Innate Immortal Seed

Chapter 335: Chapter 333: The Second Trump Card Against a Nascent Soul

When the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword was refined, an overemphasis on its killing power led to an excessive infusion of Great Sun Celestial Fire.

This made its power far greater than most Tier Three Flying Swords, but it came with a fatal flaw.

Great Sun Celestial Fire would constantly emanate from the sword’s body, searing its wielder on two levels: their physical body and their Divine Sense.

Imagine the highest reaches of the sky, the exclusive domain of Cultivators at the Nascent Soul Realm and above. A Core Formation True Man could only survive there briefly, and only with the help of specific Magical Treasures.

If one came into direct contact with the Great Sun Celestial Fire, a Perfect Core Formation Cultivator specializing in Body Refining could probably withstand the extreme temperatures.

Of course, it was hard to say if such a Body Refining Cultivator even existed among Sword Cultivators.

The searing of the Sea of Consciousness was even more troublesome. After holding the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword for more than ten breaths, an illusory Great Sun Celestial Fire would manifest within one’s Sea of Consciousness.

One could only prevent the Great Sun Celestial Fire from continuing its burn by consuming Divine Sense to block it.

Such was the tyranny of the Great Sun Celestial Fire; it affected both the physical body and the Sea of Consciousness.

As a result, to wield the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword, one had to be a Perfect Core Formation Body Cultivator who, during Combat, would also need to dedicate more than half their Divine Sense to resisting the Great Sun Celestial Fire in their Sea of Consciousness.

Furthermore, the battle could not last longer than a quarter of an hour, or their Divine Sense would be burned away, with unimaginable consequences.

Because of such a severe flaw, the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword had never found a suitable master since its creation. Throughout the history of the Holy Lotus Sect, not a single Core Formation True Man had been capable of wielding it.

Only a Nascent Soul True Monarch could hold this Flying Sword and unleash its power without restriction.

However, none of the Holy Lotus Sect’s few Nascent Soul True Monarchs excelled at Swordsmanship, and thus they had no strong desire for a Flying Sword.

Therefore, most of the time, the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword was simply shelved and forgotten.

This time, in exchange for the body of True Monarch Jiulian, the Holy Lotus Sect needed a treasure that was of a high enough tier but had low practical value. The first thing that came to their minds was this sword.

The moment Bai Zichen received the compensation from the Holy Lotus Sect and held the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword, he saw right through their petty scheme.

However, he had no intention of making trouble and allowed the Holy Lotus Sect to retrieve the body of True Monarch Jiulian.

Besides, he already had the Moon Xuan Sword, so his need for another Tier Three Flying Sword wasn’t urgent. He was merely acquiring it for future use.

And even if he did need to use it, what seemed like an insurmountable flaw to others was trivial to him.

With the strength of his body at the fourth layer of the Five Crystal Glaze Body, holding the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword directly only caused a slight stinging pain; it couldn’t even break his skin.

When wisps of the Great Sun Celestial Fire’s heat seeped into his body, a single cycle of the Fire Dragon Returning Essence Scripture was enough to refine and dispel them.

He primarily cultivated a High-Tier Fire Element Technique, which allowed him to produce Pure Yang True Flame capable of incinerating all things. His resistance to fire was already far greater than that of other Cultivators.

As for the Great Sun Celestial Fire that appeared in his Sea of Consciousness, it was instantly absorbed by the furnace within, becoming fuel to temper and forge his mental world.

Its searing effect on his Divine Sense was nothing compared to the Light White True Flame that appeared after he cultivated the Glazed Fire Divine Body.

That flame now also resided within his Heaven and Earth Melting Furnace, manifesting as a tiny, struggling flicker.

Neither of them had any effect on Bai Zichen. As soon as he finished the Refinement of this sword, he could use it immediately.

He had been too busy with other matters before to refine the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword, so he had simply tossed it into the Supreme Qingwei Sword Box.

Now, as he held the Crimson Flying Sword and began the Refinement, he discovered the process was surprisingly fast. It took only a tenth of the time he had spent refining the White Bone Cold Light Sword.

The roaring, swirling flames calmed down. The sword’s body resembled a sinuous Fire Flood Dragon, its surface mottled like lava, rugged and uneven, as if it had never been properly polished or refined.

Bai Zichen received the Flying Sword’s information and understood. This was because the main material of the Great Sun Celestial Furnace Sword, a piece of Outer Heaven Divine Iron, was of an unknown tier—a type that had never before appeared in the Cultivation Realm.

Back then, the Sword Refiner who had forged it had been unable to completely melt the Outer Heaven Divine Iron, leaving parts of its original form intact.

As for the rapid refinement time, that could only be attributed to the Supreme Qingwei Sword Box.

Bathed in the Pure Qi inside, it was hard to say whether the Flying Sword’s quality had improved, but it was certainly possible for the refinement time to be drastically reduced.

’This way, once the Qingfeng Sword is restored, I’ll have four Tier Three Flying Swords... It’s not easy. I’m slowly making my way toward the goal of twelve.’

Aside from the Qing Emperor Longevity Sword, Bai Zichen’s other trump card for fighting above his realm against Nascent Soul True Monarchs was the Star River Sword Array.

’The Star River Sword Monarch obtained the Star River Array Map during his Core Formation Perfection stage. That gave him the idea for the Sword Array, and he began to gather the Flying Swords... After he achieved the Nascent Soul Realm, he truly mastered the Star River Sword Array and made a great name for himself. Although my Sword Dao Talent can’t compare to the Star River Sword Monarch’s, I at least have his experience to learn from. The difficulty has been reduced by an untold amount.’

’It might not be impossible to form the Star River Sword Array while still in the Core Formation Realm.’

Once the Star River Sword Array was formed, it would manifest a vast, starlit sea that flowed and churned without end.

Like a cosmic millstone, any enemy who fell into the array would be ground to dust and scattered among the starlight.

According to the description of the Star River Sword Array’s power in the *True Understanding of Sword Dao*, even if a Core Formation True Man set up the array, trapping an Early-Stage Nascent Soul Cultivator would be no problem.

Moreover, there was a solution for the flaw where using insufficient Tier Three Flying Swords prevented the array from trapping a Nascent Soul True Monarch for long.

’When the time comes, I can use the Moon Xuan Sword as the array’s eye. With a Tier Four Flying Sword as the core, not even a Nascent Soul Cultivator would be able to escape...’

It would be difficult to grind a Nascent Soul True Monarch to death directly, but he was confident he could at least force them to retreat, giving him the power to protect himself.

And once the Star River Sword Array was mastered, unlike the single-use Qing Emperor Longevity Sword, it could be used as a conventional tactic.

Currently, Bai Zichen faced three problems. The first was that he didn’t even have half of the twelve Flying Swords yet.

However, in the years he had been away, three more stalks of Thunder Sound Bamboo had grown on the Celestial Thunder Wall, and there were now over a hundred stalks of Sacred Sound Bamboo.

One could say that the Bamboo Sea on Celestial Thunder Cliff had truly taken shape, and its chances of mutation and advancement were approaching those of the original Fish Dragon Sect’s grove.

The greatest credit for this, of course, belonged to the Holy Beast Essence Blood.

The ability to separate the aura of the Holy Beast Essence Blood at will and bestow it upon the Bai Clan Members using the Wood God Skill was something even the Fish Dragon Sect had been unable to achieve.

’Once I successfully refine my first Top-Grade Magical Treasure, I’ll start trying to forge the Thunder Sound Sword, and the Cyan Dragon Sea Roaring Sword... With the Bamboo Sea providing me with an endless supply of Thunder Sound Bamboo, I refuse to believe I can’t forge a few Tier Three Flying Swords!’

The problem of acquiring enough Tier Three Flying Swords could be solved sooner or later.

The second problem was how to control twelve Flying Swords simultaneously.

Normally, without practicing the Taibai Sword Sect’s Basic Cultivation Technique, there was no hope of setting up the Sword Array.

For example, Sword Cultivators from the Tianhe Sword Sect who practiced the Celestial River Technique could control four or five Flying Swords at most.

But the Taibai Sword Sect’s Basic Cultivation Technique had vanished without a trace after the sect’s destruction.

The few Sword Cultivation Sects that had been rebuilt with partial legacies from the Taibai Sword Sect didn’t have access to the Fundamental Great Method either.

Bai Zichen was no exception, but the appearance of the Supreme Qingwei Sword Box made it a possibility.

For Flying Swords within the box, the consumption for Sword Control was reduced to one percent, making the terrifying True Essence cost of controlling multiple swords at once a manageable amount.

At his current realm, he could already activate ten Flying Swords at once.

Once the Ziwei Dazzling Thunder Sword became his Lifebound Flying Sword and was no longer subject to this limitation, he would only be short one final sword.

’It seems that as long as I cultivate to Core Formation Perfection, the limitation on my True Essence reserves will be completely removed. That won’t be a problem...’

Bai Zichen calculated mentally and breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed he wouldn’t need to switch to a technique like the Celestial River Technique for the time being.

Once these two problems were resolved, only the final challenge remained: comprehending the Starry Sky Sword Intent.

For him, this was the hardest part. He had no clue where to even begin.

Even for the Star River Sword Monarch himself, comprehending the Starry Sky Sword Intent had been a complete accident.

According to the Sword Dao Realms defined by the Taibai Sword Sect, one first had to reach the limit of the Fourth Realm, Sword Light Division, and master the state of ’One Sword Births Ten Thousand Techniques’.

Only after reaching perfection, when one’s Sword Dao could advance no further, could one enter the realm of integrating Great Dao True Intent into the Sword Dao.

The Star River Sword Monarch had, by a complete fluke, skipped ahead and comprehended the Starry Sky True Intent first, fusing it with his Sword Dao without fully understanding how or why.

Then, by combining it with the Star River Array Map, he created his signature Divine Technique, the Star River Sword Array.

Therefore, the *True Understanding of Sword Dao* was vague about how to comprehend the Starry Sky Sword Intent and offered no clear direction.

’My Mysterious Holy Body doesn’t favor any particular path; as long as I invest time, I’ll see returns... This Starry Sky True Intent shouldn’t be beyond the limits of my Sacred Body. But if I have no path forward and have to rely solely on the Sacred Body to forge one, the time required would probably be terrifyingly long.’

Bai Zichen wasn’t too worried about whether he could master the Star River Sword Array.

As long as he could gather the ”hardware,” the step that was most difficult for ordinary Cultivators was actually not a problem for him.

His only concern was how long it would take.

If comprehending the Starry Sky True Intent took him a hundred years, its necessity would greatly diminish.

He wasn’t some Core Formation True Man stuck in his current realm with no hope of reaching the Nascent Soul Realm, forced to pour all his energy into studying Divine Secret Techniques.

With that much time, he wouldn’t be far from the Nascent Soul Realm anyway.

Having confirmed his goals, Bai Zichen put away the Supreme Qingwei Sword Box, sat back down on his cattail mat, and began to circulate the sixth layer of the Fire Dragon Returning Essence Scripture.

The Spiritual Energy Vortex formed by the Tier Three Top-Grade spiritual land was clearly superior to the Eye of the Spirit Spring in Ten Thousand Immortals Creek.

His cultivation speed, refining nature’s spiritual energy, was at least ten percent faster.

Time flew by, and seasons changed.

The Spirit Plants in the courtyard bloomed and bore fruit. Untended, they grew into a dense thicket as tall as a person.

A patch of them withered, died, and collapsed to the ground.

The water level of the diverted stream dropped, exposing the stones at its bottom.

The banks on both sides of the stream cracked from the intense heat, the yellow earth turning as hard as iron.

The entire courtyard was cast in a dim, crimson light, the air thick with scorching heat.

While one great sun hung in the sky outside, another sun seemed to exist within the thatched hut, radiating a heat that made it impossible to approach.

Until one day, a dragon’s roar shook the heavens. A horned Fire Flood Dragon shot into the sky, coiling majestically.

It circled once before opening its maw and inhaling the fiery blaze that filled the sky, then dove back into the thatched hut.