Chapter 173 — Washing Hands of the Golden Basin

" Shen Mu felt this keenly. To master teleportation divine ability also required immense scholarship; the Dao Swords of the Dao Sect required scholarship as well; and the rune-transformations hidden in Fan Yunxiao's seal arts just now could never be managed without profound learning. "Had you gone to the Dao Sect instead of the Grand Academy, the old gentleman the Dao Master would surely have taken a liking to you. " Fan Yunxiao, recalling the past, said gloomily, "I do not even know which eye the old gentleman used to see that my heart was crooked.

When I was in the Dao Sect I was plainly very well behaved. " Shen Mu cleared his throat. "Senior brother Fan, was it after you were driven out that you became a bandit?

" Fan Yunxiao clapped his palms together heavily and praised, "Brilliant as ever, the old gentleman!

He saw long ago that I would become a bandit, and so drove me out to be one! But I was still very well behaved in the Dao Sect — how did he see it.

.

. " Shen Mu was speechless. Then a thought struck him.

"Senior brother Fan, how are your arts of reckoning?

" Fan Yunxiao wilted. "They used to be very good, but these past years as a bandit I have given it all back to the Dao Master. The Mysterious Woman's Classic of Reckoning and the Grand Mystery Classic of Reckoning in the Dao Sect are both exceedingly profound, not easy to learn. If one could master them all, one could learn the fourteen chapters of the Dao Sword.

I had refined as far as. . .

" Suddenly a head poked out from below the cabin, crying, "Great King, our furnace has gone wrong!

That woman from Three Marvels Fort, while we were off guard, stuffed a few insects into our pill furnace and chewed it to pieces! " "How many times have I told you not to call me Great King — I have mended my ways!

" Fan Yunxiao scratched his head and looked around. "Gentlemen, does anyone here know artifact-forging, enough to repair the pill furnace?

" At that moment a muffled boom came from the cabin, and several alchemists crawled out, faces blackened with soot. "The pill furnace has exploded!

" Fan Yunxiao's face changed drastically.

He cursed, "Dead woman, sneaking in a vicious blow. Abandon ship, everyone jump! " Shen Mu stepped forward. "I know artifact-forging, and I have studied the way of pills as well.

Let me take a look first. " Fan Yunxiao, half doubting, went with him into the cabin. The cabin was already burning; several bandits with brutish faces were fighting the flames and had quenched most of the blaze.

But with no medicinal power from the pill furnace, the tower-ship had begun to slow, and might drop out of the sky at any moment. Shen Mu went up and looked at the pill furnace, split into four or five pieces. This was a standard-issue furnace, unlike ordinary alchemical cauldrons.

Jingping Kingdom had its shipyards, where countless smiths labored day and night forging the pill furnaces used aboard ships, to power the tower-ships. Such a furnace burned spirit stones and dozens of kinds of medicinal herbs, turning the medicinal power stored in stones and herbs into surging energy that was piped to the bronze beasts at the stern, there to issue from their mouths as rolling flame and lift the ship aloft. The furnace's structure was exceedingly complex, an exotic treasure created by the master craftsmen of the Grand Academy; besides refining pills, it held within it a complex digestive system like that of a human body, refining medicinal power and transforming it into energy.

Ordinarily, when such a furnace broke, one could only seek the smiths of the Jingping Kingdom shipyards to repair it, or else replace it with a new one. "Can it still be fixed?

" Fan Yunxiao asked in a panic.

Shen Mu examined the furnace's structure and felt sure of himself. "I studied smithing for a few years in the past; I can forge a new one in the time of a single incense stick. How long can this ship hold out?

" "If we prop it up with our magic power, one incense stick's time.

" Shen Mu set at once to recasting the pill furnace, Vermilion Bird primal qi in one hand and Black Tortoise primal qi in the other, sweeping countless fragments of the furnace up into the air, refining them with Vermilion Bird qi and melting them into molten iron, while with the other hand he cooled them with Black Tortoise qi, swiftly forging component after component of the furnace. The onlookers were dazzled. Suddenly the tower-ship gave a gentle lurch and began to descend.

Fan Yunxiao, with no time to watch Shen Mu forge, rushed out of the cabin and urged his fire gourd into a nine-headed phoenix to hold up the tower-ship. Though he was a powerhouse of the Seven Star realm with vast magic power, carrying the tower-ship in flight was still desperately hard. Time crept by, thread by thread; Fan Yunxiao's face flushed red, the pressure mounting, harder and harder to bear, and the people aboard were terrified — if Fan Yunxiao could not hold on, the tower-ship would fall from a thousand zhang in the air and smash them to pieces!

Fan Yunxiao had reached his limit and could hold no longer, when suddenly the two bronze beasts at the stern spouted fire, the flames swelling greatly, and the tower-ship shuddered violently, picked up speed, and flew onward.

Fan Yunxiao breathed out in relief and drew back the nine-headed phoenix, only to find the tower-ship going faster and faster, like a flitting gleam, three to five times as swift as before. As he stood there astonished and uncertain, he caught sight of Shen Mu coming out of the cabin and said hurriedly, "Brother Shen, what kind of furnace did you forge? " Shen Mu said, "I have never seen a diagram of a pill furnace's construction, so I forged it according to my own understanding; it may differ somewhat from the original. I only studied smithing for a few years.

. . " Before Fan Yunxiao could speak, a great boom sounded.

The tower-ship tore through the air faster than sound! "Brother Shen, who did you study smithing under?

" Fan Yunxiao was both shocked and delighted. "In future, when I go robbing, who will ever be able to catch me?

" Shen Mu now understood why the Dao Master of the Dao Sect had called his heart crooked.