After the Immortal Disappeared

But in this day and age, even Cultivators had to vie for official positions. How could the common folk possibly believe their ancestors once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Gods and Demons?

"I understand." Hee Lingchuan took the Potion from his robes and poured five drops into Elder Liang's empty bottle.

Elder Liang glanced at his disciple, who then ran out of the tent.

A quarter of an hour later, he returned, holding a Wooden Pearl.

This was the undersea Wooden Pearl where the Beast Soul resided.

Hee Lingchuan took it and saw that it appeared to contain the soul of a Giant Ape.

'Not bad. He didn't try to palm off something shoddy. Transaction complete.'

Elder Liang gave him a small smile. His expression had calmed, but it remained just as detached.

Watching him leave, Hee Lingchuan shrugged.

'This history, stretching back nearly three thousand years, was complex. You couldn't just blame the Gods and Demons for their tempting ways, nor could you blame mortals for forgetting their ancestors. The Immortal Sects and Daoist Sects had done plenty of unsavory things themselves. They not only erased the Celestial Merits their predecessors had earned but also squandered all the goodwill they once had with the common people.'

'These were all things Elder Liang had deliberately left out. But Hee Lingchuan had devoured books like they were food in Wenxuan Pavilion within the Panlong Dream Realm. He'd read plenty of works on the subject and wasn't about to believe a one-sided story.'

'See? Reading for pleasure really does pay off.'

Next, he wolfed down his breakfast and went to find someone in the military camp.

Half an hour later, he went to find Lingguang.

The Monkey had commandeered a tent for its research, its focus so intense that it admitted no one. It was only out of respect for Eldest Young Master Hee—and for the ape's remarkable healing skills—that the quartermaster chose to overlook the utter chaos it had unleashed on the camp just last night.

As soon as Hee Lingchuan stepped into the tent, Lingguang spun around, eyes glaring and ready to lash out. The moment it saw who it was, however, the monkey clamped its mouth shut.

"Figured anything out?"

Lingguang immediately deflated. "It's going to take a bit more time."

Hee Lingchuan saw its two bloodshot monkey eyes and knew it had pulled an all-nighter. "Even the Great Immortal Powers of the Middle Ages couldn't figure this out. You expect to make a breakthrough in a single night? Come on, get some rest. And lend me your Pill Furnace."

The Monkey immediately tensed. As a Medicinal Ape, that Pill Furnace was its lifeblood. "What for?"

"I need to refine a treasure, and I don't have a suitable furnace. Just let me borrow it for a bit. It'll be quick."

"Whatever medicine you need, I can make it for you."

"I'm making an item. You know how?" Hee Lingchuan's gaze swept around the tent, but he didn't see the Pill Furnace.

The Monkey was even more shocked. "Artifact Refining? You?" 'What could he possibly be refining on the front lines? Why not go back to Dunyu City and find Li Fubo?'

"Hurry up and stop dawdling! I won't break your furnace!" Hee Lingchuan said, growing impatient. "I'm just making a Copper Man. It's as simple as it gets!"

"A Copper Man?" Lingguang was stunned. "It won't fit in my furnace."

"A small one." Hee Lingchuan gestured. "Only half the size of my palm."

After Hee Lingchuan's repeated urging, Lingguang reluctantly pulled a tiny, toy-like, three-legged furnace from its pocket. It placed it on the ground and casually recited a Mantra.

The brass furnace instantly expanded until it was about six feet tall, its surface so polished it was reflective.

This showed just how well Lingguang cared for it.

Hee Lingchuan had already studied the Golden Armor Copper Man Technique in the Panlong Dream Realm, going over every detail time and again. The crafting cost was astronomical, and he couldn't afford even the slightest mistake.

Fortunately, this Secret Art had a particular characteristic:

The difficulty of the Copper Man Technique lay in its control; the refining process, by contrast, was simple, consisting of only four or five steps.

For a rookie like him, it was remarkably user-friendly.

The furnace was lit and brought to a low heat. Following the diagrams in the Secret Scroll, Hee Lingchuan began adding the materials one by one, such as Zhu Gold and Refined Iron.

While examining the blueprints in the Dream Realm, he'd discovered that he already had six of the seven or eight materials needed to forge the Copper Man!

They were all scraps left over from reforging the Floating Life Treasure Blade. He hadn't gotten around to cleaning out his Storage Ring, and now they served as ready-made materials. The Zhu Gold and Refined Iron were especially crucial; without them, the Copper Man would be mere slag, lacking any sort of structural frame.

As for the one or two missing materials, the worst that could happen was the Copper Man's skin wouldn't be as tough and its movements not as agile. The Secret Scroll also mentioned that creators could later add extra ingredients during the refining process to DIY a more unique golden armor copper man.

At this stage, Hee Lingchuan didn't need anything unique. He just wanted a construct of Copper Skin and Iron Bones that could defend, attack, and provide support.

He understood Lingguang's surprise, but last night's dream, in which Wen Daolun had again warned him of a dire and persistent misfortune, had filled him with an even greater sense of urgency. He was determined to forge the Copper Man as soon as possible.

'In this world, there's no such thing as being perfectly prepared. The best option is whatever is most suitable for right now.'

He kept urging Lingguang to raise the temperature, or else the Zhu Gold wouldn't melt. Thankfully, the Treasure Furnace in Lingguang's possession was powerful. Some special Pills required the addition of metals and hard-to-burn hardwoods, so it was designed for high temperatures. A normal Pill Furnace could only reach four or five hundred degrees—not even hot enough to melt iron.

The temperature in the Pill Furnace continued to climb. Not knowing its limit, Lingguang grew increasingly cautious. Thankfully, the notoriously difficult-to-melt Zhu Gold began to soften. As Lingguang carefully controlled the heat, Hee Lingchuan pulled a mold from his robes. "Pour it in here."

Lingguang didn't dare to speak, but its eyes clearly asked: "Where did you get that?"

The mold was about two palm-widths across, with a human-shaped cavity in the center. It was divided into many layers and sections—a standard metal casting mold.

'This was the front line. Where on earth did Hee Lingchuan get a complete mold set at a time like this?'

He grinned. "Remember yesterday when someone summoned Cyan Turban Warriors to beat up that bull?"

Lingguang nodded.

"He had one. It cost me two taels of silver to borrow it, and I have to return it when I'm done." The person he borrowed it from wasn't making a golden armor copper man, but the external forms of these large Summoned Creatures were all quite similar. A generic mold would suffice.

'It's what's on the inside that counts! A real man focuses on the inside!'

The Monkey rolled its eyes. 'What a character.'

Next came the layered, sectional casting. Fortunately, a Pharmacist's Pill Furnace came with built-in dividers to prevent medicinal properties from mixing. Hee Lingchuan now instructed Lingguang to pour the Refined Iron, Red Copper, Frost Silver, and Zhu Gold into their separate molds, which would form the Copper Man's frame, muscles, tendons, and animating core, respectively.

The Monkey's hands were steady and Hee Lingchuan's Mantra was swift, so the process went without a hitch.

Once the first layer—the frame—was cast, and before the molten metal could fully solidify, Hee Lingchuan slit his wrist. He let a bit of blood drip onto it to complete the ownership-binding ritual, then used the blood to inscribe runes onto the iron frame.

Each rune was smaller than a fly's head and written in the Ancient Immortal Language. He had Sunx Fuling to thank for this. Master Sunx's rigorous tutoring had solidified his grasp of the language's fundamentals, allowing him to write every symbol perfectly in the race against time—

for a single mistake would have meant starting the entire forging process over.

Before the frame solidified, he finally finished inscribing all the runes.

The remaining steps proceeded smoothly. Once all the liquid metal had solidified, he had... a complete DIY kit for a Copper Man.

Hee Lingchuan assembled his DIY Copper Man, installed the newly acquired Beast Soul to serve as its brain, and slotted a small piece of Profound Crystal into its back as a power source. Then, he began chanting the Mantra to control it.

They say the first connection is the most crucial. Whether he could control it as easily as his own limbs later on all depended on this initial attempt.

After his repeated attempts, perhaps out of sheer annoyance, the small Copper Man finally tilted its head, looked at Hee Lingchuan, and raised its middle finger.

This was, in fact, the gesture its master had commanded. It's just that Hee Lingchuan had wanted it to raise its index finger.

"It worked! It worked!" Hee Lingchuan clapped his hands, feeling an excitement he hadn't felt since getting his first toy seventeen or eighteen years ago. As for the minor error of raising the wrong finger, that could probably be fixed with more practice and calibration. Or maybe it was because he'd cut corners and left out those two ingredients.

Lingguang, still drenched in sweat from controlling the furnace's fire, watched with wide eyes. "How big can it get?"

"At least ten feet tall, right?"

The man and the monkey looked at each other and said in unison, "Let's go try it outside!"

The Personal Guards outside the tent heard this, their hearts pounding in fear:

'What are those two troublemakers up to now? Wasn't last night's chaos enough for them?'

* * *

Baili Qing's Vice General, Fu Xin, led a dozen or so Personal Guards north. After a full day's journey on mountain paths, they finally reached Xinqiao Village.

Before they even entered the village, two men jumped out from the bushes by the roadside.

Fu Xin was startled. He drew his saber and looked, only to find they were his own men.

One of them said, "General Hong ordered us to wait here and rendezvous with General Baili."

Fu Xin's grip on his saber tightened. "General Baili has fallen. From the mines... we're the only ones who came."

The two men were shocked. "The others? What happened to the others?"

Fu Xin shook his head.

The two men looked distraught. Fu Xin spoke with resentment, "You two were with Hong Chenglu. Tell me, did you manage to intercept the government troops from the west?"

The two soldiers looked at each other and said nothing.

Fu Xin knew the answer then, gritting his teeth. "Lead the way."

One of them asked as a formality, "Are there pursuers behind you?"

"No! We checked multiple times!" A muscle twitched in Fu Xin's jaw. "Just lead the way!"

The two men led them into the forest, heading northeast.

"So Hong Chenglu isn't in Xinqiao Village?" Fu Xin was past the point of courtesy now, using Grand General Hong's full name.

"No, General Hong chose another location."

The group of over a dozen men traveled into increasingly remote territory, but there was always an animal trail to follow. Fu Xin also noticed plenty of fresh hoofprints.

They walked like this for another four or five double-hours, climbing halfway up a mountain, before the guides finally announced, "We're here."

"This is it?"

Fu Xin looked up at the stockade above.

It had everything: wooden palisade walls, chevaux de frise, watchtowers, a portcullis. And it all looked quite old, not like it had been built recently.

He followed the guides inside, not failing to notice the fresh marks from swords and axes everywhere, as well as bloodstains that hadn't been fully cleaned.

Inside the stockade were seventeen or eighteen connected row houses. The earthen walls were thick, the doors and windows small and set high—a clear hybrid of dwelling and blockhouse.

Most importantly, there were signs of long-term habitation here.

"What was this place originally?"

"A bandit's nest," said one of the guiding soldiers. "The locals call this Gold Silver Mountain. We just took this lair from the Mountain Bandits last night. General Hong says we're to stay here for now."

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