3: Chapter 3 The Awakening of the Black Furnace

As the crack opened, the firelight in the room dimmed abruptly.

The three sticks of incense on the altar table tilted without wind, and the smoke lines did not drift upward, but were instead dragged toward that black fragment by an invisible force.

The incense ash, candle wax, and dust accumulated on the altar table all trembled slightly at this moment.

Lu Jin closed his five fingers, gripping the fragment firmly.

Hot.

It was like holding a piece of iron freshly pulled from a furnace in his palm.

He did not fling it away; instead, he stared at the crack in the middle of the fragment that was growing brighter.

The dark red light did not spread outward but collapsed inward, as if a bottomless well were hidden deep within that crack, with both light and heat plummeting toward the bottom of the well.

The spirit tablet on the altar table suddenly made a sound.

Thump.

It was not blown by the wind.

It was more like something underneath, separated by the wooden table, had tapped it lightly.

Lu Jin's gaze darkened; he pressed his other hand against the edge of the table and pushed hard.

The altar table shifted half a foot, revealing an old stone slab underneath covered in dust.

In the very center of the stone slab was carved a faint, ancient emblem.

It was not the Lu family crest.

It was a damaged circular furnace emblem.

Lu Jin glanced at it twice, then directly wiped his thumb across the edge of the fragment.

The sharp, broken edge instantly sliced through his skin.

Beads of blood seeped out and dripped into the center of the furnace emblem.

Ssh.

The stone slab, as if famished for too long, emitted an almost inaudible sucking sound.

The drop of blood spread instantly within the patterns, the entire stone slab flashed dark red, and the temperature in the room plummeted suddenly.

The ground began to vibrate slightly.

The sound of wind outside the courtyard vanished.

The wooden beams creaked, the window paper bulged, then collapsed abruptly.

Lu Jin felt a tightness in his chest; all the scenes before his eyes seemed to be torn apart by someone—the spirit tablet, the incense, the dilapidated house—ripped away layer by layer.

The next moment, his consciousness plunged directly into his God Realm.

Ash.

Still ash.

Boundless, dead ash drifted down from the low-hanging sky, and the air was filled with the choking smell of mineral slag and scorched wood mixed together.

Collapsed mine tunnels sank into the ground, section by section, with broken wooden rails buried crookedly beneath the layer of ash; everywhere were traces of things that had been burned and then extinguished.

Lu Jin landed on the highest, semi-collapsed ventilation tower, and his field of vision suddenly expanded.

This was his God Realm.

It was also all the assets he had now.

At a glance, it was even more thoroughly impoverished than he had imagined.

There was no running water, no crops, no standard mineral veins that could be directly mined—only vast stretches of abandoned pits and ashes.

There were quite a few Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats, crawling out from the crevices in scattered groups, at least four or five hundred of them, but each one was so thin their ribs protruded, their incisors yellowed, as they crouched in the slag heaps scrounging for food.

The group at the very edge was already biting each other, fighting over a bone that had been buried for who knows how long.

High-pitched squeals echoed in the dead ash, chaotic and intense.

Lu Jin's brow did not move.

The awakening result hadn't wronged him; this place was indeed rotten.

But rotten as it was, it was his.

A pull, so weak it was almost imperceptible, fell upon him from all directions.

Those Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats seemed to have finally smelled something; they stopped biting in unison, lifted their heads, and their crimson eyes looked toward the ventilation tower one by one.

That was faith.

Weak, scattered, carrying instinctive fear and hunger.

Lu Jin looked down at his palm.

The fragment from reality had actually appeared here too, hovering above his palm, the crack having completely opened.

Dark red lines of fire extended from inside the fragment, strand by strand, spreading toward the deepest part of the mine pit.

As if leading the way.

Lu Jin lifted his foot and started walking.

He did not go down along the old path that had already collapsed halfway; instead, he followed the lines of fire, stepping on black ash and broken wood, heading straight toward the largest collapsed pit.

The further down he went, the heavier the air became.

From deep within the mine pit, a low rumble faintly emerged, as if something massive had been buried underground, having not breathed for many years, but today, it had suddenly drawn a breath.

A whole layer of collapsed material blocked the way ahead.

Rubble, wooden beams, semi-melted mine cart wheels, and blackened mineral slag were mixed into a mass, completely sealing off the entire old well entrance.

Yet that line of fire did not stop, drilling straight into the depths of the ruins.

Lu Jin glanced at it a few times, then raised his hand and pressed down toward the group of Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats that were poking their heads out.

"Dig it open."

As his voice fell, the entire God Realm went silent for a moment.

Those Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats seemed to understand, or perhaps they were driven by some deeper instinct; they hesitated at first, then swarmed forward in waves.

Their speed at digging was not slow.

Their front claws flew, their tails stiffened, and mineral slag and rubble were tossed backward in clumps.

They were weak, yes, and dirty, yes, but once their numbers piled up, that urge to dig the ground was astonishingly intense.

In a short moment, a gap large enough for half a person to crawl through had been dug out of the collapsed layer.

A few Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats collided while fighting over a hot stone deeper inside; one of them was pierced through the abdomen by a wooden spike, twitched a few times, and then went still.

Lu Jin saw it, but his expression did not change.

For trash-tier kin in the early stages, it was perfectly normal for a few to die.

What he needed now was not pity, but a way to survive.

The fragment suddenly trembled.

Deep within the gap, a glimmer of dark red, eerie light shone.

It was not a torch, nor a miner's lamp.

It was the color of metal opening its eyes on its own in the darkness.

Lu Jin stooped and crawled inside.

The space behind the collapse was much larger than what could be seen from outside.

It was like an underground sacrificial ground hollowed out by the entire mine mountain.

A circle of long-extinguished stone pillars was embedded around the perimeter, their surfaces covered in broken patterns, while the ground was covered in layers of circular sacrificial lines, the vast majority of which were broken, with only the central area retaining a small half of its shape.

And in the center of the sacrificial lines, a furnace was buried.

No, half a furnace.

It was exaggeratedly large; just the part exposed outside was two stories high, pitch black, its surface looking as if it had been licked by fire countless times, only to be forcibly extinguished by something colder, covered in dense cracks.

Many broken slots were embedded in the furnace wall, as if they were supposed to hold something, but now they were all empty.

On the front, there was a furnace door; of the nine lock rings on the door, eight were broken, with only the last one still hanging.

The shape of that lock ring was exactly the same as the black fragment in Lu Jin's hand.

Lu Jin's eyes narrowed slightly.

The fragment in his palm suddenly flew out of his hand, crashing straight toward the furnace door!

Clang!

The entire underground sacrificial ground shook violently.

Dust fell in sheets, the remaining lock ring shattered instantly, and the black fragment embedded itself into the center of the furnace door, fitting perfectly.

Boom—

From the cracks in the furnace door, dark red firelight surged out abruptly.

At the same time, a torrent of information, so complex it nearly threatened to burst his brain, slammed into Lu Jin's Sea of Consciousness.

He groaned, falling to his knees, his knuckles digging into the ash and soil.

Countless broken characters, distorted images, and footage of sacrificial rites scorched black by fire churned crazily from the depths of his mind.

Corpses turning to ash.

Mine mountains entering the furnace.

Cities collapsing.

Statues melting.

Thousands upon thousands of kin, whose appearances could not be seen, knelt before the furnace fire, shouting one name.

Finally, all the voices collapsed into four dark red characters.

wanji ember furnace.

The furnace door opened an inch.

No heatwave rushed out.

Instead, a bone-chilling gray wind puffed out from within, blowing the surrounding circle of Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats until they all prostrated on the ground, bodies trembling, not daring to even squeak.

On the furnace wall, lines of dark red text slowly emerged.

[wanji ember furnace · Fragmented]

[Status: Initially Activated]

[Binder: Lu Jin]

[Bloodline Verification: Passed]

[Current Rank: Apprentice God Realm Controller]

[Sacrifiable Targets: Corpses, mineral materials, troop remains, damaged altars, low-tier relics]

[Sacrifice Restriction: Cannot exceed two tiers above current rank]

[Entry Slots: God Realm 1, Kin 1]

[Warning: High-pollution sacrifices may attract attention]

There were not many words.

Each one was straightforward.

Lu Jin stared at those lines of text, and the breath he had been holding in his chest for so long finally settled slowly.

It was not the whisper of an evil god.

It was not the hallucination of a madman.

This was something he could use.

The text on the furnace wall flashed; the first few lines slowly extinguished, and new small dark red characters emerged.

[Please insert initial sacrifice]

Lu Jin looked down at his side.

That Gray-tailed Burrowing Rat that had been pierced through the abdomen by the wooden spike was completely dead, its body lying stiff in the ash, its tail still stained with coal slag.

Beside it lay a few pieces of grayish-black ore they had gnawed out, as well as a section of a damaged altar base dug out from the collapse.

The furnace could eat anything.

This was the most intuitive conclusion.

But another layer of meaning was also very clear.

This thing did not offer free enhancements; it wanted sacrifices.

Lu Jin walked to the furnace and raised his hand to press against the cold furnace wall.

"What if I throw a living creature inside?"

The fire inside the furnace flickered gently.

There was no response.

It was as if it defaulted to a rule: whether it could be sacrificed, and what would happen if it were, he had to test it himself.

There was not a hint of hesitation in Lu Jin's eyes.

With this kind of thing, fear was useless.

He crouched down, first picked up the grayish-black ore, and threw it directly into the furnace mouth.

The ore fell in without even a sound.

Three breaths later, a line of text emerged on the furnace wall.

[Mineral material too impure, insufficient sacrificial essence]

[Can be accumulated as supplementary material]

It didn't explode, nor did it succeed.

Lu Jin picked up the half-section of the altar base and pushed it in.

This time, a very faint friction sound came from inside the furnace, as if something were gnawing on that stone.

[Detected incomplete sacrificial essence]

[Rank judgment: Low]

[Recommend pairing with corpses or faith ashes for joint sacrifice]

Lu Jin looked at that line of text, his gaze flashing slightly.

Corpses could trigger a reaction, and the altar base could also trigger a reaction.

That was enough.

He reached out and picked up the dead Gray-tailed Burrowing Rat.

The body was very light, possessing almost no weight, so thin that even its fur lacked luster.

A day ago, in anyone's eyes, this thing would have been nothing more than trash material among trash-tier kin; if it died, people would consider it a waste of time to even collect the corpse.

But Lu Jin looked at it very seriously.

This thing was weak, lowly, and its life was worthless.

But now, it was the first sacrifice in his hand that could trade for a way to survive.

He cradled the rat corpse and walked to the furnace mouth.

The surrounding group of Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats seemed to feel something; they prostrated even lower, their sharp noses pressed against the gray ground, their whole bodies trembling.

They were afraid.

They were also worshipping.

Lu Jin lowered his eyes, looking at the bottomless dark red inside the furnace.

"Since you want to eat."

"Then let's start with my rats."

As his voice fell, the rat corpse left his hand and plummeted into the furnace.

The furnace fire surged violently!