Sure enough, not long after, on the way back to the Jiang family's compound, Wu Daoxiao found Li Zhi and Mingtong by his side, and said mysteriously: "Do you know where I went last night?" ”

Mingtong is also one of the Seven Great Elders, and he is very familiar with Martial Dao Xiao, and his words are also casual: "That must be a bad thing, just looking at the weird smile on your face, you can know that you borrowed the Qiankun bag to collect some huge amounts of rare things!" ”

Wu Daoxiao raised his big finger and grinned, "Or is the junior brother's heart bright, and I have noticed such a hidden change in expression?" ”

Of course, he didn't really hide the look on his face, obviously he was deliberately showing something, Li Zhi also took over with a smile: "The third elder has been gone for six or seven hours almost at once, so hard, I think I should have something to gain!" ”

Wu Daoxiao opened his hand and took out a few pieces of cyan ore, "I knew that Mr. Li was building a new type of giant crossbow last night, so I thought of this bronze ore, I don't know much about forging, but I used to have a bronze sword in my hand, and I know that the sword has undergone some kind of treatment to form a diamond-shaped, scale-shaped or flame-shaped pattern that can prevent rust." Thinking of Mr. Li's pure steel crossbow, there is also a need for rust prevention, fortunately, he traveled to the mountains in the early years and saw a copper mine site, so he rushed to that place overnight, and sure enough, he found these things! ”

Li Zhi took it excitedly, this kind of bronze ore is what he needs next, just like Wu Daoxiao said, there is a rust problem in pure iron weapons, but at present, bronze ore is an extremely precious and rare thing.

It's just that the bronze on the bronze ancient sword is an alloy of lead, copper and tin, and there is no natural bronze vein, and this kind of bronze ore has more soluble copper salt components, which need to be treated with acid and alkali before it can be replaced with iron.

The soluble matter is a kind of bile water called bile water, in the Tang Dynasty this bile water is called Zeng Qing, Taoism has Zeng Qing coated iron, iron red as copper said, Zeng Qing is this kind of copper sulfate, and bile water is often accompanied by copper mines, as long as there are bronze mines, it is not difficult to find.

"The Third Elder has really solved a big problem for me! To tell the truth, the crossbow I developed is a pure iron material, and the future copper oxidation treatment will not only require this ore, but also the tension spring in the machine bracket is pressed into a thin strip for the iron sheet, and then circled into a spiral shape under the condition of heating, and then tempered. However, if you want to meet the effect of continuous automatic firing, the tension spring and the chain need to be pulled twice, and the six crossbow machines use six sets of string pulling devices, and so on, so that the continuous shooting of the entire crossbow is realized. Just continuous use needs to do some quenching and tempering treatment on the original basis, otherwise the strength of pure iron can not be satisfied, my plan is the next copper and iron layered casting problem, the three elders look good for me to solve the problem of raw material source! ”

In fact, Li Zhi knew in his heart that last night's gift of the Qiankun bag made Wu Daoxiao grateful, but it also made him a little embarrassed.

Sure enough, Wu Daoxiao continued: "I don't know much about forging, but I also know that there is a problem of easy rust in ironware, and I happened to see an ancient mine cave many years ago, there are wooden wheels, brackets, porcelain pieces and other relics in the cave, and a large amount of slag is piled up under the mountain." Originally, with my lack of knowledge in this area, I don't know what the mine really is, but fortunately there is an inscription on the cliff outside it, and I rushed to it after thinking about it last night, and I really found this sulfide ore in the depths of the collapse, and I don't know if you are useful or useless, so I brought it all back! ”

"Not only is it useful, originally I planned to do ore exploration in the future, after all, this kind of copper ore is a rare thing, but the three elders have solved a huge problem for me!" Li Zhi's expression was very sincere and eager at this time.

"If only it could be used!" Wu Dao Xiao finally exhaled deeply, "The Qiankun bag is a legendary artifact in the cultivation world, and I will feel good if you are distracted by your great feelings, so I will feel better." ”

On the side, Mingtong had already understood what was going on, and said with a smile at this moment: "Mr. Li, I heard that natural copper was in the early dynasties, and the earliest extraction method was obtained by using natural copper compounds for wet copper smelting, it is said that this is the origin of wet technology, and you have mastered this rare technology that very few people have mastered?" ”

Li Zhi shook his head and explained, "In fact, just like the glaze craft, it is a secret among the people, but in the hands of those in power, such a well-known craftsman has long been kept in captivity, otherwise how to prevent rust from the royal Shang Fang sword." In fact, this process is also simple, and its principle is nothing more than that the objects made of copper smelting are too soft, easy to bend, and quickly dull, so people mix tin into copper to make copper-tin alloy - bronze, so that its hardness has been greatly improved. In today's era, pure copper can be mined relatively rare, but it is not difficult to extract from its ore, the copper used method is to bake such sulfide ore, and then use water to separate the copper sulfate formed, and then flow through the surface of the iron filings copper will precipitate, the formation of a thin layer of separation. ”

"Sounds like quenching in forging?"

"It's basically the same, but there's something special about dissolving liquids, and that's bile fluid! Third Elder, is there a water source near the mine you discovered? ”

Wu Daoxiao suddenly realized, "It turns out that that kind of bile water is related to the ore vein?" Yes, there is a stagnant wastewater lake nearby, and I think it is the bile water lake! ”

"Another day, the three elders need to lead them to take some back, and the existence of the Qiankun bag saves the hardships of people and horses! How many of these ores were obtained this time, though? ”

Since it was obtained in an abandoned mine, Li Zhi believes that it will not be obtained much, and the amount of reserves determines the demand for bile water, so he has this question.

Unexpectedly, Wu Dao Xiao smiled in his mouth, and with a wave of his hand, copper ore like a ten-zhang hill appeared on the ground, "This is because the Qiankun bag is already full, otherwise there will be several times more collection!" I suspect that the reason why the ancient mine was abandoned was because of a very serious collapse accident, because there were many human remains in the ruins, and even many utensils for life. Even including iron tools such as pickaxes with rotten handles, it doesn't look like a planned evacuation, it's more like a post-disaster tragedy! ”

"You can't be wrong!" Li Zhi ignored the surprise brought by the sufficient amount of ore, "Maybe it is a disaster site, in this case, I have to go to the party, and burying those victims is also a kind act." ”

"Why don't we go back to that place today?"

"That's fine! Mingtong presided, I bother you to help take care of it here, and I will explain to Brother Shoushan again, and set off with the three elders immediately. ”

Put away the large pile of ore, return to the Jiang family compound and put it into the warehouse, and discuss it with the relevant people for a while, he followed Wu Dao Xiao and quickly rushed to a certain place in the deep mountains.

At this time, including the Qiankun bag in Wu Daoxiao's hand, the two of them also had three, especially Li Zhi's one, which had a space of nearly twenty zhang, which was enough to use.

Qinling is respected as the dragon vein of Chinese civilization, Huaqing Palace and Jiangjia Courtyard, all belong to the main peak Taibai Mountain belongs to the vein system, in fact, the broad sense of Qinling covers an area of more than 3,000 miles, across several provinces.

This in-depth trip was the first time Li Zhi had entered it since his rebirth, and he was shocked by the vastness and lushness in his heart.

Along the way, all take the forest landscape as the main body, the strange peaks of Cangshan as the skeleton, the Qingxi Bitan as the vein, and the primitive forest beasts or occasional human buildings are dotted in the meantime, forming a vivid animation scroll in which dynamic beauty and static beauty are coordinated, and natural landscape and human landscape are integrated.

When the two of them went to their destination, they did not cross the boundaries of other provinces, but still ran horses in the east and west Taibai Mountains and their main ridges in between, and a series of peaks and ridges extending from north to south and a certain primeval jungle of the deep-cut river valley, it was a deep-cut canyon in a fault-block mountain, the southern slope was relatively gentle, the river valley was slightly open, and the mine cave was hidden in a relatively wide trough-shaped valley.

"It took two hours to get there, and we have to hurry, otherwise we'll be much slower to travel in the dark like when I came before!" Wu Daoxiao reminded.

Li Zhi agreed, "Let's try our best, after all, some bones are buried deep underground, and we can only try to find them before dark." I don't think it's as good as this, you and I go our separate ways, find the remains of the mine and choose an open place to bury them nearby, and then return here to collect the ore after the fact, so that it can be faster! ”

At present, he has entered the cave at the bottom of the valley, which is not so much a small barren town as it is a small barren town, and the exploration force looks at it, the mine cave is spread in all directions and spread for several miles, and there are dome or flat beam ridges between them, such a huge mineral deposit, in which the remains of the miners must be buried, so he will have this mention.

"That's all there is to it! In the meantime, the scattered ores will be collected, and if there are enough such ores, the places where the ores I have found will be concentrated and left for later collection! ”

The ore concentration in the mouth of Wu Dao Xiao is a place that has not been mined by the miners here, and if there is enough to obtain it in a place that has already been discovered, there is no doubt that the ore in that place can be used as a backup in the future, which is an unexpected surprise.

So Li Zhi said happily: "I hope so, copper ore resources are very precious, of course, the more the better!" But no matter what, we have to come again, and there is still more bile that needs to be transported back, but unfortunately we have limited bags in our hands! ”

"Mr. Li, let's be content, if we don't have these three Qiankun bags, I'm afraid we need to organize a team of hundreds of people to come, this is already very lucky!"

The two laughed and acted separately, compared to the martial arts who had come before, they already had experience in burying bones, and Li Zhi had to explore step by step first.

Fortunately, his exploration ability was far greater than that of the martial arts, so after falling behind for a period of time at the beginning, Li Zhi's exploration process gradually caught up.

The deeper you go, the deeper the ravine, different from the canyon wall on the road, the natural stone path lingering and the ancient maple hanging down, here is shrouded by the invisible dead silence for countless years, but there is no outside chic, beautiful, into the eyes are full of wreckage, everywhere withered and lifeless.

However, Li Zhi's state of mind was not affected by this, birth, old age, sickness and death are natural laws, even the souls of the dead buried here belong to the beginning and end of the Heavenly Dao.

He was able to treat these bones that had been dead for an unknown number of years, and it was only out of moral reasoning, as a cultivator who was accustomed to seeing life and death, Dao Heart insistence was more practical than inner pity.

Just two hours later, in the extreme depths of a certain mine, Li Zhi was pleasantly surprised to find a red solid mineral, "Dansha!" It turned out to be Dansha! ”

He couldn't help but exclaim, Dansha is one of the main medicines respected by ancient alchemists and pharmacists, it is called cinnabar because of its bright red color, at this time in the Tang Dynasty, because Dansha is mainly produced in Chenzhou, Hunan, so it is also called cinnabar.

Taoist alchemists regard dansha as a sacred object, listing it as the first of the 28 high-grade medicines, believing that if you want to live a long life, you need to take the elixir made mainly of dansha.

Secular physicians also regard it as a miracle medicine, such as the combination of squid blood to treat the skin disease "white malaria", which is mainly called "dansha on the top and gold below".

But for Li Zhi, he cares more about its alchemy medicinal value, and there is alchemy in the medical art logo in his mind, perhaps because his own cultivation has not been reached, and the alchemy in the deeper medical theory has not yet been officially opened.

Taoist alchemists mostly respect the dansha, saying that it is the essence of the sun and the body of the golden fire, so the dansha is the essence of the golden fire and formed, containing the true qi of Xuanyuan and Zheng, which is the basic of returning the Dan and the root of the medicine.

It is also called the outer eight stones, containing gold essence, is the lord of all spirits, the root of creation, the foundation of the gods, the alchemist will be the first of all medicines, there is a basis for its belief.

A small grain of bright color dansha suddenly made Li Zhi realize that he might have encountered a dansha vein, and he was so excited that he couldn't care about cleaning up the miners' remains, and his exploration power was greatly opened, so he focused on the search for the dansha ore vein.

Sure enough, under careful exploration, there was a corner of the extraordinarily red and block-like condensation that he discovered, although the total was less than a few zhang square, but the Dansha vein in the underground position of more than ten zhang was not mixed with other minerals and stones, and it was a huge amount to completely excavate it.

Dansha is actually the main mineral raw material for mercury refining, mercury, also known as mercury, which is white liquid at room temperature. In the dansha vein, due to oxidation, dansha is often oxidized to form natural natural mercury, because of its large specific gravity and fluidity, it can flow in the void of dansha crystal clusters or blocks, which is what the ancients called "out of the belly of dansha".

It is a natural compound of mercury and sulfur, is a red solid mineral, bright red shows diamond luster, dark color is similar to metallic luster, transparent to opaque, streak section is bright red.

The understanding and use of dansha also began as early as the Neolithic Age, and if you want to trace back to the origin, the Taoist alchemists' admiration for dansha can be traced back to the belief of people in red objects in ancient times.

Since then, Dansha has been associated with a certain idea of immortality or eternity, when primitive man hunted animals and observed their death, he found that the death of animals or people was mostly accompanied by the loss of red blood, and it was inferred that red blood is closely related to life: without blood, life dies; Otherwise, they do not die.

Therefore, all objects that are red with blood are also regarded as symbols of immortality, especially those red minerals that do not decay, and are worshiped as immortal gods, and precipitated in people's concepts and customs as a belief.

Whether it's hematite or dansa, the use of these red minerals is related to the observation of animal and human deaths.

If it is said that the original dansha only became a symbol of immortality with its bright red color, it was a kind of soul worship object, but when people began to swallow dansha driven by the desire to become immortal, it gradually changed from a worship object to an immortal medicine.

Taoist alchemists, on the other hand, can absorb the immortal ingredient from taking dansha, and gradually form an increasingly perfect alchemy, and on this basis, refine auxiliary pills with different functions, so that the desire to become an immortal becomes a reality.

Of course, all this Li Zhi only came from the very little knowledge of alchemy in his mind, and he himself was still in a state of ignorance about the elixir, and he could not understand the authenticity of it at this time.

However, after refining the Qiankun bag through alchemy, he did not doubt the existence of alchemy in his heart, so he had the moment of excitement today.