Chapter 453: A Century of Master Tushan Immortal City

Within the Demon Palace,

Molten Gold Vines spread across the mountains. Over the years, they had been harvested many times, accumulating a large stockpile.

Clang!

The Taiqing Flying Sword hummed softly and flew out from the azure pattern between his brows.

"Before Jin Dan, it is merely a treasure embryo."

"After Jin Dan, in the instant I advanced to Jin Dan, the Taiqing Flying Sword had already become my Ben Ming Fa Bao, ranked as lower grade. Well, from the perspective of array patterns, that is."

Jiang Ding's divine sense poured into his Ben Ming Fa Bao flying sword, carefully examining the formations within the Ben Ming flying sword and recalling the contents of treasure prohibitions and sacrificial refinement he had studied.

"A major characteristic of human Jin Dan cultivators is the ability to continuously sacrifice-refine and nurture their Ben Ming Fa Bao, growing ever stronger with the passage of time."

"Because of this, the situation where humans of the same rank were generally inferior to demon cultivators of the same rank before Jin Dan was completely reversed."

"The secret arts of sacrificial-refining treasures differ among the various Gejiaxian Sect, but there is one standard acknowledged by many cultivators: seventy-two Earth Fiend prohibitions and thirty-six Heavenly Gang prohibitions."

"Lower-grade treasures have one to twelve Earth Fiend prohibitions, mid-grade treasures have thirteen to thirty-six Earth Fiend prohibitions, and upper-grade treasures have thirty-seven to seventy-two Earth Fiend prohibitions."

"Infant Treasures, on the other hand, are formed when, after the seventy-two Earth Fiend prohibitions reach great completion, the Ben Ming Fa Bao's foundation becomes profound, and by obtaining a fortuitous opportunity, the seventy-two Earth Fiend prohibitions transform into a single Heavenly Gang prohibition, causing a qualitative change in power. This is the Infant Treasure."

Jiang Ding observed the prohibition patterns within the Taiqing Flying Sword.

Numerous meridian-like formation patterns spread out, centered on a slowly rotating Nine-Orifice Jin Dan. Beside the Jin Dan, the many formation patterns converged and formed, and a single Earth Fiend prohibition shone brilliantly.

"From the perspective of array patterns, my Ben Ming flying sword is the most inferior lower-grade treasure, relying entirely on Po Fa Xian Jin and Taiqing Divine Iron to carry the show."

"Pure materials have their limits."

"Beyond array patterns, starting from Jin Dan, cultivators need to continuously sacrifice-refine heavenly materials and earthly treasures into the flying sword, bit by bit elevating its essence. Over hundreds and thousands of years, it will surpass the limits of Taiqing Divine Iron and Po Fa Xian Jin, advancing further."

Jiang Ding Zi murmured, stretched out his hand, and drew over a third-grade Molten Gold Fruit. Its dark brown skin was densely covered with lava-like patterns, and magma-like substances could faintly be seen within.

This was the auxiliary material he had prepared for over eighty years to nurture and sacrifice-refine his flying sword.

Using it as a catalyst to melt the heavenly materials and earthly treasures needed for the flying sword, infusing them into the sword.

"Metal-attribute heavenly materials and earthly treasures are best."

"Third-grade Golden Copper Mother, Sharp Silver Iron, No. 21 Synthetic Synthetic Gengjin, Hollow Copper Crystal… and so on. These are all good materials. Test them one by one to find what is most suitable for the growth of the Taiqing Flying Sword."

Jiang Ding silently pondered.

"The supreme secret art of sacrificial-refining flying swords, the 'Dayang Dayang Tianchi Sword Refinement Method,' has not been lost, but it needs modification to adapt to the 'Wan Hua Ci Yuan Scripture.' The mentor agreed over twenty years ago to help me sort it out, and now it's still a few years away."

Putting away the ripe Molten Gold Fruits from the Demon Palace, Jiang Ding spread out his divine sense. His fifty-kilometer-wide divine sense swept across the entire Tushan Xiancheng and the surrounding areas, missing nothing.

After nearly a hundred years of development, today's Tushan Xiancheng had almost reached the limits of this Xiu Xian Di Gao Jie.

Over forty Jin Dan cultivators permanently resided in the Xiancheng!

Foundation Establishment cultivators numbered in the thousands, and Qi Refining cultivators in the hundreds of thousands. Here, no matter what you needed—first or second-grade items—as long as you had spirit stones, you could obtain them immediately. The prices of most magical artifacts and pills were lower than in the Northern Plains.

Even third-grade heavenly materials, earthly treasures, and Fa Bao appeared from time to time, no longer like before when any random third-grade item was top-tier and rarely seen.

Over the past century, Tushan Xiancheng had brought him wealth exceeding three billion lower-grade spirit stones. The bulk of the funding for building the super aerospace battleship depended on this.

Of course, this situation would not last.

The third-grade upper-grade spirit vein of Tushan Xiancheng could not support the cultivation of so many Jin Dan cultivators, and the surrounding resources were not particularly abundant. These Dan Chu Zhong Qi cultivators merely could not endure the Northern Plains' war and chaos and were temporarily taking shelter. Many of them cultivated by expending spirit stones and using second-grade top-grade spirit veins.

Once the Northern Plains' war and chaos ceased, or even stabilized slightly, they would leave.

However, many Foundation Establishment cultivators would stay. For them, this place was a very suitable cultivation location—safe, with decent resources.

"Greetings, Young Master."

A slight fluctuation of spiritual energy flashed, and five late-stage Foundation Establishment female cultivators dropped to one knee.

Slightly ahead of the other four was the petite Gong Gong Caiyu, with a cute round face, an appropriate white dress, a long sword in a white scabbard at her waist, and a quasi-third-grade Tian Chong Guang Yao Yang Dao Soldier flying sword she had nurtured for over eighty years.

The other four were Spring's First Attendant Spring Sword, Autumn's First Attendant Autumn Palace, and Summer's First Attendant Shang Yun. These three were all Heavenly Spiritual Root cultivators, seemingly on the verge of breaking through to the peak of Foundation Establishment.

The last one was a girl with dark brown skin and an unremarkable appearance, possessing a very rustic air.

This person was named Winter Storage, Winter's First Attendant.

Three Spiritual Roots, but possessing a Mist Spirit Body, she had strong talent in concealment and stealth. After reaching late-stage Foundation Establishment, she could even evade the divine sense scan of a Jin Dan Chu Qi cultivator. Thus she rose through the ranks to become Winter's First Attendant, responsible for intelligence work in Tushan Xiancheng.

"How is the Tu Kingdom?"

Jiang Ding asked. This was the first time in ten years he had proactively concerned himself with matters outside the Demon Palace.

Over the past century, the lands occupied by the demon kingdom had been fully developed, with the population increasing to over five hundred million. Many cities had begun to experience overcrowding, and policies encouraging childbirth had long been abolished.

Benefiting from the abundant human resource base, the Tushan Attendant Corps of one hundred and forty-five people constantly saw new entrants and eliminations, with selection standards growing ever higher, reaching a terrifying level.

Dual Spiritual Roots no longer guaranteed entry by exemption.

One must additionally possess an excellent grade of comprehension.

For Three Spiritual Roots, comprehension must reach the level of a dragon or phoenix among men to qualify for entry into the Tushan Attendant Corps.

To date, all one hundred and forty-five attendants had entered the Foundation Establishment stage, with many at mid-Foundation Establishment. All had been promoted to formal attendants, and each had been issued a quasi-third-grade Tian Chong Guang Yao Yang Dao Soldier flying sword.

A Dao Soldier squad of twelve people could hold off a Jin Dan Chu Qi cultivator for a period.

Three Dao Soldier squads were sufficient to slay a Jin Dan cultivator.

Of course, this was not because they were particularly strong, but mainly due to the power infused into the Dao Soldier flying swords by the Great Sun Sword Child—an extension of the Great Sun Sword Child's power.

"Young Master, public order is generally good."

Gong Gong Caiyu, responsible for internal suppression matters, answered crisply: "All twelve cities of Tushan have Law Enforcement Hall cultivators stationed there, periodically conscripting surrounding Foundation Establishment cultivators for operations. Combined with our day and night patrols, bandit cultivators and demonic cultivators rarely appear. Public order remains the same as ten years ago."

"Mining operations in Tushan are proceeding normally."

Spring Sword interjected. She was responsible for Tushan's mineral affairs.

"However, with a century of mining, mineral resources are gradually depleting. Often one must go deep underground to bring out some spirit mines. The most severe case is the Poison Flow Silver Mine, which has been mined the longest—annual output decreases significantly each year. We once invited a Jin Dan senior with prospecting skills to survey it, who said that within at most a hundred years, this third-grade Poison Flow Silver Mine would be exhausted."

"Exhausted?"

Jiang Ding furrowed his brow.

This was within reason. He had deployed a large number of mining spider-type robots at the Poison Flow Silver Mine, mining day and night. Over nearly a century, vast quantities of Poison Flow Silver Ore had been extracted, used to refine the coatings for Dai Sen mirror-surface sword-type drones, with surplus remaining after fulfilling the refinement of one thousand and twenty-four sword-type drones.

But the problem is, in the future he will need to refine even more sword-type drones, at least ten times the quantity!

"Never mind, when I enter the Nascent Soul realm, perhaps a kind-hearted person will bestow some..."

Jiang Ding set the problem aside in his heart for the time being.

"Spiritual plants..."

"Spiritual beasts and spirit fish, and so on..."

Qiu Wei Shanggong and Xia Shangyun spoke in turn to report, each covering their own supervised domain; of course, they were only responsible for supervision, serving as eyes and ears, not the ones truly handling matters in these areas.

Due to the presence of the Dao soldiers and flying swords, it was extremely difficult for them to lie before the Great Sun Sword Disciple, ensuring a certain degree of loyalty.

"Young Master, regarding intelligence."

Dong Cang, the first maid of Winter, spoke.

"Factions controlling all second-tier high-grade or above spiritual veins in the Tu Kingdom have developed our hidden candidate maids."

"Furthermore, seventy-three formal maids at the Foundation Establishment realm have already cast the Ren Hua Sheng Fa to begin entering the Northern Plains, attempting to lie low within various Northern Plains Master Tushan Xiancheng hubs and infiltrate factions of all sizes; currently, they are merely outer disciples and can only obtain some public intelligence..."

Third watch, currently recovering.

(End of this chapter)