Chapter 715: Fuel He Could Afford

Chapter 715: Fuel He Could Afford

Bai Heng put the foreign packing paste on an empty heating plate before he touched the ore.

It smoked, curled, and left a brown smear across the ceramic.

"Glad you brought the instructions," he said.

Leon stood beside his workbench. "They said to wash it off first."

"They were right." Bai Heng scraped the residue into a waste dish. "Good for transport. Bad in a refining vessel."

He had spent the evening examining the returned samples. By morning, his trays held small portions arranged according to the qualities he could confirm, with the uncertain pieces set aside.

The red growth carried Fire readily. The blue-white sample responded to cold. Both held enough energy to interest Leon, but neither was as uniform as the purchased condensate he had already exhausted.

"What about the gray-green?" Leon asked.

"Later. I want to know whether it belongs in a furnace before I put it in one."

That was fair. Leon pulled a stool closer and watched the first wash separate from the red mineral.

Bai Heng worked slowly through the opening stages, keeping each portion small. His first heating released energy faster than he wanted. He lowered the plate’s output, changed the vessel, and repeated the process with a fresh piece.

The second result settled more cleanly.

Lu Pei stood beside him, recording the difference. Once, he began explaining how they had lifted the material from its seam, and Bai Heng stopped working to ask him precisely where the darker growth had been attached.

Leon let them talk. The young collector had earned the chance to answer.

By afternoon, Bai Heng had prepared three measured samples from Leon’s allocation. Two came from different parts of the red seam. The third came from the blue-white growth.

"Don’t treat the red ones as identical," he warned. "They aren’t."

"How much of the remaining stock can you process this way?"

"Enough for more than these little tests. How useful that is depends on what you need from it." Bai Heng handed him the containers. "Tell me where it gives you trouble."

Leon took them back to his tent.

Seraphine checked the privacy precautions while Vyra arranged the household’s watch. To the rest of the camp, their Young Master was examining his portion of the harvest and resting after the journey.

Inside, Leon set the three containers beside his notes and entered the dimensional world.

Xyra adjusted the local time for him without difficulty. With a thousand moments available for every one outside, he could examine the samples carefully while his household continued its ordinary afternoon.

His second body remained in the Grotto-Heaven. He left it observing a quiet stretch of ridge while most of his attention settled on the cultivation work.

The first red sample behaved well at a slow intake.

Its energy entered the neutral center, passed into the Fire branch, and returned through the arrangement he had spent so long developing. Leon let several cycles finish before increasing the supply.

The next increment arrived faster than expected.

He stopped drawing from the sample and waited for the excess to clear. Nothing tore. There was only a growing imbalance he had caught before it could become harmful.

He looked at the amount left in the container.

That little change did all that?

The mineral released energy unevenly as its remaining structure loosened. His old condensate had spoiled him; once he chose a rate, it had mostly given him what he expected.

This supply required closer attention.

Leon recorded the change, then tried the second red sample at the same initial rate. It responded more slowly, yet held its output longer when he reduced the draw.

Bai Heng’s warning had been useful.

He spent the next sessions comparing how the samples released energy with how his circulation accepted it. Forcing the same intake on both produced different returns. Compensating by pushing all nine branches equally only made him spend energy where he did not need it.

He remembered the Lord of Illusion and Mystery’s casual observation.

Balance did not require equal flow.

He had already used that insight to improve the Scripture. Now he needed to apply it before the energy reached the branches as well.

Leon began adjusting the draw according to the returning current. When the red sample released more readily, he narrowed its intake instead of forcing the whole circulation to accommodate the surge. When it slowed, he allowed the return to settle before drawing again.

The Fire branch stopped pulling the others out of their established rhythm.

He tried the adjustment again while standing, then while taking a slow turn around the chamber. The first few steps distracted him enough that he drew too much from the sample.

Leon stopped, made a note, and started over.

Useful would be doing this without staring at it the whole time.

He reduced the size of each correction. It took longer to respond, but the returning current stayed easier to read. After several attempts, he could walk without losing track of the intake.

He sat down before trying anything more demanding. The temptation to combine every test was familiar, and usually expensive. Today he had three measured samples, records he wanted to compare, and no reason to waste either by being impatient.

For the next session, he wrote down the point where his attention had slipped. That was the part he would need to improve.

That was progress. He repeated it until he could distinguish a useful correction from simply having chosen a fortunate moment.

The blue-white sample demanded its own adjustments. Leon tested it separately first, then admitted small amounts alongside the red, keeping their differing responses in view.

He finished with stable circulation and a page full of alterations to investigate further.

Mid Foundation Establishment remained Mid Foundation Establishment. There had been no sudden leap, and he had spent part of the samples learning what not to do.

He was still delighted.

The remaining harvest could support longer work. He would need Bai Heng’s help, careful refining, and more experiments, but the next session no longer began with the thought of purchasing another immensely expensive reservoir.

I can afford to get some things wrong.

That was almost as satisfying as the successful test.

When Leon returned to the tent, the afternoon outside had advanced only a little. He closed the aperture and found Seraphine sitting beside the entrance with a cup waiting for him.

"Well?" she asked.

"It works. Unevenly." He accepted the cup. "But I can use it."

She smiled at his expression. "You look happier than after the fight."

"The fight didn’t take very long."

"And this did?"

"Enough that I want to tell Bai Heng exactly what happened before I forget anything."

Seraphine glanced at the notes in his hand. "I don’t think you’ll forget."

He sat beside her, enjoying the warmth of the cup against his fingers. From outside came Lu Pei’s voice, still explaining the unfamiliar wrapping to someone who had probably heard it twice already.

Then Leon’s attention shifted.

Far beyond the camp, his other body had reached a narrow stream crossing a rocky slope. The water should have spilled downhill through a gap in the stone.

Instead, it turned neatly around the gap and continued along the hillside.

Someone had built a wall to keep it there.