Chapter 421

Jiang Ding's spiritual sense swept through his body.

Over one hundred and eight thousand fine meridians glowed blue, crystal-clear and luminous, like the most exquisite star-map, three-dimensionally entwined and interlaced.

Within his dantian, magic power was filled to its absolute limit, not even a single drop more could be added.

The magic power had been repeatedly refined and polished over these decades.

He asked himself: even the Dao heirs of the Jiudaxian Sect could at most reach this level.

"Can I break through now?"

Jiang Ding was eager to try.

A surge of impulse rose in his heart; he felt he had over a ninety percent chance of condensing a Supreme Jin Dan beyond the High-Quality Jin Dan!

Even the Supreme Golden Core Pill he had prepared, along with all the cultivation chamber preparations, were utterly useless.

All these years of polishing were not in vain.

Keng!

The Taiqing Flying Sword emitted a plaintive sword cry.

Breaking through now would mean abandoning the future of breaking through together with the Taiqing Flying Sword—his soul would no longer undergo exponential transformation, merely matching the breakthrough of an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The Taiqing Flying Sword would no longer be a Dao Foundation Sword, only a razor-sharp Ben Ming treasure.

After this, it could never be reclaimed.

"I cannot break through."

Jiang Ding calmed down.

"Breaking through like this is unquestionably abandoning the immense potential to reach Soul Transformation and Lián Xū—extremely Ji Gong. I have no life-or-death crisis."

"The sword and I must transform together!"

"I still must go to the Da Ri Dayang Tianchi."

He took a deep breath, calming the agitation of his magic power.

Jiang Ding rose and flew into the dense canopy of the Shenmu Shenmu Futianrong, searching among its mountain-sized trunk and branches; after a moment, he flew into a leaf bearing a faint Da Ri Yin mark.

"Welcome to Qingfeng University's Science and Engineering Building, Da Ri Ruins Laboratory."

Jiang Ding flew through the laboratory, littered with ruins and hazy radiation dust; explosion craters and sword cuts cleaving the earth flashed before his eyes.

Arriving at the lab's center, he was immediately surrounded by dozens of emerald-green, wolfish gazes—as if they were staring at a treasure they had spent their entire lives creating, about to shine forth.

"Cool it a bit, I'm getting scared."

Jiang Ding muttered.

These people were naturally Zhang Zhang Junsheng, Senior Wu Wu Mengsha, and numerous senior and junior students from the Da Ri Ruins Emergency Excavation major—dozens of them, all Jin Dan.

"This is a bit hard."

Wu Wu Mengsha gazed at him with burning eyes: "Sisters, brothers, your promotions, wealth, and the hope of reaching Yuan Ying all rest on you—we simply can't hold back. Besides, we can't even beat you now, so what's there to fear?"

"Once you become Jin Dan, it'll be even worse."

"The Da Ri Emergency Excavation major might leap from a cold, cursed field to a hot, sought-after discipline—massive funding and budgets will pour in, and every one of us here will have an unlimited future; even the gods and goddesses we once dared not approach will be within reach."

"Cough, cough!"

"Don't be so crude—talk of promotions, wealth, gods and goddesses,"

Zhang Zhang Junsheng coughed: "These are all matters of the Dao. Don't drag our major's prestige down."

He handed over a glowing hard drive.

"This is the final result, after our major spent over a hundred years, consumed tens of billions of low-grade spirit stones, hundreds of millions of library points, and received constant unpaid labor from numerous Yuan Ying cultivators like Master Dinghai Master Dinghai Zhenjun and Lüling Master Dinghai Zhenjun, with full cooperation from the Immortal Gate Academy and other institutions."

"The Da Ri Golden Core Formation Technique!"

"Jiang Ding—no, Ding Ge, please take it easy, always proceed with caution. The hope of advancing our cold major rests entirely here."

Zhang Zhang Junsheng reluctantly placed the hard drive into Jiang Ding's hands.

He wasn't afraid of pressuring him, didn't avoid anything—the more one studied the history of the Da Ri Sword Pavilion, the more one studied its Gong Fa, the more one trusted the Da Ri Sword Son.

The entire Da Ri Sword Pavilion was built upon the Da Ri Sword Son and the Da Ri Sword Master—absolute core within the absolute core!

One could say that even if every single person in the Da Ri Sword Pavilion died, as long as the Da Ri Sword Master and the Da Ri Sword Son remained, the pavilion had not been fundamentally wounded—its essence still endured.

This was the juvenile form of a realm-dominating force—cruel, rational sword intent; such verbal fluctuations meant nothing.

"Teacher, you overstate it."

Jiang Ding smiled lightly, took the hard drive, and poured his spiritual sense into it.

Instantly, brilliant star-sea-like spiritual characters flooded his mind—vast in quantity, intricate in knowledge, covering soul, consciousness sea, dantian, sword Dao, Da Ri, electromagnetism—among the finest achievements of the realm-dominating immortal sects in over a hundred years.

"Sword Dao."

"... At the moment when the Supreme Jin Dan is about to form but not yet formed, the sword cleaves the heavenly tribulation, its sword qi filling the tribulation clouds so they do not dissipate after a single strike; then, the lightning of the heavenly tribulation is drawn to refine the Jin Dan about to form."

"While maintaining the Jin Dan's structure unchanged, liquefy it and merge it into the Ben Ming Flying Sword—using the Jin Zhi's unyielding hardness to greatly enhance the sword's sharpness and durability, while embedding within the sword a complete set of arrays, meridians, and dantian nodes mirroring the cultivator's own body..."

"... Then, the sword is forged into a Jin Dan Dao Foundation Sword."

"Crazy Da Ri Sword Pavilion."

Jiang Ding took a deep breath.

Even though he had participated for over a hundred years in developing the Golden Core Formation Technique, offering auxiliary insights through his sword instinct to seniors and juniors, seeing the actual Da Ri Golden Core Formation Technique before him still filled him with awe at the madness of the Da Ri Sword Pavilion's ancestors.

The key was—they had actually succeeded!

At its peak, the Da Ri Sword Pavilion had swept away the Ba Sect and unified the realm with glorious might.

"Golden Core..."

Under the overwhelming assault of immortal knowledge, Jiang Ding stood frozen in place; his soul, four times stronger than peers, and his Annihilation Sword Intent activated, continuously calculating, deducing, and digesting the technique.

One month later.

"If not for the Da Ri Soul Flame..."

Jiang Ding's dazed, blank expression came alive a little, and he silently ran the calculations in his heart: "Relying solely on my own ability, there's a sixty percent chance of success."

"Just barely — mainly because I'm too young, only sixteen. Compared to the seniors and masters, my foundation in the immortal Dao is seriously lacking."

"If I have the Great Sun Soul Flame, the success rate is ninety-nine point nine percent. The remaining zero point one is just to give Old Heaven a little face."

"But the Great Sun Soul Flame isn't absolutely essential either. If I run into a life-or-death crisis and the difficulty is too great, giving up isn't out of the question."

Having reached his conclusion, Jiang Ding double- and triple-checked the calculation results and found no errors.

"Teacher, I need to make a trip to the Dayang Dayang Tianchi."

Jiang Ding opened his eyes and said.

"Good, I've already applied to the immortal gate. You can head straight to the teleportation array."

Zhang Zhang Junsheng answered without thinking: "Don't worry about running into enemies above your rank. The Dayang Dayang Tianchi ruins are within the immortal gate's territory. The reason they haven't been destroyed is simply that some lease agreements were reached with the Badaxian Sect — if anyone's afraid of the big bullying the small and underhanded tactics, it should be them."

"Mm."

Jiang Ding gave a slight nod, left the laboratory, and flew toward the mesosphere, where the branches and leaves of the Shenmu Shenmu Futianrong spread out the teleportation array.

(End of this chapter)