Chapter 178: The forge’s debt

Ethan did not immediately walk through the gate.

The moment he took his hands off the Main Furnace, both arms felt as heavy as though they were wrapped in stone armor, while the Eye of Truth had left a dull ache behind his eyes.

Mumu lay completely flattened on his shoulder, clutching the final crystal with both tentacles but lacking even the strength to put it into its mouth.

Ruo Yan came over and supported Ethan by the elbow for a moment. Only after confirming that he could stand steadily did she return to check the Flame Bone Dragon.

“You just used Realm Breaker to hold back the fire flow,” she said. “Is the gun all right?”

Ethan looked at the dark red patterns across the weapon.

A little hot ash clung to the muzzle, but the internal structure had not been damaged.

“It’s fine. I only used it as a support point. I didn’t fire a single bullet. If I ever need to shoot something just to repair a furnace, then I’ll know I’ve truly run out of options.”

“I thought you might tell Laira to punch the furnace until it started working.”

Ruo Yan glanced toward the silver-haired woman sitting on a maintenance cover.

Laira immediately raised her head when she heard that.

“I already asked. He wouldn’t let me.”

“Good thing he didn’t.”

The corner of Ruo Yan’s mouth curved slightly.

She placed a hand on the Bone Dragon’s wing joint.

Cracks still remained there from the Magic Array on the previous layer and from the furnace draining its fire twice, but its core had already passed the most dangerous stage.

“It needs a proper repair before it fights again. This time, we can’t just patch whatever damage is visible from the outside.”

Ethan nodded.

The Main Furnace had only just begun distributing its rewards, and he wanted to see whether anything among them would be suitable for the Bone Dragon.

The three circulation rings around the furnace had slowed into a steady rotation, while clean fire-element energy flowed through the ruined workshops.

Casting molds that had been cold for countless years now emitted a faint glow.

From where Ethan stood, the entire city looked as though it had finally begun warming up after spending far too long with nothing but ashes.

Notifications appeared before the entire group.

[Purefire Main Furnace Restoration Level: Complete.]

[The completing team has received one-time access to the Central Refining Area.]

[Obtained: Purefire Essence.]

[Obtained: Ancient Fire-Pattern Material.]

[Obtained: Refined Fire-Element Energy Crystals.]

Laira looked at the items gathering on the stone platform beside the furnace, and her expression immediately brightened when she saw the fist-sized Purefire Essence.

“Can we use this on the Bone Dragon?”

“Let me check first.”

Ethan picked up the essence and used the Eye of Truth to examine the energy flowing inside.

It could nourish a fire-element core and reinforce heat-resistant materials.

Using all of it to repair the Bone Dragon would be extremely extravagant, but they also had one use of the Central Refining Area.

That reward would be meaningless if they carried it outside without making use of it at the proper time.

“We can. But Ruo Yan needs to control how much goes into the core. I don’t want to finish repairing its wings only to make it grow another size larger and become unable to fit through the next gate.”

The Flame Bone Dragon lying beside the plaza suddenly had the flames in its eye sockets brighten.

Laira rested her chin on one hand and looked at it.

“If it grows bigger, I can pull it through.”

The Undead Mage standing behind Ruo Yan slowly turned its head toward her.

It had been dragged out of the Lava Sea several times before and probably had no desire to share that experience with a dragon.

Ruo Yan controlled it to move the materials into the refining area, then ordered the Bone Dragon to lie close to the edge of the furnace.

The reactivated molds could clamp around its wings and spine without requiring them to dismantle the entire skeleton.

Ethan used Decomposition to remove the sections that had been deeply corroded by the Magic Array.

Ruo Yan reconnected her Soul Threads to each joint, while Mumu, after finally eating half a crystal, recovered enough strength to spread a support layer over the new materials.

Repairing the Bone Dragon was not a fast process.

Ethan had just gone through three furnace activations, so each time he used Decomposition, he had to pause for a moment to avoid losing control over the skeleton’s structure.

Ruo Yan did not rush him.

She guided a small portion of Purefire Essence into the core and allowed the flame to naturally flow through the cleaned bone channels.

The cracks in the left wing gradually closed, while the gray corrosion marks stopped spreading.

The dragon lowered its head and looked at its own wing, tried opening it halfway, then was immediately restrained by Ruo Yan’s Soul Threads.

“Not finished yet,” she said.

The Flame Bone Dragon obediently folded its wing again.

Watching the scene, Ethan suddenly remembered the monster that had chased them throughout the Ember Battlefield.

Now it was being scolded by Ruo Yan for trying to move too early, while the Undead Mage stood nearby passing bones around like a blacksmith’s assistant.

The ruins truly could change a dragon’s fate very quickly.

While Ethan’s group used the refining area, the nonhumans continued lingering around the section of the furnace assigned to other teams.

The System did not prevent them from continuing the challenge, but Ethan’s success did not automatically open their gate.

The horned nonhuman had already cleaned the ash from his face, leaving only the tips of his horns coated white.

He looked at the three active circulation rings, then ordered his companions to inspect the pipes again.

They now knew that the gray source channel was the problem.

However, knowing what the problem was and actually fixing it were two completely different things.

The sections Ethan had removed from the core area had been resealed by the Main Furnace after the reward distribution.

Other teams still had to operate their own route.

The silver-haired Dark Elf looked at the pressure lock in his hand and finally had to admit that they lacked both materials and energy to recklessly use all three attempts.

Several nonhumans approached Ethan.

This time, they neither surrounded him nor questioned him.

They merely stood a short distance from the refining area.

A Beastkin with an injured leg cleared his throat and asked, “Where is the dirty source channel?”

Ethan raised his head from the Bone Dragon’s wing joint.

“Under the Main Furnace.”

“I know it’s under the furnace.”

The Beastkin suppressed his irritation.

“I mean, how do we tell which one it is?”

“Check the welds on the pressure locks. Any channel that sends fire-element energy upward while leaving gray ash behind, stop feeding fire into it.”

Ethan pointed toward the pressure lock the other party was holding.

“That one was installed backward.”

The Beastkin lowered his head to inspect it, his expression gradually becoming ugly.

He turned around and went back to tell his companions.

The horned nonhuman stared at Ethan suspiciously.

Ethan made no effort to convince him.

He had already told them something they could verify for themselves.

How much they could repair was their own problem.

He also had no intention of staying here for another round of trading.

The materials they still carried might not even be enough to pay the Undead Mage for hauling things.

The final section of the Bone Dragon’s skeleton was placed into the mold.

Ruo Yan closed her hand, causing all the Soul Threads to tighten simultaneously and hold everything in the correct position.

Ethan fused the Ancient Fire-Pattern Material into the wing joint, then used the remaining Purefire Essence to nourish the flames flowing through the connection.

The Main Furnace released a short chime before opening the mold.

The Bone Dragon rose to its feet and spread its wings nearly seventy meters wide.

The left joint no longer carried gray cracks.

Thin red-gold fire patterns now ran along the newly repaired bone sections, allowing fire-element energy to distribute more evenly whenever it flapped its wings.

“Only test it lightly,” Ruo Yan warned.

The dragon flapped exactly once.

A wave of scorching wind swept the ash from the plaza directly toward the spot where the horned nonhuman had been standing.

His face was covered white for the second time.

Laira turned away very quickly, but her laughter was still clearly audible.

Ethan looked at the Bone Dragon, then at Ruo Yan.

She maintained a calm expression for a moment before finally sighing.

“I told it to test lightly.”

“It listened.”

Ethan looked toward the coughing nonhumans.

“It’s just that our definition of ‘lightly’ is different from its definition.”

After using the refining area, Ethan took out the remaining Refined Fire-Element Energy Crystals.

Most of the energy he had absorbed previously had already been spent on fighting, repeated Decomposition, and Fusion, but the foundation accumulated from the crystals obtained in the Lava Sea and Ember Battlefield still remained.

He sat beside the furnace with Mumu resting in his lap, then used his cultivation method to circulate the energy through the Heavenly Gate.

The refined fire-element energy was no longer as painfully hot as the Main Furnace’s fire source, but to absorb it safely, Ethan still had to circulate it one cycle at a time rather than forcing too much into his Partner links at once.

Ruo Yan stood guard near the refining area, while Laira sat close to the gate and watched the nonhumans.

Ethan felt the energy that had been stuck at one point inside his body gradually begin flowing smoothly.

He continued absorbing the remaining crystals, slowly enough that Mumu fell asleep in his lap and woke up once before he finished.

When the final stream of fire-element energy stabilized, the pressure inside Ethan’s Heavenly Gate suddenly changed.

Ethan opened his eyes and felt strength returning to the arms that had been completely exhausted earlier.

[Rank increased: Platinum Stage 4.]

Mumu was the first to notice.

It abruptly raised its head, its round golden eyes staring at Ethan before it jumped onto his shoulder and cried out proudly, as though it were the one who had just advanced.

Laira turned around.

“You ranked up?”

“Yeah.”

Ethan stood and clenched his fist experimentally.

“Looks like that pile of crystals from earlier finally paid off.”

“You spent almost all your energy repairing a furnace and a dragon,” Ruo Yan said. “I thought you were planning to wait until we left the ruins.”

“So did I.”

Ethan looked at Mumu, which was stretching out both tentacles to ask for more crystals.

“Fortunately, the furnace wasn’t too stingy with its payment.”

Before leaving, Ethan returned to the place where the fire patterns had previously been exposed beneath the ash.

Now that the Main Furnace had been restored, the Eye of Truth no longer saw them as broken, disconnected lines.

From the base of the furnace, fine trails of light joined together into a network, extending deep beneath Emberfall City before continuing toward the newly opened gate.

Ethan took out the Fragment of the Lava Emperor’s Heart.

It pulsed faintly when he pointed it toward the gate, but immediately beyond the threshold, a layer of sealing power cut off the Eye of Truth’s vision.

He could not see whether another heart fragment existed on the other side, much less determine their number or location.

The only thing he could confirm was that the fire-patterned network of the Main Furnace did not end on this layer.

Ruo Yan walked over and stood beside him.

“You see another path?”

“Yeah. It continues through the gate, but I can’t see through the seal.”

Ethan put away the heart fragment and looked back at the city, now illuminated by the glow of its furnaces.

“Maybe the places where the heart was sealed were once connected through a larger system. Or maybe this path only leads to another section of the ruins.”

“Then let’s go look.”

Laira stepped down from the gate’s stairs.

She glanced at the newly repaired Bone Dragon, then back at Ethan.

“This time, do you want me to go in first?”

Ethan looked at the seal beyond the gate and remembered the two times the furnace had nearly drained the Bone Dragon dry.

He had no intention of blindly guessing what waited on the next layer.

But their group now had a repaired dragon, rewards in hand, and the Eye of Truth had discovered a trail worth following.

He stepped up beside Laira, the corner of his mouth curving upward.

“We’ll go in together,” he said. “If the next layer has something else that needs repairing, at least I’ll know to keep you away from the door first.”