Chapter 295: Spirit Weapon Form
The Ministry of Works personnel completely rebuilt the Fangzhou Supervisory Factory, and Qin Mu also redesigned the furnace. The factory took on a brand-new appearance, with many forging mechanical giants added. Once the furnace was lit and the mechanical giants began operating, the workshop immediately became bustling with activity.
Shan Youxin and the others were busy with adjustments, while Qin Mu focused on circulating his Overlord Body Three Dan Art. His primal energy surged vigorously. Others at the Six Harmonies realm would first cultivate a spirit weapon, only cultivating their primordial spirit after reaching perfection in the Six Harmonies realm. Even then, it wouldn't be complete, requiring the Heavenly Being realm to manifest and roam the void. However, he had cultivated his primordial spirit first and was now cultivating his spirit weapon.
His primordial spirit was still very weak, far from the point of manifestation. If his primordial spirit could manifest behind him, that would mark the Heavenly Being realm.
Between the Six Harmonies and Heavenly Being realms lay the Seven Stars realm. He had only just entered the Six Harmonies realm, still far from that step.
His ability to have his primordial spirit roam the four directions was a fortunate coincidence. It happened when he encountered an expert like Xu Shenghua; stirred by emotion, he achieved enlightenment by the river, taking Ling Yuxiu along to roam the four directions.
According to orthodox cultivation order, he first needed to gestate and birth a spirit weapon within his Six Harmonies divine repository.
As the Overlord Body Three Dan Art circulated, Qin Mu immediately felt his primal energy connect with his spirit embryo, Five Elements, and Six Harmonies. His soul merged with the spirit embryo, his essence condensed, his primordial spirit formed, and he began to inhale and exhale the creation of heaven and earth. His cultivation speed had also increased significantly compared to before.
"Could it be that others cultivate the same way as me? But from what the Crown Prince said, it seems different..."
He felt somewhat puzzled. According to Ling Yushu, it was impossible for others to cultivate a primordial spirit at this stage.
After cultivating a primordial spirit, cultivation speed was fast. Without it, one could only proceed step by step.
He set aside this doubt for the moment and focused on driving the Overlord Body Three Dan Art, channeling his primal energy and mobilizing his blood and qi. Within his Six Harmonies divine repository, streams of essence gathered, continuously flying toward the center of the repository. There, a spirit weapon was slowly taking shape.
The Six Harmonies divine repository gestated a spirit weapon. The form of this spirit weapon was always the one most suited to one's own cultivation technique. Unlike other spirit weapons, this one shared the same breath and fate as its owner, growing alongside them.
The formation of the spirit weapon didn't even require one to conceive or create it; it formed naturally as one cultivated.
Now, his spirit weapon form was under construction, and its specific shape was not yet discernible. All that could be seen was a ball of light, with his essence flying in from all directions of the Six Harmonies divine repository, converging into that radiance.
Within the essence, various runic imprints were faintly visible, very mysterious. But for Qin Mu, these runic imprints were precisely his skills and methods, merely expressed in runic form.
Ling Yuxiu's Nine Dragon Weapon and Si Yunxiang's Thousand Silk also had such runic imprints. When forging a spirit weapon, these imprints needed to be branded onto it.
The essence flying toward that orb of light manifested sword-pattern imprints. Streams of essence light plunged into the orb, like countless flying swords continuously entering a sword pellet.
A sword pellet wasn't a pellet; it was a sword. It involved refining dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of swords into one.
Thus, the essence of a sword pellet was still a sword.
When the Six Harmonies divine repository gestated a sword pellet spirit weapon, essence in the form of flying swords flew in from all sides of the repository, stacking together to form a pellet shape. This sword-shaped essence was called sword essence. Only after all the sword essence had fully entered the sword pellet form could one forge their own sword pellet. Moreover, the number of flying swords in the pellet had to equal the number of sword essences.
Refining a sword pellet involved forging swords to a state finer than a needle, then refining them into a pellet form. This required each sword to be tempered to a level where its size could be controlled at will, which was very difficult.
Therefore, sword pellets were expensive. Many cultivators often used sword cases instead. Sword cases could store fewer flying swords, and during forging, beast bones containing the bloodline of the Taotie were needed to expand the internal space of the case, which was also quite costly.
The Imperial Academy provided a sword case for every imperial student, costing the national treasury a significant amount each year.
Truly wealthy imperial students often hired renowned masters and artisans to forge their sword pellets, making the sword pellet a status symbol.
"So my spirit weapon is a sword pellet. Although a sword pellet is hard to forge, it's not too difficult for me."
Qin Mu didn't feel that a sword pellet was particularly valuable. After all, at the Cripples' Village, Granny Si had sword pellets scattered under her bed and in her shoes, and a few were even eaten by chickens.
More terrifyingly, Dumb had a full chest of sword pellets, heavy as a mountain.
Moreover, having studied forging under Dumb, forging a sword pellet, though laborious, wasn't difficult for him.
However, within his Six Harmonies divine repository, sword essence was still continuously entering that orb of light. Qin Mu calculated, and his face turned a bit pale. The sword essence that had entered the orb had already reached five thousand!
That meant he had to forge five thousand flying swords to create his own sword pellet.
Not only that, but sword essence was still flying in, indicating it wouldn't stop at five thousand.
He wasn't worried about the cost of forging the sword pellet spirit weapon; he never worried about money. What worried him was the weight!
Even if thousands of flying swords were refined to be very fine, their weight wouldn't change. Forging so many swords into a small pellet would result in an extremely considerable weight!
In the Yanguo Kingdom, flying swords were divided into nine grades. The ninth grade weighed two jin, the lowest quality, made of ordinary iron and used by commoners as weapons. But even a ninth-grade sword, when forged into a sword pellet, would weigh ten thousand jin!
Moreover, the better the flying sword, the heavier it often was. A second-grade sword could weigh hundreds or thousands of jin. Only a first-grade sword, like those of first-rank officials—for instance, Qin Mu's Junior Guardian Sword—would be very light.
The Junior Guardian Sword was made from the finest materials in the world by the best sword-forging masters. Only a dozen or so were ever made. Even if Qin Mu wanted to forge such a sword pellet, he didn't have that much or such good material.
"A third-grade sword is made from cold iron essence and cold iron crystal, but it's too heavy. Forged into a sword pellet, I probably couldn't even activate it. The pellet alone would exhaust me to death."
Just as Qin Mu thought this, his sword essence finally stopped entering the orb. In total, there were eight thousand sword essences.
"Eight thousand swords! This is going to kill me! Even as rich as I am, I'll go bankrupt!"
Qin Mu felt a bit daunted. Then he saw other essences flying in—countless Buddha forms, coming from all directions of the Six Harmonies divine repository and entering the orb.
"Wait, isn't it a sword pellet?"
He was bewildered. If it were a sword pellet, it should have stopped by now. Why were Buddha-shaped essences flying in?
Besides the Buddha essence, there was also blade essence—countless blade-shaped essences flying in and entering the orb. Then came the Dao essences in the forms of the Wuji Diagram, Taiji Diagram, Four Symbols Diagram, Five Elements Diagram, and Eight Trigrams Diagram.
After that came various runes—some insect patterns, some beast patterns, dragon patterns, phoenix patterns, bird patterns, divine patterns, demon patterns, and even Youdu script and patterns, all mixed together.
Qin Mu's face turned from pale to purple. These diagrams and texts were likely due to his Unified Cultivation Technique containing too many elements—the Tathagata Great Vehicle Sutra, the Great Cultivation Demon Sutra, the Nine Dragon Imperial Art, the Pig-Slaying Knife Technique, and various other techniques and divine abilities. The Great Cultivation Demon Sutra, in particular, contained an abundance of bizarre techniques.
Even the algorithms from the Supreme Calculation Sutra were manifested by his essence, becoming part of the spirit weapon form.
"With so many forms, what will my spirit weapon evolve into?"
Qin Mu felt uneasy. Would the sword pellet become a freakish thing covered in all kinds of weapons?
Even if it were a freak, the key issue was how heavy this spirit weapon would be to forge?
How much money would it take to forge it?
After a long time, all the essence had fully submerged into that orb of light. The orb's radiance gradually dimmed, and the spirit weapon form inside became clearer.
Qin Mu was anxious, afraid to look, dreading that his spirit weapon might be a hideous sight.
Finally, he mustered the courage to look at the spirit weapon in his Six Harmonies divine repository. He was startled to find that his spirit weapon was still in the form of a sword pellet, not as absurd as he had imagined—not a giant Buddha covered in swords, blades, and bizarre objects.
The sword pellet was still a sword pellet, but each sword essence now bore many imprints—Buddha essence imprints, Dao essence imprints, blade essence imprints, bird and beast patterns, dragon and phoenix patterns, divine and demon patterns, and Youdu script.
Qin Mu breathed a sigh of relief: "At worst, it'll be extremely heavy, but it won't crush me. However, this sword pellet seems a bit larger than others. If I could forge it into the water-like sword pellet that Grandpa Dumb made, it might be smaller..."
Shan Youxin and the others spent several hours, working until the next day, before finishing the adjustments and getting the supervisory factory running.
To condense his spirit weapon form, Qin Mu had also stayed up all night, but he was full of energy. He called Shan Youxin over and said, "My spirit weapon form is confirmed, but forging it is troublesome. I need to forge eight thousand sword blanks."
"Eight thousand sword blanks?"
Shan Youxin was startled and exclaimed, "Chief, eight thousand sword blanks are enough to forge the town-protecting treasure of a small sect. Are you sure you need that many swords?"
Qin Mu nodded and said helplessly, "To forge these eight thousand swords to be size-controllable and form a sword pellet, I'm also quite troubled."
Shan Youxin hesitated for a moment and said, "Eight thousand swords are enough to arm an army. To forge so many sword blanks, we need the finest metals..."
"Before the disaster, I sold some medicine and earned some money."
Qin Mu thought of the money-managing Fox Ling'er and felt a bit nostalgic for that little fox. "I still have a million Dafeng coins here. Is that enough?"
Shan Youxin was startled and laughed, "How could we let the Chief spend money? Each of our halls has a habit of collecting heavenly materials and earthly treasures. For example, there are people from our Sacred Sect in the mines. When they dig up treasures, they often don't report them to the state but secretly hide them."
He glanced around, saw no one nearby, and lowered his voice: "The Sacred Sect's rule is that the best are offered to the emperor, and the very best are stored in the Sacred Sect's treasury."
Qin Mu was stunned.
Shan Youxin smiled and said, "The Sacred Chief forging his spirit weapon is a major event. The heavenly materials and earthly treasures in the Sacred Sect's treasury can all be used. The Chief can give the order to open the treasury, and our Heavenly Works Hall can take out the treasures to forge eight thousand sword blanks for the Chief! I dare say the materials won't be as good as a first-rank official's sword, but they won't be far off."
Qin Mu exhaled a breath and asked, "Where is the treasury?"
"The Chief doesn't know where his own treasury is?"
Shan Youxin was amused and said, "Naturally, it's on Sacred Mountain."
——Zhai Zhu has been staying at a place called Lake Toya for the past two days, on a mountaintop, five or six li down the mountain, with no one around, no buses or subways, and it seems no taxis either. The meals are terrifyingly expensive, starting at a thousand per person, so we can only eat bread. Some great masters even bought Japanese instant noodles and soaked them in their five-star hotel rooms, saying the soup was good but the noodles weren't cooked. Some also said that Qidian brought us here just to watch us code, and I think so too... Zhai Zhu will follow the main force to Osaka tomorrow to code there. Hopefully, we won't have to eat bread and instant noodles there. Updates will definitely happen, even if I have to die to update, but the journey is tiring, and the time is uncertain. Please forgive me~~