Fry the Oven

"Boom!"

A loud noise made the table shake and woke up Qin Ran, who was sleeping on the table. Still groggy, he sat up.

"What was that sound?"

He looked out the window but didn't notice anything unusual.

"Was I just dreaming?"

He had pulled an all-nighter last night and had just fallen asleep on the table when dawn broke... Judging by the light outside, he had probably just fallen asleep before being woken up.

What had Qin Ran been busy with these past few days?

He had been busy constructing the Dan Peak plantation, preparing to grow his own alchemy ingredients.

This had been his plan from the very beginning, before even taking Li Shiyin as his disciple. Earlier this year, there was still a large forest outside his little wooden house which he had chopped down. Now there was an artificial lake that Li Shiyin had dug. He had also set up the mountain protection array, and was now preparing to plant ingredients. He was steadily building up Dan Peak...

How to put it? This stemmed from his soul's innate desire to build infrastructure and farm!

Li Shiyin's arrival had simply sped up the process tremendously...

To be honest, this had originally been a ten-year plan.

On the table were piles of design sketches, all detailing plans for Dan Peak.

In the sketches, Dan Peak was divided into neat sections. There were guidelines on what to plant where - this section for vegetables and fruits, that section for rare ingredients, another for flowers and grass, and yet another for melons, fruits, and trees... He was making plans for precisely what to plant in each location.

And in order to grow these things, what kind of environment and arrays would need to be set up... This gave Qin Ran a headache.

"Arrays... array materials..." Looking at the design sketches, he could feel his head expanding.

One issue was the arrays themselves - constructing arrays was always torturous. The other was array materials - he was too poor and lacked materials to set up arrays.

The one thing Dan Peak had plenty of was pills, but it sorely lacked materials. Just to forge a sword for Li Shiyin, he - a grand master alchemist - had to go to auctions to bid. And obtaining the base materials for the mountain protection array had nearly gotten him killed.

Now, in order to set up large-scale arrays, Dan Peak still didn't have enough array materials.

"Maybe I should put planting ingredients on hold for now?" he wondered. "First build some greenhouses and grow some vegetables to meet basic needs before anything else?"

"Master..." Just then, he heard Li Shiyin calling to him from the grass outside. Looking out the window, he saw her dressed in clean, neat martial attire, holding a sword and standing vigorously on the grass, apparently practicing her swordwork.

Seeing that he had noticed her, Li Shiyin pointed towards the research building and said, "There's smoke coming from the research building!"

The research building?!

Qin Ran was shocked and suddenly realized that Long Qiqi was probably still pill refining over there. Could that loud boom have been caused by her?

Could her pill furnace have exploded?!

Thinking of this, he didn't hesitate further. He slipped out the window and floated over to inspect the research building. Sure enough, thick black smoke was pouring out from the Earth Flame Chamber on the first floor.

"That smoke..." His expression shifted curiously. Something seemed off about that smoke.

"Is Qiqi pill refining?" Li Shiyin asked.

"Mm," Qin Ran nodded and sped towards the research building.

Worried about Long Qiqi, Li Shiyin followed close behind and soon arrived at the research building.

"Qiqi... Qiqi?!" Qin Ran called out to Long Qiqi from outside the building, but received no response.

He sent out his divine sense, slipping through the window into the Earth Flame Chamber. Inside, he saw Long Qiqi standing numbly amidst the chamber, unclear if she was dead or alive because the thick smoke obscured his view.

He used his powers to gather a wisp of the black smoke and inspect it in his palm. His expression grew even more interesting - this smoke really was toxic?!

"Stay outside, don't come in!" he told Li Shiyin and then plunged into the dense smoke.

Qin Ran dispersed the smoke with practiced ease as he briskly made his way to the entrance of the Earth Flame Chamber. The door looked like it had met the business end of a Chicago typewriter, now more holes than door. On the opposite wall were many metal fragments - at a glance he recognized them as the remains of a pill furnace.

As expected, her furnace had exploded.

He kicked the door open and intense heat immediately spilled out, a sign that the temperature restriction arrays had failed.

The floor inside was a mess of slag, pill residue, furnace fragments, pill fragments and more.

At the center of this chaos, the remaining half of the pill furnace could not contain the earth flame, allowing it to burst out and rage fiercely amidst the smoke.

And in front of the pill furnace ruins and raging earth flame stood a little girl, facing away, head lowered, unclear whether dead or alive or what she was doing.

"Qiqi?" Qin Ran called out to ascertain her status.

Hearing the voice right by her ear, Long Qiqi finally turned to look, but otherwise showed no reaction.

"Phew..." Qin Ran breathed a sigh of relief that she was alive. He stepped forward to pick up Long Qiqi and carried her outside the research building.

"Qiqi, are you okay?" Li Shiyin came up, concerned.

Qin Ran handed Long Qiqi over to her care, simply instructing, "Look after her."

He then shot into the air, circulating his powers to summon a huge transparent bubble. Opening the bubble, he began sucking in the thick black smoke.

It took some time to absorb all the dense smoke. With the smoke contained in the bubble, Qin Ran re-entered the Earth Flame Chamber to seal away the earth flame and clear out the furnace fragments and other odd debris...

Once everything was tidied up, he came back out with two bubbles of trash to merge with the smoke bubble already in the air.

Li Shiyin and Long Qiqi were sitting on the grass nearby, Li Shiyin cradling her sword as she watched Long Qiqi, who kept her head lowered staring at something in her hands.

"Are you hurt?" Qin Ran asked, walking over.

Long Qiqi shook her head.

At the risk of rudeness, Qin Ran asked the venomous snake, "Poisoned?"

The smoke had clearly been toxic, though its origins were unclear.

Long Qiqi shook her head again.

"No injuries, no poisoning..." Qin Ran mused, "Then it's no big deal."

Li Shiyin looked at the cat-like Long Qiqi, then at the three huge bubbles of trash floating behind Qin Ran, and finally at the damaged research building. Hmm, she didn't really understand these alchemists - this wasn't a big deal?

"Pill refining mishaps like furnace explosions are very common, you get used to them after enough of them... The only abnormal thing is that your furnace exploded on your first try at pill refining." Qin Ran shook his head and said, "Nevermind, since you're fine let's go eat breakfast and rest. We'll talk about pill refining later."

At his words, Long Qiqi lifted her cat-like face. She hesitated for a moment before showing Qin Ran what she held in her hands.

It was two blackened, pill-shaped objects.