The Eternal Saint of Alchemy

The banquet ended, and it was already late. Ye Ruolin personally saw Xiao Fan off at the door. The lanterns illuminated the stone steps in front of the door, and the night breeze rustled the leaves.

Ye Ruolin stood by the door, looking up at him with disbelief. "You didn't sleep well last night, did you?"

Xiao Fan shrugged. "Yes. Senior Hu asked a good question, much simpler than that convoluted one from Zixiao Pavilion."

Ye Ruolin waved with a smile. He said, "Go back and rest. There's still a lot to do these next few days."

As Xiao Fan walked down the brightly lit street, the conversation from the banquet kept replaying in his mind.

The reactions from various factions in the capital were mixed; some were observing while others were eager to try.

Moreover, you must play your cards one by one, without showing any fear, and you must not reveal all your cards at once.

The streetlights flickered in the night wind, casting long shadows.

The next morning, Xiao Fan headed to the west of the city early.

After the banquet last night, Master Hu secretly told Xiao Fan that there was a shop called Qiao's Shop on Zhuque Street in the west of the city, which had some old books, and Xiao Fan wanted to take a look.

Zhuque Street, in the western part of the capital, is an ancient and bustling street lined with shops on both sides.

The alley sells fire-attribute spiritual materials and pills. Walking from one end of the alley to the other, you can smell the mixture of various qualities of spiritual materials, which give off a unique burnt aroma and a dry, fresh scent of grass and wood, making people feel refreshed.

Xiao Fan stopped and walked to a shop called "Qiao's Matches". It was a small shop with some dried spiritual materials hanging at the entrance. Behind the counter sat an old woman with gray hair, holding a small hammer and hammering a piece of reddish-brown ore.

"Grandma Qiao? Senior Brother Hu introduced her to me," Xiao Fan replied politely.

The old woman looked up at him, put down the hammer, and slowly stood up. "Did Mr. Hu introduce you? You just wait." With that, she turned and walked behind the curtain at the counter, taking out two somewhat worn-looking booklets.

"Old Hu said someone would come to collect these two books in a few days, so I'm making preparations in advance. You can take a look for yourself."

Xiao Fan flipped through the first volume and found that it was a notebook for surveying fire veins. It contained detailed records of the approximate distribution of underground fire veins throughout the capital city, as well as some unusual fluctuations.

The second book is an investigation of several abandoned kiln sites around the capital. It mentions that in the western suburbs of the city, there is a kiln that has been abandoned for many years. There is a passage leading directly underground, and at the end of the passage are several ancient formations sealed by spiritual energy.

He closed the booklet and looked at Granny Qiao: "Senior Hu, are these two booklets for me?"

The old woman waved her hand. "Old Hu said that if you've seen it and find it useful, you can leave a message. Anyway, it's been sitting here all these years, and no one has ever seen it."

Xiao Fan thanked him repeatedly, then carefully wrapped up the two small notebooks.

He walked out of the shop and headed west along Zhuque Street. The array in his mind stirred slightly, pointing to an abandoned kiln in the west of the city.

There seemed to be some subtle connection between the words on that piece of paper and the array base, as if something was hidden within it.

He immediately turned around, walked out of the west gate, and appeared in a desolate wasteland. After walking for about two hours, a half-collapsed, dilapidated brick kiln came into view.

It was a brick kiln made of brown refractory bricks, with most of the walls collapsed, revealing the dark furnace body inside and mountains of slag.

Xiao Fan walked to the dark place behind the kiln and, following the instructions in the notebook, found the sealed entrance.

A heavy, rusty iron padlock hung on the gate, but the lock on the bolt was surprisingly intact, clearly having been reinforced.

He tried to use the Creation Fire to probe along the edge of the lock core and found an extremely ancient spiritual energy restriction inside. It was quite similar to the spiritual energy restriction at the entrance of the Burning Bone Abyss, only much smaller in scale and much weaker in power.

The flames of creation easily seeped in. The seal was scorched by the crimson-gold flames, melting away silently, and the iron gate groaned as it slowly opened inward.

Xiao Fan sidestepped and squeezed through the crowd. The tunnel wasn't long, only about a dozen steps.

At the end of the passage was a small stone chamber, in the center of which was a palm-sized bronze disc. The disc was engraved with fine patterns, and there was a groove in the center that perfectly matched the shape of the Thunderfire Token.

He crouched down and placed the Thunderfire Token in his hand inside. It fit perfectly.

The moment the Thunderfire Token was inserted into the copper plate, the plate trembled slightly, and the patterns on it gradually lit up, spreading outward layer by layer to form a dark red light curtain.

On the light screen was a diagram of the flow of spiritual energy beneath the capital city, and directly below the capital city was a striking mark, which was the runes on the wall of the Burning Bone Abyss.

What lies underground? And in the heart of the capital, it has remained undiscovered for centuries.

Xiao Fan took the Thunderfire Token off the bronze plate, and the light on the plate dimmed instantly.

He stood up, glanced at the remaining speck of light on the ground, and memorized the location of the mark.

Back on the ground, the sun was shining brightly outside. He closed the iron gate and returned along the same route.

The two tattered booklets in his arms pressed against his chest, causing him a sharp pain.

The underground forces in the capital city far exceeded his imagination.

That night, by candlelight, Xiao Fan compared the jade slip left by the Zhou family and some clues revealed by Elder Hu at the Ye family banquet with the core runes recorded on the stone wall of Burning Bone Abyss, and finally determined the approximate location of the mark.

The imperial city is located in the center of the capital and is heavily guarded; ordinary people simply cannot enter.

However, the location marked on the bronze disc was not the imperial city, but an ancient storage area southeast of the imperial city. It is said that when the imperial city was first built, this was an abandoned warehouse used to store building materials. It has been abandoned for many years and hardly anyone has ever come here.

Early the next morning, Gu Yuan was summoned by Xiao Fan. Yun Ruoxi stayed at the inn and instructed the servants to tell Ye Ruolin that she was going to buy some spiritual materials and would not be back for half a day.

The two bypassed the southern part of the city, avoiding the sight of the imperial city patrols, and slipped through a gap in the old wall in the southeast corner. The place was indeed long abandoned; wild grass grew among the rubble, crushing the rotten wooden frames.

Xiao Fan walked at the front. He sensed the presence of the array base and a faint fluctuation of spiritual energy, as if some creature was breathing deep underground.

Following the direction indicated by the array base, he passed through layers of ancient bricks and tiles and arrived at a half-collapsed blue brick platform.

The platform was covered with thick moss and dust, making its original appearance unrecognizable, but the sensing of the array base had reached its peak, because the place beneath their feet was where spiritual energy converged.