Chapter 296: The Divine Sword
"The key to the treasury on Mount Shenglin is held by the mistress of the Si family, who is also the Saintess of our Holy Religion."
Shan Youxin continued, "All assets of our Holy Religion are managed through the Si family, and every transaction must pass through their hands. If the Holy Lord wishes to access the treasury this time, he must first obtain the key from the Saintess. Once we retrieve the heavenly treasures and earthly rarities from the treasury, forging eight thousand sword blanks will not be difficult. Using the Supervisor's Factory to manufacture the sword blanks will be very fast!"
The Si family was a prominent and powerful clan within the Heavenly Demon Sect. The Saintess was almost always chosen from the Si family. The current Saintess was Si Yunxiang, meaning the treasury key was in her possession.
Qin Mu found Si Yunxiang, who asked in surprise, "Eight thousand swords to forge into a sword pellet? That many swords—can the Holy Lord even lift it?"
Qin Mu's face darkened. He too was somewhat worried about whether he could bear the weight of a sword pellet forged from so many flying swords.
Si Yunxiang noticed his expression and said with a smile, "You are the Holy Lord and the Saintly Teacher. It is only natural that the heavenly treasures and earthly rarities from the treasury be used to forge your spiritual weapon. However, these treasures have been accumulated by the sect's disciples over many years. With the recent disaster relief efforts, our Holy Religion has spent all its money on aid, leaving the treasury empty. If anything goes wrong, the sect will have no funds to handle emergencies."
Qin Mu smiled and said, "I understand your difficulty. I still have a million Dafeng coins here. Why don't I contribute them to the Holy Religion? You can use them for emergencies."
Si Yunxiang's heart blossomed with joy. She laughed and said, "A million Dafeng coins may seem like a lot, but with a million disciples in the sect, it barely amounts to one coin per person. Since the Holy Lord is forging swords, there's no need for the Shaobao Sword anymore..."
Qin Mu's face darkened again as he took off the Shaobao Sword and handed it to her.
Si Yunxiang kindly reminded him, "It seems the Holy Lord's Gluttony Pouch still contains some other treasures, like the Thousand Pagoda Tower and such. Those could also be used to replenish the treasury..."
Qin Mu took off his Gluttony Pouch and retrieved the Thousand Pagoda Tower and the Scorched Tail Zither. Suddenly, he grew wary and said, "Wait a minute. I'm only trying to forge a spiritual weapon for the Six Harmonies realm. Why am I being asked to hand over treasures worthy of a Holy Lord? Their value is incomparable! Saintess, are you trying to trick me?"
Si Yunxiang sneered, "Holy Lord, the treasures in the Holy Religion's treasury are more than enough to forge over a dozen Holy Lord-level artifacts! If you use these treasures to forge a single sword pellet, you can't expect to empty the Holy Religion's treasury entirely, can you?"
Qin Mu thought about it and realized she had a point. Reluctantly, he handed over the Holy Lord-level treasures from his Gluttony Pouch. These were spoils he had looted from the Loulan Golden Palace treasury, so he wasn't too heartbroken about parting with them.
"Holy Lord, don't you still have those Star Pearls from the Qushan Temple in the East Sea?"
Si Yunxiang's eyes sparkled. "There are three thousand of them!"
Qin Mu said darkly, "Saintess, this is all I have!"
Si Yunxiang laughed, "You are the Holy Lord. I'm not taking these treasures from you; I'm just storing them in the Holy Religion's treasury. They're still yours, aren't they? Our Si family manages the wealth, but it's a thankless task, isn't it? We can only look but not use. No matter how many treasures there are, they still belong to the Qin family."
Qin Mu felt her reasoning was sound, but something still felt off. Nevertheless, he took out the three thousand pearls.
Si Yunxiang stole a glance into his Gluttony Pouch and said, "And those two big eyeballs..."
"No!" Qin Mu's face turned ashen, and he felt a murderous urge.
Si Yunxiang probed, "What about that Dragon Qilin of yours..."
Qin Mu sighed in relief and smiled, "If you can afford to keep it, you can take it away."
Si Yunxiang quickly laughed, "I was just joking, Holy Lord. You keep that glutton. Even the Patriarch didn't want him because he eats too much. I'll go now and ask the elders of my Si family to fetch the treasures from Mount Shenglin so the Holy Lord can forge his swords."
Qin Mu clutched his now-flattened Gluttony Pouch, his face green, feeling as if this young woman had stripped him bare, leaving him standing there without a single thread.
"This woman is obsessed with money. I can't outwit her. I need to bring Ling'er over to manage the finances as soon as possible, or else the Saintess will fleece me down to my bones!" the Great Holy Lord Qin thought to himself.
Si Yunxiang stepped aside and took out a mirror. The mirror floated in the air, rotated twice, and another mirror appeared within it. Behind that second mirror was an old woman, who asked, "Saintess Xiang, what do you seek?"
Si Yunxiang explained Qin Mu's sword-forging plan and said, "The Holy Lord is forging a spiritual weapon, which is no small matter. Please, Grandmother, fetch the top-tier materials from the treasury and send them to the Supervisor's Factory in Fangzhou."
The old woman frowned and said, "The Si family doesn't do business at a loss. The Holy Lord is still young and has low cultivation. Why use the best materials..."
"We've made a profit!"
Si Yunxiang displayed the treasures she had tricked out of Qin Mu. The old woman's eyes lit up immediately, and she exclaimed, "So many sect-suppressing treasures! Saintess, you truly know how to manage the household! Excellent, excellent! You've learned well from me, unlike your aunt! That aunt of yours spends money like water and never balances the books—she's a spendthrift!"
She was referring to Granny Si, who never cared about money and always bought the most expensive items, regardless of whether they were suitable.
The old woman continued, "The top-tier sword-forging materials are often extremely heavy. A piece the size of a fingertip can weigh dozens of jin. Moreover, the treasury doesn't have enough of these materials to forge eight thousand swords. For a sect-suppressing treasure, we could forge twenty-seven swords, each weighing about ten thousand jin."
"What about the second-tier materials?" Si Yunxiang asked.
The old woman replied, "The second-tier isn't enough either. At most, we could forge a hundred flying swords."
Si Yunxiang frowned and asked, "What about the third-tier?"
"The third-tier includes Cold Iron Essence, Mystic Gold Essence, and Mystic Copper Essence. There's more than enough to forge eight thousand swords."
Si Yunxiang said, "Then please bring the top-tier and second-tier materials, Grandmother. Use Mystic Gold Essence to make up the rest. The top-tier materials will be enough to sharpen the spiritual swords."
The old woman looked suspicious and asked, "Mystic Gold Essence is three times heavier than Cold Iron Essence. Why use Mystic Gold Essence instead of Cold Iron Essence?"
Si Yunxiang gave a sweet smile. The old woman in the mirror rolled her eyes at her and said, "You little minx, always up to mischief. Be careful the Holy Lord can't lift it and spanks your bottom until it's swollen! I'll send the materials to Yongzhou. Have that pirate surnamed Fan sail his ship over."
Si Yunxiang acknowledged the order, turned the bronze mirror counterclockwise twice, and the mirror within the mirror disappeared.
Two days later, Fan Yunxiao sailed back from Yongzhou, carrying the materials Qin Mu needed for his sword forging. The Supervisor's Factory in Fangzhou immediately buzzed with activity again.
Forging the sword blanks wasn't particularly difficult; it only required shaping the swords into their initial form. Even so, each blank had to be forged hundreds or thousands of times, repeatedly hammered and tempered.
Once the blanks were forged, the swords were flat rods that needed to be ground and shaped by Qin Mu himself through countless hammerings.
Qin Mu picked up a sword blank, and his expression soured. Si Yunxiang approached, feigning concern, and asked, "Holy Lord, what's wrong?"
"A bit heavy."
Qin Mu said awkwardly, "Two or three times heavier than I expected. One sword weighs three hundred jin. After forging them into a sword pellet, eight thousand swords..."
Si Yunxiang burst out laughing and said, "The Holy Lord asked for the best materials, so of course they'd be heavier. The sharpening materials we're using are even better than those the Emperor bestows on his top ministers—heavier, sharper, and harder to forge! As they say, great skill appears clumsy. The Holy Lord can just throw the sword pellet without using any sword techniques, and it'll crush a whole crowd."
Qin Mu said darkly, "That's only if I can actually throw it. Eight thousand swords..."
Si Yunxiang was beside herself with glee and said, "I've heard that when forging reaches its peak, weight becomes a matter of will. The Holy Lord is a master of artifact forging; you'll surely reach that level!"
Qin Mu picked up the sword blank and walked away, muttering incomprehensible phrases like "A hundred forgings and a hundred temperings transform into divine craftsmanship" and "Strength to uproot mountains."
Si Yunxiang blinked, feeling very pleased with herself.
In the Supervisor's Factory, Shan Youxin wanted to stay and watch Qin Mu forge the swords, but Crown Prince Ling Yushu had to attend to government affairs in other prefectures. He ordered the disciples of the Heavenly Craft Hall to assist, while he and the Ministry of Works officials followed Ling Yushu to the next prefecture.
With the help of the Heavenly Craft Hall disciples, Qin Mu's sword-forging speed was not slow. However, forging all eight thousand swords to perfectly match his spiritual weapon form was still a monumental task.
The quality of the heavenly treasures and earthly rarities Si Yunxiang had brought was exceptionally high, making it very difficult to achieve the state where size and weight could be at will. Qin Mu constantly imprinted his spiritual weapon marks and engraved various runes onto the sword bodies. After several months, he had lost a significant amount of weight.
Ling Yuxiu and Si Yunxiang also stayed to help. The two women learned many forging techniques from Qin Mu and upgraded their own Nine Dragon Weapon and Thousand Silk Sword by adding some top-tier materials.
Qin Mu had forged 7,999 swords. The final sword was to be the mother sword of the sword pellet, which required the best materials; otherwise, it couldn't command the other subsidiary swords.
To forge the mother sword, Qin Mu racked his brains. He had saved the best material—a metal he had never seen before. It was only the size of a fist but weighed ten thousand jin. Si Yunxiang said it was a meteorite from beyond the heavens.
However, this piece of metal was only enough to forge the blade and body of the sword, not a complete mother sword.
Qin Mu took out the broken sword from his Gluttony Pouch. This broken sword was also from the Loulan Golden Palace. Since Si Yunxiang had seen it was broken, she hadn't extorted it from him.
Qin Mu held the unknown metal in one hand and the broken sword in the other, comparing them. Suddenly, with a sharp *clang*, the broken sword and the unknown metal attracted each other and collided!
This unexpected development caught Qin Mu off guard. The broken sword burst into brilliant light, while golden streams flowed out of the fist-sized metal, flying through the air in large circles that surrounded Qin Mu. The dazzling radiance illuminated the entire Supervisor's Factory, shining through its doors and windows with blinding intensity!
A continuous *ding-ding-ding* sound rang out as the light from the metal circled around and struck the broken sword's edge. Each impact numbed Qin Mu's arm.
After countless collisions, the metal suddenly fell to the ground and crumbled into ashes that scattered everywhere.
The broken sword in Qin Mu's hand was now radiant and shining—no longer broken!
The broken sword had absorbed the metallic essence from that unknown metal, growing a new blade and becoming completely renewed!
The sword's body bore strange, writhing patterns like dragons or snakes. The patterns lit up briefly before fading, but Qin Mu still saw the two characters they formed.
"Wu You!"
—Zhai Zhu didn't sleep well last night. It's an old problem of his—nervous exhaustion. He fell asleep around two in the morning, got up at five to catch a flight, and arrived at his hotel in Osaka at two-thirty in the afternoon, starving. He had a bowl of noodles and some fried rice, then got lost on the way back to the hotel (he has no sense of direction). Now Zhai Zhu is going downstairs for dinner. He doesn't know if he'll find his way back. He can't guarantee he'll write the second chapter, but he'll do his best!