Mortal: Reborn in Yellow Maple Valley, Awakening the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts

Chu Zifei walked to the boulder, lowered his waist and braced himself, exerted force from his feet and gathered it in his waist, then channeled all his strength into his fist and suddenly threw a punch.

"Bang!"

A loud bang rang out, dust filled the sky, and the stone turned into dust. With just his physical strength, Chu Zifei now possessed the combat power of the early Foundation Establishment stage.

"Now we just wait for the Blood Forbidden Trial to begin."

Chu Zifei also prepared to participate in the Blood Forbidden Trial, although the trial grounds were infamous and considered a forbidden area for cultivators, fraught with danger.

However, the demons lurking within were what attracted him. Even though he had cultivated the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts, which allowed him to break through without the step-by-step Foundation Establishment process or the use of Foundation Establishment Pills, advancing to the second stage of the Arcane Arts still required a large amount of demonic beast essence, malevolent energy, or rare and precious materials. Therefore, hunting the demons entrenched in the trial grounds became his best option for breaking through to the next level.

"We must forge the golden bow and silver bullets as soon as possible to make up for the lack of ranged attack methods," Chu Zifei muttered to himself.

As soon as he finished speaking, he flew away from the back mountain and, based on his impressions from reading the novel in his previous life, headed straight for the Yuelu Hall in the valley. Then he found the unmarked passage and walked all the way to its end.

At the end of the passage, Chu Zifei saw the giant stone gate that shimmered with iridescent multicolored light. Sure enough, in the low house beside the stone gate sat an ugly man with a face full of fleshy bumps, his eyes and brows full of arrogance.

Chu Zifei didn't care about the ugly man's arrogant attitude, because he was feeling a chill run down his spine. The ugly man's face full of bumps triggered his deep-seated trypophobia from his previous life.

He forced down the unease surging in his heart and stepped forward: "Excuse me, senior brother, I need to borrow the earth fire. Could you please open a room for me?"

Upon hearing that Chu Zi insisted on borrowing the earth fire, the ugly man's previous disdainful attitude vanished instantly, replaced by a fawning and obsequious smile. Ironically, his pockmarked face combined with his obsequious expression only made him more repulsive: "I wonder if this junior brother wants to refine pills or forge weapons?"

Chu Zifei casually took out ten low-grade spirit stones and slammed them on the table:

"I need to open a fire chamber for refining artifacts. Please arrange it as soon as possible, senior brother. I only need to borrow it for a few days. Please accept these ten spirit stones for now. If it is not enough, I will make up the difference later. If there is any left over, consider it as your reward and do not return it to me."

His request not to return the extra spirit stones wasn't because he was rich; he simply wanted to leave once he finished using them so he could avoid that unpleasant face.

Upon hearing this, the ugly man's smile grew even brighter. Since ordinary Qi cultivators lacked sufficient cultivation, they could only stay in the Earth Fire Chamber for a few days. Ten low-grade spirit stones were more than enough for them, and they couldn't possibly use them all. He considered himself to have received a windfall.

So he immediately took out a purple command arrow from his pocket and waved it at the stone gate.

A beam of light shot out from the purple command arrow and struck the stone gate. The multicolored light on the gate immediately began to swirl rapidly, accompanied by a series of deep hums, and the stone gate slowly rose, revealing a deep passage behind it.

The ugly man led the way with a fawning expression. After passing through the stone passage, Chu Zifei saw the awe-inspiring circular forging hall.

  

"The entire hall is connected to the underground fire of the earth's core, and the surrounding partitions are the earth fire chambers used by our sect for alchemy and weapon forging."

The ugly man led the way while continuing his introduction.

Chu Zifei followed closely behind and soon arrived at the door of a stone chamber painted with a gilded "eight" character.

"Junior brother, you can refine your weapon right here."

Without waiting for Chu Zifei's response, he took out a white jade tablet and activated it to open the stone door to the underground fire chamber.

Just as the ugly man was about to enter the house to explain the secrets of controlling the earth fire in detail, Chu Zifei took the jade tablet, turned around and closed the stone door again, directly blocking him outside.

At the same time, Chu Zifei's voice came from inside the door: "Thank you for leading the way, senior brother. I know how to use this earth fire by heart, so I won't trouble you to explain it."

The ugly man stood there, staring at the stone gate before him, utterly astonished. How could a mere Qi Refining disciple know the method to control the Earth Fire Chamber?

On second thought, he assumed he had heard it from a fellow disciple or senior member of the sect, so he stopped worrying about it. Still thinking about the remaining spirit stones he had gotten for free, he turned and left with great interest.

Chu Zifei leaned against the door, and as he heard the ugly man's footsteps fading into the distance, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Finally, I don't have to suffer looking at that pimple face anymore."

For someone who suffered from trypophobia in his past life, seeing that bumpy face repeatedly would probably shatter his Dao heart and breed inner demons.

Setting aside his distracting thoughts, Chu Zifei finally calmed down and took a good look around the earth fire chamber in front of him.

The stone chamber was only four or five zhang in diameter, far less spacious than the nineteenth alchemy chamber used by Han Li. Indeed, there were gourds filled with sparks and sand hanging on the four walls, which were used to enhance the power of the earth fire.

The fire vents also abandoned the eight miniature dragon heads commonly found in alchemy rooms, replacing them with four small fire unicorn carvings. The unicorns raised their heads, their mouths slightly open, facing the sky above the fire vents, seemingly poised to unleash a torrent of fire.

"As expected, the design of the weapon-refining fire chamber and the alchemy fire chamber are completely different."

When refining pills, it is important to use a gentle and long fire with a mild and stable heat. However, when refining weapons, a strong fire is often required. Therefore, the eight dragon-head slender fires were changed to four strong fire outlets.

Chu Zifei walked slowly around the Earth Fire Chamber again, looking around to figure out the layout of the stone chamber after the Earth Fire was switched on. Only then did he take out the materials for refining the Golden Bow and Silver Bullets from his storage bag.

He planned to use Kunwu wood, which combines toughness and hardness, with the main sinew of the Foundation Establishment demon beast Qiu serpent to forge the slingshot itself. The magic weapon made from these two materials would be strong and powerful enough for Foundation Establishment stage users.

The Golden Bullet is primarily used for killing and breaking magic, but with limited resources at the moment, we can only make do with engraving runes in gold.

Since the main purpose of the silver pill is to immobilize and dispel illusions, silver will have to be used as a temporary substitute. We will refine it again later when we find more precious materials.

After all the materials were prepared, Chu Zifei walked to the fire unicorn carving and memorized the control method engraved on the fire outlet.

Then he quickly raised his hand and formed a magic seal, sending out four beams of crimson magic light onto the fire qilin. The fire qilin immediately absorbed the red light, its dormant beast eyes flashed suddenly, and its slightly open beast mouth instantly spewed out four blazing purple flames, the fire extremely violent.

Seeing this, Chu Zifei summoned the Creation Cauldron, and a continuous stream of spiritual power flowed into the cauldron.

The next instant, the cauldron shimmered with spiritual light and slowly rose into the air. He guided the Creation Cauldron toward the fire outlet with his mind, and the moment the cauldron touched the fire in the earth's core, it seemed to possess a spirit and floated above the raging earth fire on its own.

Under the purple flames spewed from the four fire-spirited Qilin sculptures, the Creation Cauldron continuously absorbed the earth's fire energy. As the cauldron's temperature steadily increased, a sudden change occurred within the small cauldron!