Chapter 33

With this stable supply of raw materials from Daoist Pinglu, Song Qingming's path of talisman-making became much more stable. With no lack of materials in his hands, he also slowly stabilized. Time seemed to have returned to normal. After returning to Mount Lingyuan, apart from the fixed time required for talisman-making, he also set aside more time for cultivation.

Soon, Song Qingming had been back at Mount Lingyuan for nearly three months. During these few months, in addition to the steady growth of his cultivation, Song Qingming's talisman-making skills, with no lack of materials, also advanced by leaps and bounds.

Now, he could easily draw five or six types of mid-tier spirit talismans, and the success rate of his most proficient Golden Light Talisman had also increased to nearly forty percent, finally balancing out the spirit stones he had lost in the early stages and becoming a qualified mid-tier talisman master.

During these few months at Caolu Mountain, apart from Daoist Pinglu, who provided talisman-making materials on time, Qin Zhen also came frequently and took good care of Song Qingming. He not only purchased many spirit talismans from Song Qingming but also introduced many rogue cultivator clients to him. The spirit talismans Song Qingming made in these few months suddenly became hot commodities at Caolu Mountain, and business became better and better.

This truly made Song Qingming very happy. It was just a pity that the mid-tier talisman-making materials in his hands were used up early every month, and he had no plans to make spirit talismans in large quantities for the time being. He understood in his heart that he couldn't be too anxious about this financial path. In a place like Caolu Mountain, carrying too many spiritual items on one's person would inevitably easily arouse the greed of those late-stage Qi Refining cultivators.

Now that he had no talisman-making materials in hand, Song Qingming finally had some rare leisure time, so he wanted to take this opportunity to spend some time refining the top-tier flying sword he had obtained at Guiyunfang.

The reason he hadn't chosen to refine this sword earlier was that refining a top-tier magic tool was not an easy task. The time required to refine a magic tool of this level was far longer than that of a mid-tier magic tool.

Last time at Mount Funiu, Song Qingming had refined the Blazing Sun Sword, but it only took him a little over a day. The Taixu Sword he was refining this time was a top-tier magic tool. The higher the tier of the magic tool, the more complex the refining process, and the more time it required.

Song Qingming estimated that the refining time this time would take at least about three days. Before refining the magic tool, he had already asked for a few days' leave from Song Changxin, claiming he was going into closed-door cultivation for a few days.

After leaving Guiyunfang, he was in a hurry to rush back to Qinghe County and had been running around along the way, so he really had no time to refine this item. After returning to Mount Lingyuan, he was also busy with talisman-making every day, until now when he finally had time to spare.

Taking the Taixu Sword out of his storage bag, Song Qingming carefully observed the flying sword from beginning to end once again.

The silver sword body was about three feet long, with a red stripe running through the middle, and a white long tassel hanging from the green hilt. As a top-tier flying sword, the Taixu Sword looked quite unremarkable on the surface. Placed in that ordinary grocery store back then, it was just an extremely ordinary magic tool.

Even now, Song Qingming didn't know what it was about this top-tier flying sword of average quality that had attracted him. It was just a vague, strong consciousness from within his heart that guided him to find it.

After thinking about it for several months, Song Qingming still couldn't figure out this problem.

Since it was fated, then let it be. After adjusting his state, Song Qingming released a wisp of spiritual power from his body, which quickly wrapped around the Taixu Sword in his hand. As Song Qingming slowly extracted the spiritual power from his body, the red sword body was quickly completely covered by white spiritual energy.

Song Qingming held his breath and concentrated, took a drop of his own essence blood from his body, and placed it onto the sword body. Soon, the Taixu Sword body, wrapped in white light, shook and emitted a buzzing sound.

The time taken to refine the Taixu Sword this time also somewhat exceeded Song Qingming's expectations. It wasn't until five days later, as a streak of white light dispersed, that the spiritual power within Song Qingming's body, wrapping the essence blood he had released earlier, finally entered the Taixu Sword body.

Seeing that his essence blood had entered the sword body, Song Qingming hurriedly increased the input of spiritual power, wanting to fuse the essence blood into the magic tool in one go and complete the refining of the magic tool.

Just at this moment, the Taixu Sword suddenly transformed into a dazzling ball of white light. After the white light dispersed, with a crisp sound, the Taixu Sword body suddenly snapped into two pieces with a "bang" and fell to the ground, startling Song Qingming into a cold sweat.

Song Qingming looked at the two broken pieces of the sword on the ground, dumbfounded, his mind a blank. This was one hundred and fifty spirit stones! How many spirit talismans would he have to draw to exchange for another top-tier magic tool?

Could it be that his refining steps were wrong?

Or was he too young and had fallen into the trap of that master and disciple? What kind of top-tier magic tool was the quality of this flying sword? Song Qingming actively recalled it again. There was indeed no major problem with his refining process. Even if the refining failed, it shouldn't have been enough to destroy this top-tier flying sword on the spot.

It seemed that it was indeed a quality issue with the magic tool itself. In the end, it was a magic tool he had actively wanted to buy at the time. Even if he had been set up by those two, he could only accept it now. If he had the chance in the future, he would go to Guiyunfang and meet them again.

Song Qingming gave a bitter smile and used object-control techniques to take the broken sword into his hand. Just as he was about to put it into his storage bag, he suddenly felt a strange fluctuation of spiritual power coming from the broken sword. Song Qingming picked up the half of the broken sword and looked at it carefully, only to discover unexpectedly that there was something hidden inside the sword body.

Taking it out and looking at it, it seemed to be a scroll of cultivation techniques. Song Qingming opened it and looked at it carefully, only to discover that this was a Daoist cultivation technique called the "Yuxuan Sutra." It had no requirements for spiritual roots, but it only contained this part for the Qi Refining stage.

Whether the cultivation techniques for the Foundation Establishment stage and beyond at the back of the manual had been sealed by some high-end restriction, the pages were just blank. Song Qingming tried it, but also discovered that with his current abilities, he had no way to open it at all, so he could only give up.

It seemed to be a relatively special Qi Refining stage cultivation technique. It was just that he didn't know why that person had hidden this scroll of cultivation techniques inside the Taixu Sword. Was he attracted to this sword that day because this cultivation technique was fated with him?

Song Qingming looked at the "Yuxuan Sutra" in his hand, feeling a mix of laughter and tears. He had spent one hundred and fifty spirit stones and thought he had lost everything, but he didn't expect to see the light at the end of the tunnel and unexpectedly obtain a scroll of Qi Refining stage cultivation techniques. He didn't know if he had made a profit or a loss.

The value of things like cultivation techniques was hard to estimate. An ordinary Five Elements attribute Qi Refining stage cultivation technique was worth at most a dozen spirit stones in the marketplace. If it were a rare cultivation technique with some special abilities, it might not be possible to buy it even for a hundred spirit stones. If he were to hand it over to the family's Golden Treasury Pavilion, he might also be able to obtain more spirit stones.

Song Qingming didn't know the effects of this cultivation technique yet, so he didn't dare to rashly offer it to the family.

"Since it's fated with me, I'll just cultivate it myself and see. If there's no problem with this cultivation technique, I'll copy a version and hand it over to the family when I have time." Song Qingming muttered to himself.

Over the past two hundred years, the Song family's Golden Treasury Pavilion had also collected dozens of types of Qi Refining stage cultivation techniques, but this one was not among them. As long as Song Qingming copied a version into the Golden Treasury Pavilion in the future, it would inevitably be beneficial to the family, and he himself could also exchange it for some meritorious deeds.

In this Yuxuan Sutra, among the Qi Refining stage cultivation techniques, there was only one divine ability spell that could slightly increase one's cultivation speed, called "Spirit Gathering Technique," which was a spell to assist in cultivation.

In the cultivation world, there was no lack of such spells that could increase cultivation speed, but most of them could only increase it by ten or twenty percent. The Song family's Golden Treasury Pavilion also had similar spells, but they had restrictions on spiritual roots and required Water and Wood spiritual roots to cultivate.

Song Qingming lacked Water in the Five Elements and didn't have Water spiritual roots, so he hadn't cultivated this type of technique before. The Spirit Gathering Technique he had obtained now just happened to make up for this deficiency.

Although this divine ability could not be used to fight enemies, it was still somewhat useful. Combined with the remnant map on his person, Song Qingming estimated that he could also increase his own cultivation speed by about twenty percent. Coupled with the elixirs he took long-term to improve his cultivation, it would also allow him to approach the cultivation speed of a three-spiritual-root cultivator.

Although this Yuxuan Sutra cultivation technique had no powerful divine ability spells, it was still quite good as an aid to cultivation. Song Qingming obtaining this cultivation technique could be considered to have had some gains, and the haze of the Taixu Sword snapping was gradually swept away from his face.

Now, Song Qingming didn't lack spirit stones, had spirit elixirs to take every month, his cultivation was also steadily improving, and the magic tools in his hand were also quite refined. What he lacked just happened to be this kind of method that could help him improve his cultivation speed.

(End of chapter)