56: Chapter 56 My Family Has Arrived

Xie Feng spent two days wandering around Ranhuo City.

On the first day, he still held a casual attitude of just looking around. When he and Tu Ziguan and the others came out of Master Huo's shop, the sun had just dipped below the city wall, the sounds of forging on the street had thinned out a bit, and the furnace fires at the shop entrances were still glowing red.

The four of them found an inn to stay at. The inn's plaster walls were stained yellowish by smoke, and the bedding carried a faint scent of charred coal.

Early the next morning, they should have left right after taking their swords, but Gu Jian's hands itched to test his sword, and Mo Tang and Tu Ziguan also wanted to find Master Huo, so Xie Feng decided to look for some good Materials on his own.

He went out onto the street alone, spreading out his Spiritual Qi perception and sweeping through the shops along the street one by one.

Most of them were blacksmith shops, with forged sword blanks, saber blanks, hoes, and horseshoes hanging at their entrances.

"What a pity there are no good Materials."

Turning into a slightly wider street, this street was different from those clanging blacksmith alleys. The storefronts on both sides were much larger, with gilded plaques hanging over their lintels, and instead of furnaces at the entrances, there were only counters and shop assistants.

These were the material shops of Ranhuo City.

At the first shop, the plaque read "Yanchang Firm", with a three-bay storefront. The shelves behind the counter were densely stacked with copper ingots and iron blanks.

Xie Feng tapped his blind staff as he walked in. The assistant behind the counter raised his head to glance at him, his gaze pausing briefly on the black cloth tied around the back of Xie Feng's head before looking away.

"What would you like to see, customer?"

"Copper ingots. Quenched by earth fire, the older the vintage, the better."

Applying what he just learned, Master Huo had said yesterday that getting Materials with some age on them definitely wouldn't have any problems.

Xie Feng spread his Spiritual Qi perception toward the shelves. The moment his Spiritual Qi touched the surface of those copper ingots, his brow furrowed slightly.

The copper ingots stacked on the shelves emitted an extremely faint halo of Spiritual Qi on their surface; this was not the density of Spiritual Qi that copper ingots quenched by earth fire should have.

That three-hundred-year-old copper ingot in Master Huo's shop felt heavy and solid when touched by Spiritual Qi perception.

As for the copper ingots before him, the Spiritual Qi only floated on the surface, while the inside was hollow.

"These are all newly arrived, High Grade," the assistant added, seeing him standing there unmoving.

Xie Feng didn't reply. Tapping his blind staff against the ground, he turned and walked out. The second shop, the third shop, the fourth shop.

Goods were stacked on the shelves of every shop, but when swept by his Spiritual Qi perception, the goods in every shop were the same—hollow on the inside.

In a few shops, the shelves were simply more than half empty, and the vacant spots hadn't even accumulated dust, meaning they had only recently been cleared away.

He stopped at the entrance of a small shop.

This shop had no plaque; only a piece of iron was nailed to the lintel, branded with the mark of a sword entwined with flames—identical to the one at the entrance of Master Huo's shop.

This was a form of certification, meaning that Master Huo was registered here, and this place would purchase his crafted products.

This showed that the goods in this shop were recognized by Master Huo. Xie Feng pushed the door open and entered. The shop was very small, with only a single counter. On the shelves behind the counter, a few copper ingots were sparsely arranged. Their quality was slightly better than the previous few shops, but only slightly.

Sitting behind the counter was an old man with completely white hair. One of his eyes was covered by a white cataract, while the other was narrowed as he looked at people.

"What are you buying?"

"Old copper ingots, quenched by earth fire, the older the vintage, the better."

The old man's single eye lingered on his face for a moment. "Did Master Huo send you?"

"You knew I was sent by Master Huo?"

The old man's single eye narrowed again. "As a blind man, you didn't look at the goods upon entering, and instead swept your Spiritual Qi directly onto the shelves. You aren't here to buy mortal iron."

He put down the teacup in his hand. "There's no need to look. Those things you saw are all no good."

"Why? Are you selling knockoffs?"

The old man didn't answer immediately. Reaching under the counter, he fished out an iron box and opened it, revealing several copper ingots neatly stacked inside.

He pinched out one piece with two fingers and placed it on the counter.

Xie Feng spread his Spiritual Qi perception over it. This copper ingot was better than any he had swept across in those large commercial firms just now; the halo of Spiritual Qi seeped from the copper surface deep into the interior, only to cut off halfway.

For the severed half, his Spiritual Qi perception was blocked back by some kind of layer, failing to reach the bottom.

"This piece was produced last month," the old man said. "Perceive it; the Spiritual Qi seeps halfway and can't go any further. I've squatted in this city for forty years, and I can tell the grade of a quenched copper ingot just by weighing it in my hand. In the past, this kind of Spiritual Qi not even reaching halfway would make it waste material."

He picked up the copper ingot and put it back into the iron box. "Right now, it's the best grade you can buy in the entire city. You went to Yanchang Firm just now, didn't you? The shelves were piled quite full. Those copper ingots only have Spiritual Qi floating on the skin, and the fire didn't reach the core during quenching. They're fine for making hoes, but for making swords, they'll notch after three strikes."

"What do you mean? Have your raw Materials run into problems recently?"

"Three months ago." He closed the iron box and pushed it under the counter. "The temperature of the earth fire fissures started rising three months ago. At first, no one cared; the earth fire temperature in Ranhuo City naturally fluctuates, rising and falling over decades. This time was different; the temperature kept climbing and never stopped. Two months ago, the three best material shops in the city simultaneously discovered that their raw material inventories had problems.

The copper ingots stored in the warehouses looked fine on the surface, but when cut open, their internal Spiritual Qi structures were completely scattered. They were copper ingots before quenching, and still copper ingots after quenching, without a single bit of Spiritual Qi entering them. The Ores of the earth fire veins were the same; when dug out from the mine, they still carried the residual warmth of the earth fire, but after sitting for a night, the Spiritual Qi also went cold.

"The only usable raw Materials left in the entire city are the batch currently burning in the earth fire furnaces, and once they are burned up, there will be nothing left."

"What's the reason? Won't the Tianque Sect care?"

"The Tianque Sect has sent several batches of people into the earth fire fissures. Five batches in total. The first four batches all retreated, saying the temperature deep within the fissures was too high. The fifth batch was personally led by the city lord, who is at the Peak of the Fifth Realm. After going in and coming back out, he only issued one order: seal all the mines within a three-mile radius of the outer perimeter of the earth fire fissures, and forbid anyone from approaching." The old man picked up his teacup and took a sip.

When Xie Feng came out of the old man's shop, the sun had already climbed overhead. The sounds of forging on the street were denser than in the morning, but when he swept his Spiritual Qi perception over the finished products hanging at the entrances of those shops, his brow twisted tighter and tighter.

Even the hoes hanging in the roadside blacksmith shops had better quality than the copper ingots in the commercial firms.

This wasn't normal; Spiritual Qi wouldn't disappear out of thin air.

Xie Feng asked around all afternoon.

From the east of the city to the west, from shops to stalls, and from stalls to old blacksmiths squatting and setting up street booths in the alleys.

Not many people were willing to pay attention to him, but as long as he asked, the answers he got were mostly the same.

Starting three months ago, the supply of raw Materials was cut off. Whatever goods the commercial firms had were all waste products, and the good Materials were either taken away by the Tianque Sect or hidden away by veteran craftsmen like Master Huo.

During this period, he ran into a Tianque Sect Disciple with an extremely poor attitude at a commercial firm. That person was sitting behind the counter with their legs crossed. When Xie Feng asked a couple of questions, that person looked him up and down and let out a huff from their nose.

Xie Feng cursed a couple of times and turned to leave. Communicating with this kind of person wasted spit, which was better spent saving Spiritual Qi.

Tu Ziguan walked out of the room, holding a half-drawn rune decomposition diagram in his hand. "Did you find Materials?"

Xie Feng shook his head.

Mo Tang returned after dark. The wooden box on her back swayed heavily, making a dull thud when the corner of the box brushed against the threshold.

Her face was flushed red from the earth fire, but her eyes were exceptionally bright.

"What's wrong?"

Xie Feng briefly recounted the results of his search for Materials.

After listening, Mo Tang sat down on the stone stool and wiped the charcoal ash on her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Three months ago? I knew it. When Ranhuo City experienced its first abnormal temperature rise three months ago, half of the batch of copper ingots purchased back by the Artifact Hall couldn't be used.

"The Artifact Hall Elder thought they had been swapped out during transport, but after sending people to investigate, they found that the goods in the warehouse were also waste. What are your plans?"

"I'll look around for another day tomorrow," Xie Feng said. "If I really can't find anything, I'll go ask Master Huo. He has plenty of goods hidden behind that iron door in the back of his shop; maybe he has spares. If not, I'll output a bit more cargo to trade with him."

The next day, he wandered around for another day.

The situation was no different from the first day. The shelves of large and small commercial firms were either empty or displayed waste products.

Tomorrow would be the third day. Master Huo had said to come pick up the gun barrel in three days, and he still hadn't delivered the staff shaft Materials to Master Huo's forging platform.

Tsathoggua's statue squatted inside his sleeve, the breathing undulations deep within its material still occurring one by one, unhurried and steady.

The fire anomaly beneath this city was also breathing, equally unhurried and steady, separated by a thick layer of earth veins, completely synchronized with the statue's rhythm.

Tomorrow was Master Huo's pickup day, and he certainly couldn't go empty-handed. He had to find something, no matter what it was, as long as it could bear the statue of the God of Toads.

Raising his head abruptly, a somewhat familiar flying boat swept past high in the air, the insignia of the Zhou Imperial Family sparkling brightly on it. Following closely behind were several even more familiar flying boats—they were precisely the flying boats of the Qingyun Sect.