Chapter Fifty-Two: The Quintuple Refinement

On Friday after work, as he passed by the bank, Fu Lan suddenly remembered the two sums of money he had left at home. Returning home, he fetched the cash and deposited it into the ATM. Staring blankly at the balance, he reflected on his situation.

Working as a network administrator at the library, his monthly take-home pay was just over three thousand yuan. Usually, he cooked for himself; after deducting two thousand for household groceries, along with water, electricity, gas, and property management fees, plus various small expenses related to Fu Linxing’s daily life, there was barely any money left. Overspending was a regular occurrence.

Anything beyond his salary came from savings accumulated from previous jobs, which had steadily dwindled over the years. If it weren’t for having used up the family inheritance to pay off the mortgage early, and with He Yue covering all other expenses, this modest salary wouldn’t have been enough to survive.

He often claimed he wasn’t materialistic, but in truth, he simply didn’t dare to spend money on himself.

However, since the divorce, Fu Lan realized he was actually able to save money from his salary. These two extra sums of money gave him the illusion that he had more than enough to spend, leaving him somewhat dazed.

Because there was a deposit limit on the ATM, he even had to visit two different banks to deposit the money separately.

Cash should have felt heavy, yet after becoming accustomed to mobile payments, it was only when the two bags of bills transformed into numbers on his card that he truly felt their weight.

He thought of the divorce agreement, where He Yue only asked for the minimum child support to take care of him—and that was just for the paperwork; privately, she never intended to make him pay.

But he couldn’t really contribute not a single cent.

It was almost the first weekend after the official divorce, and how his son chose to spend it held some symbolic significance...

Fu Lan thought for a moment, then picked up his phone and sent a message to Fu Linxing: “Want to go out on Sunday?”

He already had plans to cook with Shi Ningyu on Saturday. Although Sunday morning he had to visit a supplier to investigate a spontaneous combustion incident involving the ball beasts, it likely wouldn’t take much time and should be manageable.

Fu Linxing didn’t reply for a long time.

Knowing him well, Fu Lan was certain that if given the chance, this kid would practically have his phone glued to his eyes. It was now probably his free time, so this silence must indicate some attitude.

Putting down the phone, Fu Lan went out to the balcony and gazed absentmindedly at the happy families in the building opposite.

When he returned to his desk, Fu Linxing had finally replied.

“The day after tomorrow, Old He is treating us to the amusement park. Just finished buying snacks.”

Fu Lan inexplicably felt relieved. Just as he was about to type a response, Fu Linxing sent another message.

“Do you want to come?”

“No, thanks,” he replied without hesitation.

After a pause, he added, “Have fun.”

...

In the upscale loft apartment, Fu Lan awaited the magical balance scale’s return to equilibrium, then jotted down a line in his notebook.

His gaze swept over the records of the previous four experiments as he silently evaluated them.

Between his job and investigating the ball beast spontaneous combustion incidents, he hadn’t forgotten to refine the magical ember smelting formula. The new task assigned by Boss Tian was secondary; both parties knew no short-term results could be expected. Delivering ten batches of goods monthly was the real duty he and Shi Ningyu shared.

It would have been easy to produce the ten batches with the old method, but both of them were ambitious.

Even without Boss Tian’s demand, they agreed that the first batch must surpass their previous work, and the formula should be optimized before official production.

There was still enough time—sharpening the axe wouldn’t delay the woodcutting.

After his invitation to spend the weekend with his son failed, Fu Lan immediately prepared five different solutions at home. He drew five magic circles in advance on a folding board and brought them all to the apartment at eight in the evening.

Of course, he completed all this after transforming, and this time he remembered to lock the door.

To quickly verify the improvements, they divided a single ball beast evenly into five parts and used the same smelting method on each of the five magic circles.

Only Shi Ningyu could perform this step. Seeing how thoroughly Fu Lan had prepared, she accepted it without complaint.

Because each portion was small, the smelting efficiency was very high. Soon, Shi Ningyu finished the task and leisurely lay down on the sofa to rest.

The smelting volume and time were not linearly related; the total time for five small batches was shorter than smelting the entire ball beast in one go.

Unfortunately, this consumed more reagents and drained the chef’s energy more, so it couldn’t replace the standard smelting process.

The results showed each of the five formulas had strengths and weaknesses, generally improving some attributes while sacrificing others.

After understanding the market, Fu Lan also believed the baseline this time should be that purity must not drop below previous levels.

Purity was a vague concept here, as there was no absolute standard.

Magical ember wasn’t a chemically synthesized substance. Though slag and snow looked vastly different, they didn’t differ in impurity content. Viewed chemically, both were essentially pure magical ember, and thus considered 100% pure.

For magical ember, purity was more akin to magical power concentration.

Yet there was no consensus on either the maximum magical power held per unit weight of magical ember or the maximum extractable magic from a unit of ball beast.

Purity was thus an intuitive measure based on color, appearance, and other properties.

No product in the industry was used as a benchmark, so to quantify purity, one had to keep an old batch as a reference and compare magical power concentrations.

Here, the magical balance scale came into play.

It was a rudimentary magic detector, used like a regular balance but comparing the magical power on each side.

By placing equal weights of magical ember on both sides, one could compare their magical power concentration.

Best of all, it didn’t require additional magical power input during use.

The last experiment showed increases in both unit yield and magical power concentration, though the improvements were limited.

Knowing Shi Ningyu well, Fu Lan guessed she would pick formula number two because it had the highest increase in magical power concentration. Its only flaw was no increase in yield, which was better than those formulas that reduced yield.

But when he showed her the records, she almost immediately chose formula number five, which improved both aspects.

“I didn’t expect that,” Fu Lan said. “Haven’t you always believed higher purity was better?”

Shi Ningyu swung her leg resting on the sofa armrest. “Formula two uses closed-type magic circle components; there’s little room left for improvement.”

Fu Lan was surprised.

Indeed, improving magic circles often involved trying to incorporate specialized, reusable diagram components within the main framework. These components were known as “parts.”

The five formulas were all trimmed versions based on the same main framework. Unlike Shi Ningyu’s previous method of tracing and redrawing, this trimming changed the underlying logic and didn’t directly correspond to visible changes in the diagrams.

Simply playing a “spot the difference” game couldn’t reveal the true issues like Shi Ningyu could. Her ability to discern component features among such diverse patterns was extraordinary.

And as she said, the trade-off for formula two’s significant purity improvement was that, with nearly identical solution components, there was no room for further expansion in its magic circle, whereas formula five still had potential.

“Then what do you think formula five’s expansion direction is?” Fu Lan, adopting his teacher’s habit, asked a guiding question.

“The best answer: I don’t know,” Shi Ningyu shrugged. “I’m just a fridge critic—I don’t make the cold.”

Fu Lan could only smile and nod.

Shi Ningyu’s ability to independently produce snow-grade magical ember was outstanding, and her comprehension was high. Moreover, she had even mastered silent casting.

Silent casting was a technique requiring no incantation or gestures, relying solely on mental command to activate the spell circuit.

It was a technique bordering on the casting style of magical girls.

Mastering it demanded unimaginable practice and extraordinary talent.

Furthermore, Shi Ningyu often didn’t use spell materials, indicating she could achieve high output relying solely on her own magic power.

After gaining a better understanding of the average level among magicians, Fu Lan realized how remarkable it was for Shi Ningyu to reach this stage in just over two years.

At the same time, he had always judged that much of her improvements to traditional smelting involved some luck; it was her meticulous technique that ensured high-quality products.

With theoretical support, she might yet achieve even greater breakthroughs.

So he said, “I’ll organize some knowledge points and send them to you when I get home.”

After this period of research and practice, he had gained considerable insight into the relevant magical principles, though limited by his identity from applying them himself. Teaching these to Shi Ningyu, a true magician, would be ideal.

Shi Ningyu immediately perked up. After so long, he was finally willing to share some real substance.

Fu Lan thought further and added, “The second batch of ball beasts is being prepared for incubation. This time we’ll increase to twenty. We must control the intervals and plan cooking times carefully to avoid overload. We’ll use formula five. Is that okay?”

“No problem. The vehicle is ready and can be driven back tomorrow.”

Fu Lan nodded. Even though Boss Tian provided raw materials and space, they couldn’t cook at his place. After all, they only supplied him, weren’t his people, and needed to keep their cooking skills confidential.

“So, cooking tomorrow, and the day after that, we investigate the spontaneous combustion incident at the suburban supplier,” Shi Ningyu counted on her fingers. “By the way, have you noticed anything? I’m pretty clueless.”

Fu Lan pondered. “Overall, it’s mostly ball beasts in the incubation period that spontaneously combust.”

Boss Tian had only one such case, but among other footage and supplementary verbal reports, about three-quarters of the incidents involved incubation-phase beasts.

These younger beasts were more sensitive to surrounding threats, so this made sense. The problem was, they still hadn’t identified the nature of the threat or any other commonalities among the incidents.

What concerned Fu Lan more was that, as the investigation deepened, these spontaneous combustion cases gave him a strangely familiar feeling.

In the past, when facing particularly cunning magical beasts, his intuition had issued similar warnings, even without transforming.

This stirred faint emotions within him, mixed with memories of the past.

It seemed to echo the passion of youth in pursuit of truth, the resolute determination to expose a target... though he wasn’t entirely sure, as many things only became clear in hindsight.

Yet, even for this reason alone, he wanted to continue the investigation.