Chapter Thirty-Seven: Dispatch
He took a beginner's guide to Qi Gong, gathered a few clothes to give to the outer door disciples, and arrived early at the Earth Fire Temple on the second day. There were already many people waiting outside the temple, mostly outer door disciples, with a few inner door disciples mixed in. The white-clad outer door disciples and the green-clad inner door disciples kept their distance from each other, with the inner door disciples not even bothering to talk to the outer door people. Both sides stood on opposite sides of the square in front of the temple, waiting and sizing each other up. Just as the outer door disciples looked down on the registered disciples, the inner door people also looked down on the outer door disciples, after all, the cultivation world was a place where strength spoke louder than words, if you didn't have the ability, don't expect others to give you a good face.
The Earth Fire Temple is a rather peculiar existence in the Miao Cheng Sect. In the Miao Cheng Sect, there are three separate temples that transcend the ordinary inner and outer disciples: the Earth Fire Temple, the Heavenly Work Temple, and the Law Enforcement Temple. The Earth Fire Temple, as its name suggests, is in charge of the sect's fire source. Cultivators who want to refine magical artifacts or alchemical elixirs must either rely on their own self-cultivated Triple True Flames or borrow external flames. Refining a single furnace of spiritual elixir takes at least a day and night, and refining higher-grade spiritual elixirs takes even longer. The time spent refining equipment is several times that of refining elixirs. If one relies solely on their own self-cultivated Triple True Flames to refine a high-quality spiritual elixir, they would likely need to have reached the Golden Elixir stage to succeed. Therefore, the Earth Fire Temple's flames become the only choice.
In the Zihua Xianfu, every major sect has a place like the Earth Fire Hall, only with different names. They all use great divine powers to converge spiritual veins into one place and set up an array to extract the earth's heart fire as the source of fire for refining spiritual pills and treasures within the sect. The Earth Fire Hall of the Miao Cheng Sect is also very famous in the Zihua Xianfu, it was created by the founder of the sect, Miao Cheng True Person, using his great divine powers to converge several spiritual veins and extract earth fire, making it one of the top ten most powerful furnaces in the Zihua Xianfu.
At this moment, the disciples of the inner and outer sects gathered here are planning to borrow the spiritual fire of the Earth Fire Temple. Cultivators not only need good skills, but also elixirs, artifacts, and other important matters that cannot be neglected. If one has a good flying sword, the benefits in battle are obvious, let alone the fact that the Miao Cheng Sect is originally a sword cultivator. Therefore, there are often disciples who come to the Earth Fire Temple to re-refine their own magic treasures, so as to adapt to their own attributes and exert the greatest effect. As for elixirs, they are essential items for cultivators, not to mention those high-grade and top-grade spiritual elixirs with various divine effects. Even the lowest-grade recovery elixir that can quickly restore one's true yuan is a hot commodity among these low-ranking disciples, let alone the elixirs that accelerate cultivation, refine the body, and expand the meridians.
At this moment, the inner and outer door disciples gathered here are waiting for the Earth Fire Temple to open its doors. They can go in to refine magic treasures, elixirs, or browse through ancient recipes. Of course, using the Earth Fire is not free; every disciple, whether inner or outer, has to pay a fee of one low-grade spirit stone per day. This is only for the lowest grade of Earth Fire; if they want to use higher-grade fire rooms, they need to add more spirit stones. The quality of the fire in rooms of the same rank also varies, and if they want to choose freely, that's okay too - but they'll still need to pay with spirit stones. Spirit stones are the hard currency of the cultivation world; whether it's refining elixirs, crafting artifacts, or drawing talismans, none of these can be done without them.
The Earth Fire Temple does this to stimulate the disciples inside the gate to work hard, after all, the end of each month is the time of true harvest. At that time, countless scattered cultivators will line up and bring spiritual stones to borrow the fire room in the Earth Fire Temple, and that's when the spiritual stones really start rolling in. These scattered cultivators are mostly small sects or idle cultivators without a sect, they can't even afford a fire temple, so they have to pay spiritual stones to use the Earth Fire Temple of the Miao Cheng Sect. Although the spiritual stones paid by these people are also an important source of income for the sect, but only three days at the end of each month are open to outsiders, after all, the growth of the sect's disciples is the top priority.
Standing outside the Earth Fire Temple, wearing a black robe, he curiously looked up and down at this place with a reputation far and wide. The thirty-zhang-long temple gate was tightly closed, with two unknown monster carvings on either side of the gate. It is said that when the founder of the sect built the Earth Fire Temple, he used two spiritual veins and the toxic fire in the heart of the earth to refine the souls of two ancient strange beasts into a magic weapon. On ordinary days, they seemed like two sculptures, but if there was a great enemy at the door, coming to make trouble in front of the Earth Fire Temple, these two sculptures would transform into two strange beasts and severely injure the person who came. Therefore, on the last day of each month, no matter how powerful the scattered cultivators were when they came to borrow the earth fire, they all did so peacefully and quietly, with not a single one daring to make trouble here.
A thousand years ago, a loose cultivator, Shang Xie Zhenren, who was already at the peak of Yuanying's cultivation, came to the outer hall of the Earth Fire Temple to refine a life-bound artifact. A dispute arose, and this Shang Xie Zhenren's temper was notorious in the cultivation world for being extremely violent. However, his powerful strength was also well-known to all. It is unknown what divine ability this reckless Shang Xie Zhenren wanted to use outside the main hall, but it directly triggered an attack by two mountain-guarding divine beasts. If not for Miao Cheng Zong's sect master rushing over upon hearing the news, perhaps this Shang Xie Zhenren would have fallen here. Although his life was saved, his cultivation realm was forcibly reduced by a large margin, and he suffered from fire poison. He had to return to his mountain gate and close up, and until now, there has been no news of this true person emerging from seclusion.
Gan Ping was completely unaware of this, and only looked at the two vividly carved beast statues, as if they were alive. The faint flames emanating from within the statues also made him feel extremely comfortable, resonating with his own fire spirit body, giving him a subtle sense of familiarity. At this time, the little fire spirit in Gan Ping's arms also sensed the dense fire attribute spiritual energy outside, and let out a happy cry as it jumped out of his arms and leapt onto the head of one of the statues, where it lay down and began to purr contentedly.
Gan Ping jumped down and quickly looked around at the inner and outer door disciples, seeing them looking at him with mocking, curious or disdainful eyes. His face turned red, and he didn't care where he was, loudly shouting for Huo to come down. Hearing his master calling him, Huo reluctantly jumped down from the statue, squatting on Gan Ping's shoulder. Seeing that it had come down obediently without causing any trouble, Gan Ping couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief, bending his fingers to tap twice on the fiery monkey head, fiercely saying: "See if you dare to run around again in the future." Huo blinked its eyes, its two small paws holding onto Gan Ping's finger, its pitiful appearance making Gan Ping sigh, and he couldn't bear to scold it anymore.
Those disciples saw that the servant actually brought a monkey, and they couldn't help but look down on him. How could someone with such a temperament achieve enlightenment? However, seeing Huo's clever and lovely appearance, they all smiled slightly. Some people vaguely sensed that Huo was extraordinary and wanted to go up and talk to him, but they were embarrassed in front of their fellow disciples and didn't dare to approach the servant.
Just as these people were watching Gan Ping and the monkey laughing, a small door on the side of the main hall creaked open, and a young boy came out. He was dressed in black clothes, apparently also a servant disciple like Gan Ping. The boy looked around, saw Gan Ping sitting with his shoulders hunched, looking confused, and immediately reacted, ignoring the eager gazes of the other disciples on either side. He walked straight up to Gan Ping and said, "Are you Gan Ping?"
Gan Ping saw him asking, and hastily replied: "It's me, are you here to find me?" The young boy glanced at the people on both sides, saying: "Yes, I'm here to take you to settle the account, follow me." After finishing speaking, he turned around and walked towards the open corner door. Before turning around, he didn't forget to glance at the fire on Gan Ping's shoulder. At this time, a disciple in green clothes standing beside him asked the young boy: "Ming Fan Shixiong, what time will the gate of the Earth Fire Temple open today?"
The young boy, Ming Fan, turned his head impatiently and saw a familiar face, so his expression softened slightly. He said to him, "Oh, it's you, Master Xuan Yi. The opening of the Earth Fire Temple isn't up to me to decide, but I think the time is almost here. You should wait a bit longer, I'm busy taking this junior brother to meet the elder, so I won't stay long." Xuan Yi thanked him repeatedly, while Gan Ping watched with confusion, wondering why an outer sect disciple would show such respect to this black-clad servant. Was there some hidden mechanism at play? Seeing that others also showed no dissatisfaction towards Ming Fan's attitude, Gan Ping became even more perplexed.
As Ming Fan walked into the corner of the grand hall, Gan Ping finally saw the entire interior. Inside the hundred-zhang-long grand hall stood a gigantic dan furnace, made from unknown materials, with a bright yellow and golden luster, over twenty zhang high and about ten zhang in diameter. It looked like it weighed tens of millions of jin. Seeing Gan Ping's shocked expression, Ming Fan smiled and said proudly: "How is it? Are you stunned? I was also stunned the first time I came here. This dan furnace is made from Earth Mother's Golden Essence, refined with Xuan Yin Cold Mist. The gemstone on the lid is a Snake Pearl from a 17th-rank Wood-attribute Spirit Python. This furnace has four attributes: water, earth, gold, and wood. With the addition of fire, it completes all five elements. It's truly extraordinary, a top-grade second-tier treasure. Unfortunately, no one can use it more than a few times a year."
Gan Ping's heart and soul were all drawn to the dan furnace, and upon hearing Ming Fan say this, he also forgot that he had just met the Daoist child in front of him. He hastily asked: "What is the reason for this?" Ming Fan smiled with pride, looking like a talkative person who would certainly show off when someone asked him questions. He said: "Not to mention how precious this dan furnace is, there are also very few people who can use it. Even if one wants to use it, they must have extremely valuable materials." Saying this, Ming Fan spoke mysteriously to Gan Ping: "According to legend, this furnace was used by the founding master of the mountain to refine immortal pills. Do you know that?" Seeing Gan Ping take a deep breath, Ming Fan chuckled with laughter.
Gan Ping was still in a daze after looking around for a long time, and Ming Fan impatiently pulled his sleeve and said, "Let's go, there will be plenty of time to look at it later. I'll take you to your place first, get your things settled, and then show you around." Gan Ping asked hastily, "Aren't we going to pay our respects to the elder?" Gan Ping had been thinking about it since yesterday, feeling that he was able to come to this Fire Temple because of the elder's arrangement. Today, he wanted to see if he could meet the elder again, after all, the elder had helped him a bit back then.
Ming Fan gave Gan Ping a strange look and said, "Oh, you believed what I said outside the hall? The elders in the Earth Fire Hall are busy brewing medicine every day, they don't have time to bother with us. Just wait and see Master Brother once, that's considered signing up. Don't mind those people showing off their power in the sect, when it comes to our Earth Fire Hall, you have to listen obediently. You won't need to care about their faces from now on." Gan Ping was shocked by this revelation and asked eagerly, and Ming Fan, who couldn't keep a secret, explained the whole story to him one by one.
