My Apprenticeship to Uncle Jiu: I Was a Warlord in the Republic of China

Chapter 177: Harvest from the Underground Palace, the Huge Alchemy Furnace

As for how he knew this, it was naturally because he saw the overturned stone bench and the open box, which were obvious signs of rummaging.

Although most of the details cannot be identified due to the long time, we can have a rough guess by looking at the overturned objects.

But now Jiang Li was not in the mood to think about what kind of emergency they had encountered that made them leave in a hurry, because with the light of the oil lamp, he saw a large round object in the middle of the underground palace.

But since the distance was more than thirty meters and the light was not very good, he could only see roughly, so he walked forward with two Taoist soldiers holding lanterns.

As he got closer, he was shocked. This thing turned out to be a huge alchemy furnace. Its height alone reached three meters, and its three legs and the furnace body were engraved with complicated animal runes.

He squatted down to check the bottom of the furnace and found obvious traces of smoke and fire, so he confirmed that this was definitely not a ritual object, but a genuine and practical furnace.

And from the items in the room of this underground palace, it can be seen that this alchemy furnace is by no means a simple thing. It must be an extraordinary magical instrument, but I just can't see it.

After looking around carefully and confirming that there were no mechanisms near the furnace, he felt relieved and asked someone to move this guy away.

That makes sense. Looking at the layout of this underground palace, you can tell that this should be the alchemy room of a certain sect. There are many good things stored in it, and it must not be accessible to everyone.

Therefore, no mechanisms will be placed there. After all, the alchemy room is not a tomb, and it is necessary to prevent tomb robbers. As long as the exit is guarded, there will naturally be no accidents.

But how could they have imagined that someone would fall from the sky, break through the roof and enter the stone chamber.

"Master, come and have a look, we have found something here!"

Jiang Li was still observing the alchemy furnace carefully when a Taoist soldier suddenly shouted loudly.

Hearing this, he immediately walked in the direction where the sound came from. After a while, he walked through a long corridor and came to a stone chamber that had just been opened.

Looking in the light of the fire, they saw more than twenty sarcophagi inside. It was obviously a morgue. They carefully opened a coffin containing a corpse, and suddenly a puff of smoke came out.

Jiang Li and others were so frightened that they retreated immediately, but there was no other unusual movement in the sarcophagus for a long time, so Jiang Li ordered a Taoist named Asan to go forward and check.

Ah San, with a bitter face, held the light and approached cautiously. But when he got closer and took a closer look, he found that it was just a cenotaph. Apart from some tattered clothes, there was not even a bone.

He then said loudly, "Don't worry, there are only some rags in here, nothing dangerous!"

Jiang Liwenyan then walked forward with confidence. After confirming that there was no danger, he felt relieved.

Afterwards, they opened the other sarcophagi and found that except for a few of them which were cenotaphs, most of the others were bones, but there was no danger.

This made Jiang Li very puzzled. What was wrong with this sect? Half of the morgue in the alchemy room was filled with cenotaphs.

However, since there were no clues, he stopped guessing and asked people to search the coffin and take away any usable burial objects.

After finishing the search of the morgue and performing a ritual to liberate the corpses, he once again turned his attention to the alchemy furnace in the center of the underground palace.

According to his visual estimation, this alchemy furnace must weigh several tons. It would not be easy to transport such a large thing, but it was impossible for him to just leave it alone.

He thought for a long time in front of the furnace, "This storage bag only has seven or eight cubic meters of space, it definitely can't hold such a big thing, so it seems that the only option is to use that stupid method."

He called Ah San and said, "Go back to Tengteng County now and mobilize a company of troops. Remember to bring a few more carriages and some ropes. I want to transport this big guy back."

Upon hearing this, Asan took a look at the huge alchemy furnace, bowed and turned to leave. When Jiang Li saw him leaving, he asked someone to copy the runes on the wall so that he could take them back to show Uncle Jiu what was recorded here.

...

Three days passed in a flash.

In the past few days, Jiang Li and his men searched the underground palace thoroughly and gained some results. Then they opened a big hole right above the alchemy furnace to facilitate the subsequent dragging and lifting.

At this time, when the rubbing drawings were being counted and sorted in the tent, a Taoist soldier came to report, "Master, the third brother is here with his men."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Li quickly put the drawings into his storage bag, then took the hundred people and used ropes to lift the furnace up through a dozen sets of pulleys.

Afterwards, they loaded it onto a horse-drawn carriage and headed for Tengteng County.

Actually, an ordinary horse-drawn carriage cannot transport such a large and heavy furnace, so the frame is specially widened and thickened.

Twelve wheels were installed underneath so that it could barely be transported, but because the wheels of the vehicle were too large, it was basically impossible to turn.

So they walked extremely slowly along the way, and it took the group five full days to transport this big guy to Qingyun Temple.

When they saw Jiang Li and his men bringing such a big thing, not only Uncle Jiu Qianhe and others knew about it, even the pilgrims who were burning incense were pointing and talking.

And with everyone pointing and talking, they and the Taoist soldiers transported the big guy to the mountain.

Seeing that there were too many people, Uncle Jiu did not ask Jiang Li about the origin of this thing. He just asked him to cover the furnace with a piece of cloth to avoid causing a commotion.

When they returned to the back hall, Jiang Li explained what had happened in detail, and then took out the gains of the trip.

When Uncle Jiu heard that Jiang Li not only obtained a coffin fungus during his trip, but also found an underground palace in the ruins of a sect and searched for many good things, he felt deeply moved.

At this moment, he was holding the long sword that looked like a spiritual weapon and examining it carefully.

After an unknown amount of time, he finally took a long breath and said, "This is indeed a spiritual weapon. It's a pity that the spirit in this sword has dissipated for some reason. At this point, it can only be considered a semi-spiritual weapon."

Jiang Li was a little disappointed when he heard that, but he quickly adjusted himself. After all, it was something he picked up for free, so why bother about it?

After that, he took out the rubbings from his storage bag. After looking at them, Uncle Jiu confirmed, "It seems to record a legend, but there are too many pictures and texts. It will take a long time to figure them all out!"

"Master, please don't worry. I am not very interested in this. It will be the same if you go back to see it when you have time."

Uncle Jiu nodded when he heard this. "That's fine, but what are your plans next? Do you want to continue going out to look for opportunities?"

"I do have this idea. After all, many of my uncles and aunts now have maps. If I delay too long, I'm afraid I'll miss a lot of opportunities!"