David Bolton doesn’t have that ability. Right now, he desperately needs a sum of money to improve his current life, and as for this small house, he already has an idea in mind.

Compared to the surprise the fire source stone brought to David Bolton, those demolition fees are nothing at all.

After returning to the small house, he took off the fire source stone and found that of the three circles on it, two had already started to turn red. The center circle represents the Supreme Flame, also known as the Upper Samadhi Fire, and the 2000 anger points collected came from Grace Howard. The lower left circle, the Lower Samadhi Fire, should have been obtained from Andrew Sullivan. The quality of the fire is like the quality of a person—there are levels of high and low.

When fully charged, the three circles above the fire source stone should be as bright red as fire. Now, although two of them have started to turn red, to be precise, it’s just a faint hint of red.

David Bolton had served as a pill-refining boy in the Supreme Lord Laozi’s Doushuai Palace for eight hundred years. Back then, when Monkey Foster was thrown into the Eight Trigrams Furnace, it was he who tirelessly fanned the flames beside the furnace for forty-nine days and nights. In this line of work, he was extremely skilled.

When Wukong Foster kicked over the Eight Trigrams Furnace, David Bolton tried to protect the Supreme Lord Laozi and got kicked by the Monkey King as well. Because of that kick, the Supreme Lord Laozi, in recognition of his loyalty, promoted him from a fire-tending odd-job worker to a pill-refining assistant.

All that is in the past now. Cause and effect come full circle. He never expected that, though he didn’t have Great Sage Foster’s abilities, he would break the heavenly rules just like him. But unlike Great Sage Foster, he didn’t have the fortune to become a Buddha after fetching the scriptures, and has now completely fallen to the mortal world as an ordinary person.

Under the lamp, David Bolton carefully examined the fire source stone. With his eight hundred years of experience fanning flames in Doushuai Palace, he could tell that this fire source stone was different from any he had ever seen before—it was the only one capable of absorbing and restoring energy on its own.

Because of this fire source stone, David Bolton saw hope. As long as he could fill it with Samadhi True Fire, he would have the chance to refine immortal pills. Even if he couldn’t become immortal, he could still strengthen his body, prolong his life, and maybe even achieve immortality. He didn’t dare claim to remember all of Lord Laozi’s pill recipes, but he still recalled several hundred of them.

The first thing he needed to refine was the Essence Cultivating Pill, which was an urgent task. He had less than three years of life left, so he had to race against time. Only by quickly refining the Essence Cultivating Pill could he greatly increase his own lifespan.

Relying on just one fire source stone wasn’t enough to refine pills; David Bolton still lacked a proper Eight Trigrams Furnace. If he could gather these two things, all he’d need would be the materials for pill refining. The first step is always the hardest, but David Bolton wasn’t discouraged. He decided to start now: on one hand, continuously collecting Samadhi True Fire to recharge the fire source stone, and on the other, searching for a suitable furnace for pill refining.

Collecting Samadhi True Fire was no longer a problem. David Bolton discovered that as long as he angered others, the fire source stone he wore would absorb the target’s anger points without them noticing. The stronger the target, the more anger points he would get.

Of course, different targets produced different types of anger. For now, what he collected from Grace Howard was the Upper Samadhi Fire, while what he got from Andrew Sullivan was the Lower Samadhi Fire. This probably had a lot to do with the difference in their character.

No sooner said than done. The next day happened to be a day off, so David Bolton went early to the largest local flower, bird, and antique market. As his memories returned, he began to understand many things about this world and knew where to look for what he wanted.

David Bolton wandered around the market with his empty backpack, but didn’t find anything satisfactory. He did see a few Eight Trigrams Furnaces, but most were just artificially aged bronze, with sellers claiming they were antiques. The moment David Bolton touched them, he knew these furnaces were at most three months old. The most ridiculous thing was, some were even copper-plated fakes.

If this were the Celestial Market in the Heavenly Palace, selling fakes would be a violation of the heavenly rules, and being cast down to the mortal world would be getting off easy. There’s too much deception among mortals. Thinking of this, he felt a bit down, but when he looked up, it was another sunny day! Celestial treasures, free for me to pick!

Chapter 11: Unintentional Bumping

Only now did David Bolton realize that the Eight Trigrams Furnaces in the mortal world and those in Doushuai Palace were completely different concepts. The Eight Trigrams Furnace in Doushuai Palace could melt all kinds of metals and crystals, but here, it was just a name.

If he tried to refine pills with this kind of furnace, the furnace would probably melt before the pills were even formed.

David Bolton wasn’t discouraged, though. After all, his fire source stone hadn’t yet accumulated enough energy. Where there’s a will, there’s a way—he believed he would eventually find a solution.

Wandering by chance to a shop specializing in dzi bead antiques, David Bolton was attracted by the dzi beads inside. He noticed that these neatly arranged dzi beads looked very similar to the fire source stone.

He had only stood in front of the counter for a short while when a middle-aged woman with a head full of curlers impatiently shouted, “Hey, chubby kid, you’ve been looking for ages—are you going to buy or not?”

David Bolton pointed at a three-eyed dzi bead and said, “I’d like to see this one.”

The middle-aged woman glanced at him again. Although you can’t judge a book by its cover, this chubby kid in shabby clothes didn’t look like someone with money. She took the three-eyed dzi bead out of the counter. “Be careful, this bead is very valuable. If you break it, you won’t be able to pay for it!”

David Bolton picked up the bead from the velvet cloth and immediately felt something was off. It only looked similar on the outside—this thing was definitely not a fire source stone. He shook his head.