The deep and bottomless cave spiraled down to the underground. Junior Leopard, Jin Nanqing and the other Wu disciples closely followed Zhao Ting, heading towards the deep bottom.
At the very front of the marching team was Wang She, beside whom were four experts of the Bone-Forging Realm. Two were from Mingyi School, while the other two were experts of Tian Long Taoism.
Zhao Ting trod on the heels of them and followed by Junior Leopard and the other people.
The look of Wang She was kind of dark, as was Junior Leopard's, who grasped the twin hammers tightly, looking serious, as if he was a little bit nervous.
Jin Nanqing and other people's expressions, however, were more of excitement than nervousness.
It was an underground fire vein!
It was unexpected that there should be an underground fire vein down below Zhonghe City!
What was in front of Jin Nanqing made him excited, for an underground fire vein was the place that gathered the most original energy of fire in the world. It was the Cave Paradise from legend for those who practiced Internal Qi of fire, which could help them almost skip the most troublesome step.
The first step of practicing Internal Qi of fire is to bring original energy inside of the body. This means it needs to first inhale the original energy of the world and then, by using Internal Strength to disintegrate the pneuma, only absorb the original energy of fire while exhaling others. This is called 'Inhale and Exhale'.
But this step can be skipped if you practice the Fire Way Method in the fire vein because all of the original energy in the fire vein is an original energy of fire. You only need to bring that original energy inside of your body, which will greatly improve your practice efficiency. Spending one day practicing here equals to one or more months outside.
Regardless of physical strength, practicing the Fire Way Method here can promote Internal Qi cultivation to Level Six in the shortest time.
Because of this, Junior Leopard seemed pissed off.
"If I had known this, I shouldn't have listened to Wang She, and let my External Elixir practice Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique instead. If so, shouldn't practicing here rocket my External Elixir cultivation?"
Sadly, there was no use crying over spilled milk.
"Besides, Wang She didn't force me to practice. What he did was just give me advice. I practiced after he left. So Wang She is not the one to blame, but rather I should blame myself." Junior Leopard could only accept this.
And of course, this is only one function of the underground fire vein, a very small one.
After all, there are numerous cultivation methods in the world, among which, the Five Way Method is only one kind of Internal Qi cultivation methods, while the Fire Way Method was only one kind of Five Way Method. It might need more practice, but not that much. Moreover, the underground fire vein could not simply be used by anyone. Like the Ignis Skill which Junior Leopard used to practice, if he practiced it here in the underground fire vein, the powerful original energy of fire might cause his death in just a few days.
The underground fire vein was most useful to the Wu Family.
The smelting families like that of the Wu Family forged different kinds of weapons. The less the foreign matter that existed within, the better the wizard weapon was. The heat became the key to reduce the amount of foreign matter in the weapons. Even within smelting families like the Wu Family, the ability to control the heat was limited. At best they would put some spiritual stone of fire attribute in the oven to raise the temperature and reduce foreign matter when forging some of the wizard weapons.
Despite the preciousness of the fire attribute spiritual stone, even if they actually used the spiritual stone, the temperature of the boiler water would not raise that much. For a long time, smelting families like the Wu Family had been working on how to raise the furnace temperature. The reason why the ancestors of the Wu Family could build this family was that they not only depended on their efforts and abilities but more importantly, they had this fuel which could greatly raise the furnace temperature. It helped them seize the initiative compared with other smelting families at the beginning.
However, after 500 years, the Wu Family had suffered times of tribulation. The exclusive fuel was not exclusive anymore because the recipe of it had been disclosed.
Although it was not popularized, smelt stores of a certain scale had started to use the exclusive fuel fifty years ago, which brought the smelt level of Jin to a higher grade. But for the Wu Family, it was not a thing worth celebrating.
Their biggest advantage was gone.
Fortunately, they still had the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Technique.
This Internal Qi cultivation method handed down from Tian Long Taoism could not be touched by anybody. No one was stupid enough to have designs on that. Obviously, it was the same effect of reducing the foreign matter in the metal. That was how the Wu's weathered the most difficult times after the beginning.
This was off-topic.
The topic was that the fire attribute original energy from the underground fire vein was extremely powerful and even capable of reaching the underground lava. If anyone could build a smelting room here, then the weapon forged would be three levels higher than those from elsewhere. If properly operated, even Secondary Heavenly Weapons could be produced in bulk.
Yes, Secondary Heavenly Weapons!
A wizard weapon was not a thing you could ask for. Without good luck and real mysterious objects and materials, wizard weapons could not be forged.
But Secondary Heavenly Weapon was different. Although not as magical as a wizard weapon, the sharpness and tenacity ranked only second to the wizard weapon.
Most importantly, a Secondary Heavenly Weapon was easier to forge. As long as the materials and smelt conditions were superior, top craftsman was able to forge one.
For example, Xu Yong, the teacher of Junior Leopard, as a top blacksmith, could quickly forge a Secondary Heavenly Weapon if he was provided with a smelter in the geocentric fire vein and some top class materials.
Therefore, if the Wu Family got the underground fire vein, their overall strength would be raised to a new level, becoming the number one smelting family in the world.
This was just a fantasy of course. Jin Nanqing was no fool, neither was the Jin imperial court. How could they give such a place to the Wu
the Wu Family?
Another benefit of the underground fire vein was that the spiritual stone of fire property might be produced here.
Earth veins could not be taken, but spiritual stones could. Although spiritual stones were called the most abundant mysterious objects, as a mysterious object, no matter how abundant it was, it could not be sold as cheap cabbages. Let alone that more spiritual stones were usually found closer to the underground rock flows, where ordinary people would find it impossible to reach.
People that could actually get close to the underground lava were at least a Level Seven and had Gang Qi protecting them. But with such abilities, spiritual stones were less attractive to them. What was more, could it be possible that a Level Seven was willing to be your miner?
That was impossible. So no matter how abundant the spiritual stone was in the earth vein, they were still inaccessible treasures.
However, except for places near the underground lava, other places in the fire vein might also have spiritual stones of fire attribute. Undoubtedly, the amount would be small, so it depended on your luck.
The Spiritual Energy of Fire, earth fire, and spiritual stone were the three most attractive benefits of the fire vein.
Of course, there were other benefits of the underground fire vein, though they only benefited a few people.
The Wu Family was one of those few people.
Generally speaking, fire veins with underground lava were also associated with earth vein Evil Qi, which was fatal to ordinary people and even martial artists. But for those who practiced the Fire Way Method and reached Level Six cultivation, this was a priceless place. Because they could condense the Evil Qi to Gang Qi. This was what the Wu Family had benefited from the fire vein.
Condensing Evil to Gang!
As a smelting family, every generation of the Wu Family would have a Level Seven expert. Therefore, the Wu Family knew places where earth vein Evil Qi gathered for the Elders to practice Gang Qi. But such an earth vein Evil Qi had either existed for too long, was used by too many people or was not enough in quantity. The result of condensing Gang Qi was not ideal. Sometimes because the Evil Qi was heterogeneous, dangerous things would happen in the process of condensing.
That was why in recent years, some of the elders in the Wu Family that had reached Level Seven cultivation, was seldom Condensing Evil to Gang. They were afraid of accidents. Lyu Yiyue was the same. With Level Seven cultivation, he didn't condense Gang Qi. So when faced with another strong person, he would always feel inferior.
But now, the earth vein Evil Qi from this underground fire vein was much better than those that the Wu Family used to know, both in quality and quantity. If Lyu Yiyue could condense Evil to Gang, it was believed that he was 70% sure of the success.
This was why Jin Nanqing was most happy and also what he was concerned about.
This time they left Yunzhou, originally only to trace the whereabouts of a number of goods, which was a tiny thing for the great Wu's. But unexpectedly, they should have encountered so many crazy things and in the end, they found the underground fire vein in Zhonghe City!
The underground fire vein was in Zhonghe City. It definitely belonged to Jin and could not be touched by other well-known families. But, undoubtedly, Jin court would consider the influence and ability of those well-known families to effectively utilize this fire vein. It was known that although the craftsmen were working in the Jin's Ministry of Works, they were also from these well-known families. Real skills were mastered by these well-known families instead of the court. Despite that the court would send people to learn from these families at regular intervals, these families were not fools. No one would teach real skills to people from the court. Therefore, to effectively utilize this fire vein, these well-known families needed to get involved.
How to get involved and how to distribute the benefits, this would bring a fight. Both Jin Nanqing and Junior Leopard were small ants who could easily be stepped on before those big shots. The difference was that, for now, the small ants from the Wu's somehow took the advantages.
If they could seize the initiative for the Wu Family, that would be a huge contribution. Even for nothing else, if they could help Lyu Yiyue get a chance to condense Evil to Gang here, they would be so proud of the Wu Family, at least before Lyu Yiyue died.
Of course, this was just another fantasy of his. Small ants like them would never change their status. At best they could fight for some advantages which the other families could not get.
But even with such a little advantage, these would bear enormous benefits for their future.
So, Jin Nanqing was very excited.