Boom!
The sound burst out like muffled thunder.
Xuanming walked to the window and looked toward the sound. It had come from Blazing Fire Peak. As his spiritual awareness swept over it, understanding dawned.
"So his furnace exploded."
Billowing smoke filled the artifact-refining chamber. Xuan Yang emerged covered in soot and dust, coughing incessantly from the fumes.
Immediately afterward, another deafening crash rang out.
Xuanming looked again, this time toward Firecloud Peak.
His junior brother Xuan Kong had blown up his cooking pot. Smoke and flames filled the kitchen, and he was blackened from head to toe.
His spiritual awareness covered both peaks. Listening to the surrounding disciples' discussions, Xuanming learned the whole story.
It turned out the two Daoists had been doing this for the past half month. Exploding furnaces and pots had almost become their daily bread. He also heard Xuan Yin and Xuan Tong talking and learned that Xuan Yang and Xuan Kong had gained insight into the Yin-Yang Foundation Establishment Manual, filled the gaps in their Dao Foundation, and advanced from the fourth rank to the fifth.
All their current commotion was an attempt to glimpse the Qi Refining Threshold and feel their way toward their own Legalist Intent.
By now, aside from him and Xuanxu, all six remaining third-generation Daoists of the Truth-Seeking Abbey had gained insight into the Yin-Yang Foundation Establishment Manual.
Xuan Tong and Xuan Yin had done so after the Chen clan's destruction; Xuan Yu, after watching his discussion of the Dao with True Person Yuanji. Xuan Su had been the first, and Xuan Kong and Xuan Yang had finally caught up.
New bamboo rose higher than the old branches, supported entirely by the older stalks; when new shoots sprouted next year, towering dragon shoots would encircle the Phoenix pool. In them,