In the courtyard, Xiao Luoyu crouched down and examined the furnace lid that had smashed a huge crater into the ground.
Her delicate brows were tightly furrowed, and both hands clawed at her bird's-nest hair as an annoyed voice came from her mouth.
"It cracked again!"
"This pill furnace is no good."
"Those artifact refiners scammed me again!"
Xiao Luoyu grumbled, and Daoist Xuanqing was already used to it. He beckoned her over.
"Luoyu, come here."
"Master has something for you to do."
Hearing Daoist Xuanqing, Xiao Luoyu flashed into the room, faint annoyance lingering on her pretty face.
"Master, didn't I tell you? I'm busy refining pills and preparing for the Five Emperors Dharma Assembly."
"Your junior brother has been ordered to establish the Ministry of Agriculture and is short of manpower. Go there and help him," Daoist Xuanqing said.
Xiao Luoyu looked at Fang Heng in surprise.
"Junior Brother, I didn't expect you to amount to something."
"Can I refine pills in the Ministry of Agriculture?"
Fang Heng secretly found it amusing.
Second Senior Sister truly was a Pill Maniac.
He did not answer Xiao Luoyu immediately, instead changing the subject.
"Second Senior Sister, what is wrong with your pill furnace?"
"I was fooled by an artifact refiner." Xiao Luoyu rolled her eyes and sat down.
The moment she sat down, her loose Daoist robe naturally slid down, revealing a smooth, fair jade shoulder.
Xiao Luoyu tugged at her robe and continued.
"The earth-vein fire is ferocious. To use it for pill refinement, the pill furnace needs to be sturdy enough."
"I specifically had the artifact refiners reinforce it, but it still couldn't withstand it and exploded outright."
"The artifact refiners in the temple are far too unreliable."
Xiao Luoyu complained nonstop.
She nearly disparaged Evergreen Temple's artifact refiners as worthless.
Evergreen Temple was not famed for artifact refinement, but it was not so incompetent that it could not even forge a qualified pill furnace.
Daoist Xuanqing shook his head. "Luoyu, your demands are too high."
"What artifact refiner would ponder how to make a pill furnace even sturdier?"
"Your earth-fire pill refinement method is far too violent. I fear only a spirit-treasure-grade pill furnace could endure all your tossing about."
Listening to their conversation, Fang Heng seemed to gain some insight.
The Flash of Inspiration fate activated.
Sparks of inspiration bloomed in his mind.
Second Senior Sister's pill furnace had burst from high temperature and high pressure.
High temperature and high pressure—weren't those the reaction conditions for Ammonia Synthesis?
Building a reaction vessel for Ammonia Synthesis was extraordinarily difficult and required a high level of technology.
Being able to build a reaction vessel for Ammonia Synthesis meant being able to build nuclear submarines.
Thus, Blue Star also had a saying.
A country that could build nuclear submarines would never go hungry.
For Fang Heng to synthesize ammonia and refine fertilizer, there were two major hurdles.
The first was the reaction vessel, and the second was the catalyst.
What he had seen and heard today gave Fang Heng an idea.
He had read transmigration novels where protagonists used rice cookers to refine pills.
Rice cookers could refine pills.
So why couldn't pill furnaces refine fertilizer?
"Second Senior Sister, I think you're absolutely right."
"It must be that the artifact refiners' craftsmanship is poor, and the pill furnaces they make are unqualified."
"So I'm investing in this project!"
"The Prince's Manor will provide one hundred thousand taels to help Evergreen Temple's pill refiners improve their skills and forge qualified pill furnaces."
"If the money is not enough, I can add more investment."
Upon hearing Fang Heng's words, Daoist Xuanqing was instantly dumbfounded.
His original intention had been to send Xiao Luoyu out to clear her head.
Who would have thought that Fang Heng and Xiao Luoyu would end up peeing into the same pot?
Xiao Luoyu's bright eyes lit up, excitement appearing on her lovely face as joy climbed her brows.
The more she looked at Fang Heng, the more satisfied she became.
"Junior Brother, you really understand me."
"Come, come, let's properly discuss improving pill furnaces."
Xiao Luoyu sprang to her feet, her face brimming with excitement.
Her loose Daoist robe slipped from her shoulder once again.
Frowning, she complained.
"There's something wrong with this robe. They must have cut corners."
"It keeps sliding down."
Fang Heng glanced at her and secretly thought.
The robe was perfectly fine. Clearly, it was Second Senior Sister whose shoulders were too smooth and cunning.
Night fell.
Inside an ancient and elegant side chamber.
After a day of work, Daoist Xuanqing had washed up, and a trace of weariness showed on his face.
"Heng'er really is something. I told him to help Luoyu relax."
"Yet he went and made trouble with Luoyu instead."
There was a faint hint of blame in Daoist Xuanqing's tone.
The beautiful woman beside him, dressed in a semi-transparent azure gauze dress, shot Daoist Xuanqing a glare.
"You've become muddleheaded in your old age."
"Can't you see it even now?"
"See what?"
Hearing his wife's coquettish reproach, Daoist Xuanqing froze for a moment and looked curiously at the person beside his pillow.
The beautiful woman said irritably, "You really are muddleheaded as his master."
"Heng'er's drunken old man's intent lies not in the wine."
After the beautiful woman's reminder, Daoist Xuanqing suddenly saw the light.
"So... so that's how it is."
"My wife is right."
"Luoyu usually does not dress herself up, but after a proper tidying, she is also a peerless beauty."
"That boy Heng'er has sharp eyes. My careful teaching was not in vain."
"Careful teaching? What did you teach Heng'er? How to visit brothels?"
The beautiful woman gave a cold snort through her nose.
It frightened Daoist Xuanqing so badly that his expression changed twice over.
"My wife, there's no such thing. Don't let your imagination run wild."
"There is only you in my heart."
"What Guanguan? I don't know her."
"Hmph—at least you know what's good for you."
"Today, I'll be on top!"
In the dim space.
Six figures stood as their auras surged.
"Your Blood Sea Lineage sent a divine slave to approach Fang Heng. What are you plotting?"
"Do you know that because the Blood Sea Lineage was exposed, you nearly ruined the grand plan of our Path of God Worship?"
A cold snort came from the ethereal young woman's nose.
"Hehe, what could we possibly be plotting?"
"Fang Heng grew Sacred Emperor Rice. Once it is widely promoted, Great Qian's foundations will surely grow enormously, which would be detrimental to our six lineages."
"We merely wished to stop the spread of Sacred Emperor Rice."
An old man in blood-red robes spoke.
As for the divine oracle, he did not mention a single word.
"Hmph—"
"Idiots!"
"Your Blood Sea Lineage knows nothing but fighting and killing."
The ethereal young woman was extremely dissatisfied as she spoke coldly.
Provoked again and again by the ethereal young woman, the Blood Sea Lineage elder revealed killing intent in his eyes.
"Junior, I advise you not to be so presumptuous."
"You are only qualified to attend today's gathering because of your status as the White Lotus Saintess."
"Otherwise, this old man could kill you as easily as eating and drinking tea."
The ethereal young woman was no weaker in bearing. She raised a delicate brow, her tone full of amusement.
"Oh?"
"You can try."
"Cough, cough!"
"Both of you, calm down. We are here today to discuss how to deal with Great Qian's promotion of Sacred Emperor Rice."
The spokesperson of the Eternal Life Lineage interrupted them.
He looked young, no different from a youth barely past twenty.
Yet the aura emanating from him was heavy with twilight and death, comparable to an old man on the verge of passing away.
With the Eternal Life Lineage stepping in to mediate, the Blood Sea elder slightly lowered his stance.
"White Lotus Saintess, then what do you think we should do?"
"Are we supposed to watch helplessly as Great Qian promotes Sacred Emperor Rice?"
"Great Qian can plant Sacred Emperor Rice, but can't we plant it too?"
"The divine realms we hold far outnumber those of Great Qian's imperial family."
The divine realms mentioned by the ethereal young woman were the small worlds within the Ancient Eerie Temple.
The Path of God Worship believed in evil gods and cultivated divinity.
When it came to sensing Ancient Eerie Temples and occupying secret realms, they far surpassed cultivators of the other three lineages.
At the same time, the ethereal young woman cursed the Blood Sea Lineage every way she could in her heart.
The people of the Blood Sea Lineage must have damaged their brains through cultivation.
All they knew all day was fighting and killing.
Sacred Emperor Rice was a potent medicine for Great Qian, capable of strengthening its foundations.
Could it possibly not be the same for their Path of God Worship?
"Sacred Emperor Rice is of tremendous importance. The dog emperor will surely guard it closely."
"It will not be easy to obtain Sacred Emperor Rice."
"Once Great Qian completes its promotion and we follow afterward, we will have already lost the initiative."
"What is so difficult about that?"
The ethereal young woman spoke calmly, drawing the gazes of the others.
"White Lotus Saintess, what brilliant plan do you have?"
"Sacred Emperor Rice must eventually be promoted. The princes will certainly obtain it at the earliest opportunity."
"Your White Lotus Lineage excels at bewitching people's hearts."
"Could it be that you have already bewitched one of the princes?"
"Bewitch a prince? How could it be that easy?"
"Once a prince cultivates the God Worship method, he absolutely cannot escape Emperor Yuanchu's notice."
The ethereal young woman shook her head, then abruptly changed the subject.
"However, Shang Hongye has entered the capital to choose a husband."
"As far as I know, Shang Hongye has no hobbies, save for an obsession with military strategy."
"She has scoured clean every military text throughout the Northern Border."
"If we release this news, the princes will surely scramble to collect military texts."
"White Lotus Saintess, do you mean to exchange military texts for Sacred Emperor Rice?"
"However, none of our six lineages is skilled in military strategy."
The ethereal young woman did not answer immediately. Instead, she turned to look at a pitch-black coffin in the distance.
The pitch-black coffin hung silently in midair.
Dead silence, chilling cold, ill omen...
It gave off an exceedingly bizarre feeling.
"You Corpse Mountain Lineage have dug up so many ancient cultivators' corpses. Don't tell me none of them belonged to Military School cultivators."
After a brief silence, a hoarse voice came from within the black coffin.
"The art of war will be handled by our Corpse Mountain Lineage."
"Then so be it. We six lineages are branches from the same tree; we ought to join hands and move forward together. No one must act on their own again."
"Agreed!"
"Agreed!"
"Agreed!"
All five of them accepted the White Lotus Saintess's proposal.
Yet at the four words "branches from the same tree"—
the six of them sneered inwardly.
If they truly believed in those four words, they likely would not even know how they died.
Divinity could not be extinguished, only transferred.
Though the six of them could now converse peacefully—
in truth, each of them was "food" in the others' eyes.
The moment any one of them showed weakness, the other five would pounce.
Outer Realm Evil Gods were as numerous as the hairs of an ox, so why were only the six lineages of the Path of God Worship left now?
Most had been devoured by the current six Outer Realm Gods.
Three days later.
Several dozen people rode tall dragon steeds into Yujing City, their bearing lofty and imposing.
At their head was someone clad in silver armor, a woman dressed as a man, valiant and heroic.
Someone with sharp eyes cried out.
"General Shang has entered the capital!"
News of Shang Hongye entering the capital spread through all of Yujing City as swiftly as if it had sprouted wings.
After the Left Prime Minister left the capital, Yujing City had enjoyed peace for only a few days before undercurrents began to surge once more.
Before you continue