The Heavenly Engine Furnace
Returning to his quarters in the detached hall, Ouyang Qiangang shut the door behind him.
The moment he sank into his chair, the smile drained from his face.
The colossal sword scar he had witnessed in the underground plaza of Sand Rock Peak filled his mind. That perfect straight line had carried a mystique as though time itself had been severed — but the wonder had not lasted long. Unbidden, the shadow of the masked man who had tried to kill him rose up before his eyes.
Just who was that guy?
Ouyang Qiangang murmured the question inwardly and closed his eyes.
Akasha, the formation-art that masked man unleashed back then — what did the analysis turn up?
Yes, Doctor. I compared the data collected at the time against my martial arts database. The masked man's technique concentrates everything into raw destructive power, at the expense of precision. Its affinity with your current martial arts is poor, making it difficult for you to withstand his overwhelming force.
How does it compare to the Gale Chain Cyclone Palm or the Explosive Thunder Flame King Pillar?
Factoring in your current mastery of those two arts, if you fought him again right now, I estimate your probability of victory at 32 percent.
Even after my martial arts have improved this much?
That is precisely why it is only 32 percent.
Hah…
If you could perfectly execute the Gale Chain Cyclone Palm's unbroken chain of strikes and the Explosive Thunder Flame King Pillar's single-point destruction — piercing one point through everything — your odds of neutralizing his strength and exploiting an opening would rise.
By how much?
It would be better for you not to hear it.
Sigh… Your analysis assumes I fight him as I am right now, doesn't it?
That is correct.
And if I had mastered those martial arts to the Twelve Perfections?
Your probability of victory rises to 78 percent. However, his martial arts may likewise deepen in refinement as time passes, so the true odds can only be verified when you meet him again.
Akasha's analysis was sharp and crystal clear. Ouyang Qiangang's eyes gleamed cold as ice.
When we meet again, I'll pay back that debt in full.
Of course, Doctor.
Setting the masked man from his mind, Ouyang Qiangang ground the lump of ten-thousand-year cold jade into powder and stored it in a jade jar. This powder was destined to become the core material for the mass-production facility of the Yang Dragon Pill.
The next morning, Ouyang Qiangang was summoned by Heo Il-bi and made his way to the study. His uncle cleared his throat before speaking.
"Ahem… Gang, you looked far too exhausted yesterday for me to say anything, but while you were away at Dayangsan Island, Nanchang was thrown into an uproar."
Ouyang Qiangang regarded him with a puzzled look. "Yes? What do you mean, Uncle?"
"That Yang Dragon Pill you gave me!" Heo Il-bi said, stroking his beard in mild embarrassment. "Your uncle here was so astonished by the pill's miraculous effects that, on a whim, I sent one to the head of the Yu family. And well…"
The head of the Yu family — that meant Yu Han-saeng of the Full Moon Spear, master of Nanchang's Yu clan.
"Judging by the result, the clan head was so stunned by the medicine that he apparently told a few people around him about it."
"Hmm…"
"The problem is where the rumor leaked from. Every last one of Nanchang's prominent magnates has been sending people to my door, begging me to sell them the pill. It's utter lawlessness — I've told them it isn't even on sale yet." He pressed a hand to his forehead as if his head ached. "One of them even thrust a thousand silver taels at me as an advance payment, pleading with me to sell him as many as possible. The entire upper crust of Nanchang is calling the Yang Dragon Pill an elixir of rejuvenation and tearing each other apart to get their hands on it."
Reading his mind, Ouyang Qiangang asked with a calm smile, "So you'd like to begin selling right away, Uncle?"
Heo Il-bi's eyes brightened. "We have stock on hand. If we set a fixed daily quota, we should be able to hold out until mass production begins, no?" He leaned forward, eyes shining with expectation. "What do you think?"
Ouyang Qiangang answered with a grin. "As you wish, Uncle. I'd rather not involve myself in the sales."
"I'm grateful. The way people hounded me, I was ready to die of it. Hahaha!" Having breathed a sigh of relief, Heo Il-bi laughed heartily — then his face turned serious again. "By the way, this Pure Yin Vessel storage you spoke of — when do you expect the jars to be finished?"
"About ten days."
"Ten days? Does it really take that long to make jars?" Heo Il-bi looked genuinely puzzled.
"Making the jars alone would take five days at most. But I intend to go beyond simply crafting jars — I'm building something called the Heavenly Engine Furnace, an apparatus that automates the entire process, so that it completes the final pill the moment raw herbs are supplied. That's why I need more time."
Heo Il-bi's jaw dropped. "The Heavenly Engine Furnace? Automation? What in the world are you talking about? Are you planning to build some kind of mechanism?"
"Something like a mechanism — though its power source and method are completely different, Uncle."
Ouyang Qiangang began to explain, calm and unhurried.
"The heart of the Heavenly Engine Furnace process lies in the ten-thousand-year cold jade. I will carve circuitry for channeling true qi into its surface — circuits so fine they're invisible to the naked eye. It's a technique of my own devising."
"Circuitry for true qi…? What is that supposed to be?" Curiosity brimmed in Heo Il-bi's eyes.
"Think of it as a device that uses the Pure Yin Vessels to produce the minute variations in vibration and pressure each individual jar requires."
"I heard every word, and I understood none of it."
"Haha. Once I activate the circuits with my internal energy, the furnace will grind the herbs on its own — ultrasonic pulverization — blend them in precise proportions — micro-vortex mixing — and convey each mixture to the next stage through bamboo conduits."
Heo Il-bi gazed at Ouyang Qiangang with a look that had passed beyond admiration into something like awe. He felt as though he were not speaking with a martial artist of the rivers and lakes, but with an immortal descended from the heavens, or a mystic master of talismanic arts. Invisible circuits, woven so fine the eye could not see them, commanding energy itself to create medicine — it was something no ordinary person of this age could even imagine.
"Gang… you truly are a man sent down from heaven itself."
"You flatter me, Uncle."
From the day he left the study, Ouyang Qiangang shut himself away in the alchemy chamber and returned to his life of seclusion. His routine was simple. In the mornings, he produced small batches of the Yang Dragon Pill by hand from the herbs Heo Il-bi had procured, building up inventory. In the afternoons, he worked on the Heavenly Engine Furnace — his real objective — debating the fine points of the automation process with Akasha.
Hwang Nodae kept silent watch at his side like a shadow, exactly as he always had.
The crux of the Heavenly Engine Furnace lay in inscribing an invisible energy-control circuit onto ceramic jars coated with the powdered ten-thousand-year cold jade. Holding his breath, Ouyang Qiangang laid both hands upon a finely coated jar and began to circulate the Transcendent Formless Divine Art.
Akasha, begin.
Understood, Doctor. Please maintain a stable supply of true qi from this point onward. Initiating the nanolithography process using the nanobots.
At Akasha's words, dozens of nanobots streamed out through his palms and onto the layer of cold-jade powder coating the jar's surface. What followed was a wondrous act of creation, invisible to human eyes.
Powered by the pure, steady internal energy Ouyang Qiangang supplied, the nanobots began rearranging the jade's microscopic particles at the molecular level. Like engineers etching circuits onto a semiconductor wafer, they inscribed into the powder layer an intricate, geometric lattice of energy-control circuitry — patterns capable of storing qi, amplifying it, and releasing it with pinpoint precision. A faint blue radiance bloomed across the jar's surface like a spider's web, faded, and bloomed again, over and over.
But sustaining the process demanded a constant stream of Ouyang Qiangang's internal energy. He had to keep cycling the Transcendent Formless Divine Art without pause to feed the nanobots, and his inner power drained away at a frightening rate. Without the fortuitous energies he had absorbed at Sand Rock Peak, it would not have been the least bit strange for him to collapse from sheer exhaustion.
Six days in, Akasha's warning rang through his mind.
Doctor, your vital signs are approaching critical thresholds. You require at least twelve hours of rest. If you continue, your meridians may suffer permanent damage.
I'm not dying from something like this.
Ouyang Qiangang muttered inwardly.
Back on Earth I once pulled twenty-seven straight all-nighters in the lab. And now I have internal energy on top of that — do you really think I'll keel over from just this?
He ignored Akasha's warning and pressed on with the work. And so, after ten full, unbroken days, the final jar's circuit was complete.
Ouyang Qiangang was gaunt, the skin beneath his eyes dark as ash — but as he gazed upon what he had built, his eyes burned brighter than they ever had.
He summoned Heo Il-bi, Heo Cho-ryeong, and Hwang Nodae to the alchemy chamber. Geum Wang came along too, nestled snugly in Heo Cho-ryeong's arms.
At the center of the chamber stood a bizarre apparatus: several enormous jars connected to one another in an intricate web of hollow bamboo conduits.
"So this… is the Heavenly Engine Furnace you spoke of?" Heo Il-bi asked, marveling.
Ouyang Qiangang smiled and gestured toward the foremost jar. "Yes, Uncle. All you need do is place the measured herbs inside. Words alone would hardly convince you, so allow me to show you directly."
The moment he fed the herbs in, the Heavenly Engine Furnace quietly came to life.
Ouyang Qiangang explained the principle to his uncle as they watched. "The process is driven by the cold qi the furnace emits. It exploits the minute temperature differential between cooling and heating to generate pressure, and uses that force to process the herbs. The true-qi circuitry I inscribed into the furnace — my own secret technique — regulates every stage of it with precision."
Just as he described, the herbs were carried from jar to jar — ground, spread, and boiled entirely of their own accord. Then, in the final jar, they passed through a special low-temperature maturation process before emerging from the outlet on the far side, sorted into ordinary Yang Dragon Pills and premium ones. The entire sequence took less than a quarter of an hour.
Those who watched the spectacle felt something beyond admiration — they were stricken with disbelief.
Half-dazed, Heo Il-bi murmured, "To think such a craft could exist… Gang, you are a true genius!"
Only after sleeping for two days straight did Ouyang Qiangang finally shed the crushing fatigue. Once he had finished his breathing meditation and morning cultivation, the shadows beneath his eyes faded, and a healthy color returned to his face.
His first visit was to Heo Il-bi, to thank him for all he had done — and to discuss one important matter.
"Uncle, the Heavenly Engine Furnace is complete, but security must now be our foremost concern."
He continued in a grave tone. "From the supply of raw herbs to the release of finished pills, and the guard rotation around the alchemy chamber itself — every person assigned to any part of the process must be thoroughly vetted. Stealing the manufacturing secrets is impossible, but someone might attempt to destroy the facility itself. We need to be prepared."
"Fret not. I have already reorganized the defenses around the alchemy chamber with the finest warriors of Bamboo Forest Manor. Not so much as an ant will slip anywhere near it." Heo Il-bi answered with unwavering confidence — then, with a wistful look, asked, "But Gang, that matter can keep. What brings you to me in such haste? Is there something else you need?"
Ouyang Qiangang studied him for a moment, then spoke as though the decision had long since been made.
"Uncle — the time has come for me to return to my true home."