Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery
Chapter 511 - 496: The Taiqing Flying Sword Wants to Eat

After class, Jiang Ding contemplated his issues and flew towards the mining district dormitory, but was stopped by a formation method.

"Warning, this is a private dormitory, entry is prohibited."

"Sorry, it's a habit."

Jiang Ding felt somewhat embarrassed.

For a hundred years, it had become second nature, and he couldn't react in time.

His escape light swept him across tens of kilometers, and he landed atop a mountain peak that was shimmering with the metallic luster of silver-white and was abundant with spiritual energy.

Surrounding him, the silver-white metallic surfaces reflected dazzling light, piercing and scorching, with temperatures in the hundreds of degrees, very unsuitable for living. But to him, it felt quite good and he was in a cheerful mood.

"In the next ten years, I need to complete the conversion of my cultivation method, as well as... refining my flying sword."

Jiang Ding drew an azure flying sword from his brow and gazed at it for a long time.

The Taiqing Flying Sword, as his Sword of Dao Foundation, ought to come from the Taiqing Spirit Iron and Magic Arts-Breaking Immortal Gold, and then, surpass them.

This wasn't a hope,

but should be a future fact.

A human cultivator's life treasure naturally continues to grow with their cultivation base and time.

To achieve this, apart from ceaselessly refining prohibition arrays, the other requirement is to meld in more heavenly material and earthly treasures.

"The Foundation Establishment section of the 'Great Sun Heavenly Pond Sword Refining Method' has already been extracted by my teacher. This cultivation method isn't lost, I just need to adjust it."

Jiang Ding retrieved the secret technique from the library and read it carefully.

"The Great Sun Sword Pavilion's treasure refining techniques are known as Great Sun God Forbidden. Under the twelve Earth Evil prohibitions, they become top-grade treasures, and under the thirty-six Earth Evil prohibitions, they become mid-grade treasures... Compared to the Xianmen Sect's 'Star Ten Thousand Daos of Treasure Refining Art', it places more emphasis on the sword's fervent heat, sharpness, and cultivation of Sword Intent, better suiting me."

After reading it several times, Jiang Ding had a thorough understanding of its contents.

Mainly because, for the past several decades, he had been involved in the research and modification of this Sword Refining Method, and achieving mastery didn't take much time.

"Prohibitions..."

Jiang Ding took out a top-grade Black Feather Treasure that was broken into two pieces and poured his Divine Sense into it for a closer examination.

This top-grade treasure came from a direct lineage disciple of the Liudao Sect's Beast Dao, the Post-golden Alchemist Black Mountain.

"Fifty-one Earth Evil prohibitions."

Jiang Ding's Divine Sense observed the remnants of fifty-one Earth Evil prohibition traces within the Divine Soul Brand. Centered around the Divine Sense Brand, they faintly formed a complex array, but with the Black Feather broken in two, everything had collapsed and dissipated.

He then took out the Gold Pagoda King's Golden Pagoda and Ms. Thousand Snakes's Hairpin, both top-grade treasures.

"The Golden Pagoda has forty-one Earth Evil prohibitions, the Hairpin has thirty-seven prohibitions, just barely making the cut for top-grade treasures."

Jiang Ding concluded, "Looking at it this way, just on the treasures alone, Gold Pagoda King and Ms. Thousand Snakes are no match for Black Mountain."

The Earth Evil prohibition range for top-grade treasures is between thirty-seven and seventy-two. Seventy-two Earth Evil prohibitions would be Earth Evil Perfection, and one step further would transform it into a Nascent Treasure.

As one might imagine, the further one progresses, the harder it is to refine, facing a dreadful bottleneck, nearly as challenging as a human Golden Pill Monk's advancement to the Nascent Soul level.

The 'Great Sun Heavenly Pond Sword Refining Method' states a phrase,

Treasures are like humans, and humans are like treasures.

"As for refining techniques, Gold Pagoda King and Ms. Thousand Snakes use the most common Northern Plains Immortal Cultivation World's Heavenly Gang Earth Evil Refining Method in the cultivation world, the array patterns are simple and easy to learn, with no additional effects."

"Black Mountain's method is much more sophisticated, inherited from the Beast Dao's 'Blood Sacrifice Treasure Refining Art.' Each time it's refined, consumables like livestock with spiritual natures or human sacrifices are needed...

"...sigh, these grand sects of Diabolism... their effect is to add more spirituality to the treasures. If a large number of bird demons or the like are sacrificed, it can increase the treasure's speed. This is the case with the Black Feather Treasure."

"The 'Great Sun Heavenly Pond Sword Refining Method (Electromagnetic Edition)' could significantly enhance the flying sword's spirituality, firmness, sharpness, fervent heat, and electromagnetic affinity and control. Even if the number of prohibitions and material quality of the treasures are the same, crushing the treasures of the Beast Dao would not be a problem."

"The requirement... a variety of metallic heavenly material and earthly treasures, and quite a lot of them."

Jiang Ding waved his hand casually.

The Storage Jade Pendant flickered, and one solid chunk after another flew out, continuously until the sky was covered for miles around, with more expanding outward.

These metal chunks, some were mere mortal materials, such as gold, silver, copper, iron, zinc, manganese, tungsten, and the like, including the special N2702 Spell-Breaking Steel, various types of Magic Arts-Breaking Steel, alloy steel, etc., all products of human industrial civilization.

Many composite materials exceed many spiritual materials in terms of sharpness, toughness, stiffness, and other properties, with hundreds of thousands of types available.

The rest were sparkling with spiritual light, such as Iron with Green Light, Red Spirit Copper, Iron with Silver Light, and other first and second order spiritual materials, including third order materials like Copper Mother, Iron Fetus Gold, Silver Bell Gold, etc.

Some of these things were collected from the Three Kingdoms, traded from the Lingbao Commerce Association, and the rest were all purchased from the Xianmen marketplace.

Anyway, buying one of each kind, the third order heavenly material and earthly treasures were expensive, so he only bought a thumb-sized piece to try it out first.

There were also various special products of the Xianmen, including artificially synthesized varieties of spiritual gold from the market and labs. These were the major components.

"Let's start with iron."

Jiang Ding picked up a piece of pure iron and placed it on the Taiqing Flying Sword.

Hum!

The flying sword vibrated very slightly.

"It doesn't seem to like it much."

Jiang Ding carefully sensed the instinct of the Taiqing Flying Sword.

The sensation was somewhat akin to bread laced with sawdust from a nine-layer log: barely edible in dire starvation, providing the slightest bit of use.

At other times, better to forgo it.

"Copper, zinc, manganese..."

Jiang Ding continuously brought over a pile of metallic elements, having gathered the entire periodic table, as well as new metal elements discovered in the world of immortal cultivation.

They're pretty much the same.

The Taiqing Flying Sword showed little interest in these mundane materials.

"Seems like it requires spiritual materials..."

Jiang Ding preliminarily made a judgment.

Buzz buzz!

The Taiqing Flying Sword suddenly displayed a hint of excitement.

"Tungsten?"

"It likes tungsten."

Jiang Ding looked at the material in his hand, a smile forming in his heart.

Tungsten, with atomic number 74, is a gray-black crystal that is hard yet brittle, has a high melting point, and can be made into very fine wires and special steel alloys. It is a widely used industrial material.

The key point is, relative to spiritual materials, it is very cheap!

"It's kind of like a small cake... that sort of feeling."

He carefully felt it.

"It's like it can serve as a snack, something supplementary, but not quite the main dish."

"It's enough, this is already very good."

Jiang Ding said joyfully.

"Next is the composite material test."

"Let's start with 304 stainless steel."

Jiang Ding took a steel ingot from the floating steel surrounding him.

"Sawdust bread level."

"303 stainless steel, aluminum titanium alloy, copper-zinc alloy..."

"They are all at sawdust bread level."

"Cold hard cornbread level, barely palatable."

"N2702 Spell-Breaking Steel, one of the pinnacles of the Xianmen material science creation, achieving a faint law-breaking effect with mundane materials."

Jiang Ding placed the steel ingot on the Taiqing Flying Sword with high expectations.

Buzz buzz!

"Dessert cake level."

"That's also not bad."

The materials floating in the sky moved to and fro, continually diminishing, and after spending a month's time, all the mundane materials were tested.

"Dessert cake level two, Spell-Breaking Steel and metallic tungsten."

"Cold hard cornbread level, eleven. The rest are all sawdust bread level."

Jiang Ding filled out his own test results on a chart.

Then he began the testing of first, second, and third-order spiritual materials.

"Azure Spirit Iron, Verdant Spirit Iron, Red Light Copper... These first-order spiritual materials are all cold hard cornbread level, of no use, relying on them, it would take thousands of years to evolve into top-grade magic treasures, Spell-Breaking Steel is even better."

"Second-order metal spiritual materials... cornbread level, the freshly baked kind, slightly better but that's about it."

"Third-order spiritual materials, rice level, can absorb and melt to enhance the quality of the flying sword, but also very generic, like rice, only healthy growth is afforded."

"To grow up strong and powerful, with innate divine strength, and for the flying sword to achieve an overwhelming quality of its own rank, don't even think about it."

"Xianmen synthetic material test."

Jiang Ding began the last test.

As for fourth-order Nascent Soul level materials, they currently cannot be obtained in large quantities and are considered too luxurious for the time being.

"Third-order synthetic electromagnetic magical gold, gourmet level!"

"Third-order synthetic bronze spiritual gold, rice level..."

"Rice level, rice level, rice level... gourmet level..."

A large number of them were rice level, with those gourmet level like the electromagnetic magical gold being extremely rare.

The growth of the Taiqing Flying Sword requires the melting of all the metals under heaven!

Not just one type will do.

If it melts too many of the same kind of spiritual gold, the Taiqing Flying Sword will get sick of it.

To put it in terms of immortal cultivation science, it needs tens of thousands of types of spiritual gold, and through the "Great Sun Heavenly Pond Sword Refining Method," to refine an extremely sharp and exemplary composite material for the sword body.

In any case, children cannot be picky, staple food, gourmet, snacks, simple meals, trace elements, it needs to eat everything.

"No. 21 Synthetic Gengjin!"

Jiang Ding took out a piece of pure gold-colored metal that constantly emitted a sharp aura, easily puncturing the ground with numerous fine holes, his face filled with anticipation.

Although untested, he instinctively knew that this monkey version of the foundation soaring sword material, recommended by Zhang Junsheng, would definitely have a significant effect on the growth of the Taiqing Flying Sword.