During the process of forging the "Sumeru Saint, Sword in Hand, Opening the Six Paths", Jing Qian's lifespan had been drained to a mere twenty-some years.
Fortunately, his reforging of the [Lifespan] life Pattern had succeeded.
Every passing month now granted him over five additional years of life, so after this breakthrough, he had more than replenished what he'd lost.
Now, he poured out ten full years of lifespan,
channeling them through the "Sword of Longevity",
cutting again and again into the body of the Immortal Sword Prototype.
As his vitality flowed into the sword,
a faint resonance formed between them, a subtle connection, proof that the process of refinement was rapidly advancing.
Holding the sword in both hands,
Jing Qian poured all his spiritual will and consciousness into it,
trying to imprint his own essence upon the blade.
Normally, his spiritual sense couldn't even touch something of the sword's caliber.
But as his lifespan flowed into it, their origins intertwined, his divine sense slipped in alongside the current of life itself.
At that moment, Jing Qian finally realized the true power of the Sword of Longevity:
Its greatest effect was not exorcising ghosts
but nurturing the Life Measure of spiritual artifacts!
Ten years of lifespan poured in,
and the Immortal Sword Prototype instantly underwent a qualitative transformation.
Without any mana infusion or nurturing, it spontaneously generated one qian of Life Measure.
A single qian of Life Measure may sound insignificant,
not enough even to sustain a minor Life Pattern, but the mere fact that Life Measure had been born within it
meant that Heaven's Dao itself had acknowledged the sword.
It had ascended, becoming a true [Spiritual Construct] Spirit Sword.
For anyone else, this crucial transformation would have required countless years of nurturing.
But for Jing Qian, it had happened in the blink of an eye.
He had fully subdued the prototype, claiming it as his destined weapon, the spiritual core that would carry him into the Subduing Spirit Realm.
Spiritual Construct: Innate Immortal Sword Embryo
Category: Root of Self-Seeking
Grade: Lower First Rank
Lifespan Consumption: Ten Days per Day
As soon as its Life Measure stabilized,
boundless sword energy erupted from the blade,
coiling wildly around it
so fierce that Jing Qian almost couldn't keep his grip.
When the sword aura finally faded,
The "stone stair blade" in his hand had completely transformed.
Now he held a greatsword of black jade and molten gold,
seamless and radiant
slender, elegant, and finally resembling a true sword.
This Immortal Sword Embryo had been forged through the supreme powers of Hidden Sword Mountain,
a rare, fateful miracle of convergence.
Its rank and innate power were unparalleled,
yet at its core, it was still an unshaped vessel, a sword body waiting to be carved into form.
To obtain such a sword embryo was both a blessing and a burden.
The pain lay in how much it demanded:
It would take oceans of mana and resources
to slowly sculpt it into a true immortal sword.
The joy lay in what it promised:
Once refined, the resulting blade would be the most perfectly attuned weapon imaginable
a peerless treasure, inseparable from its master's soul.
The newborn Spiritual Construct began consuming his lifespan immediately.
Thankfully, because it had been refined from an innate embryo,
its consumption was far lower than that of any ordinary artifact of equal rank.
Ten days of lifespan per day of use
for Jing Qian was an acceptable price.
He raised the massive sword and swung it.
A blast of air pressure exploded outward,
stirring a roaring storm through Pure Yang Heaven's Grotto.
He couldn't have been more pleased with his new weapon.
Then the sword began to change again.
The Pure Yang Scripture of the Refined Immortal Sword pulsed within him
a thread of black-gold energy unfurled from the sword,
merging with the golden threads already wrapped around it.
The sword's power is fully integrated into the Pure Yang refining system.
Another transformation followed:
Spiritual Construct: Pure Yang Immortal Sword Embryo
Category: Root of Self-Seeking
Grade: Lower First Rank
Another First-Rank Immortal Sword was born.
The two sword embryos intertwined,
their powers merging into the black jade greatsword in his hand.
For Jing Qian, this weapon, the fusion of two divine embryos, was now the core of both his cultivation and combat.
Its spiritual rank towered over all his other Spiritual Construct artifacts.
Unfortunately, his current cultivation was far too low
to wield the sword's full potential.
Even the simplest technique, transforming it into sword-light, was beyond his reach.
With only 2,000 Azure-Wing Life Units of spiritual power,
he was still thousands short of what was needed.
For now, his magnificent, immortal sword could only serve as a very heavy bludgeon.
But even so, as a First-Rank Immortal Treasure,
its sheer physical might alone could crush most beings beneath heaven.
Truly, no one can withstand my Stairway Slash!
The emergence of the Innate Pure Yang Immortal Sword Embryo would completely reshape his cultivation and combat style, and Jing Qian welcomed it wholeheartedly.
He tapped a finger, activating his Entwining Karma technique.
Threads of karmic force wrapped the sword,
binding it across his back.
Then, carrying his new sword, Jing Qian left the Pure Yang Grotto.
When he stepped back into the mortal realm,
Shang Xi was already gone.
Only the old white ox stood beside Grinding Sword Cliff,
alone and waiting.
As soon as it saw him, the ox spoke up:
"Young Master Chixiao, the Master had urgent business and left me to wait for you.
Now that you've chosen your sword, by the rules of our Pure Yang Heaven,
you may strike Grinding Sword Cliff once."
Jing Qian's eyes lit up instantly.
There could be no better sect reward than this!
The core sword aura within Jing Qian's Qingping Sword Casket had doubled in power
an astonishing leap for him by any measure.
Without hesitation, he unfastened the Immortal Sword Embryo strapped to his back
and swung it down with all his strength toward the Grinding Sword Cliff.
At that very moment, the Sword Casket opened,
and a tide of primal sword qi surged outward like a storm.
This was his first strike since obtaining the Immortal Sword Embryo
for the first time; this first-rank divine weapon revealed its might before others.
The old white ox, thin as bone yet sharp of eye,
immediately recognized what it was seeing.
Don't be fooled by its gaunt, dying frame
. This beast had joined Pure Yang Heaven long ago
and had personally witnessed the sect's most glorious age.
It was a living relic of the sect's history.
When carried on Jing Qian's back,
The Innate Pure Yang Immortal Sword Embryo concealed its aura; completely
ordinary eyes would see nothing more than an unremarkable blade.
But the instant he swung it,
The very air screamed
The destructive power shattered the void itself,
leaving the old ox wide-eyed and speechless.
The Grinding Sword Cliff was one of Pure Yang Heaven's deepest inheritances,
Its spiritual rank is even half a step higher than Hidden Sword Mountain.
And yet, when Jing Qian's sword struck,
a bowl-sized crater appeared upon its ancient surface.
Even the primal sword aura that followed
was momentarily dimmed by the overwhelming force of that blow.
The counterforce from the two supreme treasures struck him immediately
His left arm snapped cleanly,
and the shock ravaged his internal organs.
But Jing Qian only laughed,
His face alight with wild exhilaration.
With a single strike,
He had tasted the intoxicating power of a top-tier Spiritual Construct sword
a weapon that could split the heavens.
The sensation was beyond satisfying.
The cliff retaliated in kind.
Tens of thousands of sword rays burst forth from within,
Their combined might is nearly equal to Jing Qian's own attack.
He instantly summoned the Qingping Sword Casket,
and like a great whale swallowing the sea,
It devoured all the reflected sword qi in one breath.
To his surprise,
The casket's foundational sword aura did not merely double again
The might of the Innate Pure Yang Immortal Sword Embryo
had merged with it,
pouring a second surge of power into the casket.
His core sword qi had once again grown significantly stronger.
Just then, the old white ox broke its silence, awe in its voice:
"Young Master Chixiao, your power truly is extraordinary!
This old ox has watched over the Grinding Sword Cliff for a hundred thousand years,
Yet never once has a Pure Yang disciple in the Dragon-Elephant Realm
amassed such a quantity of sword qi.
Not one!"
Jing Qian, having already healed his physical injuries,
He was equally pleased with the progress of his cultivation.
The ox went on:
"Young Master, the Master left a message for you.
Once you've bonded with your Spiritual Construct sword
If its grade reaches the upper third rank or higher
You're entitled to receive a Sword Lotus Root,
following the rites of a Pure Yang Son."
"The Master is occupied with great matters for now,
but once this storm passes,
he will personally conduct your investiture."
Jing Qian waved it off with a faint smile. He cared little for formal titles.
He already bore the middle-tier epithet 'Lord of Myriad Phenomena and Sumeru',
and did not need further honors.
Instead, he asked curiously,
"Old Bull, this Sword Lotus Root you mentioned, is it the one that grows in the Sword Lotus Pool?"
"Indeed, Young Master guessed right," the ox replied, nodding.
"Though the pool's Life Flame has long gone out
and no new lotuses are forming,
there's still a decent stock left at the bottom."
"Those lotus roots are supreme treasures for cultivating mana."
"Since our sect lost the Root Dao Scripture,
our disciples have relied on borrowed lineages to refine their spiritual power.
Even with all the high-grade inheritances our past Patriarchs collected,
it's never quite been the same."
"That's why, for Pure Yang disciples, the Sword Lotus Pool has become our only way
to make up for the missing foundation."
"Each Sword Lotus Root is a genuine third-grade Heaven-Mending Treasure.
A lower-third-rank cultivator who refines one
can restore the full mana corresponding to a thread of Immortal Spiritual Qi."
"At your current Dragon-Elephant Realm, one lotus root alone could increase your mana limit
by a full hundred thousand Azure-Wing Life Units."
Jing Qian nearly dropped his sword in shock.
"A hundred thousand!? I didn't mishear that, did I?"
Just one lotus root could multiply his mana fiftyfold. His Dao heart almost faltered from excitement.
"You heard right," said the ox, smiling faintly.
"The Sword Lotus Root is of incredibly high origin,
an innate spiritual root of the upper third rank.
Lower-tier cultivators can only absorb a single segment at most,
but with your potential,
you could probably drain the entire Sword Lotus Pool and still be fine."
Man and beast turned together and walked back into Pure Yang Heaven.
As they descended the glowing halls, Jing Qian asked:
"Old Bull, you've served the sect for so long
Surely you've seen much.
Could you tell me more about the history of Pure Yang Heaven?"
The ox nodded sagely, its voice deep and resonant.
"Young Master should know
this old ox entered the sect a hundred thousand years ago.
I've served twenty-seven Patriarchs,
seen the sect rise to its glorious peak
, and accompany it in its long decline."
"We've endured countless tribulations
; the fallen disciples are as many as grains of sand."
"But seeing Patriarch Shang Xi and you, Young Master,
the fire in my heart burns anew.
Pure Yang Heaven's spine has not been broken yet."
"The complete record of our sect's history and evolution
is all preserved within me.
But it can only be revealed
once you are officially granted the title of Pure Yang Son."
"For now, we must wait until the Patriarch finishes his great undertaking."
Jing Qian nodded.
At most, it would take a year.
After obtaining the Saintly Manifestation and the Immortal Sword Embryo,
His confidence in Shang Xi's plan had grown immensely.
"Old Bull," Jing Qian said with a grin,
"May I assign a small ghost to attend to you?
It carries a beacon of my inner world
I can check in and chat with you anytime."
"By all means, Young Master," the ox chuckled.
"Arrange as you please."
Jing Qian nodded,
and from his Hell Scroll,
He summoned a Light Ghost,
binding it gently to the ox's forehoof.
The creature's presence did little to strengthen
but somehow eased the ox's burden,
as if a heavy bundle of straw had been lifted from its back.
When they arrived at the Sword Lotus Pool,
The old white ox wasted no time.
It formed a series of seals,
activating the dormant power of the pool.
Jing Qian, feeling a pull of spiritual connection,
extended a wisp of his consciousness into the waters.
Instantly, a white sword-lotus bloomed on the surface
, a symbol of his official inheritance as a True Disciple of Pure Yang Heaven.
A moment later,
a crystal-clear lotus root,
shimmering like translucent jade,
rose from the depths and drifted into his palm.
Jing Qian grasped it and turned to the ox.
"Old Bull, my schedule's tight. Anything else I should handle?"
"No, Young Master.
Go about your work.
As for me, I'll be carrying the Grinding Sword Cliff
to a quiet place to hide."
"Do whatever you must, without hesitation.
So long as Patriarch Shang Xi breaks through this barrier,
and Pure Yang Heaven births another true Grand Cultivator,
All our troubles will vanish."
The old ox's eyes gleamed faintly as it lowered its head.
"To have accepted a disciple like you
even in our sect's darkest hour…
It seems Pure Yang Heaven is fated for a glorious resurgence."
Jing Qian nodded once. In the next instant, his figure flickered and vanished.
The old white ox moved even faster. It leapt out of the Pure Yang Grotto, heaved the Grinding Sword Cliff onto its back, and galloped straight toward the north.
As it ran, its form began to shift. The snowy white bull turned pitch-black, shrinking down into a scrawny black donkey.
The mountain-sized sword cliff on its back shrank with it, turning into nothing more than a cracked saddle slung across its spine.
The donkey didn't even bother using a flying light. Yet with each step spanning a hundred yards, it sped across the crystal-flat plains of Xu Continent. Within a single day, it had crossed tens of thousands of miles, arriving near the northern borders of the Divine Dynasty.
There, it finally slowed, masking its aura until it matched that of an ordinary ninth-grade wild donkey, and trotted calmly toward Beishang Pass.
Its plan was simple: find a chance to slip past the border unnoticed and head for the Ghostlands of Ju Continent, where it could find an old friend and mooch a few meals.
But before it got far, a streak of light descended from the sky.
A young girl riding a white unicorn appeared before it.
The girl spoke lightly:
"Xiao Juzi, there's a stray donkey here. Go have a word with it,
tell it to follow me from now on, and carry my dog."
Behind her horse dragged the corpse of a swollen, bloated dog.
The wild donkey took one look at the bizarre sight and immediately decided to join. It trotted forward, grabbed the dead dog by the neck with its teeth, and hoisted it neatly onto its back.
The girl nodded in approval.
"Smart creature. Once we reach Beishang Pass,
you'll have all the food and drink you could want. Let's go."
And so, Su Min'er, with her strange entourage of one girl and three beasts, continued swiftly northward.
Meanwhile, Jing Qian, holding the Sword Lotus Root, stepped straight into the Void Realm
and froze the instant he arrived.
The vast world before him was empty.
It looked as though it had been robbed clean.
Everything he had painstakingly accumulated, his entire foundation, had been stripped bare.
Only three things remained in the entire domain:
a massive cauldron in the north,
a single corn stalk in the south,
and an old boat resting quietly beside them.
Even the vast stores of spiritual essence he'd pilfered from the Ghost Origin Hall
a whole pocket-dimension's worth
were gone.
The air itself felt thinner; the spiritual energy density of the realm had dropped dramatically.
Only four energy cores remained, furiously drawing pure essence from the Sea of Origin Qi to refill the depleted space.
Of those,
The Yin Qi, Ghost Qi, and Nether Qi cores had all been claimed by the Good Corn.
Only the Yang Qi core remained active beneath the Sumeru Furnace,
supplying fiery energy for the Life Furnace to feed on.
The Good Corn was still sleeping soundly, which meant, of course,
this disaster could only have been the work of Xi Li, the little black cat.
Sure enough, the feline was busy lounging around the Kitchen Hall.
Jing Qian raised a hand, and with a flick of his wrist, summoned it before him.
The black cat, having advanced to the fifth rank,
now carried itself with an unmistakable air of smugness
, the swagger of a newly rich upstart who'd struck gold overnight.
Jing Qian asked flatly:
"Xi Li, where are all the materials from my inner world?"
"Reporting to you, my lord
I followed your instructions to the letter and sold everything.
All the money's been converted into Azure-Wing Fate Fire!"
Jing Qian blinked.
"Sold... everything? What about my spiritual essence gel?"
Xi Li puffed up proudly.
"Of course! I sold it all!"
"That essence gel is the favorite delicacy of the Kitchen Spirits.
It's the hottest commodity in the whole Kitchen Hall!
The moment I brought it out, they nearly started fighting each other over it!"
"Even Lord Frog was impressed
since I supplied so much, he waived ninety percent of the shipping fee!"
"So I took the chance to clear out all the junk from our domain in one go."
"And, my lord, your timing couldn't be better.
In seven days, the Auction of the Calamity Hook-Kiss will begin
The Kitchen Hall Festival is reaching its grand finale!"
"With the fortune we've amassed,
we'll be able to buy treasures beyond imagination!"
"You should see the place right now
It's huge! Every faction is bringing out its most prized artifacts.
Even our own fourth-grade Calamity Hook-Kiss
which was supposed to be the centerpiece of the auction
might not even make the top three!"
Jing Qian raised an eyebrow, genuinely intrigued.
He reached out, resting a hand on the cat's head,
and in an instant, sifted through its recent memories.
Then, opening his Three-Life Eye for a full five seconds,
he processed and organized the flood of information.
Within moments, he understood everything: the grand Kitchen Hall Festival, the auctions, the trades,
and Xi Li's… creative interpretation of his earlier "clean-up" order.
To be fair, he had told them to dispose of the miscellaneous junk.
He just hadn't expected the cat to be this efficient or this ruthless.
Still, it wasn't a bad outcome.
In fact, it had accidentally set the perfect stage for his next advancement.
"Go on then," Jing Qian said, waving his hand,
"Head back to the Kitchen Hall and enjoy yourself."
"As for the festival, I might not make it.
Talk to Lord Frog and pawn the Calamity Hook-Kiss for me.
Whatever amount of Azure-Wing Fate Fire he's willing to pay,
take it all."
"Understood, my lord!" the cat meowed, tail held high,
and bounded away eagerly
It's fur shimmering with pride and ambition.
Xi Li, though puzzled, obeyed without question and padded away to the Kitchen Hall.
Only then did Jing Qian step forward to stand before the Sumeru Furnace.
This newly awakened fifth-grade Titled Furnace of his could already devour essence and refine Golden Root Fate Flames, in effect, a true minting machine for spiritual wealth.
But at this very moment, the furnace brimmed like a sea of fire
Within it burned every coin of Azure-Wing Fate Flame he possessed.
It was everything he had ever earned, saved, and plundered
One hundred seventy thousand flames in total
And all of it was now to become the fuel for his ascension.
Without hesitation, Jing Qian summoned forth the Sumeru Saint, Sword in Hand, Opening the Six Paths Manifestation, wrapping himself completely in its radiance.
Then he stepped into the furnace.
Seated cross-legged amidst the inferno,
He let the ocean of Fate Flames engulf his body.
The Saintly Manifestation began to operate at full capacity,
devouring the Fate Flames and transmuting them into mana at a terrifying rate.
His cultivation of Life Essences soared from two thousand upward,
rising by over five hundred in barely a quarter of an hour.
This was the moment he had been preparing for all along.
For a cultivator who has already formed a Dharma Manifestation,
burning Fate Flames upon that Manifestation is the surest way
to excavate its hidden potential and expand one's mana foundation.
It is an extraordinarily costly practice
but also one of the most efficient paths of advancement under heaven.
Jing Qian had long planned for this.
He had remained deliberately in the Dragon-Elephant Realm,
amassing as much Azure-Wing Fate Fire as possible,
for two very deliberate reasons.
First, it was about exchange efficiency.
Different grades of Fate Fire carry different "conversion rates."
The wealth he possessed could be exchanged for Azure-Wing Fire for a total of 170,000 flames.
But if he had upgraded them into Blue-Blood Fire,
The amount would have dropped by more than ten percent
around 15,000 at best.
Going higher still, each conversion would shave off another portion
until, at the level of Golden Root Fate Fire,
He would have been left with scarcely a hundred or so.
A mere hundred Golden Root Flames wouldn't even buy him
ten fourth-grade Star-Seizer Fires,
let alone a single third-grade Immortal Spirit Fire.
However
when breaking through from Dragon-Elephant to higher realms,
Any Azure-Wing Life Essences he'd cultivated would upgrade naturally
without suffering those crippling losses.
Thus, one loss avoided and one gain preserved
a colossal savings of resources.
With the unmatched might of his Saintly Manifestation,
and the oceanic supply of Azure-Wing Flames,
Jing Qian's cultivation advanced like a tidal flood
unstoppable and magnificent.
Within a single day,
His Azure-Wing Life Essences had multiplied sevenfold.
Any other cultivator would have been torn apart
by such an overwhelming surge of mana.
But Jing Qian's Saintly Manifestation contained
the power of twelve Life Patterns;
within the Dragon-Elephant Realm,
He essentially had no upper limit.
No matter how much Fate Fire he poured in,
it vanished into him like water into a bottomless sea,
turning effortlessly into solid cultivation.
The more he burned, the smoother the flow became
His conversion rate is accelerating instead of slowing.
By the end of the second day,
His Life Essences had surpassed thirty thousand.
Even he hadn't expected the effect to be this miraculous
to temper the Saintly Manifestation with Fate Fire
was to glimpse its terrifying true nature.
And this, he knew,
was merely the first taste of its potential.
He sat in stillness,
as unmoving as a mountain,
while the flames danced around him like worshippers at a shrine.
Among Dragon-Elephant cultivators,
the gulf between a common vagabond, a sect disciple,
And a Dao Scion was already immeasurable
and Jing Qian, who bore a Saintly Manifestation,
stood even beyond the proudest of Dao Scions.
Within this furnace,
He was about to experience the single greatest surge of power in his life.
Halfway through the third day,
All 170,000 Azure-Wing Flames had been consumed, utterly spent.
But then Xi Li returned,
bringing with it the proceeds from pawning the Calamity Hook-Kiss
another 240,000 Azure-Wing Flames.
Jing Qian raised a hand,
and the flames cascaded down like a waterfall,
pouring over him in waves.
Once more, the Saintly Manifestation ignited into action.
He took the Innate Pure Yang Immortal Sword Embryo from his back,
cradled it in his arms,
and used his consciousness to commune with it as the fire roared.
From time to time, the sword trembled,
responding faintly to his refining.
Three more days passed,
And those 240,000 flames, too, were devoured.
The results of this pay-to-win cultivation spree were staggering.
A total of 410,000 Azure-Wing Flames
had elevated Jing Qian's Life Essence count fortyfold
reaching eighty thousand.
Eighty thousand Life Essences
a record in the entire history of Pure Yang Heaven,
placing him among the top three of Yanfu Continent itself.
It was the culmination of his entire fortune
a full-leveraged explosion of power.
In six short days,
His cultivation had undergone an absolute transformation.
But such a fierce supplement was like pouring oil on fire:
The result was dazzling, yet unstable.
His mana blazed bright as silk and gold,
But his foundation was hollow,
His core is inflated with excess
a false fat of power that could never support a breakthrough to the Longevity Realm.
To ascend further,
He would have to temper it all again
compress, refine, and polish every thread of his energy
until it was dense enough to bear true weight.
Jing Qian, of course, had long anticipated this.
He dared to attempt such an extreme method
precisely because he possessed a way
to rebuild his foundation from the ground up.
He leapt out of the Sumeru Furnace
and landed at the center of the Void Realm.
Then, with a thunderous pulse,
The Sumeru Saintly Manifestation tore free from his body,
manifesting in full form before him.
It stood ten zhang tall,
Its body is crystalline like a colored glaze,
faint jade mist swirling within
like a breath of green caught inside a gem.
All the mana in Jing Qian's body
every one of those eighty thousand Azure-Wing Life Essences
was drawn outward and enfolded within the Manifestation.
At that moment,
His cultivation is split into two
body and flesh on one side,
mana and divinity on the other.
Then he raised the Pure Yang Immortal Sword Embryo,
gripped it in both hands,
and drew a perfect arc through the air
slashing it straight across the Saintly Manifestation.
"Clang!"
The Immortal Sword struck the Saint.
The sound reverberated through the entire inner world,
shaking the Void Realm to its very core.
The immense backlash from the strike shattered Jing Qian's arm bones and ruptured his organs.
The regenerative Flesh Buds he had painstakingly nurtured burst apart without hesitation, turning into medicine to rebuild his broken body.
But Jing Qian paid it no mind.
He twisted his torso, rose again, and with another swing drew a sword arc elegant and elusive, like the leap of an antelope, and struck the Saintly Manifestation once more.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
He poured himself wholly into the act, each swing faster and heavier than the last, every blow a perfect stroke of will and fury.
Each strike was both torment and tempering for the Saintly Manifestation,
every impact grinding it finer, every collision sharpening its edge.
Under the relentless pressure, the Saintly Manifestation began to condense.
Its massive body shrank bit by bit, and the blue mist of power within it compressed,
Its density is rising toward something terrifyingly pure.
The Immortal Sword Embryo in his hands, too, was being reforged.
The Saintly Manifestation did not shatter
it stood like a whetstone,
and every time it met the sword's edge,
It carved new perfection into the blade instead.
The black jade greatsword in Jing Qian's hands roared like a coiling dragon,
circling the Saintly Manifestation, biting and striking again and again.
And in the midst of this endless exchange,
His own cultivation was being completely reforged.
The instability caused by his sudden surge of mana
was burned away through the constant clash between Sword and Saint.
The ten-zhang-tall Saintly Manifestation shrank
nine zhang… eight zhang…
until it stood at less than three.
The azure mist within had grown so thick it was now deep ink-blue.
At last, after another thunderous strike,
A flash of light burst from within Jing Qian's sea of consciousness
The Lock of Fate Needle.
It streaked outward like a shooting star,
embedding itself in the Saint's forehead and transforming into a slender hairpin.
That was the sign.
The perfect fusion of a Spiritual Construct with the Saintly Manifestation.
The Lock of Fate Needle was now fully refined, wholly his to command.
He did not stop.
The Sumeru Furnace by his side blazed up,
turning into a streak of fire that flew into the Saintly Manifestation's body,
hanging at its waist as a small copper pendant furnace.
Another Spiritual Construct - perfectly refined.
Jing Qian had long since exhausted his strength;
His body was drained, his spirit stretched to the edge.
Yet his will was iron
He wavered not an inch.
His sword moved faster,
each swing like a hammer strike against the heavens themselves.
The Saintly Manifestation compressed further
Its height is now less than two zhang.
At that moment, the Qingping Sword Casket dissolved into a beam of light,
merging into the Saint's waist to become a sheath for its sword.
Then the Yanfu Heaven Spiritual Construct followed,
transforming into a rainbow-hued halo
and sinking into the Sixfold Reincarnation Wheel beneath the Saint's feet.
Now the azure mist within the Saint's body was compressed to the brink of transformation, so dense it was ready to liquefy.
But the great refinement seemed to reach its limit.
No matter how fiercely Jing Qian swung,
The Saintly Manifestation refused to shrink any further.
He noticed nothing
lost in his rhythm, detached from the outside world,
His entire being is one with the sword.
Within the Void Realm,
The image of a young cultivator ceaselessly cutting at his own Saintly Manifestation
became an eternal Dao Vision,
stirring the breath of the entire domain.
Even the power of the realm itself began to move in sympathy
flowing with the motion of the Immortal Sword Embryo.
Then suddenly,
The sword sheath on the Saintly Manifestation trembled violently,
and ten years of Jing Qian's life span
burned away in an instant,
pouring straight into the sword.
The Immortal Sword Embryo's fate leapt again.
It's Life Measure reaching two qian.
A sharp ridge formed along the black jade blade
The sword had finally grown a true edge.
A sword's brilliance is born from grinding and pain.
Enlightenment flashed through Jing Qian's mind.
His eyes widened, veins bulging along his arms as he roared:
"Haaah!!"
The blade came down
now honed to its first edge
and its power exploded.
It was the fiercest strike of his life,
and it ushered in the true transformation of his cultivation.
From within the Saintly Manifestation,
The Three-Life Eye between the Saint's brows snapped open
The second-grade Spiritual Construct, once untamable,
was at last fully refined.
In that instant,
The azure mist inside the Saint's body liquefied,
turning into flowing rivulets of luminous blue nectar.
The first Blue-Blood Life Essence was born within the Saintly Manifestation.
After six days of burning Fate Fire,
and one more day of striking thirty thousand blows,
Jing Qian had poured everything into this moment.
His foundation was remade.
His essence transformed.
And so he broke through.
Ascending to the Seventh Grade: Longevity Realm.
From that moment on,
Jing Qian's power surged skyward.
His cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds,
And now at last, he possessed the qualifications
to take a seat at Shang Xi's table.
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