the endless river of time, or had been acquired by mighty figures capable of reaching the heavens and piercing the earth.

Though the black stone before him also had nine openings, its aura was weak and it looked utterly ordinary. It probably... could not possibly be that legendary heaven-defying supreme treasure, could it?

Perhaps it was merely a rather peculiar stone with a similar form?

But...

Lin Chen felt the Myriad Dao Furnace within his Dantian Sea of Qi tremble violently once more at the appearance of this black stone, humming as it conveyed an incomparably intense yearning!

In an instant, he overturned his own speculation!

This stone was absolutely no ordinary thing!

Even if it was not the legendary Nine-Orifice Wonder Stone, it was undoubtedly a supreme treasure with some mysterious connection to the origin of heaven and earth—or to the Myriad Dao Furnace!

Otherwise, there was simply no way to explain the furnace's nearly uncontrollable reaction!

"Th-this... what exactly is this?" Lin Chen trembled all over with excitement as he cautiously reached out, wanting to touch the mysterious Nine-Orifice Black Stone.

Yet just as his fingertips were about to touch the black stone—

BZZZZ!!!

The Myriad Dao Furnace abruptly erupted with an unprecedented, terrifying suction force that seemed capable of devouring everything!

This suction was not directed at Lin Chen, but acted directly upon the Nine-Orifice Black Stone!

Whoosh!

Before Lin Chen's horrified eyes, the mysterious Nine-Orifice Black Stone seemed to answer an irresistible summons, instantly turning into a streak of black light and flying straight out of the brocade box, then...

With a soft plop!

Like a drop of water merging into the sea, it plunged directly into Lin Chen's Dantian Sea of Qi! It instantly fused with the black iron shard—the core of the floating Myriad Dao Furnace!

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!!!!

In that instant!

Lin Chen felt as though his Dantian Sea of Qi were about to explode completely!

An indescribable torrent of terrifying information—vast and majestic, ancient and desolate, as though it contained the birth and destruction of the cosmos and the cycles of all Dao—burst into his Sea of Consciousness like the Milky Way of the Ninth Heaven pouring through opened floodgates! Compared to the information stream from when he had previously refined cultivation techniques, this torrent was an ocean against a trickling stream!

At the same time!

The black iron shard—the core of the Myriad Dao Furnace now fused with the Nine-Orifice Black Stone—began undergoing an earthshaking transformation!

The black iron shard, originally only palm-sized, suddenly began to expand! The ancient, obscure patterns on its surface became clearer and more intricate, as though countless stars were being born and perishing within them!

And the nine natural apertures began to spin madly like nine profound black holes! Each aperture seemed connected to an unknown world filled with endless mysteries!

Strands of strange energy, purer and more primordial, even carrying a trace of chaotic Aura, slowly seeped out from those nine apertures and merged into the furnace itself!

At this moment, the furnace's Aura became deeper! More vast! More... unfathomable!

As though an Ancient Beast that had slumbered for hundreds of millions of years had finally awakened a sliver of its true power!

Yet Lin Chen, bearing the brunt of this upheaval, felt as if he had been cast into a boundless expanse of chaos!

His consciousness was battered by that terrifying torrent of information until it was on the verge of scattering! Countless images, countless sounds, countless runes, countless laws... surged into his mind like an incoming tide!

They were the birth and destruction of stars! The evolution and reincarnation of worlds! The burning of fire! The rushing of water! The roar of thunder! The propagation of life! The silence of death! The origins and destinations of all Dao in the world—metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, light, darkness...

This information was too immense! Too profound! Too far... beyond the scope of his current understanding!

He felt as though his head were a balloon about to burst, liable to collapse completely at any moment!

"Ah—!!!"

Lin Chen could not help letting out a pained roar! He clutched his head with both hands, veins bulging as his face twisted with extreme agony! Beads of sweat rolled down like raindrops!

He felt as though his soul were about to be torn apart by this terrifying torrent of information!

Just as he could no longer endure it, as his consciousness was about to collapse completely—

BZZZZ!!!

The Myriad Dao Furnace released another strange hum!

From within the nine wildly spinning apertures suddenly spread a strange fluctuation—gentle and cool, yet carrying an unsurpassable power of suppression!

Like a needle that steadied the sea, this fluctuation instantly swept through Lin Chen's Sea of Consciousness! It forcibly suppressed, sorted, and sealed away the frenzied, chaotic torrent of information! Only a small portion of relatively basic information, which he could barely understand and withstand at his current level, was left to slowly merge into the memories of his soul.

Huff...

As if he had been pulled back from the brink of drowning, Lin Chen suddenly began gasping for breath. His entire body was drenched in cold sweat, as though he had just been hauled out of the water.

The searing pain gradually receded, replaced by unprecedented exhaustion, along with... an indescribable clarity and enlightenment!

Though the vast majority of the information had been sealed away, he had still glimpsed a shocking secret concerning heaven and earth, the myriad Dao, and the furnace itself...

The Myriad Dao Furnace was not merely a tool for "refining"! It was more like a... "Dao Seed"?! A Chaos Dao Seed containing the origins of all Dao, capable of refining the heavens and evolving all laws?!

And that Nine-Orifice Black Stone seemed to be a... "Dao Foundation"?! Something born alongside this "Dao Seed," used to bear and connect the myriad Dao?!

Only through the fusion of the two had this Myriad Dao Furnace, dormant for who knew how many years, truly begun to awaken?!

Lin Chen was utterly shaken by his own conjecture!

This... this was completely beyond the bounds of his imagination!

A Dao Seed? A Dao Foundation? Refining the heavens? Evolving all laws?

It sounded even more mythical than myth itself!

Yet the terrifying torrent of information from before, along with the enormous changes now occurring within the furnace, told him with incomparable clarity that none of this was an illusion!

He seemed... to have inadvertently touched upon an unimaginable, earth-shattering secret!

"Whew..." Lin Chen let out another long breath of turbid air, striving to calm his surging emotions.

Though he still could not fully comprehend it all, he knew that after fusing with the Nine-Orifice Black Stone, the Myriad Dao Furnace had become even more powerful! And even more... mysterious!

He could clearly feel that the furnace was operating faster! Its refining and purification efficiency had grown higher! Even the range and speed at which it absorbed Spiritual Qi had increased severalfold over before!

Moreover, those nine mysterious apertures seemed to contain even more profound functions. It was merely that, with his current cultivation and realm, he could not yet fully open or use them.

"No matter what, this is an enormous stroke of fortune!" An unprecedented gleam burst from Lin Chen's eyes!

With this even more powerful Myriad Dao Furnace, his future path of cultivation would become smoother! Even more... limitless!

He forcibly suppressed the urge to immediately explore the furnace's new abilities, knowing that his most urgent task was still to raise his cultivation!

He turned his gaze once more toward the mountain-like pile of spirit stones on the table, as well as the five stalks of Crimson Sun Grass radiating scorching Aura!

"Begin!"

Lin Chen's gaze was resolute as he sat down cross-legged once more!

This time, he would not only charge toward the peak of the Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer—he would even try to touch the threshold of the Body Tempering Realm Sixth Layer!

Myriad Dao Furnace (Upgraded Version)! Operate at full power!

Optimized "Basic Qi Refining Art"! Driven to the utmost limit!

Spirit stones! Crimson Sun Grass! Refine for me!!!

An even more violent, even more surging, even purer torrent of energy once again stirred up a frenzy of cultivation within this ruined little courtyard!

Lin Chen's Aura, as if riding a roller coaster into the clouds, once more began soaring madly upward at a speed that left one utterly dumbfounded!

Peak of the Fifth Layer's middle stage!

Fifth Layer late stage!

Peak of the Fifth Layer's late stage!

Ever closer to the Body Tempering Realm Sixth Layer!