[Chapter 291: Refining Gold]
With a signature weapon, his flying speed, fighting ability, and defense would all qualitatively improve. Once he forged his signature sword, he could truly soar into the skies and unleash a single sword slash capable of separating rivers and mountains effortlessly.
Now, possessing all this gold, the hope of crafting his signature sword was right before his eyes. Even with his current power, he couldn't help but feel an overwhelming excitement.
After calming down, he cleared a space and prepared to start forging the sword. The first step was extracting materials -- refining pure gold from the raw gold.
After reaching the Celestial Presence stage, he could generate fire, with the temperature reaching thousands of degrees. This fire was perfect for refining materials and forging the sword.
He summoned the fire, began melting the gold into liquid, and then started extracting the precious pure gold.
Twenty hours passed. He consumed a total of 500 kilograms of gold and extracted a bean-sized lump of pure gold.
With the pure gold extracted, the rest turned into worthless sand, without any metal properties left.
Repeatedly using his fire and spiritual perception, even with his power, he felt some fatigue. Considering this was a long-term process, it was best to take breaks for a balanced work-rest routine.
Unfortunately, he couldn't bring any of his women along. If they could have paired up to recover energy faster, it would speed things up dramatically. For now, he could only recover through meditation.
He meditated for four hours, fully restoring his energy and spiritual perception.
At this rate, extracting pure gold from 500 kilograms of raw gold per day, it would take 100 days to process all 50 tons -- over three months. Adding the time to forge the sword, he'd spend about five months here.
...
From then on, he began the tedious routine of refining materials and meditation in this deep underground cave, uninterrupted.
One day, two days, three days... one month, two months, three months...
After 102 days, he finally refined all the gold -- from golden crowns, golden elephant statues, small golden elephants, golden humanoid statues -- into pure gold. He obtained 4.8 pounds of material for the sword. A bit of waste, but the material was sufficient.
With over 50 tons of gold gone, the hall felt much more spacious. Fortunately, he would remove the sand residue every few days; otherwise, the hall would have been filled with useless sand.
...
After completing the material extraction, Linton temporarily left the underground vault and returned to the surface.
He found the best restaurant in Trivandrum city and enjoyed a hearty meal, satisfying his cravings.
Then, he checked into the city's top hotel and rested for two days, fully restoring his vitality.
To avoid worrying his family and company, before entering the underground vault a second time, he made several phone calls back to Los Angeles.
...
The first call was to Winnie.
"Honey, where are you? I miss you so much," Winnie's voice was filled with longing on hearing the call.
"Baby, I miss you too. I'm still in India."
"When will you be back?"
"Probably two more months."
"So long? Can I come visit you?"
"No, my schedule changes daily, no fixed location. Be good. At most, two months. I'll be back when I'm done."
"Okay. Please be careful and stay safe. By the way, why didn't you bring Danny and Meena this time? Who's protecting you and taking care of you? Can you manage without them?"
"I'm a grown man; of course, I can take care of myself. Don't worry, I will."
"Okay. Take good care of yourself, okay?"
"Don't worry. How's everything at home?"
"Everything's fine, but everyone misses you a lot. Honey, I have two pieces of good news for you."
"What news?"
"First, the angel investment for Mosaic Communication Corp was finalized last month after completing all the procedures. We secured 30% equity."
"That's fantastic! Our Winnie is amazing."
"As you predicted, they initially only wanted to give up 20%. But after I increased the investment to $4 million, Jim Clark and Mark Anderson agreed to 30%."
"Getting 30% equity is already a huge win."
"Yes. Hopefully, this company brings us good returns."
"Don't worry, I have confidence in them. What's the second good news?"
"Your two novels, The Fault in Our Stars and National Treasure, were published in March. Sales have been great; for four consecutive weeks last month, they appeared on The New York Times bestseller list."
"That's excellent news. Any specific sales figures?"
"By last week, The Fault in Our Stars sold 370,000 copies, and National Treasure reached 410,000."
"Not bad. Looks like they could surpass a million copies by year-end."
"Shouldn't be a problem. Aleister Kuhn is planning to promote both novels overseas."
"Good. How about the farm? Are the National Weather Service experts still conducting their research there?"
"In mid-April, the expert team left the farm. Before leaving, they gave David a report filled with technical jargon nobody understood."
"Did they say anything? Any conclusions? Will they return?"
"No comments. When leaving, David asked if they might come back or if the site needed protection."
"What did they say?"
"They said the research was over, they didn't expect to return, and no further protection was necessary."
"Good, those folks finally left. Probably couldn't find anything meaningful, so they pulled out. Now I can proceed with my landscaping, orchard, and herbal planting plans. But I'm in no rush. We can wait until I return to Los Angeles to avoid any complications."
"Alright. Take good care of yourself. I have to hang up now."
"Okay. You too. Stay safe and come back soon. Also, blow me a kiss over the phone."
"Muah..."
*****
https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.