When this book reached 20,000 words, I received a message from the station, signed a contract, and was sent the agreement. However, due to special circumstances, like postal delays and insufficient staff, the change in status is taking longer than usual. Readers can rest assured to bookmark and cast your votes without worrying about the signing issue.
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"Do you remember what I told you?" At the boundary between the forest and the gravelly ground, two figures, one large and one small, lay on the ground, and Lu Yu asked Little Tail.
Little Tail nodded and whispered, "Remembered."
"Good, you stay here. I’ll distract the Wind Rock Demon, and you run to that pile of sand and fill the bags with as much sand as you can."
After speaking, Lu Yu stood up, made a half circle, and openly appeared in the sight of the Wind Rock Demon.
"Hey~ stupid demon, come hit me!" To attract the Wind Rock Demon’s attention, Lu Yu even brought a piece of red cloth, waving it while shouting.
He didn’t know whether these rhino-like Wind Rock Demons were interested in red.
The key wasn’t the red, but himself; the Wind Rock Demon was very interested.
At the sight of Lu Yu, a Wind Rock Demon got up and rushed towards him, one leading two, two leading three, three leading them all...
For a moment, the ground shook as dozens of massive Wind Rock Demons charged at Lu Yu.
Lu Yu’s expression changed drastically. He immediately threw away the red cloth and turned to run. As he ran, he kept adding experience points to the Eight-step Cicada Leap skill, fearing that his qi would run out, so he upgraded the skill first.
[Skill Upgrade! Eight-step Cicada Leap (Proficient) → Eight-step Cicada Leap (Master)]
After the upgrade, Lu Yu immediately had many experiences of practicing Eight-step Cicada Leap in his mind. His steps became rhythmic, and his speed increased significantly.
Now, even without using the skill, Lu Yu had confidence that he wouldn’t be caught by the Wind Rock Demons.
Boom boom boom~ Trees fell in succession, grass was trampled, and low shrubs were pushed flat, causing a huge commotion.
Lu Yu disappeared into the forest with many Wind Rock Demons following behind. After waiting for a while, Little Tail quickly got up and rushed to the sand pile with several large sacks. There were no Wind Rock Demons left on the gravelly ground now.
She took out the small shovel Lu Yu prepared for her and desperately shoveled sand into the sacks, filling one and moving on to the next. Lu Yu had said that as long as she filled the bags with sand, there was no need to tie them up.
While Little Tail was frantically digging sand, up on the mountain, a disciple of the Han Mansion, responsible for monitoring the Wind Rock Demons and observing their movements, turned pale.
When he felt the earth-shaking caused by the charge of the Wind Rock Demon herd, he ran out of the post to check the situation on the gravelly ground, only to find that the usually sunbathing Wind Rock Demons had all vanished. His face turned ghastly white.
"Where did the Wind Rock Demons go? Could they be charging towards Windmill Town? It’s all over, all over, better report to the patriarch quickly." Several disciples hurried towards the Han Mansion.
Out of their sight, under that sand pile, a small figure was working hard shoveling sand...
Before long, Lu Yu reappeared on the gravelly ground. His clothes were slightly disheveled, and he was panting heavily.
He had used the Eight-step Cicada Leap skill multiple times to shake off the Wind Rock Demons and hurried back to the gravelly ground at the fastest speed, thanks to upgrading Eight-step Cicada Leap earlier. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the energy to return.
Running to the sand pile, seeing three bags already filled by Little Tail, he directly stashed them in his backpack and joined her in digging, filling the fifth and sixth bags.
Just as he was about to fill the seventh bag, Lu Yu sensed the ground vibrating, quickly gathered the bags, picked up Little Tail, and swiftly left the gravelly ground.
An hour later, Lu Yu and Little Tail appeared by the largest river in Windmill Town, panning for gold.
Lu Yu put the large sacks in the water, letting the river current wash over them, carrying away the fine powdery sand.
Little Tail crouched nearby, picking out pieces of iron essence from the already washed sacks into a small cloth bag.
Watching her actions, Lu Yu said, "This is too slow, how long will it take to finish picking? You don’t need to pick anymore; I’ll think of another way when we get back."
Hearing this, Little Tail stopped, tied up the sacks, and handed the cloth bag containing the iron essence to Lu Yu.
Lu Yu directly stored the cloth bag in his backpack; after all, Little Tail had seen him store things in the backpack before, so he didn’t mind doing it again.
After washing, the six sacks of yellow sand only left half a sack of residuals, of which only about one-fifth was iron essence.
Which means only one-sixtieth of the Wind Rock Demon’s excrement was iron essence.
How much excrement a Wind Rock Demon produced in a day was unknown to Lu Yu, but that sand pile must have accumulated over many years, as there was only one sand pile on the gravelly ground.
Carrying the half sack of filtered sand containing iron essence, Lu Yu took Little Tail to the Jimin Hall.
The Han Mansion dispatched people to investigate the Wind Rock Demons’ lair and found that the Wind Rock Demons were still on the gravelly ground, but the traces left in the forest indeed showed that the Wind Rock Demons had gone out in groups once.
"What’s going on?" The Han Mansion’s devotees were puzzled. Why did the Wind Rock Demons suddenly go out?
The Han Mansion had considered the iron essence in the Wind Rock Demon’s lair, but they feared causing the Wind Rock Demons to riot.
Should any Wind Rock Demon leave Wind Rock Mountain and enter Windmill Town, no amount of profits from the Wind Rock Demons’ lair would be worth it to the Han Mansion.
Therefore, the Han Mansion never touched the Wind Rock Demons, only occasionally capturing one or two isolated Wind Rock Demons to domesticate and produce iron essence.
"Maybe a Martial Cultivator unfamiliar with the area accidentally entered the Wind Rock Demon’s territory, causing the riot," someone speculated.
"Looks like that Martial Cultivator has already escaped, and the Wind Rock Demons have returned, so things should be fine!"
"Send some Protectors to check the surrounding forest, to prevent the Wind Rock Demons from descending the mountain. If they encounter any isolated ones, capture them and bring them back to the Han Mansion."
A large group of Protectors from the Han residence quietly searched and inspected the forest, quickly getting results.
The good news was that no Wind Rock Monsters had escaped from Wind Rock Mountain; the bad news was that they didn’t find any isolated Wind Rock Monsters.
Back at Jimin Hall, Lu Yu asked the shopkeeper, "Do you have magnets?"
"What are magnets?" The shopkeeper was a bit puzzled, as he hadn’t heard of such a thing.
"It’s something that can attract iron objects but can’t attract copper objects," Lu Yu briefly described the characteristics of a magnet.
"Oh, you mean magnetite! The pharmacy does have some, but it’s in powder form and used as medicine. If you want a whole piece, you can find Boss Tang at Tang’s Blacksmith Shop. I heard his father got a piece years ago."
"Boss Tang?" Lu Yu remembered the Boss Tang who sold him the hundred-refined greatsword, then said, "Thank you, shopkeeper."
On his second visit to Tang’s Blacksmith Shop, when Boss Tang heard that Lu Yu wanted to see him, he thought there was a problem with the hundred-refined greatsword and wanted to return it. As soon as he saw Lu Yu, he said,
"Once sold, no returns or exchanges."
A black line appeared on Lu Yu’s forehead. "I’m not here to return the sword. I’m here for something else."
"For something? What is it you want?"
"A magnet. I heard you have a whole piece of magnetite."
"What do you want that for? It’s useless for forging weapons, only for making small gadgets."
Boss Tang led Lu Yu to the warehouse, rummaging through miscellaneous items to find an irregular stone that looked like an ordinary ore.
Boss Tang casually picked up an iron weapon and tossed it toward the magnet, which attracted the weapon mid-air, sucking it onto the magnet.
"After helping forge weapons, someone gifted this to my father. Seeing its ability to attract weapons, my father originally intended to forge it into a special weapon to counter ordinary weapons and hidden weapons."
"But he discovered that during the forging process, the magnet loses its weapon-attracting ability, so it was left unfinished and has been collecting dust in the warehouse."
Lu Yu knew about demagnetization from heating, having learned this in high school.
"If you want it, I can sell it to you for a discount, 50 gold, and you can take this magnet away. You should know that it’s hard to find such a large piece of magnet elsewhere, and 50 gold is already very cheap."
For Boss Tang, suddenly quoting a price out of a story was something Lu Yu had gotten used to.
"Wait a minute, let me see if this magnet is useful to me." Lu Yu pretended to pull a cloth bag out of his pocket and took an iron essence from it, throwing it toward the magnet.
The iron essence was attracted mid-air, firmly latching onto the magnet. Seeing that the magnet could indeed attract iron essence, Lu Yu said, "I don’t have money, but I can trade this for your magnet."
Lu Yu handed the bag in his hand to Boss Tang.
Boss Tang took the cloth bag with some confusion, opened it to look inside, and quickly pinched it, saying, "Deal."
He had the appearance of someone afraid Lu Yu would back out of the trade.
Seeing how quickly he agreed, Lu Yu felt a bit at a loss. Could such a small amount of iron essence really be worth 50 gold? Or was the magnet actually worthless?
Watching Boss Tang detach the iron essence from the magnet, Lu Yu felt slightly speechless and said, "Deal, but you have to help me process this magnet into two rings, one large and one small, and pack up any leftovers without wasting any!"
"No problem, leave it to me." With that, Boss Tang happily stashed the cloth bag in his pocket and lifted the magnet off the ground, prepping to help Lu Yu with the processing.
Lu Yu curiously asked, "Is iron essence really that valuable?"
"Valuable! Of course, it is. An ounce of iron essence can sell for 80 gold. You see those hundred-refined weapons on the wall? My father took months to make one, but by adding just a little iron essence, I can make one in about ten days."
"Now you know where all those Divine Weapon Pavilion hundred-refined weapons come from!"
"Isn’t iron essence supposed to be used to make spirit weapons? How can it be used for hundred-refined weapons?" Lu Yu was a bit puzzled, as this was different from what Zhang Lun had said.
"Spirit weapons aren’t something blacksmiths can make. You need specialized artifact refining techniques, and I’m not an Artifact Refiner. Besides, making spirit weapons requires a large amount of iron essence; with just this little, even if I were an Artifact Refiner, I couldn’t help you forge a spirit weapon."
"But in my opinion, instead of spending a lot of iron essence to make a spirit weapon, you might as well give it to me. I’ll help you reinforce your hundred-refined greatsword; except it won’t conduct spiritual qi, it’ll be better than any expensive spirit weapon you could make."
Boss Tang guessed that Lu Yu might have a way to procure iron essence and thus told him this.
"We’ll talk about this later. I don’t even know if I can find more yet. It was pure luck that I found this bit," Lu Yu knew well the principle of not flaunting wealth. Even if Boss Tang had no ill intentions, it was best not to test human nature.
Boss Tang smiled without a word and after having Lu Yu wait outside for a while, he brought out two polished magnetic rings for Lu Yu. There was also a wooden box containing filings from the magnet, not wasting even a bit.
Returning to the backyard, he handed the small ring to Little Tail, letting her use it to attract the iron essence mixed with sand grains, picking out the iron essence from the sand.
With the magnetic ring, Little Tail’s speed of picking iron essence greatly increased, completing the task of sorting all the iron essence into two small cloth bags before dinner.
Lu Yu weighed the two small cloth bags, estimating them to be five or six pounds, which, converted into money, should exceed 4000 gold.
Over 4000! He’s never had so much money before.
Lu Yu didn’t plan to reinforce the hundred-refined greatsword for the time being, as he had run out of Qi Blood Pills and needed to sell some iron essence for money to buy more Qi Blood Pills.
His cultivation speed must not slow down.