That's right!
The Spirit ore smelting furnace!
Chen Daoxuan immediately thought of the problem that troubled him the most—the spirit smelting array on the spirit ore smelting furnace.
Given that he had previously created a brand new array—the driving array, Chen Daoxuan felt that his talent in the field of arrays was very high.
Therefore, he wanted to continue creating new arrays to solve the problem of the fusion of spiritual essence in the process of refining the spirit ore.
However, after thinking hard for a year, he still had not come up with many clues.
In the space inside his sea of consciousness, Chen Daoxuan looked at the densely packed light clusters floating in front of him.
Each of these light clusters represented a portion of the knowledge that he had learned and studied. A portion of these were profound, while other portions were somewhat simple.
In the sea of consciousness, he could see that the size and brightness levels of the light clusters were different.
For example, the light blob that he had just focused on represented the cultivation method of the Origin Convergence technique. It recorded all of his comprehension regarding the technique and the process of his cultivation of the Origin Convergence technique over the past five years.
Therefore, this light blob also happened to be the brightest and largest of all the light blobs.
Apart from that, the second largest light blob was the one containing his knowledge on artifact refinement.
Chen Daoxuan quickly focused on it.
Sure enough, the refining methods and his comprehension of twelve types of first-grade artifacts were all recorded inside this light blob.
Apart from these, there was also an incomplete artifact. It was the spirit ore furnace that Chen Daoxuan had been painstakingly researching for the past five years.
"So that's how it is! So that's how it is..."
Chen Daoxuan's consciousness fluctuated violently. Waves of joy and satisfaction surged into his heart.
"My thoughts were heading in the wrong direction previously. The fusion of spiritual essence with spiritual sense is a violent method of suppression, forcibly fusing the spiritual essence of the numerous spirit ores into a single unit. Achieving this kind of suppression through the array is somewhat unrealistic."
"After all, arrays don't possess intelligence. They can only exert their power fully when controlled by humans. In that case, mortals without spiritual sense won't be able to grasp the 'strength' required to suppress the spiritual essence."
"If the suppression applied is too great, the spiritual essence will collapse. If the suppression applied is too weak, the spiritual essence won't be able to fuse."
"Therefore, the crux of the spirit fusion array lies in guidance, not suppression."
"That's right! That's right! This is the key to the spirit fusion array! According to this train of thought, the spirit fusion array should be set up like this..."
With the assistance of the ten Stardust that had become one, Chen Daoxuan's comprehension ability increased ten-fold. Normally, he would not have been able to discover such an important clue about the array even if he had been given a year.
At this moment, in less than the time it took for an incense stick to burn, he had actually created a complete spirit fusion array.
After the time it took for an incense stick to burn passed, Chen Daoxuan felt his vision go dark, and his consciousness withdrew from the depths of his sea of consciousness.
"It's over!"
As he opened his eyes, Chen Daoxuan realized that the Epiphany had already ended.
"It's unfortunate. If only the Epiphany lasted a little longer!"
Chen Daoxuan muttered to himself, still wanting more.
After that, he remembered the spirit fusion array and could not bring himself to care about anything else.
The spirit ore furnace could be said to be the thing he had spent the most time and effort on after coming to this world.
Chen Daoxuan worked hard to study the knowledge of artifact refinement in order to combine the knowledge of two lifetimes and create a spiritual artifact that could even be used by mortals.
It was only in this manner that the large population of mortals could fully display their true worth, unlike the clansmen of Changping County, who could only be used to breed and reproduce in the hopes of birthing offspring with immortal cultivation potential.
Now, this spiritual artifact was finally about to be released into the world.
With this in mind, Chen Daoxuan could no longer hold back his restless heart.
He immediately used the wind control spell and flew directly from his cave abode toward the earth fire chamber.
As he hastened his movements, Chen Daoxuan's wind-controlling speed became two to three times faster than usual.
In less than ten minutes, the three buildings around the earth fire chamber came into view.
Chen Daoxuan quickly landed and pushed open the door of the laboratory.
Seeing the huge silver-white metal furnace placed in the center of the laboratory, he fell into deep thought.
According to the refining method of the spirit ore furnace that he had just come up with, the furnace in front of him was obviously a failure.
In fact, according to the description of the artifacts in the clan's refining inheritance, one could also judge this furnace as a failure.
This was because it was impossible to see the patterns of the array on the surface of a successful refined artifact. All the patterns of the array would fuse into the artifact itself at the final stages of the refining process.
However, the surface of the furnace in front of him was covered in array patterns.
"Forget it. I'll just refine it again!"
Chen Daoxuan sighed. He knew that it was impossible to add another array onto this furnace.
The refinement of spiritual artifacts had to be completed in one go. It was impossible to refine halfway, and then continue the refining process later.
The reason for this was spiritual essence.
During the fusing arrays stage, the refiner needed to use the arrays to perfectly fuse spiritual essence into the refined and shaped embryo of the spiritual artifact, thus bringing out the full power of the spiritual artifact.
For any spiritual artifact, the dissipation of spiritual essence meant that the spiritual artifact was damaged.
Even if the main structure of the spiritual artifact looked intact, and it could still be used as a divine weapon in the hands of a mortal, to a cultivator, a spiritual artifact that did not have any spiritual essence was just a slightly sharper mortal artifact.
Various thoughts surged into his mind, but the movement of his hands did not slow down at all.
The laboratory he built was filled with all kinds of spirit ores and ordinary iron ores used for refining artifacts.
That's right, iron ores!
This furnace was huge, so it was naturally impossible for it to be refined entirely from spirit ores.
In fact, the main material of the furnace in front of him was that very ordinary iron ore.
However, Chen Daoxuan added a type of spirit ore called silvermoon stone into the mix.
Due to the usage of ordinary iron ores, the cost of this furnace was not extravagant. At most, it was equivalent to a high-grade first-grade spiritual artifact.
Actually, it was quite normal if one thought about it carefully. Otherwise, how many spirit ores would be needed to construct such a huge furnace?
Even if the entire red copper mine of the Chen clan was excavated to construct it, it was still uncertain if there would be enough spirit ores. It would also defeat the original purpose of refining this furnace.
"Fortunately, I still have some silvermoon stones in stock!"
Chen Daoxuan rummaged through the cabinets in the corner of the laboratory and finally found the spirit ore he was looking for.
As for ordinary iron ores, there was no need to worry about that. There was a large iron ore vein on Shuanghu Island, so he had access to as many iron ores as he wanted.
...
By the time Chen Daoxuan prepared all of the refining materials, it was already noon.
He touched the storage bag hanging on his waist.
Chen Daoxuan then pushed open the door to the earth fire chamber.
As the bronze door of the earth fire chamber opened, a wave of heat hit him.
"Whew!"
Chen Daoxuan exhaled a mouthful of turbid air and walked steadily toward the heat-gathering array at the center of the earth fire chamber.
Although there was no flame, Chen Daoxuan could feel a tremendous heat gathering in the air above the heat-gathering array, seemingly waiting to melt the materials that were on top of it.
Chen Daoxuan took out the iron ores and the silvermoon stones from his storage bag and piled them into two heaps, one big and one small.
It was not difficult to refine the materials for the furnace.
The primary reason behind this was because the iron ore was too easy to refine. It would melt into molten iron almost as soon as it was placed above the heat-gathering array.
Compared to the hard-to-refine spirit ores, ordinary ores were like tame sheep.
Chen Daoxuan did not encounter any difficulties during the refining and shaping stages.
In front of him, a huge object that weighed dozens of tons was lifted up by his true Qi and floated in the air.
"Now, it's time for the most difficult fusing arrays stage!"
Taking a deep breath, Chen Daoxuan calmed down the boiling true Qi in his dantian. Then, with a burst of energy, he carved the array patterns into the furnace in front of him.
The first layer was the driving pattern!
The second layer was the heat-gathering pattern!
The third layer was the floating-pattern... and the fourth layer was the most important pattern—the spirit fusion pattern!
"Success!"
After the last array pattern was engraved, the furnace in front of him emitted a golden light.
Then, the golden light slowly faded away, and all the array patterns fused into the structure of the furnace bit by bit.
Seeing this, Chen Daoxuan jumped up happily and became extremely excited!
The excitement on his face was no less than when he had obtained the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra.