Chapter 615: Immortal Sect Warship Maintenance Center

Beneath the Sun Divine Tree.

Radiance blazed brilliant as spiritual Qi and the essence of the great sun gathered across dozens of kilometers of heaven and earth.

Jiang Ding gave a casual beckoning gesture.

Not far away, a pile of fine sand melted; driven out by divine sense and sword intent, its oxygen was stripped away to form elemental silicon, which was mixed with twenty-one portions of Synthetic Synthetic Gengjin and a single third-tier Dragon Gold Vine, then transformed under the combined effect of Ri Yan Jing and dan fire into pure, thread-like strands of golden liquid, hovering between liquid and gaseous states.

Using this as ink, and divine sense and sword intent as brush, Jiang Ding inscribed the fifty-fourth Earth Fiend Prohibition within the Taiqing Flying Sword, his expression calm — already thoroughly practiced, nearly instinctive.

From his advancement to Jin Dan until now, he had spent twenty-seven years tempering his own Dao Foundation Flying Sword.

If counted from his youth, from the sword embryo onward, it had already been one hundred and fifty-six years, day and night without pause, never a single day of rest, and would continue on into the future, stretching for a thousand years, ten thousand years, never ceasing.

Hum!

A little over a month later, a flash of light swept across the Taiqing Flying Sword and vanished — the new fifty-fourth Earth Fiend Prohibition was complete, merging flawlessly with the existing cluster of Earth Fiend Prohibitions without any deviation.

"Still eighteen Earth Fiend Prohibitions short, and I'll reach the Great Perfection of Earth Fiend."

Jiang Ding lightly stroked the scalding crimson blade, letting the sword Qi barrier between his skin and the blade hiss and crackle under the high temperature.

As the spiritual light dispersed, flecks of starry fire bloomed and faded into nothingness.

He took out Moon Stream Crystal, letting a great surge of the utmost yin stream pour forth to quench the high-temperature blade; copious water vapor billowed out, and the crimson blade returned to its original blue-gold hue.

"Still nine years short of the Great Perfection of Earth Fiend, no bottleneck at all."

"However,"

Jiang Ding complained: "Why have you suddenly taken a liking to silicon? You even had me go find a pile of sand — this isn't a metal."

"There won't be any problems, will there?"

"If the sword body turns brittle, the two of us are done for."

Clang!

The Taiqing Flying Sword trembled once, signaling that everything was fine, telling him to trust her, steady as can be.

"Fine, if you think it tastes good then it must be useful."

Jiang Ding said helplessly.

The Gong Fa left behind by the Great Sun Sword Pavilion — for instance, that incomplete Great Sun Sword Scripture — states: "Melt all the metals under heaven, return to the original source, to forge a sword that slays immortals."

Of course, it must be an exaggeration.

A chronic affliction of cultivators beyond the realm — forever bandying about terms like "longevity," "slaying immortals," "the Great Dao," "reversing reincarnation," sometimes with no basis whatsoever, simply because the cultivator who left the Gong Fa was bragging, or chasing a rhyme, just for the sake of auspiciousness.

Based on Jiang Ding's years of sword-forging observation, this should approximate the crafting process of a super composite material — the goal being, on a scale of thousands or tens of thousands of years, to continuously add various metallic materials, ultimately refining a super-grade material that balances attributes of hardness, sharpness, lightness, law-breaking, and soul-condensing.

Depending on the flying sword's growth time, tempering process, and the materials added, the final super-grade material would inevitably be entirely different — no two Great Sun Flying Swords in the world would be identical.

Accompanied by hissing, the white mist dispersed, and the sword tempering was complete.

A weary, exhausted emotion flowed from the spirituality within the sword.

"Rest a while."

Jiang Ding tucked it into his brow.

Affected by this, the towering, magnificent Sun Divine Tree beside him collapsed layer by layer, its phantom image vanishing to reveal a steel giant ship within the shade.

Not just a giant ship over a thousand meters long.

Around her, mirror-surfaced sword-shaped drones were unfolding — one thousand and twenty-four in total — placed there, they naturally gave rise to hazy, layered formation patterns, swallowing the sunlight across dozens of kilometers like a whale, plunging Silver Sky Island into darkness.

This was because the Taiqing Flying Sword had lost its ability to draw the great sun's essence from the starry sky — not even a sliver of light was permitted to pass through.

Jiang Ding paid it no mind and continued watching.

Drastic changes were occurring within the spiriton engine furnace of the super warship Great Sun.

The space here was vast; mountains of piled second- and third-tier metallic heavenly materials and earthly treasures were tossed in, dissolved in an instant by pure-gold flames.

After further complex smelting, adjusting the ratios of metallic components, occasionally adding certain alloys unique to the immortal sects, and various materials, they were then transported to every part of the hull, and further conveyed to the Dai Sen solar mirror drones.

From time to time, the ship spirit activated the formations on the Dai Sen mirror sword-shaped drones, and blazing great-sun radiance descended from the heavens, falling simultaneously upon the steel giant ship and the mirror sword-shaped drones.

The metallic hull swiftly turned red all over, hissing and crackling; many thin sections were even burned to ash and fell away, to be filled in by new material — over and over, endlessly.

This was a special tempering, led by the ship spirit.

Jiang Ding was in no hurry, waiting quietly until seven or eight days later, when the tempering gradually concluded.

Speaking of which, he had noticed that since advancing to Jin Dan, his patience had grown ever better — a few days meant nothing at all, and passed in the blink of an eye with a slight rest of his eyes.

At this rate, he sometimes truly suspected that once his realm rose higher, a casual moment of absent-mindedness would see years slip by.

The warship shifted from being red all over to silver-white, but still appeared scalding; the air around the hull walls was a blur of haze, and any bird — even first- or second-tier demon beasts — that dared approach would in an instant be charred into charcoal and then ash.

"Commander, I need to make a trip to the warship maintenance center."

The ship spirit Yun Ri's soft, sweet voice came through: "I need to make use of the low-temperature spirit-nurturing equipment there for the next step of tempering. Besides, the heavenly materials and earthly treasures consumed by the tempering are over ten times higher than initially estimated, exceeding prior calculations — you'd best prepare yourself mentally for bankruptcy."

"But don't worry, Commander."

"Among the immortal sects, it's utterly commonplace for skyborne mothership captains to go bankrupt — it's no big deal, the tempering will just slow down a bit."

"Tempering consumption exceeding expectations?"

Jiang Ding was taken aback.

After a moment's thought, he looked toward the one thousand and twenty-four sword-shaped mirror drones.

These things were made of excellent materials — the materials seized from slaying the reserve Dao Sons, Sword Sons, and other seeds of Gedaxian Sect had all been used on them; they were built on a foundation of Soul Transformation-grade materials.

The expectation was that they would remain cutting-edge even through the Nascent Soul stage — one would only need to increase the number of mirror sword-shaped drones.

Even without enhancement tempering, simply nurturing these drones and increasing their spirituality would consume no small amount of heavenly materials and earthly treasures.

This was the reason for exceeding the budget.

"Don't worry."

"It's no big deal."

Jiang Ding patted his waist pouch and said with full confidence: "I'm a great tycoon — a mere trifle like this is but a passing cloud, beneath my notice."

"Mm, Commander is truly amazing."

The ship spirit, Yunri, eyes shining with admiration, said.

"Goodbye, Commander!"

The super battleship Great Sun absorbed one thousand and twenty-four Dai Sen mirror drones one by one into its internal deck, spat out tail flames, concealed its hull, and flew toward the distant Immortal Gate battleship maintenance center.

"Remember to return on time."

"After I finish class, I'm going to beat up Yu Yu Qianzi."

Jiang Ding waved his hand, rose as well, transformed into a beam of deep blue escape light, and flew toward Master Dinghai Master Dinghai Zhenjun's language class to continue learning about Immortal Gate Gong Fa and accumulate his own foundation in the Immortal Dao.

(End of this chapter)