Yang Yong ignored their shock.
He grabbed the bronze mirror Doll, lifted the lid of the Ten-Thousand-Forging Primordial Furnace, and tossed it straight inside.
Then he sat down cross-legged.
Three figures took their positions around him in a Three-Talent Formation, guarding him at its center.
The Red-Clothed Female Ghost's long hair fluttered slightly in the night breeze. Yin energy circulated around the Love Letter Ghost, while the Little Girl Eerie stood quietly, her head tilted as she watched the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace.
Yang Yong's mind, meanwhile, had sunk entirely into the Ten-Thousand-Forging Primordial Furnace.
Cao Xianming had said this forging might let him glimpse an opportunity to advance to Sequence Two.
He wanted to see for himself.
A world of flames unfolded in his consciousness.
The bronze mirror Doll darted frantically through the flames, desperately dodging the Fire Serpents entwining it.
But however it dodged, Fire Serpents always burned their way toward it from tricky angles.
With every hit, the bronze mirror shuddered violently. A blurred human figure drifted out of its surface, only to be swept up by a tongue of flame and silently absorbed by the Ten-Thousand-Forging Primordial Furnace.
One.
Two.
Three.
Yang Yong counted quietly.
These were all hidden obsessions the blue-clothed Eerie could not digest, things it had devoured but had not yet had time to assimilate.
Now, the Ten-Thousand-Forging Primordial Furnace was forcing them out one by one.
Ten.
Only after a full ten obsessions had been stripped away did the bronze mirror finally fall still and stop struggling.
Immediately afterward, the clanging of forging began.
Yang Yong withdrew his mind, knowing the most tedious stage had begun.
An hour passed as he waited.
Clang, clang. Clang, clang.
Two hours.
Clang, clang. Clang, clang.
Three hours passed, yet the sounds inside the furnace still showed