Chapter 938: The Gender-Ambiguous Shadow Demon Abyss Dao Child

Great Sun Heavenly Pool, Sun Abyss.

Beneath the Sun Divine Tree, Jiang Ding spread out his divine sense and sword intent, using Great Sun Radiant Gold mixed with ten thousand metals under heaven to inscribe the Great Sun Heavenly Gang Divine Restriction patterns bit by bit onto the Taiqing Flying Sword.

Since advancing to the Nascent Soul stage, he had spent over a hundred years refining his Nascent Soul-grade treasure, the Taiqing Flying Sword; under the extraordinarily favorable conditions of the Great Sun Heavenly Pool and Great Sun Radiant Gold, his progress was extremely swift—in just over a hundred years, he had nearly traversed the path that other Soul Transformation cultivators needed over a thousand years to walk in refining their life-bound treasure.

Today, he had finally refined it to the twenty-fourth Heavenly Gang restriction; the Taiqing Flying Sword was about to step into the mid-grade Nascent Soul treasure realm.

Clang!

Accompanying a clear, ethereal sword cry, Jiang Ding completed the final stroke of inscribing the Great Sun Heavenly Gang Divine Restriction patterns.

The Taiqing Flying Sword inhaled and exhaled the spiritual energy of the four directions; within the sword body, twenty-four Great Sun Heavenly Gang rune-stars shone brilliantly, their auras linked into one whole, full of spirituality, able to spontaneously inhale and exhale the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to maintain its own existence, its aura suddenly surging upward a notch.

Mid-grade Nascent Soul treasure—Taiqing Flying Sword!

"Mid-grade Nascent Soul treasure…"

Jiang Ding gently stroked the body of the Taiqing Flying Sword.

He could feel her excitement, and the joy of the entire Great Sun Heavenly Pool, like a child in a cradle growing another year older.

As the sword of his life-bound Dao foundation, the growth of the Taiqing Flying Sword would instantly drive a breakthrough in his combat power.

While Jiang Ding's heart rejoiced, the crimson in his eyes grew ever deeper red, even forming thread-like streaks of fresh red, revealed on the surface, savage and terrifying.

Yue Ling held her breath, not daring to speak.

According to her experience, every generation of Great Sun Sword Child, whenever they went over a hundred years without seeing blood—the blood of the strong—would fall into madness, killing friend and foe alike without distinction.

Even she herself, if she didn't hide well, would be deliberately drawn out by the Sword Child and beaten to death.

Throughout history, all those horrifying incidents were committed by Great Sun Sword Children in this state—hated by gods and loathed by ghosts.

Matters, however, did not unfold as Yue Ling imagined.

The crimson hue in Jiang Ding's eyes receded bit by bit, until it returned to normal.

"Loss of control?"

"That is absolutely impossible."

Jiang Ding murmured: "Killing may only bloom when I need it; when I don't need it, it is nothing more than a whetstone for tempering my Dao heart—not worth mentioning."

"A mere killing thought, not worth mentioning…"

Yue Ling, who had been hiding well, curled her lip at the words.

Every Great Sun Sword Child said the same thing, all confident, without a single exception; she had long grown accustomed to it.

Jiang Ding had originally intended to finish off Bing Yuan Tian Jun of the North early, after all the Taiqing Flying Sword had achieved a breakthrough. Now that killing intent spontaneously welled up in his heart, he instead no longer wished to.

It was agreed he would break through to late Nascent Soul—

And so he would break through to late Nascent Soul.

No person, no matter, could affect him.

Within the Sea of Consciousness, he gradually regained composure; the Great Sun Destruction Sword Intent bloomed, sweeping through the divine soul, clearing away all killing intent within it. The divine soul was clear as crystal, without a single impurity.

Jiang Ding fell into normal cultivation, continuing to accumulate magic power and temper his sword intent.

His vast divine soul spread out, his vast sword intent spread out. In an environment like the Sun Abyss that perfectly matched the Great Sun Sword Child, his sword intent had long since reached Great Completion over fifty years ago, now one step closer to condensing a Sword Soul.

Now, it can be said with certainty that Jiang Ding's sword intent is already capable of crushing the Dao intents of the Badaxian Sect's Dao Children—no longer on the same level, once again returning to the traditional advantage of the Great Sun Sword Child.

Every generation of Great Sun Sword Child of the Great Sun Sword Pavilion was without exception far superior to the Immortal Sect Dao Children in sword intent and swordsmanship; now he too had returned to such a position.

While cultivating, Jiang Ding diverted part of his divine soul's computing power to overseeing various tasks, reading the latest Immortal Gate literature, and so on.

Among them, the largest proportion of divine soul computing power undoubtedly went to the research and development of the Great Sun Soul Transformation secret art.

Benefiting from the breakthrough achievements of the Lunar Exploration Laboratory, the R&D progress of the Great Sun Soul Transformation secret art was forcibly pushed forward by over thirteen thousand years. Now it only needed twenty-three thousand-plus years to successfully develop it—this being without any fortuitous encounters or comprehensions.

In just a hundred years, the Lunar Exploration Laboratory had nearly completed one-third of the R&D work on the Great Sun Soul Transformation secret art.

One could only say that the divine soul computing power of those eight Void Refinement Great Powers was indeed formidable.

Now the Immortal Gate and the Badaxian Sect's Great Powers were still in a state of cooperation. After calculating the spatial coordinates of Jiao Jiao Mingyu, the Lunar Exploration Laboratory's current direction had shifted toward seventh-tier grand formations and the development of arts and treasures targeting powerful members of the Jiao Demon Imperial Clan, currently developing treasures capable of more efficiently breaking open the Indestructible Body of the Jiao Demon Imperial Clan.

Another three-plus years of cultivation passed.

Jiang Ding opened his eyes, rose, and flew toward the gate of Qingfeng University.

At this time, the Shadow Demon Abyss Dao Child had arrived.

As a person of equal standing in the Immortal Gate, he needed to go and receive them, offering the other party equal courtesy—after all, there had been no falling out, so courtesy still had to be observed.

A youth in blue robes arrived at the gate of Qingfeng University, standing quietly; all the passing students automatically overlooked him.

Right, only Jiang Ding was there alone.

There was no one else, and no grand welcoming ceremony either—all such ceremonies had been canceled at the Shadow Demon Abyss's strong insistence, streamlined to the point where they could not be simplified further.

The Shadow Demon Abyss was precisely such a sect.

Sneaking and skulking, like rats in a gutter, wishing they could hide their whole lives in places unknown to anyone, forever unknown to the world—whether in the Immortal Gate or the Qidaxian Sect, they had always been this way.

Jiang Ding closed his eyes to rest for a moment, then opened

his eyes.

A wooden house, several hundred meters in size, broken and tattered, gloomy and eerie, flew over silently from afar; upon it stood two translucent shadows, one large and one small.

Everyone around—even Soul Transformation cultivators—would unconsciously overlook them.

The larger black shadow met Jiang Ding's gaze for a moment, gave a slight nod, and vanished.

This was a peak Soul Transformation cultivator from the Shadow Demon Abyss carrying the decree of a Great Power; a meeting would be held in person to discuss the R&D of stealth arts and stealth equipment for Jiao Jiao Mingyu.

"Great Sun Sword Child, why is it you?"

"Where is Teacher Gu Lin? I want to see her, not you."

The smaller shadow's voice was delicate and weak, not the dark, hoarse voice one might imagine; the moment she appeared, she put forward her conditions, unwilling to stay together with Jiang Ding.

"You…"

Jiang Ding stared at her.

The Shadow Demon Dao Child also stared at the blue-clothed youth before him, watching the blood-gold patterns continuously surfacing and vanishing in his eyes, and felt a chill run down his spine.

She was ready at any moment to interface with the central array-spirit computer of the Eastern Extreme Demon Sect — this was something the Eastern Extreme Demon Sect had guaranteed; otherwise, she would not have appeared here.

"You... used to be male."

Jiang Ding spoke slowly, his voice very calm, without any killing intent.

"That's right."

The Shadow Demon Dao Child said very casually: "When communicating with a female Dao Child, I'm male; when communicating with a male Dao Child, I'm female — it's always like this!"

"I see."

Jiang Ding nodded, said nothing more, and led her off to handle the procedures for becoming a guest professor at Clearwind University.