Chapter 544: The Final Auxiliary Ingredient

Su Ming's fingers brushed over the jade essence with extreme gentleness, his gaze lingering on that yellowed label for a moment.

Elder Ma had entered his final secluded meditation to break through to Nascent Soul over five years ago, and there had been no news from him since.

Lin Yu suddenly spoke from within the ring: "Speaking of which, this Elder Ma should be emerging from seclusion soon, right?" His tone was unusually serious.

Su Ming's hand, closing the wooden box, paused slightly. "He will come out." He closed the box with the utmost solemnity and stored it in his storage pouch.

Wang Defa continued rummaging through the warehouse, mobilizing several trusted underlings to help with the transport.

Within less than an hour, the empty space in the Repair Hall's courtyard was piled high with an entire specially-made large wooden crate.

Su Ming used his divine sense to verify the contents.

From the century-old Purple-backed Begonia to the Red Flame Sand powder, and then to all sorts of bizarre spiritual liquid ores, twenty-two of the twenty-three auxiliary ingredients had been gathered. This seemingly unremarkable logistics base, the Repair Hall, had perfectly displayed its unfathomable resource reserves.

Only the very last line on the list remained.

Su Ming's gaze fell on that line of text, and his brow furrowed slightly.

"Earth Fire Crystal Core, must be nurtured by a thousand-year fire vein, core purity must be extremely high, no trace of impurities allowed."

Beside this name, Su Ming had not drawn a checkmark.

Wang Defa wiped the sweat from his forehead, looking at that last line, an expression of extreme difficulty spreading across his face.

"Hall Master, this Earth Fire Crystal Core, our Repair Hall really doesn't have it. This thing is never used in formation repair work. Even over at Flame Cauldron Peak, this level of fire-type material is supplied directly to the inner sect elders."

Luo Feng leaned in, glanced at the name on the jade slip, then raised his hand and gave Su Ming's shoulder a heavy pat.

"Junior Brother Su, it's my turn to shine."

Luo Feng grinned, revealing a row of white teeth, and pointed a thumb toward the direction of Artifact Burial Peak.

"I know where this thing is. Elder Zheng of Artifact Burial Peak definitely has an extreme-grade Earth Fire Crystal Core in his possession."

Su Ming turned to look at him, but didn't agree immediately. Having clawed his way through Central Continent and the sect, he understood all too well the cost of "getting something for free."

"Senior Brother, do you have a way to make him part with it?" Su Ming asked with extreme calm. "As far as I know, Elder Zheng has an extremely stubborn personality and doesn't easily trade materials with others."

Luo Feng waved his hand dismissively, casually tossing the broken Mystic Iron formation plate in his hand a couple of times.

"I'm very familiar with him! Back then, when I needed the core components for my batch of miniature suicide puppets, I shamelessly begged him to help me smelt them because of the extremely high heat resistance requirements on the materials. That old man may have a foul temper, but he's incredibly greedy for novel formations and mechanisms. I'll take you there, leave it to me!"

With only two days left, searching for an Earth Fire Crystal Core outside the sect was absolutely impossible. Artifact Burial Peak was the only way. Since Luo Feng had leverage, Su Ming would use it.

Su Ming stored the wooden crate filled with auxiliary ingredients into his storage pouch and gave Luo Feng a slight nod.

"Then I'll trouble Senior Brother to lead the way."

Luo Feng laughed heartily, dusting off his Daoist robe.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

.......

Artifact Burial Peak was located at the extreme western edge of the Cloud Hidden Sect's mountain range.

Unlike the secluded quiet of Formation Peak or the medicinal fragrance swirling around Pill Cauldron Peak, this place was perpetually shrouded in an extremely dense black smoke and dust.

The moment Su Ming and Luo Feng stepped onto the mountain path of Artifact Burial Peak, a terrifying wave of heat, thick enough to singe one's hair, pressed down on them like an extremely heavy wall of fire. The air was filled with a pungent smell of sulfur and the acrid stench of molten metal.

"The fire energy in this place is even more overbearing than Pill Cauldron Peak's," Lin Yu commented with extreme sharpness from within the ring.

Su Ming slightly activated the *Like Water Art*, covering his body with an extremely thin water-attribute spiritual energy shield. Those scorching auras attempting to invade his meridians made a faint "sizzling" sound upon contact with the water membrane, dissipating into white steam.

Luo Feng walked ahead, seeming extremely familiar with the place.

He led Su Ming through a series of turns, bypassing several extremely concealed prohibitive runes, and finally stopped before a huge lava cavern carved into the cliff face.

The lava cavern had no door, but its entrance was covered by an extremely powerful isolation array. A dark red array light rippled like flowing water, sealing the heat inside, enough to melt metal and stone, within.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The extremely heavy and rhythmic sound of hammering struck Su Ming's eardrums through the array light. Each resounding blow was accompanied by a faint tremor in the earth veins.

Luo Feng didn't stand on ceremony. He reached out and, with practiced familiarity, knocked three times on the edge of the array light.

"Old Man Zheng! Stop hammering! I'm here, Luo Feng!" Luo Feng shouted at the light screen.

A few breaths later, the red light on the surface of the screen dimmed slightly, and a very narrow gap split open in its center.

A blast of terrifying hot wind, enough to bake an ordinary person dry, surged out of the gap like a runaway wild horse.

Su Ming's gaze sharpened, and his water-attribute shield instantly thickened by a third, smoothly diverting the hot wind to the side.

The two entered the lava cavern one after the other.

The space inside the cavern was extremely vast. The walls, baked by years of high temperature, had taken on a bizarre dark vitreous luster. In the very center of the cavern, a three-zhang tall giant artifact-forging furnace was spewing extremely dazzling orange-red flames.

Before the furnace stood an extremely burly man.

That was Elder Zheng of Artifact Burial Peak.

He was bare-chested, his body covered in muscles as hard as piled rock, their surface gleaming with an oily bronze sheen. Without using any spells, relying purely on brute physical strength, he wielded an enormous Mystic Iron heavy hammer in both hands, brutally pounding a piece of red-hot ore.

Sweat slid down his sinewy muscles, instantly evaporating from the heat before it could even hit the ground.

"What are you brats here for again?" Elder Zheng didn't turn around, his heavy hammer landing with precise force on the same spot of the ore, his voice booming like a temple bell within the cavern. "Last time I melted those parts for you, I wasted three batches of top-grade fire charcoal. If you don't have any new blueprints today, get the hell out of here!"

Luo Feng chuckled, completely unbothered by Elder Zheng's foul attitude, and shouted, "Old Zheng, this time it's not for melting parts. My junior brother needs to brew a furnace of elixirs and lacks a piece of Earth Fire Crystal Core as a primer. Do you have any?"

Elder Zheng carelessly threw the heavy hammer to the ground, producing a loud "bang."

He turned around, pulled a fist-sized, deep red, almost transparent crystal core from the bottom shelf of a rack, and casually tossed it in his hand.

"Earth Fire Crystal Core? I do have one."

Luo Feng's eyes lit up as he stepped forward: "Old Zheng, my junior brother needs this urgently."

Elder Zheng glanced at him sideways. "Urgently? When have you ever come that wasn't urgent? Last time it was urgent to melt parts, the time before that it was urgent to borrow earth fire, and the time before that..." Luo Feng quickly interrupted: "This time is different! My junior brother needs this Earth Fire Crystal Core to save a life."

Elder Zheng was silent for a moment, his gaze sweeping over Su Ming.

Elder Zheng snorted, then directly tossed the crystal core at Luo Feng. "Take it and get lost. Don't bother me here."

Luo Feng caught it steadily, grinning. "Thanks, Old Zheng. I'll buy you a drink next time."

"Get lost." Elder Zheng had already turned around, picking up his heavy hammer again.

Luo Feng pulled Su Ming and headed out. Once outside the cavern, Su Ming looked at him. "The array diagram Senior Brother mentioned just now..."

Luo Feng waved his hand dismissively. "I lied to him. I traded the array diagram for those core parts back then. We're even. But Old Zheng is a tough talker but soft-hearted. If you try to reason with him, he'll drag it out for three days. If you appeal to his goodwill, he'll be surprisingly generous."