bioinnovel Chapter 406 Daily Life 2
Chapter 406 Daily Life 2
After A Dou's little axe was sharpened, the human warriors took out a whetstone from under the stone platform.
It wasn't some kind of magic weapon; it was just the most ordinary blue sandstone used in blacksmith shops in the mortal world. Its surface had been worn down by a whetstone, leaving a groove filled with years of iron filings and limescale.
He dipped the whetstone into the quenching tank, and the liquid from the quenching tank seeped into the texture of the stone, dissolving the old iron filings into an extremely fine grayish-white powder.
The powder flowed out of the groove and dripped onto the bluestone slab, where it evaporated on its own due to the residual will of all living beings on the slab.
"After the axe blade is sharpened, it needs to be run through with a whetstone to remove the burrs from the edges of the quenching lines. Although the blade edge quenched with the law slurry is hard, if the burrs are not removed, it will chip when cutting things."
The human warrior handed the whetstone to Su Fan.
Su Fan took the whetstone, placed A Dou's axe blank on the stone platform, held the axe handle with his left hand, and used his right hand to hold the whetstone and push it forward along the curved surface of the axe blade.
The rustling sound of sand rubbing against metal was very rhythmic, and with each push, the dark red law pattern on the axe blade would light up a little.
A Dou squatted beside the stone platform, his hands supporting his chin, his eyes following the whetstone as it turned.
The design drawing in the schoolbag was already half-protruding from the hook, and the outline of the axe drawn in pencil was very faint in the morning light.
Nezha leaned his fire-tipped spear against the brick stove, took a fried dough stick from the stove, took a bite, chewed it a couple of times, and watched Su Fan sharpen his knife.
"Who taught you your knife-sharpening skills? I remember when you were sharpening the Pangu Axe at the South Heaven Gate, you just picked up a random piece of brick, rubbed it a couple of times, and then carried it to the battlefield."
"The Pangu Axe doesn't need sharpening. Its blade is formed from the power of creation, so it won't bend no matter what it cuts. A Dou's axe, on the other hand, is made of ordinary iron, and even if it's hardened by quenching, it still needs to be sharpened."
Su Fan flipped the whetstone over and continued to push it with the finer side.
The burrs on the axe blade fell off one by one under the fine polishing, and the fallen burrs made a very faint tinkling sound when they fell on the bluestone slab.
With each burr removed, the dark red pattern of the law on the axe blade seeps deeper into the edge.
By the time the last burr falls off, the pattern on the entire axe blade surface has completely meshed with the metal texture inside the iron billet.
A Dou took the small axe from Su Fan's hand and touched the axe blade with his fingers.
The blade is extremely thin and sharp, but it doesn't cut your hand when you touch it. You can feel a very thin membrane of law covering the surface of the blade.
This membrane is formed spontaneously by the fusion of the law slurry and the will of all living beings during quenching, and it prevents the axe blade from chipping when cutting hard objects.
He held the small axe up to his eyes, looking at the dark red law pattern on the blade in the morning light streaming in through the doorway.
The patterns are very faint in the light, but the direction of each pattern is very clear.
"What can this axe chop now?" A Dou put down the small axe and looked at Su Fan.
"You can cut anything. But you can't cut people."
Su Fan returned the whetstone to the human warrior.
"I know. I'll chop down trees, chop firewood, and do my summer homework."
A Dou stuffed the small axe into his schoolbag, and then took out the design drawing from inside the schoolbag and placed it on the stone platform.
The crooked words next to the pencil-drawn outline of the axe were very faint in the morning light—"My axe shines."
He shoved the design drawings into Su Fan's hands.
"This picture is for you. The green glow from the highlighter on the wooden axe you gave me is almost gone, but the light in this picture was drawn with a pencil, and pencils are made of graphite, so it won't fade."
Su Fan looked down at the crumpled draft paper. The outline of the axe drawn in pencil was crooked, and the curve of the axe blade was drawn according to the Pangu Axe.
However, the drawing is not very accurate; the curvature is off by a few degrees, making it look more like the curvature of the tip of the Demon Emperor's Spear used by the human warrior.
He folded the draft paper and stuffed it into his pocket, placing it next to the wooden axe that A Dou had given him.
Then he stood up, picked up the Pangu Axe from the wall, tucked it into his waistband, and walked to the bluestone slab at the entrance of the weapons shop.
The aftershocks of the great calamity at the end of the alley were still pulsating, their frequency extremely stable.
The steam from the youtiao stall's steamer rises in the morning light, mingling with the subtle, lingering aroma of the quenching liquid evaporating from the shop. A gentle breeze carries this scent throughout the entire street.
After the weapons shop opened, the workload increased day by day.
The human warrior's knife-sharpening skills spread to several nearby streets. First, neighbors brought their kitchen knives to be sharpened, then the noodle shop owner from the next alley carried a box of noodle-cutting knives to be quenched, and later, Zhang the butcher who sold meat at the market brought his cleaver as well.
The cleaver was covered in bone fragments and grease, the blade was chipped in three places, and the handle was wrapped with wire several times to barely keep it from falling apart.
The human warrior examined the bonecrusher knife several times, then threw it into the quenching tank to soak, letting the law slurry dissolve the bone fragments and grease. After dissolving, he took it out and quenched it again.
The quenched bone-chopping knife had a sharper blade than a new knife. Zhang the butcher took it home and used it for two days before bringing it back, saying that the knife was too sharp. When chopping bones, the knife went straight through the bone and cut into the chopping board, almost splitting the chopping board in two.
"A knife that's too sharp won't work either. The cutting board can't handle it. Sharpen this one for me too. This one doesn't need to be too sharp, otherwise the tip will hit the cutting board when I'm chopping filling, and my wrist will hurt from the vibration."
Zhang the butcher stood at the entrance of his shop, placed his cleaver on the stone platform, and then took out a pair of double knives for chopping meat from his pocket.
The human warrior took the twin swords, wiped off the meat scraps from the blades with a cloth, dipped them in the quenching tank, and quenched only the front two-thirds of the blades, leaving the base one-third unquenched.
Butcher Zhang tested the feel of his two knives on the bluestone slab in front of the shop, nodding in satisfaction. He then took a pork rib from his basket, threw it on the stone, and said it was payment for sharpening the knives.
The human warrior handed the ribs to Gongsun Bao, who placed them on the brick stove to roast until they sizzled and dripped with oil. He then sprinkled some salt on them, used tongs to take them out, and distributed one rib to everyone in the shop.
After Nezha finished gnawing on the ribs, he threw the bones towards the crack in the Guixu. The bones drew an arc in the air and fell into the depths of the Guixu, where they were caught by the pale golden moss that had grown on the white rock layer of the foundation.
The flowing patterns on the surface of the moss wrapped around the bone and then dispersed on their own.
Over the course of half a month, the variety of knives being quenched in the weapon shop's quenching tanks increased significantly.
A noodle maker, a cleaver, a fruit knife, scissors, a pedicure knife, tailor's scissors, gardener's pruning shears, and even a pair of hair clippers.
The human warrior said that quenching the hair clippers was the most difficult part because the blades were too thin, and the blades would deform if the temperature of the quenching slurry was even slightly high.
He used the crystal on the tip of the Demon Emperor Spear to touch the quenching tank, precisely lowering the temperature of the law slurry to the critical point that the pusher blade could withstand. After quenching, the pusher blade was even sharper than the original.
Old Chen from the barbershop took the clippers back and used them for half a day before running back, saying that the clippers were too fast. The customer's hair was broken by the residual law fluctuations of the law liquid before it even touched the blade, and the hair looked like it had been chewed by a dog after the haircut.
The human warrior readjusted the pusher again, reducing the residual frequency of the law slurry to zero before the pusher returned to normal.
A Dou would come to the shop for a while after school every day.
He hung his schoolbag on the hook by the door and squatted down next to the stone platform to watch the human warriors sharpen their knives.
After sharpening each knife, he would use sandpaper to wipe the iron filings off the stone.
After wiping, bounce it a couple of times on the bluestone slab to see if it shines.
Each time the stone slab is used, it lights up, and its brightness is exactly the same as that of the newly filled broken brick on the Nantianmen city wall.
Once he asked a human warrior, "Why do the bluestone slabs shine when you step on them?"
The human warrior slammed the Demon Emperor's Spear onto the stone platform, thought for a long while, and then answered:
"Because a battle was fought on this street. When the extraterrestrial gods attacked the South Heavenly Gate, fragments of bricks that fell from the city wall landed on this street and got embedded in the cracks of the bluestone slabs."
"Later, the will of all living beings seeped into the stone slabs through the cracks in the bricks, and the stone slabs acquired the memory of the laws. When you step on them, the stone slabs' memory of the laws thinks you are here to guard the city. When the person guarding the city steps on the stone slabs, the stone slabs light up."
"Now that we don't need to defend the city anymore, why is it still lit up?"
"Because the stone tablet doesn't know the war is over. The stone tablet's memory of the laws is still stuck three years ago, when you hadn't seen Pangu's Axe yet, and I still had legs."
"But whether the stone slab shines or not has nothing to do with whether there is a war or not—the stone slab only recognizes will. If your will contains the path of all living beings, the stone slab will shine when it senses it. Not having to defend the city does not mean that your will has dissipated."
The human warrior placed the sandpaper on the stone platform and wrapped a freshly sharpened fruit knife in oil paper, placing it in the finished product compartment on the counter.
Su Fan stood at the entrance of the weapons shop, holding a copy of A Dou's design blueprint in his hand.
The original was still in his arms; the copy was taken with his phone and then printed by Yang Jian using a broken mirror on the Nantianmen city wall.
The pencil lines on the printed drawing were lighter than the original, but the line "My axe shines" next to the axe outline was clearer than the original under the blessing of the image of the broken mirror print.
He hung the copy on the stone wall in the center of the weapons shop. The stone wall was where Master Wang used to hang the price list for bicycle parts. The original price list had yellowed and curled at the edges, and Su Fan took it down and put it in the drawer of the counter.
After it was hung up, the neighbors who sharpened knives in the shop would take a look at it when they passed by the stone wall. When someone asked what it was, A Dou would say, "It's an axe that I drew."
When someone asked where the light on the axe was, A Dou pointed to the extremely thin arc drawn in pencil next to the axe blade on the drawing, saying, "It's here. It's drawn in pencil, and it won't fade."
Another week passed, and the weapons shop's finished goods section was filled with a thick layer of quenched knives wrapped in oiled paper.
Each knife was attached to a tiny kraft paper label, which indicated the owner and the date of quenching. A very faint law pattern was printed on the back of the label.
This pattern is a law registration number automatically generated by the Eros monitoring station.
The moment the quenching of each blade, which has been tempered by the Demon Emperor's crystal, is completed, the law slurry in the quenching tank automatically uploads the blade's law frequency to the sensory network of the larva deep within the Guixu foundation.
The perception network synchronously transmits the data to the Eros monitoring station, which automatically generates a registration number. This registration number is then synchronously transmitted to Yang Jian's shattered mirror, which is automatically entered into the sealed archives of the Bone Mountain in Beiju Luzhou.
The entire filing process, from the quenching tank to the sealing of the bone mountain, requires no human intervention and is more rigorous than any sword quality management system in the mortal world.
Butcher Zhang's cleaver registration number is "Bone Mountain-Mortal World-No. 0001", the noodle shop owner's noodle cleaver is No. 0002, Old Chen's barber's clippers are No. 0017, and A Dou's little axe is No. 0023.
Yang Jian pieced the broken mirror together at the South Heavenly Gate, and a real-time updated list of the Bone Mountain Sealed Archives appeared on the mirror surface.
Each entry in the list is extremely brief, containing only the registration number, knife type, quenching date, and the time of the last law fluctuation.
Most of the fluctuations in the laws of the knife occur when cutting vegetables, chopping meat, or cutting hair; the frequency of these fluctuations is extremely low and does not trigger any alerts.
However, the twenty-third one—A Dou's little axe—has a much higher frequency of law fluctuations than the other knives.
Because every day after school, A Dou would take an axe and chop firewood at the alley entrance. The firewood he chopped was dry branches he picked up from Old Li, who was pruning trees at the street corner.
"A Dou chops wood several times a day, several orders of magnitude more than other knives. In the Bone Mountain Sealed Archives, his axe law fluctuation list is several pages longer than Zhang the butcher's bone-chopping knife."
If Emperor Jun were to open the archives three thousand years later and see that the number twenty-third axe had more vegetable-cutting records than all the other kitchen knives combined, he might assume that the axe's owner was a cook.
Yang Jian turned the shattered mirror toward Su Fan.
"He's not a cook. He's a primary school student. The primary school student chops firewood to add fuel to the fried dough stick stall. Old Zhang said that the firewood that A Dou chops is easy to ignite and burns for a long time, better than coal briquettes."
Su Fan sat on a low stool at the entrance of the weapons shop, with the Pangu Axe leaning against the stool leg.
Steam rose from the steamer basket of the fried dough stick stall in the morning light, while A Dou squatted at the alley entrance chopping his share of dry branches for the day.
After chopping the firewood, Old Zhang carried it to the stove of the fried dough stick stall. He patted A Dou's head, took a freshly fried dough stick from the cutting board, and stuffed it into A Dou's hand.
A Dou, with a fried dough stick in his mouth, ran to the entrance of the weapons shop and placed the small axe on the stone platform for Su Fan to inspect the blade.
The dark red law pattern on the axe blade remained extremely clear even after chopping hundreds of dry branches. There were no chips or dulling. The law membrane that had been wrapped around the blade during quenching actually became brighter with repeated chopping.
"The membrane on the axe blade reinforces itself during the chopping process. The reinforcement is extremely slow, but it strengthens slightly with each chop."
"At this rate, the hardness of this membrane will exceed the initial value during quenching after a while. This axe is evolving on its own."
Xu walked in from outside the shop, his bare feet stepping on the bluestone slabs.
The daily monitoring of the Guixu foundation has been handed over to the larvae and Eros monitoring station to operate autonomously, and the heart network has been put into emergency standby mode. He rarely has time to come to the mortal world to take a look.
He picked up A Dou's small axe and gently traced the blade with the transparent law pattern on his finger.
The moment his fingertips touched the membrane of law on the surface of the axe blade, the frequency of law within the membrane resonated subtly with his heart's pulsation network.
After the resonance, a faint dark red light from the axe blade was reflected in his pale golden pupils. The rhythm of the light's movement was perfectly synchronized with the heartbeat of the larva deep within the Ruins of Return.
"This axe is connected to the Void Return Law System. It wasn't an active connection, it was a passive one."
"The law slurry in the quenching tank comes from the law crystal on the tip of the Demon Emperor's Spear. The law remnants of the myriad demon skeletons inside the crystal and the Dao patterns of all living beings on the Guixu foundation are of the same origin."
"When you chop wood with this axe, the law fluctuations on the axe blade will automatically be transmitted into the larva's sensory network through the law resonance channel between the quenching groove and the Guixu foundation."
"The larvae record the fluctuations, translate them into law maintenance data, and upload them to the Eros monitoring station for automatic filing. This axe is no longer an ordinary quenching axe; it is a law perception node at the very end of the Guixu Law Maintenance System in the mortal realm."
"Every time A Dou chops firewood, it's like manually triggering a law maintenance inspection. The inspection area isn't the entire primordial world, but only the bluestone slab beneath his feet and the aftershock of the great calamity at the alley entrance."
"But that's enough—the larva's sensory network covers the entire Guixu foundation, so it doesn't need this axe. The significance of this axe lies not in its monitoring precision, but in the fact that it is the first carrier of the laws of all living beings actively driven by the will of a mortal."
"Pangu's axe embodies the will of Pangu, while my tempered axe embodies the will of Liu Shan (A Dou). Pangu's will is used to cleave chaos, while Liu Shan's will is used to chop wood. Their uses are different, but their underlying principles are entirely of the same origin."
When A Dou heard "the laws and structures are completely of the same origin", he put down the fried dough stick in his hand, still with half a mouthful of fried dough stick in his mouth.
He looked up at the ruins, then looked down at his small axe with dark red law patterns flowing on its blade.
"Is my axe from the same source as Pangu's axe?"
"They share the same origin. Before Pangu split the chaos with his axe, he calculated the critical point of the chaos's expansion from the pile of fragments of the nest shell. He calculated that if he did not split the chaos, the collapse would crush the core of the nest shell."
"His splitting of chaos was not an instinctive impulse, but a deliberate choice made after the algorithmic rules were established."
"You calculated before you chopped the firewood—which dead branch had the best direction of wood fibers for the axe, which angle of chopping was the least strenuous, and whether the broken end of the firewood was just big enough to fit into the stove for making fried dough sticks."
"Old Zhang said the firewood you chopped was easy to ignite and burned longer than coal because you calculated the fiber texture of each branch before you chopped it, and chopped it along the texture, so the cross-section was neat and the fire burned evenly."
"Before Pangu split the chaos, he also calculated the expansion pattern of the chaos. He split along the pattern, so the cross-section was neat and the cycle of the chaotic laws could be stable for 30,000 years."
A Dou chewed the fried dough stick in his mouth several times before swallowing it.
He turned the small axe over and looked at the dark red law pattern on the blade for a long time before raising his head.
"Pangu split Chaos to keep it from disturbing his mother's sleep. I chopped firewood so that the fire in the stove would burn brightly when Old Zhang was frying dough sticks."
"Pangu cleaved the chaos, I cleaved the withered branches. The cross-section created by Pangu's axe is called the primordial wilderness, the cross-section created by me is called firewood. Pangu's will is called the creation of heaven and earth, my will is called—"
He paused, looked down at the small axe in his hand, and then looked up at the ruins.
"What is my will called?"
"Your will is called Chopping Wood. Chopping Wood's registration number in the Guixu Law System is Bone Mountain-Mortal Realm-0023. Its law fluctuation category is daily maintenance, and the object of maintenance is the combustion temperature of the stove in the fried dough stick stall."
"Your firewood has been archived. After being archived, it is no longer ordinary firewood. It is the first pulse of the protection of the path of all living beings that the system of the law of returning to the void recorded in the mortal world, driven by the will of a mortal."
Xu put A Dou's little axe back on the stone platform, then took out the stone core from his bosom and held it in his left palm.
The silver-white crystal on the core surface brightened slightly as it approached A Dou's small axe, and the law patterns inside the crystal had a very subtle overlap with the dark red law pattern on the axe blade.
"The core of the stone embryo has sensed the frequency of the laws on your axe. The core is the original guardian will core that Pangu took out from the twelfth chaotic stone embryo. It only resonates with the laws of the Dao of all living beings that are at the same frequency."
"At the South Heavenly Gate, it resonates with Pangu's axe. In the weapons shop, it resonates with your wood-chopping axe."
Nezha slammed his fire-tipped spear on the ground and stood up from behind the brick stove.
He had been using the quenching tongs to turn the coal briquettes over, and flipped the piece of pork rib that Gongsun Bao was grilling to prevent it from burning.
Now that the ribs were roasted, he took them out and placed them on the stone platform for Gongsun Bao to sprinkle salt on them. Then he walked to the edge of the stone platform and looked at the extremely subtle resonance of laws between the core of the stone embryo and A Dou's little axe.
"The primordial world created by Pangu splitting the heavens and earth was laid out layer by layer from the chaos."
"It has been paved for 30,000 years, from the laws of chaos to the laws of heaven, from the heavens to the void, from the void to the South Heavenly Gate, and from the South Heavenly Gate to the bluestone slabs on this street."
"The will of all living beings remaining on the bluestone slab was poured in by you from the South Heavenly Gate city wall, and the slab has been shining for three years."
"The small axe that A Dou is currently using is being quenched next to the bluestone slab. The quenching tank used is the same one used for Gongsun Bao's chipped axe, and the quenching liquid comes from the crystals on the tip of the Demon Emperor's Spear."
The lingering energy of the laws governing the skeletal remains of the myriad demons within the crystal resonated with the foundation of the Ruins of Return. The law fluctuations generated when the axe was used to chop wood were recorded by the larval sensory network. The larvae then converted these fluctuations into maintenance data and uploaded it to the Eros monitoring station for automatic record-keeping.
"This axe is part of the entire chain of laws, from the quenching tank to the bone mountain seal. It is not the Pangu Axe, but it is connected to the very end of the law system that the Pangu Axe cleaved."
"At the very center of the system is Pangu's axe, and at the very end is a wood-splitting axe. The materials used at the two ends are different, but the laws and structures are completely of the same origin."
A Dou looked down at the small axe in his hand. The dark red law patterns on the axe blade were extremely faint in the air mixed with the law steam from the quenching tank and the white steam from the fried dough stick stall's steamer.
After a moment of silence, he looked up at Su Fan.
"Uncle Su, when Pangu split the chaos, did anyone sharpen his axe for him?"
Su Fan leaned against the door frame, holding a fried dough stick in his hand.
He took a bite of the fried dough stick, chewed it twice, swallowed it, and then answered.
"No. Pangu's axe that created the heavens can sharpen itself. There are nine axe blade fragments in total, each of which is formed from the power of creation, so it won't curl when cutting anything."
"But before Pangu split the chaos, he squatted in the pile of nest shell fragments for a long time, using the law of the nest shell fragments to deposit a layer of sediment and clean the burrs on the axe blade."
"While he was sharpening his axe in the Ruins, his mother was sleeping in the core of the nest. Before he finished sharpening the axe and made his first blow, he said three things to his mother."
"The first sentence is that chaos is expanding, and if it is not split, it will collapse and crush the nest. The second sentence is that you continue to sleep, and I will split the chaos."
"The third thing is to tell her when she wakes up that there are no enemies outside the Chaos, only the Void. If anything in the Void disturbs her sleep, I will use my axe to protect her."
The shop was quiet for a moment.
A Dou placed the small axe on the stone platform, took out a pencil and draft paper from his schoolbag, and wrote a line of words on it.
After finishing writing, he handed the draft paper to Su Fan.
The pencil marks on the paper were crooked and uneven, each stroke made with great force.
That sentence only had a dozen or so words.
"Uncle Su, if your axe gets dull in the future, I'll sharpen it for you."
Su Fan took the draft paper and looked down at the crooked pencil writing on it.
He folded the draft paper and stuffed it into his pocket, placing it next to the axe design.
Then he took the Pangu Axe from his waist and placed it in A Dou's hand.
There was no light on the blade of the Pangu Axe, and no law patterns on the handle, but when A Dou held the handle with both hands, he could feel the extremely complete law of the Dao of All Beings sealed inside the axe head pulsating slightly.
He returned the Pangu Axe to Su Fan, picked up his own small axe from the stone platform, stuffed it into his schoolbag, and shouted towards the direction of the fried dough stick stall's stove.
"Old Zhang, I've chopped the firewood for tomorrow! All the dry branches I chopped today were cut along the grain, resulting in clean cuts that are easy to ignite and burn for a long time!"
Old Zhang poked his head out from behind the stove, his apron covered in grease.
"I heard you! It's flammable and burns long, better than coal! I'll fry you three youtiao (Chinese fried dough sticks) tomorrow morning, no sugar, with soy milk!"
A Dou slung his schoolbag over his shoulder, clutched a small axe in his hand, and ran towards the alley entrance on the bluestone slabs.
The backpack bounced on his back, and the aftershock of the calamity at the alley entrance exploded into a tiny white arc of electricity beneath his feet. Faint golden law patterns lit up on every brick seam he stepped on the bluestone slab.
The pattern shone brightly from the entrance of the weapons shop all the way to the end of the alley.
After it finished shining, it naturally receded into the depths of the bluestone slab, leaving only a very thin golden line on the surface of the slab.
It shares the same origin as the primordial chaotic color on the blade of Pangu's axe.