The Ambition of Industrial Artifact Refining

Generally speaking.

Apart from the miners and overseers at the Red Copper Mine Site, as well as the Chen Family's two remaining cultivators, hardly anyone lived in the Red Copper Mountain Range.

Most members of the Chen Family lived in a county city called Changping County.

Changping County lay on the plains not far from the foot of the Red Copper Mountain Range. The county city backed onto the Red Copper Mountain Range and faced the two freshwater lakes of Twin Lakes Island—Sun Moon Lake. To its right was Twin Lakes Island's deepwater port.

However, the Myriad Star Sea differed from Earth's oceans. Aside from fish resources, Demonic Beasts frequently appeared in its waters, so few mortals dared fish at sea.

Over time, this deepwater port was all but abandoned.

Other than Clan Leader Chen Xianhe occasionally leading the clan's younger members by boat to purchase supplies, the port was rarely used.

Changping County had a population of roughly three thousand, all of them members of the Chen Family.

It was not that the Chen Family had produced only this many people over three hundred years.

Rather, cultivation resources on the island were scarce, and the number of cultivators in the clan had never risen. By now, only Chen Xianhe and Chen Daoxuan remained.

In the Myriad Star Sea, without enough cultivators for protection, allowing the population to multiply in great numbers would only turn them into the blood food of Demonic Beasts.

The Demonic Beast calamity that had struck Changping County ten years ago was a living example.

Although the Demonic Beasts that had ravaged Changping County then had merely been the lowest-level beasts, not even ranked.

To mortals, even such lowest-level Demonic Beasts were foes they could not contend against.

And with Chen Xianhe alone, protecting Changping County inevitably proved more than he could handle.

This was the fundamental reason why the Chen Family's population had never been able to grow.

Without enough cultivators to protect them, they could not expand the population. Without population, they could not increase the number of family cultivators. The two complemented each other.

Changping County Yamen.

County Magistrate Chen Zhi led the County Assistant, Chief Clerk, and a group of other officials as they saw Chen Daoxuan out of the County Yamen.

Looking at the officials before him, the parental officials of Changping County, Chen Daoxuan instructed, "The County Yamen must fully cooperate with the person in charge of the Red Copper Mine Site in mining the Red Copper Mine. You must not neglect your duties!"

"We shall obey the immortal master's decree!"

The blazing sun hung overhead. County Magistrate Chen Zhi wore an embroidered official robe, and despite the sweat pouring down his face, he hurriedly nodded in acknowledgment.

Seeing the Changping County Magistrate's attitude, Chen Daoxuan relaxed slightly. He did not waste any more words, immediately cast the Wind Riding Technique, and rode the wind away.

As they watched Chen Daoxuan depart on the wind, the officials of Changping County revealed an inexpressible envy in their eyes.

Having dealt with the Red Copper Mine mining matter.

Chen Daoxuan's tightly wound nerves gradually relaxed.

The family now had only Thirteenth Uncle and himself as cultivators. And with Thirteenth Uncle Chen Xianhe already advanced in years, the pressure Chen Daoxuan had to bear was far beyond what cultivators from other Cultivation Families could imagine.

Unless he was willing to abandon the family and become a Rogue Cultivator.

But when he thought of Thirteenth Uncle's meticulous care for him over all these years, and how Thirteenth Uncle had even been willing to give up his own Dao path to fulfill him so selflessly.

Chen Daoxuan could never bring himself to abandon the family.

Very soon.

Chen Daoxuan landed atop a hill not far from his Cave Mansion.

This hill was the family's second most important place besides the Red Copper Mine—the Earth Fire Chamber.

When the Chen Family's ancestor had established the Chen Family's foundations on Twin Lakes Island, he had discovered not only the Red Copper Mine, but also that beneath the island lay a connected Earth Fire Vein.

For a cultivation force, something like an Earth Fire Vein was no less important than a mere miniature Spirit Mine.

Yet utilizing an Earth Fire Vein was not easy. A structure known as an Earth Fire Chamber had to be built first.

Unfortunately, the Chen Family's ancestor had only been a Rogue Cultivator and simply lacked the ability to construct an Earth Fire Chamber.

It was not until the family's cultivators of the "Immortal" generation rose to prominence, when the family once had thirteen cultivators, that they obtained the inheritance needed to build an Earth Fire Chamber through Battle Merit.

In other words, the building before Chen Daoxuan had been constructed no more than a hundred years ago.

Of course, the exact year was unknown to Chen Daoxuan, as there were no records within the family.

Taking a deep breath, Chen Daoxuan pushed open the Earth Fire Chamber's heavy bronze doors.

With a teeth-grating creak, the bronze doors slowly opened. As they swung wide, a wave of heat rushed at him.

The sensation was strikingly similar to standing beside a smelting furnace in a steel mill in his previous life.

This was where Chen Daoxuan had spent the most time over the past five years.

When the family had built this Earth Fire Chamber, its greatest hope had been to nurture an Artifact Forger for the family.

Yet most cultivators of the Immortal generation had spent their entire lives striving for it, only to die body and soul without seeing that day.

Of course, the Immortal generation's sacrifices had not been meaningless. It was precisely their desperate struggles on the battlefield that had won them a structure like the Earth Fire Chamber, and a second-tier Artifact Forger inheritance.

Without their sacrifices, the Chen Family of Twin Lakes Island would never have had a day when it could nurture an Artifact Forger.

The Chen Family's Earth Fire Chamber consisted of three buildings.

The main building was the one Chen Daoxuan had just entered. It was where the fire vein was gathered.

The two slightly shorter buildings beside it had been built by clan members at Chen Daoxuan's command. Their plaques respectively bore the words "Drafting Room" and "Laboratory."

After performing his routine inspection of the formations within the Earth Fire Chamber, Chen Daoxuan came out and pushed open the door to the nearby Laboratory.

Compared to the scorching heat of the Earth Fire Chamber, the Laboratory was much cooler.

However, compared with the clean and orderly Earth Fire Chamber, the inside of the Laboratory was a mess.

All kinds of materials were piled everywhere, most of them Spirit Mine ores Chen Daoxuan used in Artifact Refining.

Beyond that, in the Laboratory's most conspicuous spot stood a cylindrical object roughly a zhang in diameter. It seemed somewhat out of place amid the Laboratory's antiquated style.

If a worker from an Earth steel mill had been present, they would have found that this object bore a seven- or eight-tenths resemblance to a modern Steel Smelting Furnace.

But compared with Earth's Steel Smelting Furnaces, the inside of this cylindrical object was covered in Formation Patterns, lending it an additional air of mystery.

Chen Daoxuan entered the Laboratory and stared at the enormous object before him, his eyes filled with complicated emotions.

After five full years of failure, he had no choice but to admit that he had made things seem far too simple.

The moment he had first come into contact with the Artifact Forging inheritance five years ago.

Chen Daoxuan, a mechanical engineer in his previous life, had immediately let his imagination run wild. Could modern industrial production methods be used to increase the output of Artifact Refining?

According to the second-tier Artifact Forging inheritance:

Artifact Refining was generally divided into three stages: refining, shaping, and Fusion of Formations.

As Chen Daoxuan understood it, the most time-consuming stage in refining a First-tier magical artifact was precisely the refining stage.

Take the Crimson Shadow Flying Sword, a First-tier Flying Sword recorded in the second-tier Artifact Forging inheritance, for example.

The primary material for refining the Crimson Shadow Flying Sword was the Red Copper Mine, a Spirit Mine the Chen Family controlled in great quantities.

Yet to refine a Crimson Shadow Flying Sword, refining the Red Copper Mine alone required a full three days and three nights.

By contrast, the subsequent shaping and Fusion of Formations stages did not take much time, generally requiring only around one shichen to complete.

This meant that even if an Artifact Forger wished to refine the most basic First-tier low-grade flying sword, they would have to work without interruption in the Earth Fire Chamber for three days and three nights.

It severely affected production efficiency!

To Chen Daoxuan, a mechanical engineer, this purely manual production method was practically slow suicide!