"But where exactly is the sword furnace hidden..."
It had been five days since the Nangong Family was wiped out. Aboard a small boat from Ink Bamboo Mountain, Liu Zhens, Du Gongshi, Chen Fushi, and Qin Jianshi sat around the four sides of a table. A sea chart of the waters near Flame Continent lay before them. They frowned in deep thought, unable to work it out.
Li Fan had done his duty as a page, serving tea to the four great masters.
Kun lay belly-down on the table, staring longingly at the candied fruit nearby.
"By rights, it should be hidden inside a volcano, shouldn't it?" Chen Fushi stroked his goatee.
Qin Jianshi said, "I went around the volcanoes these past two days. The people from the Profound Sect have occupied all the craters, so we can't get close.
"But they've been searching for four or five days too. They've uncovered a few ordinary refining chambers, but those were only used to make common Magic Treasures—embroidered robes, canopies, silk balls, that sort of thing. No sign of a treasure's radiance yet. Forget retrieving the swords; they probably haven't even found the sword furnace."
Chen Fushi frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Could it be somewhere outside the volcanoes? Are there any other sites nearby where swords could be forged?"
Liu Zhens shook his head. "Building a sword furnace isn't as simple as finding any cave and setting up a refining chamber. A single batch of swords can take a hundred and fifty years to forge. What cultivator could sit by the furnace day and night for all that time? And no one could afford the Spirit Stones needed to keep the formation running.
"So the furnace must have been built at a fixed site, following the spirit veins and the