Chapter 33: The Overpowered Protagonist's Power Fantasy (32)

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Using Frost凝冰 as the sword blank and tempering it with Heaven-Devouring Iceflame, the day Su Bai forged the Tracing Radiance Sword, strange omens descended from the heavens.

At the edge of the sky, ten thousand rays of sunset light outlined the shape of a golden phoenix. Its crest feathers were slender and long, adorned with blue-green patterns that shimmered like flowing light. Its neck was graceful and elongated, decorated with scarlet clouds shot through with gold. Its back arched high as though it were about to take flight. Vast swathes of crimson-gold clouds billowed like smoke and mist, dyeing nearly half the heavens in radiant color.

On the other side, auspicious clouds transformed into curling mists and revealed the form of a dragon. Its body stretched for hundreds of miles through the clouds, its scales formed from flowing light so lifelike they seemed to breathe. Yet the strangest sight of all was the phoenix, its long, pointed beak gaping wide as it stretched out its neck and released a shrill, clear cry—before lunging to bite the enormous dragon ahead of it.

The dragon fled in alarm, and the clouds at the edge of heaven turned with it. The phoenix spread its crimson-gold wings, pale golden radiance spilling from its feathers with every beat. Dragon and phoenix chased and battled through the sky, but in the end the phoenix prevailed. Seizing its opportunity, it clamped its beak around the dragon’s body and bit down with all its strength. In an instant, the dragon formed from auspicious clouds dissolved into a drifting haze.

When had the disciples of the Boundless Sect ever witnessed such a phenomenon?

The auspicious clouds shattered by the phoenix turned into mist that filled the heavens. The phoenix exhaled crimson-gold flames, burning the mist into countless threads of faint radiance that descended between the clouds. As the flames swept through them, spiritual energy spilled from the auspicious clouds like water bursting from a sealed sphere, each strand rushing to escape.

The transformed spiritual energy surpassed even the finest pills in the world. Many Boundless Sect disciples immediately sat down and began absorbing it, while some glimpsed a trace of heavenly opportunity within the radiant clouds and entered sudden enlightenment where they stood.

Elder Ruogu stood atop Mount Rui in stunned silence, watching the commotion.

She tugged at Elder Yaoguang’s sleeve. “I feel that the golden light of advancement has been appearing one after another today. I’m afraid many years will pass before we see another scene of universal celebration like this.”

A heavenly omen that nourished all living things in return—what kind of peerless divine sword had she forged?

In recent years, Elder Yaoguang had been thoroughly numb to the disturbances Su Bai kept creating. She shook her head and said calmly, “If she truly manages to forge a sacred-grade divine sword, then a heavenly phenomenon is hardly surprising.”

Elder Yaoguang frowned. “When will you finally change that excitable temperament of yours? After all these years, it’s not as though you still don’t understand her.”

“When she returned from the Far North, you intended to teach her artifact forging. Instead, she locked herself in the forging chamber and spent ten days creating a first-grade heavenly sword to practice with.”

One incident after another—every one of them sounded like sheer fantasy to anyone else. Yet as Elder Yaoguang brought up the past, her heart remained utterly calm. She even vaguely felt that Su Bai had always been meant to be this way, and that she herself had simply been making too much fuss.

Frost凝冰 was a treasure of heaven and earth, and had to be forged using Heaven-Devouring Iceflame. Yet as a flame tainted by the karmic laws of Heaven’s Path, the strange fire was elusive, and its power was immense. Some Boundless Sect disciples who had already reached the Nascent Soul Realm, and even elders in the Spirit Severing Realm, had searched for it for years without seeing so much as a trace.

To say nothing of the fact that the Far North was the territory of the snow demons.

And yet four years later, Su Bai had not only brought back the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame—her cultivation had also crossed directly into the Nascent Soul Realm.

From that moment onward, Elder Yaoguang sank into an emotion known as numbness.

She felt that even if Su Bai returned one day and announced that she intended to claim a territory and crown herself on the spot, or declared that she meant to become the Primordial Heavenly Venerable, Elder Yaoguang would be able to accept it without the slightest disturbance.

Elder Ruogu fell silent for a long while.

When she saw that Elder Ruogu was not speaking, Elder Yaoguang patted her shoulder comfortingly. “Keep a level head. It’s only a sacred-grade sword. Back then, she learned the second stage of the Watercloud Formula from me in a single month—”

“Wait!”

Before Elder Yaoguang could finish, Elder Ruogu interrupted her with the expression of someone who had seen a ghost. “The Divine Arms Ranking has been updated!”

The Divine Arms Ranking was a list compiled long ago by Venerable Qingyan after he searched the world for magical treasures and weapons. It recorded more than ten thousand weapons in detail. Later, countless artifact forgers reorganized and supplemented the list. Through the careful maintenance of generation after generation of forgers, the Divine Arms Ranking received Heaven’s blessing over tens of thousands of years. It developed a mind of its own, transformed from the material into the immaterial, and became a sacred-grade treasure in its own right.

The very first thing every artifact forger did upon entering the profession was bind their divine sense to the Divine Arms Ranking, allowing them to quickly consult and keep abreast of the latest developments in artifact forging throughout the cultivation world.

Every weapon capable of securing a place on the Divine Arms Ranking was at least sacred-grade. The legendary Dragoncry Sword, which had held the number one position for countless years, had even surpassed the sacred grade and stood infinitely close to the divine grade.

Elder Yaoguang still looked as though nothing could surprise her. “If she forged a sacred-grade divine sword, then it isn’t strange that it would appear on the Divine Arms Ranking.”

“If it had merely entered the Divine Arms Ranking, then given her talent, it truly would not be worth making such a fuss over.”

Elder Ruogu’s expression was peculiar.

She drew a deep breath. “What if I told you that the updated ranking placed it in the number one position?”

Elder Yaoguang: “...What?!”

“Absolutely impossible!” Elder Yaoguang denied it at once. “Leaving everything else aside, the weapon in first place on the Divine Arms Ranking must be capable of producing an artifact spirit. She has only just finished forging this sword. It has neither been nourished by sword aura in the Sword Mound nor cultivated with divine sense. How could it possibly—”

The farther she went, the quieter her voice became. As she watched Elder Ruogu’s solemn expression, her confidence steadily withered.

At last, after a moment of silence, she could not help asking, “So the weapon currently ranked first on the Divine Arms Ranking is the sword she forged?”

Elder Ruogu nodded with utmost gravity. “Beyond any doubt! The moment her sword came out of the furnace, it established a connection with the Divine Arms Ranking. Ordinarily, a sword without an artifact spirit must first be registered in the Trial Pool. Only then will the Divine Arms Ranking assess whether it qualifies to enter the list, and determine its position.”

Elder Ruogu swallowed, desperately trying to suppress her shock, excitement, and disbelief. “This sword must have been born with an artifact spirit. A divine sword born with an artifact spirit is blessed by Heaven’s Path, so it is only natural that it could immediately establish a connection with a sacred object like the Divine Arms Ranking.”

Elder Yaoguang: “...”

Born with an artifact spirit?

She had lived for several thousand years, yet this was the first time she had ever heard such a claim in the world of artifact forging.

Elder Ruogu grew more and more excited. “And the name of the swordsmith is Su Bai. There may be many artifact forgers in the world who share her name, but I witnessed the heavenly phenomenon with my own eyes. How could I fail to determine that this sword, called Tracing Radiance, came from her hands?”

“Do you know what this means?”

Elder Ruogu seized Elder Yaoguang’s hand, her heart surging at having witnessed history. “From this day onward, the name Su Bai will resound throughout the cultivation world. And you—”

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She paused, then continued mysteriously, “You will be the master of the greatest artifact forger beneath the heavens!”

Elder Yaoguang covered her face.

So after all that, it simply meant that the master benefited from the disciple’s prestige?

Elsewhere, inside the forging chamber.

A crystalline divine sword floated in midair.

The smooth line of its blade rivaled the endless snow lines of the Far North. The hilt was slightly darker than the blade, a deep ocean blue. On closer inspection, layer upon layer of enhancement talismans and high-grade formations could be seen embedded within it. Stranger still, a pale blue, translucent flame coiled around the blade.

This sword was not the true Tracing Radiance Sword. It was a replica Su Bai had forged according to its appearance.

As a master of the sword path, Su Bai had developed her own distinct habits. Rather than injecting spiritual energy into the hilt, she had, in the later stages of her cultivation, grown accustomed to placing a strand of divine sense within the sword and then using that strand to draw the surrounding spiritual energy into her service.

Thus, besides laying down the most basic Spirit-Gathering Formation upon the hilt, Su Bai had also needed to carve Soul-Calming and Soul-Guiding Formations over it, allowing her divine sense to spread rapidly throughout the entire blade.

An exceptional swordsmith could forge many swords with identical appearances. But when it came to a true divine sword, no matter how many identical replicas were made afterward, none could compare with the original.

The true Tracing Radiance Sword was the weapon Su Bai had forged in her previous life by drawing down countless bolts of heavenly lightning.

As for the “born sword spirit” Elder Ruogu had mentioned, it was actually the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame.

After forging the Tracing Radiance Sword back then, Su Bai’s sword had not developed a sword spirit, but it had already gained consciousness. Thus, when she forged another identical sword, it was naturally impossible for the new sword to possess a sword spirit as well.

As for why she had treated the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame as the sword spirit, that was related to the properties of Frost凝冰.

The Frost凝冰 in the Sword Mound had received the power of Heaven’s Path and been polished by sword aura for tens of thousands of years. It was far beyond comparison with ordinary ice-attributed ore. Common flames could not melt it. Even when the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame refined it into a flowing crystal, any portion that was not cut away in time would rapidly return to its original form once Su Bai withdrew the strange fire.

Since the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame was connected to Su Bai’s thoughts, attaching it directly to the Frost凝冰 meant that the sword could constantly change according to her will on the battlefield.

Most importantly, the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame was simply far too talkative.

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame had remained alone in the Far North for tens of thousands of years. It had set up countless illusions and interacted with numerous great figures, so it was easy to imagine how much bizarre, shocking, and worldview-shattering gossip it had heard over the years.

For example—

“The Ancestor Yuehua of the Joyous Union Sect is actually a man. Back then, after personally witnessing her best friend rise to prominence by attaching herself to a powerful figure, Ancestor Yuehua was deeply shaken. She went into seclusion for three days, then decided to change both her name and her sex, carry the path of joyous union to greatness, and empty the bags of those old lechers of every artifact and treasure they possessed.”

“Venerable Qingyan once harbored feelings for the Sacred Venerable that were far from ordinary. Even Venerable Qingyan himself could not make sense of them. He had once had the chance to enter the Buddhist path of Prajna, but his thousands of years of friendship with the Sacred Venerable prevented him from becoming a truly detached practitioner.”

“The founder of the Three Thousand Falling Blossoms Embracing the Moonlight Sword Art was Sword Venerable Qingyi. The original inspiration for this technique actually came from her desire to slay a wretched man. In her youth, Sword Venerable Qingyi was inexperienced and deceived by a scoundrel. She wept bitterly for an entire month, until her senior and junior sisters could bear it no longer and beat the lying man until he fled in disgrace right before her eyes. That opened the door to an entirely new world for Sword Venerable Qingyi. From then on, she went farther and farther down the path of slaughtering scoundrels after falling foolishly in love—and grew stronger with every step!”

The gossip grew more explosive with every story. Anyone else would have begun eagerly asking for every detail.

Unfortunately, the person the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame had encountered was Su Bai.

The colder Su Bai acted toward it, the more enthusiastic the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame became.

In all its tens of thousands of years in the Far North, no one had ever dared to treat it with such indifference. Yet this girl’s aloofness, like an untouchable flower blooming atop a lonely peak, together with the faint fluctuations of emotion hidden beneath that cold exterior whenever she heard one outrageous piece of gossip after another, gave the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame the strange sensation of becoming addicted.

It also filled it with an increasingly indomitable courage and desire to keep trying despite every setback.

Su Bai paused, having caught the key point. “Then what is the Three Thousand Falling Blossoms Embracing the Moonlight Sword Art?”

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame chuckled several times. “Beg me, and I’ll tell you.”

Su Bai ignored it.

She simply entered the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame’s sea of consciousness and pulled out that fragment of memory. Then she could not help sighing. “Why is it that your mind clearly contains so much useful information, yet everything you say manages to avoid every useful detail?”

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame scoffed. “What would sword cultivators like you know? Gossip is the true hard currency.”

The next instant, Su Bai unceremoniously stuffed the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame into the Frost凝冰.

Su Bai inspected the “Tracing Radiance Sword” with satisfaction, clapped her hands, and said casually, “Since that’s the case, I’ll call you Number Two.”

She was too lazy to come up with a name.

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame naturally knew that Su Bai had possessed a genuine Tracing Radiance Sword in her previous life. The moment it heard those words, it jolted upright as though rising from its deathbed and cried out in anguish, “So this is substitute romance! Little Bai is treating me as a replacement!”

“I’ve been with you for so long, and you still humiliate me like this! Do you even have a heart?”

Su Bai remained expressionless. She had long since grown accustomed to the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame’s melodramatic outbursts.

She tapped the hilt and earnestly lectured it. “Could you empty out some of those unhealthy things in your head?”

The true Tracing Radiance Sword would never be as noisy and troublesome as it was.

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame and Su Bai were connected in thought, but as long as Su Bai wished, she could completely prevent it from knowing anything in her mind.

Yet she had deliberately not blocked it from hearing that remark.

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame was the sort that would climb any pole it managed to seize. “Don’t think you can use such clumsy tactics to attract my attention.”

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Su Bai gave a noncommittal “Oh” and paid no attention to the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame’s words.

Several days passed like this before the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame timidly edged up to Su Bai.

“Hey...”

Su Bai had no idea what sort of nonsense it intended to produce this time.

Still, since the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame had been unusually quiet over the past few days, she asked curiously, “What’s wrong with you lately?”

After listening to it chatter for nearly six years, she found its sudden silence faintly unfamiliar.

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame turned its head with cold elegance and gave a disdainful snort. “Aren’t I much more obedient than Number One?”

For the sake of this foolish human’s fragile glass heart, it had magnanimously refrained from gossiping in her ear for several days.

The Heaven-Devouring Iceflame could not bear to rank beneath another person.

Nor could it bear to rank beneath another sword.

Su Bai: “...Oh.”

She really could not expect this flame to think of anything useful.

**

The Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly was a grand gathering devoted to discussion of the Dao, open to the entire cultivation world. Whether they were disciples of the Eight Great Families of the Immortal Alliance, the Twelve Lesser Immortal Alliances, or unaffiliated wandering cultivators, all could register to participate.

The sole restriction was that contestants had to be under two hundred years old.

For the Eight Great Families and the Twelve Lesser Immortal Alliances, the overall performance of their disciples at the Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly would affect the allocation of Sword Mound quotas, spiritual veins, and the rights to explore certain major secret realms.

For individuals, the victor of the Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly would gain the right to freely enter every library belonging to the Immortal Alliance and the Twelve Lesser Immortal Alliances for one year.

In addition, first place would receive the sacred-grade magical treasure Nine-Revolution Soul-Illusion Lotus, forged by a Sacred Artifactsmith, as well as a sacred-grade pill capable of directly improving a cultivator’s cultivation while weakening the power of their tribulation: the Heavenly Mechanism Creation Pill.

The extent to which the Heavenly Mechanism Creation Pill could increase a cultivator’s cultivation depended on the strength of their spirit and soul.

This pill had been refined by Grandmaster Pillmaker Venerable Wangxu. It was said to have once received Heaven’s blessing and to bear nine pill marks. It embodied thousands of years of Venerable Wangxu’s cultivation experience and achievements in the pill arts, and was the only remaining Heavenly Mechanism Creation Pill in the world capable of defying destiny.

That was the official description, at least. In most cases within the cultivation world, a cultivator’s realm advancement could not keep pace with the rise of their cultivation power. It was rare for cultivation power to increase more slowly than one’s realm.

Thus, compared with the Heavenly Mechanism Creation Pill, most disciples were more interested in the Nine-Revolution Soul-Illusion Lotus, which could also unleash attacks that pierced directly through the spirit and soul.

The Boundless Sect was located in the eastern region of the Origin Returning Continent. The eastern region had two major cities: Bixun City and Duanhai City.

The Origin Returning Continent was divided into four regions—east, west, south, and north—and each region had two major cities. The selection rules for the Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly required a preliminary venue to be established in every major city. Contestants could choose whichever city suited them best for registration.

This was the first stage of the Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly.

The first stage would last ten days. Only the top fifty disciples from each venue would qualify to participate in the main assembly held in Jinyue City.

Jinyue City was not one of the eight major cities. Its territory was small, amounting to only one-quarter the size of Flying Eagle City, the smallest of the eight major cities. However, Jinyue City stood atop the Tianxu Spiritual Vein, where spiritual energy was abundant and many mineral veins lay nearby. Only cultivators above the Heart Movement Realm were qualified to enter the city.

Furthermore, Jinyue City was directly governed by the Eight Great Families of the Immortal Alliance and belonged to no single sect or faction. Holding the Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly there was therefore the fairest arrangement.

The Boundless Sect was closer to Bixun City, so Su Bai registered there for the sake of convenience.

Yue Nianxin and Shen Xing followed her choice and also registered in Bixun City.

Yunzhu had broken through into the Nascent Soul Realm, and her mission of gaining experience outside the valley had been completed. Thus, after leaving the Far North, she decided to return to Springreturn Valley and continue cultivating while delving deeper into the pill arts.

Several days earlier, she had sent them a message saying that she would be heading to Solitary Cloud City in the western region to participate in the Three Thousand Dao Arts Assembly, hoping to meet them in Jinyue City.

The chill of the Far North could erode the spirit and soul, while the illusions created by the Heaven-Devouring Iceflame were virtually impossible to overcome. As a result, Shen Xing and Yue Nianxin had remained in the Far North for four full years, greatly tempering their divine senses.

After returning to the Boundless Sect, they relied on the solid foundation laid within the illusions of the Far North and advanced rapidly during the following two years. Yue Nianxin reached the middle stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, while Shen Xing reached the early stage.

Su Bai’s rate of advancement over those two years was even more astonishing.

Whenever Yue Nianxin and Shen Xing saw her, their first words were invariably:

“Junior Sister, how did you advance again?”

The two of them had risen three minor stages in six years, already earning the envy of their peers. Yet the reason Yue Nianxin and Shen Xing remained so calm and free of arrogance was simply that they had witnessed what a true genius looked like.

A true genius was someone who, while still in the Golden Core Realm, could make a mighty cultivator at the peak of the Tribulation Transcendence Realm submit to her as their master.

Someone who could rise from the Golden Core Realm to the Spirit Severing Realm in six years.

Someone who, despite possessing such astonishing talent, still secluded herself to cultivate day and night, never wasting a single word.

Su Bai’s cultivation was now at the early stage of the Spirit Severing Realm. To keep a low profile, she had asked Elder Ruogu to forge a jade pendant capable of concealing her cultivation.

Every field had its own specialization. In her previous life, Su Bai had devoted all her time to swordsmanship and sword forging. Therefore, when it came to refining artifacts with other functions, Elder Ruogu was clearly far more experienced than she was.

Because of her work in sword forging, Su Bai had considerable insight into certain high-level formations. As payment, she helped Elder Ruogu inscribe formations for more than a month.

Soon, the selection tournament in Bixun City began.