Chapter 296: Divine Sword
Translator: Ninetales Editor: DarkGem
"The key to the treasure vault on Saint Arrival Mountain is kept by the mistress of Si Family, which is also the saintess of our sacred cult," Shan Youxin said.
"The finances of our sacred cult are all managed by Si Family and all properties must go through their hands. If Cult Master wants to touch the treasure vault, you will have to fetch the key from the saintess. As long as we take out the natural materials and treasures, refining eight thousand sword embryos won't be too difficult. It will actually be quite quick when using this factory!"
Si Family was a big family that had an illustrious position in Heavenly Devil Cult, and the saintess was usually from it. The saintess of this generation was Si Yunxiang, which meant that the key to the treasure vault was with her.
Qin Mu found her, and his words astonished her. "Sword pellet refined from eight thousand swords! Can Cult Master lift so many swords?"
Qin Mu's face blackened. He was also slightly worried that he wouldn't be able to carry a sword pellet made from so many flying swords.
Si Yunxiang took in his expression and chuckled. "You're the cult master sacred teacher so using the cult's materials and treasures to refine a spirit weapon is only natural. However, all of them had been accumulated by the disciples of the cult throughout a long time. By sending disaster relief, we had spent most of our money, so the treasury vault has no more money. If anything happened, it would be quite troublesome to deal with the problem without money."
Qin Mu smiled. "I know your troubles, I still have a million great abundance coins here so why don't I offer them to the sacred cult. You can also use them in times of trouble."
Si Yunxiang burst with joy and smiled. "Even though a million great abundance coins is a lot, with a million disciples, everyone can only get one great abundance coins at most. Since Cult Master is refining a sword for himself, he will no longer need Junior Protector Sword…"
Qin Mu's face blackened, and he passed over his Junior Protector Sword to her.
Si Yunxiang then reminded him in goodwill, "There's still some other treasures in Cult Master's taotie sack, for example, Thousand Banners Pagoda and some other stuff which could be used to refill the treasure vault…"
Qin Mu took his taotie sack and pulled out Thousand Banners Pagoda and the burnt guqin. But suddenly, he was alerted and said, "That's not right, I'm only refining a spirit weapon that's on the Six Directions Realm, so why do you want my cult master level treasures? The worth is not the same! Saintess, are you trying to fool me?"
Si Yunxiang sneered at him. "Cult Master, the materials in the sacred cult's treasure vault are enough to refine dozens of treasures! Cult Master wants to use these treasures to refine a sword pellet, but he shouldn't leave the sacred cult's treasure vault empty just like that, right?"
Qin Mu gave it some thought, and it was indeed logical, so he could only give her all the cult master level treasures he had. All of them had been stolen from Rolan's Golden Palace so he wasn't too pained by losing them.
"Cult Master, you still have the star pearls that you scavenged from the shrine in the east sea, right?" Si Yunxiang's eyes were shining. "There were three thousands of them!"
Qin Mu's face blackened as he said, "Saintess, they're all I have left!"
Si Yunxiang smiled. "You're the sacred cult master, and I'm not taking those treasures of yours for myself, I'm just safekeeping them in the treasure vault of the sacred cult, so won't they still be yours? Our Si Family manages the finances, but isn't it that a tough job? We can only see but we cannot use so no matter how much treasures we collect. Don't they all it still belong to Qin?"
Qin Mu thought that what she said was very logical, but he still felt that something wasn't right. In the end though, he took out the three thousand luminous pearls.
Si Yunxiang took a sneaky glance at his taotie sack and said, "There are also the two huge eyeballs…"
"No way!" Qin Mu's face turned black, and he had the urge to kill.
Si Yunxiang probed, "That dragon qilin of Cult Master…"
Qin Mu let out a sigh of relief and smiled. "If you can raise him, you can take him away."
Si Yunxiang immediately laughed. "I'm just joking, Cult Master. That glutton should remain with Cult Master. Even Patriarch doesn't want him, disliking him for eating too much. Let me go and find the elder of my Si Family to fetch the treasures from Saint Arrival Mountain to refine the swords for Cult Master."
Qin Mu put away his empty taotie sack with a black face. He felt that he was standing naked after being plundered by the little maiden.
'That woman is addicted to money, I can't win against her. I need to let Ling'er handle the finances; otherwise, I will be stripped naked and get my bone marrows sucked out by that saintess!' Sacred Cult Master Qin thought to himself.
Si Yunxiang ran to the side and took out a mirror. It floated in the air and spun two rounds. Another mirror then appeared in the mirror and behind it was an old woman who asked, "What is Saintess Xiang looking for me?"
Si Yunxiang told her about how Qin Mu was going to refine his swords and said, "The spirit weapon that the sacred cult master is refining is no small matter. May great grandma please take out the best quality materials in the treasure vault and send them to the manufacturing factory in Mill Prefecture."
The old woman frowned and said, "Si Family never does business that sustains a loss. Cult master is still young and his cultivation is still low, so why does he need the best quality treasures…"
"It's a steal!" Si Yunxiang immediately showed all the treasures she had scammed from Qin Mu and made the eyes of the great grandma of Si Family shine brightly.
"So many treasures of the cult master level, Saintess sure has a way with housekeeping! Good, good, as expected of the one I've taught, you didn't learn from your aunt! Your aunt only knows how to splurge money like flowing water, but not how to calculate it and is a wastrel!"
The one she meant was Granny Si. She never cared about money and always bought what was expensive and not what was right.
The great grandma of Si Family said, "The best quality materials for refining swords are usually extremely heavy. A chunk that is the size of a thumb usually weighs dozens of pounds. Furthermore, we don't have enough materials in the treasure vault to refine eight thousand swords. To make treasures of the cult master level, it's enough to refine twenty-seven swords, each one weighing around ten thousand pounds."
"What about a grade lower?" Si Yunxiang asked.
The great grandma of Si Family said, "One grade lower is also not enough, it's at most enough for a hundred swords."
Si Yunxiang frowned and asked, "Another grade lower?"
"Another grade lower would be Winter Iron Essence, Black Gold Essence, and Black Copper Essence. They are more than enough to make eight thousand swords."
Si Yunxiang said, "Then could great grandma please bring all the highest quality and a grade lower ones over, while using Black Gold Essence for the rest to make up for the lack. The highest quality ones should be enough to open up the edge for the spirit swords."
The great grandma of Si Family asked suspiciously, "Winter Iron Essence is three times lighter than Black Gold Essence so why are you asking for it and not Winter Iron Essence?"
Si Yunxiang smiled sweetly, and the great grandma of Si Family rolled her eyes at her through the mirror. "You little wench, trying to be mischievous again, be careful of cult master smacking your bum sore when he can't lift it up! I'll send the items to Harmony Prefecture, so get the bandit with the surname Fan to drive his ship over."
Si Yunxiang acknowledged it and spun the bronze mirror two rounds in the opposite direction. The mirror in the mirror then vanished without a trace.
After two days, Fan Yunxiao came from Harmony Prefecture, transporting all the materials Qin Mu needed to refine his swords. The manufacturing factory in Mill Prefecture immediately got busy again.
It wasn't too much of a trouble to forge the sword embryos as it was only shaping the metal into the initial shape of a sword, but even so, the sword embryos had to be refined up to a thousand times, hammered and cast over and over again.
After refining the sword embryos, the body of the sword would be a flat club. The grinding of it into the shape of the sword required Qin Mu to do it personally with hard work and numerous refinements.
Qin Mu picked up one sword embryo, and his expression wasn't pleasant. Si Yunxiang went up to act concerned. "Cult Master, what's wrong?"
"It's a little heavy," Qin Mu said resentfully. "It's two to three times heavier than what I imagined. Now that one sword is three hundred pounds, after refining all of them into a sword pellet, eight thousand swords…"
Si Yunxiang burst out laughing. "Cult Master wanted materials of the best quality so they naturally are slightly heavier. The materials for the edge are better, heavier, sharper, and harder to forge than the treasured swords emperor grants to his first-ranking officials! The so-called great crafts will need no skill, Cult Master will just be able to throw his sword pellet over and you smash a whole bunch of people to death without any need for sword moves."
Qin Mu's face went black as he said, "I will still need to be able to throw it, the eight thousand swords…"
Si Yunxiang was overjoyed and said, "I've heard that when one refines an artifact to its maximum, its weight will change according to one's will. Cult Master is an expert in refining treasures so he will definitely refine the sword pellet to such a step!"
Qin Mu turned away while carrying the sword embryo and said some difficult to understand words. It was something like 'hundred creation hundred forge divine transformation technique' and 'power to remove mountains'.
Si Yunxiang blinked and felt happy in her heart.
In the factory, Shan Youxin wanted to stay to observe Qin Mu refining his sword, but Crown Prince Ling Yushu had to handle the government affairs in the other prefectures so he could only order the disciples of Heavenly Crafts Hall to come and help. Meanwhile, he and the officials of Ministry of Works had to follow Ling Yushu to the next prefecture.
With the disciples of Heavenly Crafts Hall helping, the speed of refinement wasn't slow. However, to forge all eight thousand swords to completely match the form of Qin Mu's spirit weapon was still a huge project.
It was especially so because the natural materials Si Yunxiang had transported were extremely good. It was quite exhausting to refine them until they could change their size at will. Qin Mu also had to continuously mark the spirit weapon and imprint all kinds of markings on the bodies of the swords. After a few months like this, he was a lot thinner from exhaustion.
Ling Yuxiu and Si Yunxiang had remained to help, and the two girls had learned numerous forging techniques from Qin Mu. They also added some high-quality materials to their Nine Dragons and Thousand Silks, increasing their quality.
Qin Mu finished refining seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine swords, which left only the last sword - the mother sword of the sword pellet. It had to be made from the best materials, or it wouldn't be able to unite all the child swords.
To refine the mother sword, Qin Mu spent a lot of thought and effort. He had put aside the highest quality material for it, and this was a metal that he had never seen before. It was only the size of a fist, but such a chunk was already ten thousand pounds in weight. Si Yunxiang said that it was an object that came from outer space.
However, this chunk of metal was only enough to refine the blade and not the complete mother sword.
Qin Mu took out the broken sword which came from Rolan's Golden Palace. Si Yunxiang had seen that it was only a fragment and so hadn't scammed it away from him.
Qin Mu held the chunk of unknown metal in one hand and the broken sword in the other, waving them around. Suddenly, he heard a clang. The broken sword and the chunk of unknown metal actually attracted each other and collided!
This was out of Qin Mu's expectations, and he saw the broken sword giving off a brilliant glow. Golden lights also flowed out from the fist-sized metal. It seemed like swords were flowing in the air, revolving in a large circle around Qin Mu, with him acting as the center. The dazzling radiance lighted up every corner of the manufacturing factory, and the brilliant rays also shot out from the doors and windows!
Clanging sounds rang continuously, and Qin Mu saw the rays from the metal colliding with the glow of the broken sword. Each time that happened, his arm would go numb from the tremors.
After countless collisions, the chunk of metal suddenly fell to the ground and scattered into ashes.
Meanwhile, the broken sword in Qin Mu's hand was shining brilliantly. But how was it still a broken sword?
It had actually absorbed the gold qi from that metal and grew out its blade, looking completely new!
The body of the sword had strange markings that were wiggling about like dragons and snakes. Those markings lighted up and dimmed down right away, but Qin Mu still saw the word that was formed by those markings.
'Carefree!'