Mountains and giant beasts, cabins in the woods

the next day.

Liu Xingmo was under the peach tree, attaching a boxcart and a flatbed cart to Bao Hei's backside, the carts loaded with furniture.

Four insects and one bird also set off.

After traversing mountains and valleys, we arrived at Mushroom Castle.

Liu Xingmo took out the key, first opened the small door on the city gate, went inside, and then pulled the winch to hoist the main gate up.

Officially moved into Mushroom Castle.

Following the stone staircase along the hall wall, one can enter the fourth level of the fortress. This attic is disc-shaped, with a diameter of over thirty meters.

The stone walls all around had glass windows, and bright sunlight streamed down, casting beams of light through the floating dust.

The conical roof above is supported by a complex mortise and tenon structure, which houses staircases and passageways, as well as a ring of skylights.

The place is quite large, and several rooms have been partitioned off with wooden boards and simply decorated.

It has a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, study, and even a laboratory and storage room.

I'll be living here from now on.

Liu Xingmo moved the old furniture into the new house, but even looking at the attic that now had a bit more life in it, he was still not satisfied.

The house is too big and too spacious.

sunset.

Liu Xingmo brought his wife to the East City Market.

Lights have already been lit on the multi-tiered, interconnected wooden houses. Vendors are tending their small shops, hawking a dazzling array of trinkets.

The glittering glass oil lamps, the tinkling seashell wind chimes, and all sorts of cups, plates, bowls, chopsticks, sofas, screens...

My wallet suffered a major blow as I bought a large amount of furniture.

The attic, which was empty in the morning, became different in the afternoon.

It was filled with all sorts of trinkets, like a witch's tower. No, it was an alchemist's workshop.

Sumali cooked several dishes in the kitchen of her new home and brought them to the dining table.

Liu Xingmo sat in the chair, and when he turned his head, he could see the lights of thousands of homes in the entire city outside the glass window.

Come to think of it, we're city dwellers, aren't we?

"Xingmo, I'm afraid I'll be troubling you for the next month," Su Mali said, taking a sip of soup with a silver spoon.

"It's alright. Just transport those iron lumps over, assemble them, fill them with coal, start the steam engine, and we can quickly produce the medicine, right?"

"To put it simply, it's like this. The actual process is much more complicated. I need to constantly adjust the amount of raw materials based on the situation, and I also need to use secret techniques at specific stages. I'm afraid I can't handle it all by myself, and I'll need you to sacrifice a lot of your time to help me."

"Haha..." Liu Xingmo chuckled wryly, "I knew it would be like this. Come to think of it, I haven't touched a fishing rod for more than half a year."

"Feel sorry."

"It's alright. As long as the production line starts running, everything will be fine." Liu Xingmo looked at the wooden houses and streets under the night sky. "There are nine rivers in the city. If you want to go fishing, you don't even need to leave the city."

……

The days that followed were as busy as expected.

Liu Xingmo travels back and forth between the mine and Mushroom Fort every day, moving all sorts of heavy and complicated custom-made machinery to his new home.

Gears, chains, boilers... equipment with runes drawn on them was assembled according to the blueprints, filling room after room.

The crisscrossing steel pipes guide the extracted liquid along its path into the high-pressure reactor, where it oxidizes or reduces each other, and even merges with wondrous spiritual energy, ultimately producing a viscous medicine.

Here's the plan. Plans are prone to error.

During implementation, various problems will inevitably arise, requiring human adjustment and repair, until a stable production line is finally formed.

During the trial operation of this equipment, problems arose frequently. For example, pipe ruptures, boiler leaks, and instrument malfunctions occurred. These required overnight repairs, redesign, and the issuance of new manufacturing tasks.

day after day.

Looking at the steel machinery that filled his factory, Liu Xingmo felt a sense of accomplishment and anticipation welling up inside him.

I really want to see it operational soon.

More than a month later.

Another trial production.

Liu Xingmo, dressed in work clothes covered in soot, scooped up coal with a shovel and threw it into the raging fire. Meanwhile, three rhinoceros beetles helped push and pull the blower, pumping fresh air into the furnace.

The fire burned brighter and brighter, the water in the pot began to boil, and the brass needle on the pressure gauge trembled incessantly.

"Clang! Clang!" The steel machinery, like the heart of a behemoth, began to contract and expand. The immense energy surged in layers, awakening the entire steel behemoth.

"Mary! How are things on your end?"

"Everything is fine!"

"Okay, be careful not to hurt yourself."

"Okay. Xingmo, be careful too."

Sumali was wearing work clothes, and there was black and gray on her fair face.

She turned the valve, and the liquid medicine in the sealed steel tank was propelled by air pressure, flowing through a complex network of pipes into the reactor.

She carefully monitored the changes.

"Boom! Boom!" The entire production line kept running, and at the very end, a thick, blood-red liquid flowed out from a nozzle.

"We did it!" Sumali shouted excitedly.

"Really? We finally succeeded!" Liu Xingmo leaned against the wall, feeling exhausted.

The two carefully operated the machine, running it continuously for half an hour, and harvested a large bottle of medicine.

Turn off the engine and perform inspection and maintenance.

Liu Xingmo and Su Mali opened the sealed steel can and cleaned some parts.

Fortunately, the blockage that could have caused an explosion did not occur. This design was safe and reliable.

The alchemy workshop I had been longing for was finally completed at this moment.

……

As night falls and the city lights come on, the streets of Midtown are bathed in a warm, orange glow.

Mushroom Castle, top floor attic.

On the dining table lay the newly made potion, still warm with wisps of steam rising gently.

At the dining table, the two tired people waited for dinner. Not wanting to move much, they had Bao Hei carry a note to the restaurant to order takeout.

"Mary, how many of these potions can be produced in a day if the machines are running at full capacity?" Liu Xingmo asked lazily, sprawled on the dining table.

"Thirty cans, I suppose," Sumali said casually, leaning back in her chair.

"So many?!" Liu Xingmo exclaimed, a mixture of surprise and delight. "This production efficiency is 30 times higher than before!"

"It's not that simple. The most troublesome part is the inspection and maintenance of the machine; it can't run continuously. It needs to be shut down for maintenance a few days every week."

"That's an incredible profit! How much will our family earn on average each day from now on?"

"Four hundred for the workshop, one hundred for the newspaper, so five hundred for the two of them in total."

"My God!" Liu Xingmo sat up from the table. "At the prices of medicinal herbs in Black Dragon Village, we could eat our fill of all the good herbs we wanted!"

"Phew!" Sumali straightened up. "Yes! We all need to keep advancing; this is just the beginning."

……

About half an hour later, a voice called from downstairs: "Your dinner has been delivered!"

Liu Xingmo opened the window and saw an uncle staring at the entire fortress with a look of surprise and doubt.

Liu Xingmo took out a blood droplet from his storage bag and lowered it through the window: "Hang the things up here!"

The uncle downstairs did as he was told and hung the food box on the hook.

He looked up at the window in the granite city wall and called out, "Are you new here?"

"Yes."

"This house is amazing! It's just like the big buildings in our family's compound."

"We can't compare; we're just a small family," Liu Xingmo said with a smile. "We're all ordinary people."

"Oh." The middle-aged man blinked, looking bewildered, and asked, "If I may ask, what do you do? There's always this banging noise coming from your house."

"My family makes medicine. Come and buy medicine whenever you need it. It's good quality and inexpensive!" Liu Xingmo waved.

The middle-aged man craned his neck: "Pharmaceutical manufacturing? Like one of those big pharmacies? Who do they sell their stuff to? Can ordinary people even buy it?"

"I'll accept anyone who comes, as long as they have money!" Liu Xingmo raised the corners of his mouth.

"Your family is truly remarkable..." The uncle turned his neck, gazing at the entire fortress.