Daybreak.
The night time of Chen Yun and Zhang Qian who took turns for lookout firstly examined outside several times.
With the confirmation that the demoness Lin Feiyun was not around, the two then applied horse and horse token charms and left the dilapidated temple, running frantically.
Perhaps Lin Feiyun was seriously injured and temporarily unable to attend to Chen Yun and Zhang Qian. They had a relatively peaceful journey, except for being chased by a wild boar while crossing the mountains, which made them a little weak in the legs. Other than that, they did not encounter any overly dangerous situations.
After half a day of travel, Chen Yun and Zhang Qian successfully crossed a distance of five hundred li and arrived at another city that was a thousand li away from Xigou City.
City of Horse Pool.
After being checked by the garrison guards, the two entered the city.
On both sides were tightly packed shops.
The shops inside offered a wide variety of goods, including clothiers, dress shops, and various cosmetics like rouge and perfume. A glance revealed a dazzling array of items.
Perhaps it was because it was nearly noon at this point, but there were not many vendors and pedestrians in the city. Instead, all the taverns were filled with guests.
On the cobblestone street, the two were walking.
Zhang Qian asked curiously, "Brother Chen, what are you actually planning to make to ambush the demoness? Can you give me a hint?"
Chen Yun blinked and said, "Be careful, there are always ears behind the wall. It's not appropriate to say it for the time being."
Zhang Qian sighed and said, "Alright."
Chen Yun saw a beggar by the roadside and casually tossed a couple of silver coins to him, which led the beggar to express his thanks repeatedly.
After smiling and nodding, Chen Yun continued talking to Zhang Qian, "Brother Zhang, I have a task for you later."
Zhang Qian nodded and said, "Tell me."
Chen Yun pointed to the nearby outhouse and asked, "Have you seen that outhouse over there?"
Zhang Qian nodded and replied, "Yes, I saw it."
Chen Yun blinked and said, "You should remember that there are many white powder-like substances on the walls around the outhouse?"
"You're talking about gunpowder? Of course I know," Zhang Qian replied, perplexed. "What do you mean by mentioning this thing?"
Chen Yun still did not explain, "Try to scrape as much gunpowder as possible from the walls of the outhouse. More is better."
Even though he didn't know what Chen Yun was planning, Zhang Qian still did as he was told, "Alright."
After discussing, the two found a restaurant to eat.
Throughout the meal, they kept discussing in low voices about how to deal with Lin Feiyun.
After a while, they finished eating.
The two agreed to meet at the inn and parted ways.
Chen Yun asked around and finally came to a miscellaneous goods store named "Zhao Record".
Stepping in, there was only a shopkeeper with a mustache shaped like an eight character.
He looked lifelessly sitting behind the counter, with his head down and seemed not to have noticed that any customers had entered.
Chen Yun asked proactively, "Shopkeeper, do you have Kunlun Yellow for alchemy in your store?"
Kunlun Yellow is block-shaped sulfur.
"Yes..." The shopkeeper looked up and saw a figure, quickly stood up and greeted with a smile, "Oh my, it's the Daoist."
Chen Yun walked to the counter and said, "Do you still have charcoal in the store? Preferably charcoal made from willow wood."
"Yes, we have all kinds. How much do you need?" The shopkeeper was very polite.
Chen Yun thought that he might need to refine them, so he asked for more, "Prepare 20 catties of Kunlun Yellow for me and 30 catties of willow charcoal."
The shopkeeper said, "Alright. The charcoal is a total of four hundred cash, and the Kunlun Yellow is a bit more expensive, eight hundred cash. Together, that's one thousand two hundred cash."
The price of charcoal is actually quite similar to what I remember.
However, the price of sulfur is a bit more expensive.
Chen Yun remembered that during the Ming Dynasty, sulfur transported from Japan was eight cash per jin.
At this time, which is similar to the Tang Dynasty, the craftsmanship may not be as advanced, so a pound of sulfur is worth forty cash, which is indeed very expensive.
However, the price is within the acceptable range, Chen Yun paid readily.
After paying, Chen Yun asked on a whim, "Shopkeeper, do you sell gunpowder here?"
The shopkeeper was still counting money, "Yes, how much do you want?"
Chen Yun sweated slightly, he thought that gunpowder couldn't be bought and had asked Zhang Qian to go into the toilet to collect it, but he didn't expect that it could be bought.
He then bought over a hundred catties of gunpowder.
At the end, Chen Yun took advantage of the shopkeeper's preparation period to find a carpenter, who made him a wooden barrel.
……
At the inn.
After opening a room, Chen Yun negotiated with the shopkeeper and gave him some silver, allowing him to use the kitchen, and hired a little servant to burn fire for himself.
He first broke the sulfur into pieces and then heated them in a pot.
Chen Yun observed from time to time.
After seeing the sulfur melt, he held a wooden stick and stirred it constantly, which facilitated the evaporation and decomposition of some impurities.
After this part was about done.
Then he quickly took out the liquid sulfur and poured it into the distiller made by Wang Zi Xi for him.
He heated the distiller.
When the sulfur inside boiled.
The sulfur vapor traveled along the pipe to the pre-prepared pot at the other end and gradually cooled and solidified.
The sulfur purification was just completed.
Zhang Qian walked in from outside, "Brother Chen, the shopkeeper says you're here."
Before Chen Yun turned around, he could already smell a putrid odor spreading from behind.
As expected, Zhang Qian did indeed go to the outhouse to collect gunpowder.
Chen Yun just turned to apologize.
Zhang Qian widened his eyes, looking at the huge pile of gunpowder in the wooden basin, and said in disbelief, "Brother Chen, where did you get all this gunpowder? I collected only a jin after crawling in the outhouse for half a day, and you must have over a hundred jin here!"
"Cough." Chen Yun felt embarrassed. "I just asked around at the general store and they told me they sold it."
Zhang Qian: "..."
Zhang Qian looked at Chen Yun with a gloomy expression and said, "Do you know how smelly the outhouse is?"
Chen Yun of course knew how smelly it was, the smell of ancient latrines...
Yes, it could be said to be overwhelming.
He quickly comforted Zhang Qian a few words and then began to purify the nitre.
The purification of nitre was relatively simple. Chen Yun adopted the method of recrystallization, which involved grinding nitre into powder, dissolving it in enough hot water, waiting for it to slowly cool down. During the cooling process, nitre would gradually crystallize. Then the crystalline bodies were separated through filtration and washed with cold water.
Chen Yun repeated this process several times, eventually obtaining high-purity nitre.
After completing all these tasks, he let the nitre dry.
……
Two days later, noon.
Chen Yun's ultimate weapon has finally been made.
In the past two days, thanks to the fruit peel effect of Zhu Guo, he could practice nine small cycles every night. In total, he refines 162 pieces of True Essence.
To put this into perspective, before this, Chen Yun had been practicing for nearly a month without breaking through to the level of an 8th-level wizard.
And now, three nights are equivalent to three months of training time.
This made him quite reflective, as he realized that cultivation indeed requires heavenly treasures and rare materials.
Most importantly, this was all thanks to the peel of the Zhu Guo fruit.
If it were the complete Zhu Guo fruit, the effect would definitely be even stronger.
Chen Yun nearly couldn't resist the urge to eat the Zhu Guo fruit several times.
However, he believed that the Refining Essence into Qi soup would have a greater effect than simply eating the Zhu Guo fruit, so he forcibly held back and did not eat it.
What's unfortunate is that after three days of refining, the effect of the fruit peel of the Zhu Guo fruit has disappeared.
The room.
The two were crouching in front of the wooden basin, watching.
In the wooden basin, a large pile of black granules shaped like glutinous rice were placed.
Zhang Qian looked at these black particles with curiosity and asked, "Brother Chen, what are these things?"
These are gunpowder.
Or more accurately, it's called wheat grain gunpowder.
Chen Yun looked at these wheat grain gunpowder, feeling a sense of achievement in his heart.
Fireworks did exist in ancient times.
Fireworks in ancient times did exist, but they burned slowly and had low energy.
He was afraid that he couldn't kill Lin Feiyun with a single explosion, so he specially made a high-level version of the "wheat grain" gunpowder.
The wheat grain gunpowder burns twice as efficiently as powdered gunpowder, much like branches are easier to burn than sawdust.
Moreover, the power of wheat grain gunpowder far surpasses that of ordinary black powder.
Of course, this is not the ultimate weapon.
Chen Yun's real ultimate weapon is to make the wheat grain gunpowder into an explosive barrel to kill the demoness Lin Feiyun.
This can be said to be a truly epoch-making weapon.
A slight smile curled at the corners of his mouth, "This is gunpowder."
Zhang Qian had been at the Taoist Temple for five years, so he naturally knew what gunpowder was.
After all, gunpowder was something that Taoists experimented with for alchemical purposes.
He was puzzled and said, "This is gunpowder? Don't fool me. Gunpowder isn't black powder like flour?"
Chen Yun was too lazy to explain and said, "You'll see later. Just help me pack this gunpowder into the barrel first."
Zhang Qian blinked and said, "Is this really gunpowder? Can I try lighting it?"
Chen Yun was shocked and said, "Brother Zhang, you want to die, but I don't."
Zhang Qian was somewhat unimpressed and said, "It's just a spark when gunpowder is lit, what's there to be afraid of?"
Chen Yun rolled his eyes and said, "The power of my gunpowder is much stronger than what you can imagine."
He decided to explain to Zhang Qian, lest his mind was fogged up, so he wouldn't be too curious and try to light the wheat grain gunpowder. "My kind of gunpowder, if it weighs four hundred catties, can blow up half a street!"
Zhang Qian was shocked and said, "Alas! Four hundred catties can blow up half a street? That's so fierce?"
Chen Yun nodded and said, "This wooden barrel can only hold about 20 jin. Although its power may be a bit weaker, it should be enough to kill the demoness Lin Feiyun. So when using this thing, we must keep a safe distance from her."
The power of wheat grain gunpowder is about five times stronger than TNT high explosive dynamite.
That means the power of these 20 jin of gunpowder is roughly equivalent to 12 jin of TNT high explosive dynamite.
Chen Yun's only regret is that he doesn't have time to refine glycerin.
If he had time, he could also make glycerin explosives, and their power would be even stronger.
As for this firework barrel, Chen Yun thought that blowing up a building would be as easy as pie.
Zhang Qian nodded in agreement and said, "We need to keep a safe distance, I don't want to die young."
Speaking, he looked at Chen Yun with admiration and said, "Brother Chen, I really don't know how your brain is wired. You can invent this kind of thing?"
Chen Yun laughed heartily, "Alright, enough chatter. Hurry up and pack the gunpowder into the wooden barrel. I'll make sure to kill that demoness Lin Feiyun!"
Zhang Qian clenched his fists and waved them, "I will make sure to blow her into smithereens!"
Yes, we must make sure to kill that demoness.
Chen Yun may be peaceful by nature, but if someone wants to kill him, well, he's not an easy target either. He absolutely will not wait passively for death.
Want to kill me?
You can give it a try!
It was the first time Chen Yun entertained thoughts of killing someone, and it was an all-or-nothing kind of killing. As long as Lin Feiyun was not dead, he would be unable to sleep or eat in peace!
(Chapter complete)
