The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 698 You're just going to watch your junior brother do all the work? Come and help!

Shen Le never expected that he would be in the distant ancient times, rather than in the modern era with its abundant instruments and equipment, and would plunge headlong into... porcelain firing research.

Fortunately, the Taoist sect fully supported his idea. Although they lacked sophisticated weighing equipment, component analysis equipment, temperature control equipment, and kiln temperature measuring equipment…

However, the Taoist sect assigned ten of its best disciples, each with expertise in their respective fields, to be his assistants:

Lou Yun, with the strongest combat power and the fastest movement speed in the entire sect, was responsible for running all over the country to obtain various materials for him.

He brought over bags and bags of clay, quartz, moonstone, and all sorts of strange and unusual glazes from the Taihang Mountains, from Jingdezhen, from Quanzhou, and from every place Shen Len could think of:

"This... won't do." Shen Le's fingertips touched the large bag of soil that Senior Brother Lou Yun was carrying, she shook her head, and gave him an apologetic smile:

"This clay isn't fine enough. Senior brother, look, the clay I use to fire translucent white porcelain needs to be extremely fine, fine enough to be applied directly to the face as a face powder—"

The porcelain clay you obtained, even after washing and settling, is still not fine enough; it can only be used to fire coarse porcelain.

"This... is fine enough, but not white enough, too many impurities."

"This..." Shen Le picked up a piece of porcelain clay, silently channeling his true essence into it, then shook his head regretfully.

"Senior brother, you can feel it, right? It's too sluggish; not a single drop of spiritual energy can pass through—the materials used to forge magical artifacts should at least be able to hold a little bit of spiritual energy!"

Lou Yun flew around for half a month, covering almost the entire war-torn Sui Dynasty, and dug up almost all the porcelain clay mines that he remembered and that Shen Le remembered the approximate locations of.

Finally, deep within a porcelain clay mine called "Gaoling Village" near Jingdezhen, he unearthed porcelain clay that was pure white, delicate, soft like clouds, and rich in a subtle spiritual quality.

Next, following the same requirements, we will search for other similar raw materials and glazes...

Meanwhile, Uncle-Master Xuanming, the strongest alchemist in the sect, diligently soaked, ground, crushed, and sieved the materials according to Shen Le's instructions, using the most delicate techniques to process them.

Through repeated screening, washing, and refining, crushed spirit stone powder and various mineral powders are added to the kaolin clay to enhance its spiritual properties.

Senior Brother Mingxin, one of the top weapon-refining experts in the sect, used his true essence to sense the earth's properties under Shen Le's guidance and placed it into the alchemy furnace for a small-scale trial firing:
"Cracked!"

"It's cracked again!"

"It cracked again!"

"I was making porcelain bowls! How come they turned into a puddle after firing?"

"It's finally burning successfully... but... there's no spiritual energy at all, it's all dissipated..."

Just trying to retain the spiritual energy within the porcelain exhausted Shen Le. The proportions, temperature, time—she experimented repeatedly. She filled notebook after notebook with notes, writing a line, marking it with an X, then writing another line, marking it with an X again…

"Mingde, must it be fired in a furnace? Why not in a kiln? I've seen kilns outside where the fire is done inside..."

"Let's burn it right in the alchemy furnace!" Shen Le made up his mind and waved his hand forcefully.

"It's fine to fire in the alchemy furnace! If you can fire in a kiln, you can fire in an alchemy furnace too. The alchemy furnace is smaller in scale, so it's easier to modify the plan!"

In modern times, small-scale porcelain workshops often use electric kilns for firing. Traditional brick kilns can fire thousands of pieces of porcelain in one kiln, while small electric kilns can only fire a few bowls or a bottle at a time.

It's low-cost, quick to produce results, and can be modified repeatedly. If an electric furnace can burn it, there's no reason why a traditional furnace can't!
At Shen Le's insistence, Senior Brother Mingxin opened furnace after furnace, furnace after furnace. From winter to spring, from spring to summer, finally, everyone lifted the lid of the furnace and let out a heartfelt cheer:

"It's cooked!!!"

Inside the alchemy furnace, a row of smooth, bright porcelain dishes lay quietly, each dish shimmering with a faint spiritual energy.

It contained no fine metals or precious spirit jade, but only some cheap spirit stones—that is, stones of poor quality, not worthy of being called spirit jade, and with very little spiritual energy.

Over the course of six months, he repeatedly adjusted the formula and proportions, sparingly adding powder little by little. Finally, he fired porcelain that was as white as snow, slightly translucent when exposed to sunlight, and capable of absorbing and circulating spiritual energy!

"Excellent! The first step is complete!" Shen Le raised the central porcelain dish high, his face lighting up with delight.

"Next, we would like to ask all our senior uncles, aunts, and fellow disciples for their guidance and assistance. Let's work harder and complete the Demon-Locking Porcelain Tower!"

The use of pagodas to suppress evil spirits has existed since ancient times. Their foundations are deeply buried, directly connected to the earth's veins, allowing them to continuously draw upon the earth's power.
Its size is large enough to stack enough talismans to absorb the evil energy from the outside world into the tower body, and then suppress, dissipate and transform it with Dao pattern array.
It inherently carries the connotations of "suppression" and "sealing," and it points upwards to the heavens, capable of drawing in divine light and righteous energy...

The only problem is how to design talismans, formations, and Taoist inscriptions, and then burn these things into the porcelain tower.

"I think we should first decide on our approach." Shen Le lightly tapped the table and looked around at everyone:

"Consider the entire tower as a three-dimensional magical artifact. The outer wall is engraved with arrays to attract evil spirits and gather energy, the base of the tower is connected to the earth veins to stabilize it, the interior of the tower is nested with arrays to suppress and eliminate evil, and the top of the tower is an array to attract the righteous energy of the heavens or starlight."

Then, the floor/ceiling of each layer of the porcelain tower must have a dividing, guiding, and organizing array, channeling the energy upwards layer by layer. Inside each layer of the porcelain tower, there must also be nodes left to absorb particularly stubborn ones, slowly eliminating and wearing them down..."

"That's right!"

"That's it!"

"The general idea is fine!"

The Taoist disciples who helped design the porcelain pagoda all nodded in agreement. The problem was, when it came to the actual implementation, they each had their own ideas:
"I think five layers are the most suitable. According to the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, each layer generates the other, burning and purifying the evil and malevolent energy, and finally lifting it into the sky to slowly dissipate..."

"I think seven layers are better... If you only fire five layers, each layer is only one, so you can't achieve the balance of elements..."

"Nine is the ultimate number! It would be even better if it had nine layers..."

"I think we should use the Seven Stars Condensing Void Array here..."

"No, no, no, whether this tower is hexagonal or octagonal, it doesn't match the Seven Star Array... I think..." A group of cultivators gestured wildly, sleeves rolled up, feet on stools, arguing animatedly. Although Shen Le knew the answer—he had seen the final modern version of the Seven-Story Demon-Locking Tower—he shrank back, too afraid to speak.
He didn't know how the array inside the porcelain tower was depicted, nor did he know how the tower's number of layers, height, outer wall curvature, and internal cavity structure could be matched with the array and spirituality.
And we have no idea how those layers of seals were arranged...

"Take a look at my method!"

boom!
A thick stack of draft paper was thrown in front of Shen Le, and snowflakes danced in the air.

"My method is better!"

boom!
A log fell into the courtyard, making the stone table wobble twice. Layer upon layer of various runes and patterns were carved on the log, and a spiritual light could be seen flowing around it with the naked eye.

"Mingde! Do me a favor! Shape it into a porcelain blank using this method!"

A piece of spirit jade slammed directly onto Shen Le's forehead. Before Shen Le could even cry out in pain, his head buzzed, and information was forcefully poured into his brain with tremendous force...

Shen Le: "..."

Can we be a little gentler?

It won't make a difference if I take a day or two. Can't I learn this method slowly?

"Xuanying! You're cheating! Everyone did it themselves, why should you ask Mingde for help!"

Shen Le's head felt like it was about to explode. He swayed, clutched his head, stood up, wobbled twice on the spot, and then slumped back down.
"It doesn't necessarily have to be a porcelain blank... You can just use clay to make a clay model... It's all just an experiment anyway, so let's not use something as expensive as a porcelain blank..."

It took a full three months just to get the basic design working and tested. Finally, a five-story stone pagoda, a seven-story mud pagoda, and a nine-story wooden pagoda were placed side-by-side in front of Shen Le:
"That's roughly how it looks... Now, can we start the test firing?"

Shen Le sighed deeply and rolled up his sleeves. The formula for firing porcelain clay that could produce spiritual energy had been tried dozens of times, and the method was now stable;

The glaze formula that can retain and guide spiritual energy has been repeatedly tested over the past three months, and four or five glaze colors, including white glaze, yellow glaze, and green glaze, have been found.
As for the test firing...

"Your plan is way too difficult! It's testing my porcelain-making skills!!!"

Master Xuanming, standing in front of them, Senior Brother Mingxin to their left, and Senior Brother Mingfa to their right, all wore smiles that were a mixture of embarrassment and smugness...

Shen Le gritted his teeth and started working. He mixed and kneaded the porcelain clay, made a rough mold of the porcelain blank, and began to carve each plane and each line one by one.

Make a good base layer, then build another layer on top, and then another layer on top of that...

"Junior brother, take a break before you get back to work." Shen Le worked through the night, and the next morning he dipped his head into the mountain stream, shook his hair vigorously, and continued working.

Around noon, Lou Yun came over carrying a food box. Seeing his bloodshot eyes, still hunched over his workbench, meticulously sketching and criticizing, she couldn't help but offer some advice:
"Look, your eyes are all bloodshot! Go take a nap for a bit, then continue working?"

"No way." Shen Le took the food box and stuffed it into his mouth in a few bites, as if he wanted to squeeze the rice ball into a ball and stuff it directly into his stomach.

While eating, he mumbled something indistinctly:

"Once the porcelain blanks are made, they will dry out and crack if they are not put into the kiln for firing soon, and then they will be ruined. Such a large porcelain tower must be fired up, and firing up a kiln is not easy, so I have to finish them as soon as possible..."

What are you all standing there for?!

Lou Yun immediately raised his voice and shouted outside:

"Why are you just watching your junior brother do it all by himself? Everyone come over! Everyone come and help! — If there are more porcelain towers in the future, how long will it take for your junior brother to keep burning them all by himself!"

With a rustling sound, the shadows of the trees swayed, and seven or eight people appeared out of nowhere—all assigned to Shen Le by the sect leader. They had been working themselves to the bone before, but as soon as Shen Le started making the porcelain blanks, they all disappeared to slack off.

Now that Lou Yun had shouted it out, everyone worked hard and competed to be the first:
"Junior brother, don't tire yourself out. Go and get some sleep. Leave this to me. It's just about preventing the porcelain blank from cracking, right? Leave it to me! — Jade Liquid Refines True Form, Taiyin Strengthens the Foundation of Spirit! Condense!"

A faint, refreshing breeze blew by. Shen Le used his spiritual power to carefully probe, and sure enough, the trend of moisture evaporating from the inside of the porcelain blank had stopped.

Another senior student shook his head vigorously:
"Your technique is too wasteful, and the Jade Liquid Condensation Technique will interfere with the spiritual energy inside the tower. Just make sure the surroundings are sufficiently moist—Wind of Xun Drums the Void, Essence of Kan Transforms into Dragon! Hurry!"

At a command, a gentle breeze swept through the woods at the edge of the courtyard, stirring the water in the vat. Moments later, a faint mist enveloped the porcelain blank, adding a veil of mystery to it.
"That'll do. This spell will last at least three days. I'll carve another wooden talisman—Junior Brother, you can just go to sleep! It'll be fine!"

Shen Le gratefully bowed to his two senior brothers, rushed into his bedroom, and collapsed onto the floor. In his hazy state, he heard Lou Yun call out in a low voice:
"You think you can get away with not working? Don't even think about it! -- All of you, come here! You can't manage the fire or fire the kiln, but you can at least carve patterns on the porcelain blanks, right?!"

When Shen Le woke up, he found himself surrounded by porcelain blanks of all shapes and sizes, arranged from the bottom of the porcelain tower to the very top.
From inside the porcelain tower, there are small people, cats, and dogs used to attract and seal away evil spirits, to the precious pearl at the top of the tower that gathers sunlight;
From the bricks at the base of the tower to the railings along each layer of the tower's edge...

The fellow apprentices who helped with the work sculpted the largest pieces they could, and the smaller ones if they couldn't handle the larger ones. The only problem was:

"Are you using the same units of measurement? ... The array patterns made by different people might not fit together in the end... Oh well, the first time is just a test firing anyway..."

With something this big, it's normal to fail a hundred times, let alone fail on the first try. Just relax, take it easy, and do it slowly!
Shen Le sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and began assembling the components one by one, piecing the porcelain blanks together into a porcelain tower. He then poured glaze, applied various high-quality glazes, and finally carried the porcelain tower into the kiln.
"Seal the kiln!"

"Add more firewood!"

"ignition!"

"Senior Brother Mingli, your mastery of fire magic is second to none in the sect—please help me control the fire. I'll tell you when to make a big fire and when to make a small fire!"

A Taoist priest in red robes stepped forward from the crowd, tightened his belt, and nodded calmly. He brandished his wooden sword, performed a series of ritualistic steps, circled the kiln three times, and then suddenly pointed towards the kiln door:
"The Bing and Ding elements gather in truth, the fire element is practiced! Rise—"

With a loud bang, a massive burst of flames engulfed the entire porcelain kiln. Shen Le screamed in agony:
"Keep the fire low! Keep it low! Light these firewood first, let them slowly dry the porcelain blank a little, about a day, then turn the flame up to high!"

boom!
Before the words were finished, a muffled thud echoed from the kiln. Without a doubt, at least one of the three porcelain tower blanks standing inside had collapsed…

(End of this chapter)