Chapter 321: Research and Development of Electromagnetic Sword Escape

His divine sense connected to the network, and he consulted several times with the largest alchemy companies in the Immortal Sect, especially those specializing in Core Formation-related alchemy, comparing all sides.

"They're all about the same."

Jiang Ding calculated in his heart.

"One option is for me to go collect, purchase, or trade for several hundred kinds of rare auxiliary medicinal ingredients, and then, with a dozen or so third-tier rare medicinal herbs as payment, invite the best third-tier top-grade alchemist to refine the Core Formation Golden Pill.

No matter how many low-grade spirit stones I offer, it won't work—they don't lack those; supplementary payment would be more like it."

This is only possible because many third-tier spiritual medicine Immortal Sects have already successfully broken through artificial cultivation techniques, so they can be bought with low-grade spirit stones, which is why they accept them.

"If everything goes smoothly, it will definitely produce three pills, all of them top-grade Core Formation Golden Pills!"

"Increases Core Formation success rate by forty percent!"

"The Core Formation margin that Teacher Zhang Zhang Junsheng mentioned is now secured."

Jiang Ding was thrilled.

"The second option is to just throw the Core Formation Golden Fruit to the alchemy company, not worry about anything, and they'll even give me five million low-grade spirit stones on top. The customer service young lady was incredibly enthusiastic, gave heartfelt recommendations, and hinted at some shady nonsense."

"Two pills produced, top-grade Core Formation Golden Pills."

Jiang Ding fell into thought.

"The second option."

"The first option has better value, but I don't have the time. Gathering several hundred kinds of rare spiritual medicines is no easy task—even if you gave Xiang Qiyu Sect ten thousand years they couldn't gather them all. They're scattered across who knows how many small worlds; this requires relying on the Immortal Sect's massive organization."

"Besides, my time is very valuable; wasting it on this isn't worth it."

"As for the five million low-grade spirit stones, I don't need them—I don't need spirit stones right now."

"Top-grade Core Formation Golden Pill, I only need one."

Jiang Ding's eyes flashed as he considered something.

"One top-grade Core Formation Golden Pill, plus five million low-grade spirit stones, in exchange for two sets of auxiliary Foundation Establishment pill packages—top-tier of the Immortal Sect; if that's not possible, then next-to-top-tier. I don't believe it can't be done."

Things are precious because they're rare.

Many things, even at Qi Training level—if they're scarce, they're scarce; if they don't exist, they don't exist. Even if you offer a hundred or a thousand times the spirit stones, people won't even glance at you.

No other reason—they simply don't lack spirit stones, and they keep them for their rarity.

But!

Top-grade Core Formation Golden Pills are different!

They're enough to drive any Foundation Establishment cultivator mad. They'll exert their full effort, leverage their connections and relatives, and push this kind of trade into being—there's enormous driving force behind it.

"That's how it is."

"Under this set of conditions, even if mother's aptitude is the lowest and her age is the greatest, we still have to forcefully smash her Foundation Establishment success rate to above eighty percent."

"The rest can only be left to fate."

Jiang Ding sighed, closed his eyes, and entered cultivation state.

Rustle rustle...

Behind him, a sapling broke through the soil, shot up into the sky, and grew into a tree dozens of meters tall, its canopy like a ceremonial umbrella, spreading over a hundred meters wide.

The spiritual energy and solar essence within a ten-kilometer radius gathered together, forming an azure-blue giant tree phantom between the canopy, with a silvery-white great bird faintly visible.

Clang!

Sword intent and divine sense cleaved down, severing a wisp of gray mist and separating it from the jade bottle.

Streaks of blue-gold branches hung down, coiled up this wisp of gray mist heavy as a mountain, sent it into the azure-blue Great Sun Furnace, where it was decomposed and smelted, then absorbed entirely by the blue-gold great tree.

The semi-transparent electromagnetic light between the branches and leaves grew slightly denser, occasionally rotating slightly with the planet's magnetic field.

Gray patterns had already begun to appear on the bark.

A moment later,

A blue-gold leaf fell from the sky, with no magic power or divine sense applied to propel it, passing straight through the middle section of a stone pillar as thick as an adult's waist.

The stone pillar collapsed with a rumble, its fracture smooth as a mirror.

"Since reaching Foundation Establishment, I've been refining the electromagnetic crystal core daily—unconsciously, over ten years have passed."

Jiang Ding carefully observed the blue-gold leaf in his hand.

Its edge was sharp, ringed by a faint, semi-transparent electromagnetic light—an important component of the electromagnetic cannon's Ampere force.

There was also a ring of golden astral qi layer, refined from the Molten Gold Fruit Sword-Quenching Liquid obtained from the Jiu Tian Mi Jing. Quite sharp at Foundation Establishment stage, but negligible against Jin Dan.

"Without adding any divine sense or magic power, the electromagnetic light should have the attack power of a late-stage Qi Training cultivator."

In the jade bottle, the drop of Nascent Soul-grade Molten Magnetic Crystal Core liquid obtained back then from a true disciple of Brother Brother Xuanwu's Heavenly Palace in the荒铜 Small World had already been more than half consumed.

"The further along, the harder it becomes to smelt and add Molten Magnetic Crystal Core into the Taiqing Flying Sword. There's a repulsive force occurring inside—same-grade repulsion—getting slower and slower; often it takes several days to merge in a single wisp."

He released his hand, and the blue-gold leaf floated on its own, flew back to its original branch, hung firmly in place, and occasionally swayed in the wind.

"But it doesn't matter—there's plenty of time."

Jiang Ding's divine sense silently observed his dantian.

Azure-blue electromagnetic magic power churned within. After more than ten years of accumulation, it had already passed the halfway mark of the dantian. From time to time, spiritual energy and solar essence were smelted in, transformed through the meridians, and converted into a wisp of liquid magic power that merged into the dantian.

"Cultivation has no real bottleneck—slow, but steady and unceasing accumulation."

"Fifteen years and two hundred seventy-four days until late-stage Foundation Establishment, with an error margin of about three days."

Jiang Ding closed his eyes and entered his year-after-year cultivation state.

More than ten days later, a streak of escape light flew into the sky, weaving between the trunks of the Shenmu Shenmu Futianrong, searching for a specific leaf.

As his cultivation grew deeper, class time became increasingly irregular.

Going once every three days is fine; going once every half month or two months is also fine. The teachers have all saved your individual tutoring progress—it doesn't affect anything.

But every twenty years, within one academic year, you must attend the minimum required class hours, then pass the relevant exams in language, mathematics, moral education, aerospace combat systems, and so on.

He found a leaf with a scorched-yellow mark, his divine sense touched it to open the door lock, and he entered.

"Ding-dong!"

"Welcome to the Qingfeng University Science and Engineering Building — Great Sun Ruins Rescue Excavation Laboratory."

Amid the array spirit's prompt,

a hazy grey sky appeared before his eyes. As far as the eye could see, pavilions and towers lay in ruins across the land, sword scars cleaved the earth, and glassy deep craters appeared one after another.

Flying several dozen kilometers to the center of the laboratory, five or six senior schoolmates were still bustling about.

A long-legged, mature older-sister type looked utterly haggard, having given herself two huge dark circles under her eyes to show the pitiful state of a science-and-engineering girl.

"Ahem!"

"Senior Sister Wu Wu Mengsha, how long have you all been grinding away in the lab?"

Jiang Ding asked, a little embarrassed.

"Not that long — just a little over three years without closing my eyes."

The long-legged older-sister type rolled her eyes, darkened her own dark circles a little more, and tossed over a jade slip: "This is the first draft of your second-tier top-grade Electromagnetic Sword Escape. It's very rough — just a brute-force fusion of the Great Blazing Sun Sword Escape and the Minor Primordial Magnet Escape Art. Our advisor asked us to check with you and let you take a look; it might save us a lot of trouble."

"Alright."

Jiang Ding's expression tightened as he took the jade slip and examined it carefully.

It really was an extremely brute-force fusion.

In many places there were violent clashes — if you dared to cultivate, your meridians would dare to simply blow apart on the spot, clean and decisive.

He pondered and mulled over it for several days.

The senior sisters had done very well on the Minor Primordial Magnet Escape Art side; there was nothing he could change there — it was beyond his ability.

But when it came to the fusion involving the Great Blazing Sun Sword Escape, he couldn't help himself; many things that obviously wouldn't work had been forcibly fused together.

Not to mention the enormous casting risk, meridians blowing apart at the slightest provocation, and it even slowed down the speed — entirely negative effects, simply unbearable.

"Senior Sister Wu, here I think, could we perhaps modify it like this…"

Jiang Ding went over his entire set of ideas and conceptions once, then transmitted them by divine sense to Wu Wu Mengsha and the five or six fellow senior brothers and classmates around her.

"That fast?"

Wu Wu Mengsha and the others paid it no mind and casually opened it.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator had only been cultivating for how long — it was very hard for him to have any insights in scientific research; lending a hand was already quite good, and he often had many wildly absurd, far-fetched ideas.

They had gone through the same thing themselves.

Each of them was thinking inwardly about how, while pointing out the problems, to find some bright spots and praise them heavily, so as not to dampen the junior's enthusiasm for research.

"This is…"

But after reading just the opening passage, Wu Wu Mengsha and the others all changed expression, countless inspirations welling up in their minds. They abruptly looked up and asked: "Junior Jiang, do you happen to know some senior with deep attainments in the Great Sun Sword Dao?"

(End of chapter)