Chapter 593 - 534: The Best of Both Worlds

Several years passed in the blink of an eye.

Inside the Secluded Meditation Chamber, a scorching crimson light suffused the entire room. Sheets of Spirit Paper, covered in writings and diagrams of various experimental Artifact Formulas, lay scattered across the floor.

Nearly lifelike images of blades flickered on every sheet of Spirit Paper. Under the crimson glow, they looked all the more real.

The True Flame blazed, its color as crystal clear as amber. As Chu Mu executed a series of Techniques, the Crimson True Flame grew hotter. Under its blaze, pieces of nearly pure Nine Heavens Profound Gold rapidly twisted and transformed, melting into blobs of pale golden liquid.

And this was only the beginning.

Since his primary focus was Immortal Dao Cultivation, he was not an orthodox True Cultivator of Sword Intent. It was therefore impossible for him to create something like a Sword Pill—an item perfectly attuned to one's True Intent.

Since he could not achieve absolute attunement, the best way to compensate was to pursue the ultimate purity for his Sword Intent Supreme Treasure!

According to the final design he had settled on, this Sword Intent Supreme Treasure would be forged entirely from Nine Heavens Profound Gold. While preserving its Big and Small Ruyi ability, he had devised a special method to pursue ultimate purity in tempering the metal, as well as a treasure-refining technique that was, to his knowledge, virtually unprecedented.

The tempering method was simple enough: a two-pronged approach. First, he would use his True Flame to melt the metal and remove all impurities. Then, he would further refine it into the Profound Gold Essence required for a treasure with the Big and Small Ruyi ability.

Then, he would set up the Sword Intent Tempering Grand Array he had designed. Using the sharpness of his Sword Intent as a source, he would leverage the array's power to amplify it to its absolute limit.

Finally, using this array to channel the fierce sharpness of his Sword Intent, he would temper the Profound Gold Essence for eighty-one days. This would completely annihilate any remaining impurities while simultaneously sealing the sharpness of his Sword Intent into every last strand of the Profound Gold Essence.

This would make the Spiritual Material itself possess the sharpness of Sword Intent while being ultimately pure. Most importantly, this step was also the preliminary stage of the treasure's refining; the eighty-one days of tempering would essentially forge the prototype for the Sword Intent Supreme Treasure.

Finally, using this thoroughly tempered Profound Gold Essence—the prototype of the Sword Intent Supreme Treasure—he would employ that special treasure-refining method to forge his final, lifebound Sword Intent Magical Treasure.

The process was undoubtedly laborious. But after it was all done, this Lifebound Treasure would achieve the most perfect attunement with him possible.

To achieve that, no matter how complicated or difficult the process, it was all trivial to him.

Under his Spiritual Radiance Blessing, Chu Mu's expression was perfectly calm, like the still water of an ancient well. Whether it was the tempering or the refining method, he had tested and proven them through countless experiments. Statistically speaking, the probability of an anomaly was infinitesimally close to zero.

His Divine Sense flowed as he executed one Technique after another. Following the exact process he had tested and verified countless times, the Spiritual Material Essence melted from the pieces of Nine Heavens Profound Gold began to transform.

Purer, purer, and purer still!

At long last, as the tempering Array descended, crisscrossing veins of Array Prohibitions abruptly appeared, filling the crimson-lit room.

Under Chu Mu's control, the globules of golden liquid—now pure Spiritual Material Essence—were suspended in the center of the Array. Layers of Array Prohibitions surrounded them, pulling from all sides to merge the globules into one.

Chu Mu sat cross-legged. He drew upon the Divine Soul Blade within his Sea of Consciousness, and in that instant, a dazzling, crisscrossing web of blade light erupted within the Array.

Each dazzling beam of blade light wove around the gradually merging golden liquid. Every time a beam passed through it, the very nature of the liquid seemed to subtly shift and meld.

The process took eighty-one days, just as Chu Mu had planned—not a moment more, not a moment less.

At the final moment, the brilliant blade light vanished without a trace, just as abruptly as it had appeared.

In the center of the Array, the golden globules had completely merged into one. All that remained was a single, fist-sized sphere of golden liquid, radiating a piercing and dazzling golden light.

The pure golden glow was like a Great Sun in the sky, its brilliance overpowering the crimson light that filled the room. The interplay of gold and red was breathtakingly beautiful.

Chu Mu looked as if a great weight had been lifted, though he could not hide his exhaustion. He closed his eyes and meditated for a long time, only looking up again at the suspended "Great Sun" before him after his Essence, Qi, and Spirit had returned to normal.

Spiritual Material Essence was, by its very nature, the ultimate in purity.

After being refined in this way for eighty-one days, this mass of Profound Gold Essence had, in a sense, undergone a metamorphosis—a qualitative one.

Nine Heavens Profound Gold was a Gold Attribute Supreme Treasure. It possessed a firm, vigorous, and deadly power. Its nature was unyielding, its substance hard, capable of bringing grim death to all things. It was undoubtedly a perfect match for the Unrivaled Attack of his True Intent.

But obviously, no matter how perfect the match, it was still an external object. It could never achieve the absolute, ultimate attunement of a Sword Pill.

Therefore, to achieve even greater attunement, the method he had used for this eighty-one-day refining process wasn't simply one of smelting. To a large extent, he had drawn inspiration from the Solidifying Pill techniques of True Cultivators of Sword Intent.

It was similar to how he had formed his own Golden Core—a Celestial Thunder Tempered Golden Pill. According to his understanding, when True Cultivators of Sword Intent formed their Pill, they tempered their Essence, Qi, and Spirit with their Sword Intent, refining a Sword Pill to which they entrusted their very lives.