Chapter 387 - 385: Testing a Sword on a Demon Beast

Chapter 387: Chapter 385: Testing a Sword on a Demon Beast

Based on its scale, the Geng Metal Ore Vein on Golden Light Mountain was worth at least a million Spirit Stones.

According to the rules of the Qingfeng Sect, any ore vein discovered by a Sect Disciple had to be handed over to the Sect for excavation.

Depending on the mining costs, the discoverer would receive a varying share of the profits. The split could be as high as fifty-fifty, but it usually hovered around thirty percent.

But for the Geng Metal Ore Vein found by Ancestor Bai, neither the Miscellaneous Affairs Hall nor the Spiritual Ore Hall would dare to skim off his share by citing operational costs.

Judging by the small Spirit Stone Ore Vein Zhou Suqing had discovered several years ago, it was the unspoken rule that Core Formation Ancestors received the maximum fifty percent share.

However, several hundred thousand Spirit Stones meant little to Bai Zichen, especially since he had no significant need for them at the moment.

What he truly valued was the Geng Metal Spirit deep within the core of the ore vein.

Just five or six catties of Geng Metal Spirit would be enough to refine all the Tier Three Flying Swords in his possession.

It might have a minimal effect on a flying sword like the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword, which was already at the peak of Tier Three, but for swords on the level of the Thunder Sound Sword and Qingfeng Sword, it could increase their lethality by at least twenty percent.

He had no use for these Tier Three Flying Swords right now, but when he set up the Star River Sword Array in the future, the quality of the flying swords would directly affect the array’s power.

As the number of controlled flying swords increased, the consumption of True Essence would multiply.

Similarly, the lethality of each flying sword within the array would ultimately compound and multiply.

The slightest difference would create a massive deviation in the final sword array.

After Bai Zichen returned, he entrusted the matter of Golden Light Mountain to Ma Ruoxi, telling her to notify Tong Huan and arrange for Sect Cultivators to take over the Spirit Vein.

Her main task was to watch over the Geng Metal Ore Vein and ensure that not a single grain of Geng Metal Spirit was missed. Everything was to be collected and set aside for Ancestor Bai.

Three months later, Bai Zichen slew a Tier Three Low-Grade Demon Beast, a Ghost-Faced Shark, with his Sound Bamboo Sword.

Even though it dove to the bottom of the lake, attempting to use its aquatic advantage to flee, Bai Zichen still caught up to it.

He pinned the Ghost-Faced Shark to the blue stones at the bottom of the lake, leaving behind a translucent Spirit Pearl. Pure water energy gathered toward the pearl, producing gurgling Spirit Water.

’It doesn’t have a Demon Pill in its body, but a Spirit Pearl instead... What an eye-opener. The Cultivation Realm is full of wonders; it’s normal to encounter any kind of demon beast.’

Bai Zichen bounced the basket-sized Water Element Spirit Bead in his hand. At its core was a miniature Ghost-Faced Shark.

’No wonder I couldn’t extract its Demon Beast Essence. It has fused with the Spirit Pearl, becoming almost like a cultivator’s Primordial Spirit...’

He had originally planned to use a blank Banner Flag to capture the Demon Beast Essences of all the Tier Three demon beasts he killed and hand them over to Zhou Suqing.

She was researching a new Battle Array and had made some headway.

But even a clever housewife can’t cook without rice. She didn’t have enough Spiritual Materials on hand to refine the Array Banners, Array Plates, and Array Maps. Without them, even the best design was useless.

He heard that because of this, Zhou Suqing had specifically taken up the Artifact Refining Art again.

The equipment involved in a special array like a Battle Array—which required the combined efforts of many people and was incredibly complex and obscure—had to be extremely precise.

The slightest deviation would lead to a result completely contrary to the original designer’s intent.

It was difficult enough for two Array Masters to communicate these ideas, so how could an Artifact Refiner possibly grasp the full, true design intent of an Array Master?

To achieve a more perfect result, Zhou Suqing simply decided to become an Artifact Refiner herself.

After all, refining these Array Banners, Array Plates, and Array Maps only required the skills of a Tier Two Top-Grade Refiner.

For her, it wasn’t an insurmountable peak; she could achieve it in a few years.

However, when it came to the Array Banners, she needed a clear vessel for the cultivators’ combined Magical Power to make the Battle Array more agile and controllable.

Zhou Suqing’s chosen method was to use a Demon Beast Essence as the core. This would allow her newly created Battle Array to reach the power level of late-stage Foundation Establishment and no longer be so rigid and slow.

She had drawn inspiration for this from the Tier Three Ghost King that had been bound within the Ghost Spirit Sect’s Ten Thousand Ghosts Fierce Soul Formation.

The Array Banners were easy to refine, but the Demon Beast Essences to serve as their cores were hard to find.

The essences of Tier Two Demon Beasts wouldn’t produce the desired effect at all and would greatly diminish the Battle Array’s power.

Furthermore, a Tier Two Demon Beast’s essence would dissipate within a few years, leaving the Array Banner blank again.

Only the essence of a Tier Three Demon Beast, when combined with the Spirit-Catching Restriction copied from the Ten Thousand Ghosts Fierce Soul Formation, could be preserved for several hundred or even a thousand years.

However, neither Zhou Suqing nor Wei Dao possessed the strength to reliably take on a Tier Three Demon Beast.

Refining the Array Banners required more than just one or two essences. The current number of Qi Refining Disciples in the Qingfeng Sect was enough to support dozens of hundred-man Battle Arrays.

With Ge Cang in seclusion, the heavy responsibility of collecting Demon Beast Essences naturally fell on Bai Zichen’s shoulders.

This Spirit Pearl was a fusion of a Demon Pill and an essence. He figured its species must be special, different from ordinary demon beasts.

Bai Zichen carefully stored it away. It might come in handy on some occasion in the future.

Lengcuo Lake, where the Ghost-Faced Shark had lived, only appeared to be a few hundred mu on the surface, but a rushing undercurrent flowed at its bottom, which he had only discovered during his pursuit.

The underground current snaked for at least dozens of li, forming several natural cave mansions with ceilings covered in stalactites.

There was nothing of special note produced near Lengcuo Lake, though several types of Tier Two Spirit Grass grew along its shores, an area that could be developed into a Spirit Plant Yard.

Additionally, the land irrigated by the lake water could be developed into at least a thousand mu of Tier Two Spirit Fields.

However, Bai Zichen did make other discoveries in the underwater cave mansions.

One of them was cool and refreshing, completely free of the oppressive heat of the undercurrent. A cool breeze even brushed against his face as he walked inside.

"Cooling Beads!"

Bai Zichen looked up at the pearls embedded among the stalactites on the ceiling; there were at least a hundred of them.

The second cave mansion was dry and fresh, without a trace of moisture in the air.

Embedded among the stalactites were over a hundred Water-Repelling Beads.

Further in, there were also a hundred Luminous Pearls, a hundred Dust-Avoiding Beads, a hundred Nine Bends Beads...

Each individual pearl wasn’t worth much, but quantity created a qualitative change. Added together, it was no small sum.

Moreover, in the hands of a cultivator looking to collect enough of these Treasure Beads to refine a unique Magical Treasure, their value would climb even higher.

Bai Zichen left Lengcuo Lake and headed back, leaving behind dozens of water beasts floating on the lake’s surface.

Their demon bodies were all intact, with no visible wounds. They lay silently on the water’s surface in a very strange and quiet scene.

Another three months passed. In Cold Crow Gorge, a Beauty Serpent let out a series of shrill cries, broke off a section of its tail, and fled in a sorry state.

The upper body of this snake beast had already taken on a hint of human form. It had arms growing from its ribs and a full chest, but its body was still covered in green scales.

Demon beast Transformation usually began only after they reached Tier Four, possessing a cultivation realm equivalent to a human Nascent Soul True Monarch.

But there were two special exceptions.

The first was for those with powerful bloodlines, like the Tier Four Cyan Simurgh of Flame Mountain. Its Divine Beast bloodline was so strong that it actually delayed its Transformation.

The Divine Beast bloodline within it was deeply ingrained and its effects so pronounced that it couldn’t truly transform until it had been completely refined and absorbed.

The second exception was for those with a different kind of special bloodline. These demon beasts had usually consumed some Exotic Flowers and Herbs during their growth, allowing them to partially manifest a human form before reaching Tier Four.

Of course, compared to a true Tier Four Transformed Great Demon, this level of transformation was quite crude and retained many of the beast’s original features.

However, if such a demon beast managed to reach Tier Four, its transformation process would be much smoother than that of other Tier Four Great Demons. It wouldn’t take long to complete the path of Transformation, a journey that all newly-advanced Tier Four Great Demons considered a nightmare.

’Tier One flying swords are just too fragile. Five of them broke in a single fight... Good thing I can refine a dozen Ink Bamboo Swords whenever I want, so it doesn’t matter.’

Bai Zichen tossed the broken sword in his hand to the ground. He watched the Beauty Serpent flee but didn’t give chase.

Instead, he closed his eyes and focused, savoring the insights on Sword Control he had gained from the previous battle.

He didn’t lack the spoils from a Tier Three Low-Grade Demon Beast; in comparison, any small progress in his Sword Dao was worth it.

This kind of battlefield enlightenment, if missed, might never be captured again.

During the fight, he had done his best to protect the Ink Bamboo Swords, but the gap between a Tier One flying sword and a Tier Three demon beast was simply too vast.

His swordsmanship was exquisite and masterful, and the Beauty Serpent wasn’t even a demon beast known for its physical strength.

But the disparity between a Tier Three demon beast and a Tier One flying sword was so great that a mere graze from its demon power would cause the Sword Light to waver and the sword’s body to be damaged.

And that was with his True Essence protecting the sword’s body; otherwise, the frail Ink Bamboo Sword would have snapped in two long ago.

He could only last for a moment by weaving a dazzling web of sword light, dodging all of the Beauty Serpent’s attacks and using illusory sword flashes to misdirect its assault.

Furthermore, the killing power of a Tier One flying sword was another major problem. Even when transformed into Sword Silk and piercing the Beauty Serpent, it could only inflict superficial wounds, far from a fatal blow.

WHOOSH!

Bai Zichen exhaled a breath like a sword. Under the extreme conditions he had created for himself, his control over the finer aspects of his flying swords had risen to another level.

If he wanted to achieve a breakthrough in the heat of battle but lacked a suitable opponent, this was the only way to temper his swordsmanship.

As he figured out a few key tricks to the variations in his sword light, his understanding of the Nine Illusions Sword Technique suddenly became clear, and he truly entered the hall of mastery.

He glanced in the direction the Beauty Serpent had fled. The trail of blood vanished after about a hundred zhang.

The Beauty Serpent was also long gone from the range of his Divine Sense.

Bai Zichen wasn’t anxious. He first took a look around Cold Crow Gorge.

The place had originally been named for a nest of Tier Three Cold Crows that lived here.

Later, the Cold Crows moved away to some unknown location, and a Beauty Serpent had come to occupy the Tier Three Spirit Vein. Thousands of other snake beasts had also gathered in the gorge.

They were all normal snake-type demon beasts; not a single one had developed a human form like the Beauty Serpent.

A bold and fearless Tier Two Forest Python lunged at him. Without even lifting a hand, he sent a viridian Sword Silk coiling out. The python was sliced in two, its halves falling to the ground with a CLATTER.

Aside from picking up a few pieces of Thousand-Year Cold Iron that could serve as Sword Refining Materials, he found nothing else worth his notice.

Just as he was about to turn and leave, Bai Zichen seemed to sense something. He turned back, and with a swing of his sword, he carved a large pit in the ground before him.

A ten-zhang-deep pit appeared in an instant, revealing the stark white bones of three avian beast skeletons inside.

His Divine Sense had detected that the softness of the soil underground was inconsistent with the surrounding area, which was why he had dug. He hadn’t expected to find a treasure, but instead unearthed the skeletons of three avian beasts.

’These are the corpses of that nest of Tier Three Cold Crows. Each was killed by a single sword strike that pierced its skull...’

Bai Zichen examined the avian skeletons, his expression growing increasingly grim.