385: Chapter 385 Is Meteorite Steel Scrap Iron?

The next day, the blood moon set right on time.

Twelve hours, not a second off.

Tao Zhe drew a checkmark on the paper, closed his notebook, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Three observations, all consistent. The pattern is basically confirmed."

Su Mingyuan stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants.

"Alright, get ready to move out."

This time, Su Mingyuan did not stay in the cave again; after all, the pattern of the blood moon had already been determined.

All thirty people set out, heading towards the mountain in the due north direction.

Chen Rong led the way, and Lin Wan brought up the rear, with the formation being the same as the previous two times.

Su Mingyuan walked in the middle of the team, with Han Li and Tao Zhe following him on his left and right.

Emerging from the cave entrance and stepping onto the Bone Plains, the familiar crunching sound returned under their feet.

The sky was grayish-white, the light dim and yellow, and the medicinal fragrance in the air had faded, replaced by a dry, earthy smell.

The team walked along the direction marked by Han Li, first passing the stone pillars that Chen Rong had discovered yesterday.

The stone pillars were thicker than Su Mingyuan had expected, with a base diameter of at least half a meter. They were made of grayish-black stone, and the carvings on them had weathered away, leaving only some blurred, raised patterns.

After passing the stone pillars, the ground began to change.

There were still bones, but they were becoming fewer and fewer, replaced by broken stone slabs.

Large pieces of gray stone slabs, some still maintaining a flat shape, could be seen forming a road when pieced together.

Some had already broken into several pieces, with dried moss growing in the gaps.

"This was a paved road." Tao Zhe squatted down to examine the cross-section of the stone slab. "It was polished, and the joints between the slabs are very regular, using some kind of adhesive material. This isn't just some random path, it was properly constructed."

The team continued walking along the stone-paved road.

There were more and more things on both sides of the road.

First, there were collapsed stone walls. They weren't high, reaching about knee height. The wall structures were mostly shattered, but the foundations remained, showing the outlines of square-shaped houses. Some were larger, some smaller, distributed in rows on both sides of the road.

Moving further ahead, the stone walls became more numerous, and their density increased.

Some house foundations were relatively well-preserved, revealing the division of rooms inside—one large room, two smaller ones next to it, and a circular pit in the corner with a diameter of about one meter, with scorch marks on the pit walls.

Han Li paused when she saw that circular pit.

"This is the place for placing a Pill Furnace," she said. "The dimensions of the pit are perfect for a small Pill Furnace, and the scorch marks on the walls were left behind from long-term Alchemy."

Su Mingyuan looked around.

These collapsed houses on both sides of the road numbered at least a hundred, stretching for several hundred meters. Every single one of them had that kind of circular pit.

This wasn't an ordinary residential area.

This was where alchemists lived. Each alchemist had a room, and inside the room was their own Pill Furnace station, just like a modern person's workstation.

Thousands of them.

Just on both sides of this one road, there were thousands of alchemists.

And this road was just a small section of the outer perimeter of the Danding Heavenly Palace.

The team continued to move forward.

After passing this area of alchemist dwellings, the stone road widened from its original three or four meters to seven or eight meters.

The stone slabs on the road surface were also larger and thicker, and better preserved.

Stone lamp pillars appeared on both sides of the road.

The lamp pillars were over two meters tall, with a lotus-shaped lamp stand at the top. There was nothing inside the lamp stand; the lamp oil had long since dried up.

The lamp pillars were symmetrical in pairs, spaced about five meters apart, extending forward from here in a long row.

"It looks like a main road leading to some important place," Zhao Ping remarked.

Su Mingyuan didn't respond.

The team continued walking for about twenty minutes.

The mountain was already very close, and the outline of the mountain foot was clearly visible.

The mountain was made of grayish-black rock, with no vegetation on its surface, only bare stone walls.

The palace complex above the mountainside could be seen more clearly from this distance—layered flying eaves and upturned corners, grayish-white walls, some parts collapsed, others still standing.

But the group's footsteps stopped before reaching the foot of the mountain.

Because a huge depression appeared in front of them.

Inside the depression, it was densely packed with things.

They were all Pill Furnaces.

The large ones were two or three meters high, squatting on the ground like large vats, supported by three thick legs, with the furnace bodies covered in intricate patterns. The small ones were only the size of a fist, as exquisite as ornaments, placed on stone pedestals.

The Materials were all different. There were bronze-colored ones, pitch-black ones, ones that were entirely silver-white, and some that gleamed with a dark red or dark green luster.

The quantity was enormous. Su Mingyuan scanned the interior from the edge of the depression and roughly estimated that there were at least several million of them.

Most of the Pill Furnaces were broken. Some had cracked bodies, some had broken legs, and some only had half a lid left lying on the ground. Fragments were scattered everywhere, mixed in with the intact Pill Furnaces.

But some were well-preserved. The furnace bodies were intact, the lids were still there, and the three legs stood steadily on the stone pedestals. Except for a layer of dust on the surface, they looked no different from new ones.

Han Li had already walked to the edge of the depression, squatting down to look at the Pill Furnaces inside, her eyes unblinking.

"These are all Pill Furnaces," her voice was a bit hoarse. "Used for Alchemy."

She stood up, stepped over the low wall, walked a few steps inside stepping on the fragments, and walked to the nearest intact Pill Furnace, reaching out to touch the furnace wall.

"There are still medicinal stains remaining on the furnace walls." She brought her fingers to her nose and sniffed. "It's been used, it's not a new furnace. And it's been used for a very long time; the medicinal stains have seeped into the material itself."

Several people from the team also stepped inside, looking around.

Zhao Ping walked to a black Pill Furnace half a person's height and tapped the furnace wall with his hand.

Thump, thump—two sounds, muffled. It wasn't like tapping iron; the sound was deeper.

He pulled a dagger from his waist—made of skyfall steel—and scratched the surface of the Pill Furnace.

The tip of the dagger slid across the furnace wall, emitting a harsh, shrill sound.

It didn't leave any marks.

Zhao Ping was taken aback.

A skyfall steel dagger. The tool made from the hardest material currently known in Daxia.

It couldn't scratch it.

"What is this thing made of?" Zhao Ping muttered.

A Martial Artist nearby was also testing another Pill Furnace, pressing a portable hardness tester against the surface of the furnace wall.

The numbers jumped a few times and then stopped.

The Martial Artist looked at the reading twice and then looked up at Su Mingyuan.

"Team leader, this hardness... is higher than skyfall steel."

"How much higher?"

"The measuring instrument's range isn't enough. I can only confirm it's harder than skyfall steel, but I can't measure exactly how much higher."

Su Mingyuan looked at Tao Zhe.

Tao Zhe had already been squatting in front of another Pill Furnace for a while. Hearing this, he stood up and clapped his hands.

"Not surprising," he said. "When I was studying the Materials left behind by Immortal Master Yuling, I already knew that the metal system of the Immortal Realm is completely different from ours. They have an uncountable number of material types."

He counted them on his fingers as he listed them.

"The ones mentioned in Immortal Master Yuling's notes include—Star Iron, extremely hard and heavy, the basic material for forging Magical Artifacts. Profound Ice Refined Gold, resistant to high temperatures and corrosion, the higher the temperature, the greater the hardness. Scarlet Sun Copper, which comes with fire-attribute Qi, requiring no extra injection of fire Qi during Artifact Refining. There are also Nine Nether Cold Iron, Purple Heaven Divine Copper, Dragon-Pattern Profound Iron... just the ones named in the notes number seventy or eighty types."

He pointed to the Pill Furnaces in front of them.

"These Pill Furnaces are highly likely forged from these types of Materials. Different Materials for Pill Furnaces correspond to different types of Medicinal Pills; this is common knowledge in the Immortal Realm."

Hearing this, a thought popped into Su Mingyuan's mind.

"Can we reuse these Materials?"

Tao Zhe thought about it and shook his head.

"It's difficult. The Materials of these Pill Furnaces have undergone special processing by Artifact Refiners, and their internal structure is completely different from the original Ore. To re-smelt them, you need the techniques of an Artifact Refiner and extremely high-temperature furnace fires, neither of which we currently possess."

He paused for a moment.

"However, it's not completely useless. The hardness and durability of these Materials far exceed skyfall steel. If we master the processing methods in the future, we could definitely use them on mechs. At that point, the armor strength of the mechs will have a qualitative leap."

Su Mingyuan nodded and then thought of another matter.

"Tao Zhe, did Immortal Master Yuling's notes ever mention skyfall steel? Or Materials similar to skyfall steel?"

"Yes," Tao Zhe said. "I did find one or two Materials. Although they aren't called skyfall steel, the descriptions of the Materials are very close to skyfall steel. However—"

He stopped for a moment, weighing his words.

"How should I put it? In Immortal Master Yuling's world, skyfall steel isn't considered anything good."

Su Mingyuan was stunned.

skyfall steel.

Daxia's fifth industrial revolution.

Room-temperature superconductivity, absolute heat resistance, super hardness.

The material that changed the nation's destiny.

Not considered anything good?

"What do you mean?" Su Mingyuan asked.

Tao Zhe thought for a moment and used an analogy.

"Let's put it this way. The status of skyfall steel in the Immortal Realm is roughly equivalent to scrap metal in the Main World."

The team was silent for two seconds.

"Scrap metal?" Zhao Ping repeated.

"Yes," Tao Zhe said. "In Immortal Master Yuling's notes, Materials similar to skyfall steel are classified under the 'Mortal Item' category, which is the lowest Rank classification. Above that, there are several major Ranks: Spirit Items, Treasure Items, Immortal Items, and Divine Items. skyfall steel doesn't even reach the threshold of Spirit Iron."

He patted the furnace wall of the Pill Furnace in front of him.

"The Materials used for these Pill Furnaces are at least at the Spirit Iron Rank, even the worst ones. They are a whole major Rank higher than skyfall steel. If we convert that to value—"

He did a calculation.

"Conservatively estimated, the value of these most ordinary 'Mortal Item' Rank Materials from the Immortal Realm is over a thousand times that of skyfall steel."

No one spoke.

A thousand times.

skyfall steel was already the best thing in Daxia's hands. Yet in the Immortal Realm, it didn't even count as Entry-Level.

Su Mingyuan looked at the tens of thousands of Pill Furnaces in front of him, each one made from Materials a thousand times better than skyfall steel.

Just sitting here like this, shattered all over the ground, and yet, no one cared.

It was like a scrap market piled high with gold, but the stall owners were long gone.

He was just about to say something when a voice came from behind.

"Dr. Tao! Come here and take a look, are there characters on this?"