Cultivation of immortality begins with an eighty-year-old eunuch.

Chapter 673 The Stonemason! Morigen.

A thin old man squatted in front of the tent, wearing a faded sheepskin robe and a cloth wrapped around his head that was no longer recognizable as its original color. He was bowing his head, holding an iron hammer in his hand, and tapping it repeatedly on a blue stone the size of a washbasin.

The hammer struck, sending up tiny stone chips that glittered in the sunlight.

Scattered around the old man were several completed stone artifacts: a stone pot, two stone bowls, a whetstone, and a stone horse about the size of a palm. Although the carving was rough, the horse's outline and posture were somewhat recognizable.

"You must be the new outsider." The old man didn't look up, continuing to tap the hammer in his hand. "Batu mentioned you to me, saying that you have excellent medical skills and can cure snake venom with just a few herbs."

Chen Fan didn't reply, but squatted down and carefully watched the old man's hand movements.

The hammer struck the bluestone seemingly randomly, but in reality, each strike landed precisely in the same spot. That spot wasn't chosen arbitrarily, but rather followed the grain of the stone.

Before each hammer blow, the old man would gently stroke the stone surface with his fingers. His fingertips were rough like tree bark, yet exceptionally sensitive, able to discern the direction of the texture the instant they touched the stone.

"You can feel the patterns on a stone even if you can't see them with your hand," the old man said slowly, seemingly knowing what Chen Fan was looking at. "If you tap along the grain, the stone won't break. If you tap against the grain, even the hardest stone will crumble. It's the same principle as herding sheep. If you follow their instincts, they'll obey; if you go against them, they'll scatter."

Chen Fan nodded slightly, his gaze falling on the old man's rough hands.

Those hands had large knuckles, palms covered with calluses and fine cracks, and stone powder that couldn't be washed off was embedded in the nail crevices.

These hands must have struck countless stones to develop such precise strength and judgment.

"My name is Morigen, stonemason Morigen." The old man finally raised his head, revealing a face etched with wrinkles like old tree bark, weathered by wind and sun. His cloudy old eyes squinted slightly in the sunlight. "If you have some free time, you can learn from me. This craft may not make you rich, but a stone pot you make can last a lifetime, and it's even more durable than an iron pot."

Chen Fan was silent for a moment, then squatted down opposite the old man.

He initially just wanted to learn a trade.

Having served as a eunuch in the palace for sixty-eight years, his hands were only used for tending horses, cooking, and serving people; he had never truly created anything.

Now that we've settled down on this grassland, there's always a time when we can make a stone pot or carve a stone bowl.

Morigen handed him a spare hammer and a palm-sized piece of stone, instructing him to start by learning how to chisel a stone bowl, the simplest of all.

Chen Fan took the hammer and weighed it in his hand. The handle was made of ironwood, a common material on the grasslands, and it felt heavy in his hand. He imitated Morigen's technique, holding the stone with his left hand, raising the hammer with his right, and striking the center of the stone.

With a crisp clang, the stone split in two.

Morigen burst into laughter, his voice hoarse and rough, like sandpaper rubbing against dry wood: "I told you to tap along the grain! You didn't even look when you hammered it, no wonder it cracked."

Chen Fan looked at the stone that had split in two in his hand, but he wasn't annoyed. He picked up the pieces and examined them carefully, discovering that the crack was indeed located at the spot of an extremely fine natural texture.

The texture was almost imperceptible to the naked eye, but it was definitely there.

He picked up a new stone, but this time he didn't rush to hammer it. Instead, he imitated Morigen and slowly rubbed the stone surface with his fingertips to sense the invisible textures inside.

He sensed something was different from that feeling.

The internal texture of the stone is extremely complex, some of which are naturally formed, while others are formed by gravity compression.

These patterns are as clear to a cultivator's spiritual sense as lines on the palm of their hand, but for mortals, they can only explore them inch by inch with their fingers, tap the stone with their ears to listen to the sound, and judge them with decades of accumulated experience.

He suddenly realized that this seemingly crude craft actually contained a very profound truth.

Stones have their own textures, and so does the world. Spiritual energy has its own trajectory, and demonic energy has its own patterns of surging.

Cause and effect are the connection between all things, life and death are the cycle of heaven and earth, and destiny is the peaceful existence of all things on their own trajectories.

The reason why these three artistic conceptions have been unable to be fully integrated for so long is precisely because they lack an understanding of this most basic and fundamental texture of heaven and earth.

It's not about forcibly analyzing with the divine sense of a cultivator, but about feeling, adapting, and integrating with the hands of a mortal.

Chen Fan did not use his divine sense to explore the internal structure of the stone. Instead, like Morigen, he rubbed it with his fingertips and tapped it lightly with a hammer, listening to the faint echoes as he pressed his finger against the stone surface.

He suppressed all his cultivation to the extreme, completely transforming himself into a mortal who had never cultivated before, an ordinary person who had just begun learning the craft of stonemasonry.

This time, he found the pattern.

When the hammer fell, the stone made a dull yet crisp sound. The hammer struck along the grain of the stone; instead of cracking, a small piece of the stone's outer layer was neatly peeled off.

The peeled-off surface is smooth and flat, as if it had been cut with a knife.

A flicker of surprise crossed Morigen's cloudy old eyes: "You used to study stonemasonry?"

Chen Fan shook his head.

Morigen stared at him for a moment, then grinned. "Strange, I've taken on dozens of apprentices, and the fastest one took three days to learn how to find patterns. You, on the other hand, found it in just three hammer blows."

Chen Fan did not explain, but continued to chisel the stone with his head down.

In the days that followed, Chen Fan would herd sheep and feed horses every morning as usual, and in the afternoon he would go to Morigen's tent to learn the craft of stonemasonry.

Under Morrigan's guidance, he started with the most basic stone bowls, chiseling and grinding them one by one.

The first stone bowl he made was crooked at the rim and uneven at the bottom. Morigen shook his head and said that the bowl would leak even if it contained water. But he was not discouraged. He dismantled it and started making it again. He replaced one piece of stone when it was ruined.

Half a month later, the stone bowl he had carved could be placed neatly on the table. The rim of the bowl was round and the walls were of uniform thickness. Although rough, it already had a certain shape.

Morigen held the stone bowl up to the sunlight and examined it for a long time, marveling, "It's only been half a month to make it like this. When I was young, it took me half a year to reach this level."

Chen Fan was not satisfied with this.

The stone bowl is just the beginning; next comes the stone pot, the stone basin, and the stone mill, each more complex than the last.

The stone pot needs to have all the internal stress released, otherwise it will crack when heated. The stone mill needs the grinding teeth of the two stones to fit together perfectly; if they are even slightly misaligned, it will not grind into fine powder.

Chen Fan learned one thing at a time, and Morigen was happy to teach him.

The old man, over seventy years old and childless, had spent his life quarrying countless stones, and his craft was on the verge of being lost. Now, a willing learner had come, though he was from out of town, it was better than nothing.