The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

Yang Wanqing gripped the dagger, turning it over twice in her hand. The blade reflected her own face, which was covered in sweat, the tip of her nose was red, and her bangs were stuck to her forehead.

She stared at the dagger for a long time.

Then his momentum completely vanished.

His shoulders slumped, his back arched, and he leaned against the stone platform, sliding down to sit on the ground.

Hearing the noise, Chen Siyao put down the bamboo slip in her hand and walked over.

"Did it work?"

Yang Wanqing handed her the dagger without saying a word.

Chen Siyao took the dagger. It felt substantial in her hand. She examined it; the blade was sharp, the lines were even, and the overall design was beautiful.

but...

There are no energy fluctuations.

She probed the inside of the blade with her energy. It was solid. There were no spiritual vein patterns, no traces of array inscriptions, and no additional attributes.

For ordinary people, it is a sharp blade, and also a beautiful dagger.

However, by the standards of weapon crafting, it's just for show.

Chen Siyao looked up at Yang Wanqing.

Yang Wanqing sat on the ground with his legs stretched out and his head resting against the side of the stone platform.

"Yao Yao".

"Um."

"Am I just not talented?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Look..." Yang Wanqing pointed at the dagger, "I spent a whole day forging it. I wasted five pieces of material. And this is what I finally got. It looks nice, but it's like an ornament. It has no spirit at all. I can't infuse energy into it, and I can't inscribe any array patterns on it."

She rubbed the stone platform with the back of her head.

"I was the first one to come out during the Penglai assessment. I thought I was pretty good. But when it came to the actual operation..."

Chen Siyao looked down at the dagger in her hand and thought for a while.

Yang Wanqing did indeed pass the weapon-forging assessment in Penglai with the highest score.

That assessment used standardized low-grade ore and a standard refining furnace.

Yang Wanqing's control of the heat, shaping techniques, and inscription of the spiritual veins are all perfect.

There's no problem with his talent.

So where is the problem?

Chen Siyao glanced at the Bagua Furnace.

The light patterns on the furnace wall were still flowing, and the Samadhi Fire was still burning.

"Qingqing".

"Um……"

"The problem isn't with you."

Yang Wanqing tilted his head to look at her.

"This Bagua Furnace is an artifact of the same level as Laozi's. The Samadhi True Fire inside was also poured in by my brother—you simply can't control that level of flame. You can only indirectly adjust the temperature through the vent, and the precision is many orders of magnitude worse."

Chen Siyao squatted down to be at eye level with Yang Wanqing.

"To give an example, if a novice drives an F1 car on a track and completes the entire race without crashing, that's already quite impressive. You can't expect him to set the same lap times as a professional driver."

Yang Wanqing blinked.

"You're a newbie now. The furnace is too high-level, the flames are too high-level."

"The fact that you can refine materials into the shape of a finished product under these conditions is something that not everyone can do."

Yang Wanqing's brows relaxed slightly. "Really?"

"Really. You can ask my brother if you don't believe me."

Yang Wanqing wiped her face and stood up.

"Let's go ask the master."

The two left the alchemy room and found Chen Hao in the corridor.

He'd changed his teapot to the third one. He was holding his cup, gazing at the sea of ​​clouds.

"master!"

Yang Wanqing jogged over and handed the dagger to him.

"Master, please give me your evaluation. I refined it today, and this is all I got."

Chen Hao put down his teacup and took the dagger.

He flipped it over. Then he flipped it over again.

It paused for two seconds.

Yang Wanqing nervously rubbed his hands: "Is it really that bad? I know it has no spiritual veins, no array patterns, it's just like a piece of scrap metal—"

"Do you know what kind of material you're using?" Chen Hao interrupted her.

"A dark red metal ingot. I don't know what it's called."

"Taiyi Golden Essence".

Yang Wanqing was stunned.

Chen Hao raised the dagger to eye level and examined the blade against the light.

"This material was a top-tier, first-class material for crafting weapons in ancient times. It has an extremely high softening temperature and is extremely difficult to shape."

"Without a fire source of the Samadhi True Fire level, it simply cannot be burned. Even with Samadhi True Fire, to forge it into a vessel shape..."

He paused.

"In ancient times, there were no more than a hundred weapon refiners who could control the Taiyi Golden Essence."

Yang Wanqing's mouth was open.

"You used a clumsy method that you couldn't even control the heat of, and spent a whole day, on your sixth attempt, to refine the Taiyi Gold into a finished product."

Chen Hao handed the dagger back to her. "It's normal that there's no spiritual vein inscription. You can't control the Samadhi True Fire yet, so naturally you can't inscribe it. But being able to refine it into form is already quite good."

The chat in the live stream was silent for two seconds.

Then...

"Wait... there were no more than a hundred people in ancient times?"

"What kind of monstrous talent did Yang Wanqing possess?"

"It manifested on the sixth try? Did those ancient people need to train for several years?"

"Is God Chen Hao praising someone? He actually praised someone?"

"Key point: 'It's already pretty good,' said by Chen Hao, so it carries a lot of weight."

Holding the dagger, Yang Wanqing sprang out of her dejected state.

"Turns out it wasn't my cooking skills! It was just that the ingredients were too good!"

"Um."

"No wonder it was so hard to burn! No wonder the energy couldn't penetrate! Taiyi Golden Essence! Just the name sounds powerful!"

She slapped her thigh and turned to run towards the alchemy room.

"I'll put away the rest of the materials! I'll refine them later when I can control the Samadhi Fire!"

Chen Siyao stood to the side, watching Yang Wanqing rush into the alchemy room like a gust of wind, and shook her head.

She looked at Chen Hao.

Chen Hao has already picked up his teacup again.

"elder brother."

"Um."

"Just how good was your 'not bad' just now?"

Chen Hao took a sip of tea. "In ancient times, this talent would have earned him the treatment of a core disciple in any sect."

Chen Siyao did not ask any further questions.

She turned and walked back to the alchemy room. Inside, she could hear Yang Wanqing rummaging through drawers and excitedly talking to himself.

"Taiyi Golden Essence...Taiyi Golden Essence...Take this silvery-white one too...And this bottle of liquid as well..."

Chen Siyao leaned against the door frame and watched for a while.

"Hurry up and eat after you're done. You haven't eaten a single bite since this morning."

"Right away!"

Throughout the day, Yang Wanqing collected all the remaining Taiyi Golden Essence, Star Radiance Sand, and Spirit Quenching Liquid from the alchemy room into his Qiankun Bag.

After finishing collecting them, I couldn't resist returning to the Eight Trigrams Furnace and picking up a lower-grade auxiliary material to try it out... This time, with experience, I was much more efficient.

Chen Siyao finished filming the last few scrolls of bamboo slips, confirmed the clarity of the transmitted images with Professor Li's team, and then called it a day.

That evening, the two returned to the attic. Yang Wanqing ate six skewers of leftover cold mutton from yesterday in one go, and then made a bowl of instant noodles.

"I'm starving, I'm starving!"

"He brought it on himself."

"Worth it." Yang Wanqing slurped his noodles, speaking indistinctly, "Taiyi Golden Essence, I, Yang Wanqing, am now someone who has handled top-tier materials."

Chen Siyao rolled her eyes and ignored her.

The next day.

The three began to systematically explore the other areas of the Tushita Palace.

The Heavenly Gate was the access control structure at the entrance... There, Chen Siyao discovered a complete set of blueprints for a defensive array system, engraved on the stone wall inside the gate. As usual, she took photos to document it.