Chapter Twelve: The Broken Sword

Yang Yan strode into the Imperial Treasure Pavilion, glancing around as he entered. The shop was not spacious, but the shelves were crammed with an array of items, dazzling to the eye. There were all manner of weapons—swords, sabers, spears, halberds, axes, hooks, staves, and many other strange objects whose names Yang Yan could not even guess.

“Young master, what kind of magical artifact are you seeking? We have everything you could possibly want. Please, browse at your leisure!” came the enthusiastic greeting of a shop assistant as Yang Yan and Zi Ling looked about.

Yang Yan turned and acknowledged him with a polite hum, saying nothing more. He walked straight to the shelves, casually picking up and inspecting the items.

The assistant, a seasoned businessman, noticed that Yang Yan and Zi Ling had no intention of striking up a conversation. Sensibly, he did not bother them further but turned to serve another customer.

The clientele here were, for the most part, scions of prominent families from Jinhuan City, so the assistant showed no sign of slighting Yang Yan or Zi Ling for their youth. After all, ordinary folk could hardly afford to purchase magical artifacts.

In a confrontation, apart from one’s own strength, a cultivator’s greatest reliance was upon their magical treasures. Magical artifacts, ranked by quality, were classified from lowest to highest as: Mortal Tools, Spirit Tools, Treasure Tools, Emperor Tools, Immortal Tools, Sacred Tools, and Divine Weapons—each further divided into lower, middle, and upper grades.

An Emperor Tool could communicate with its wielder; an Immortal Tool could develop a weapon spirit and attain sentience. As for the legendary Sacred Tools and Divine Weapons, it was said they could take on human form, cultivate independently, and were invincible in battle.

Of course, speaking of magical artifacts, one must mention another profession: that of the Artificer.

Artificers occupied a position of unique prestige in the cultivation world, for their craft was indispensable. In a battle between equals, a superior artifact could decide the outcome. Those who could forge such treasures were highly sought after—true darlings of the cultivation world.

It was said that within the Feiyun Empire, there was an artificer capable of forging Emperor Tools, whose own cultivation was merely at the peak of the Spirit Sea Realm, yet even those of the Guiyuan Realm willingly acted as his bodyguards! Such was the influence Artificers commanded.

If Artificers were rare, then Alchemists were truly as rare as phoenix feathers across the entire continent.

Though magical artifacts provided significant advantages to cultivators, they remained external aids and not inherent strengths. There had even been cases where sentient weapons had turned on their masters.

However, the path of cultivation was far from smooth. Those of mediocre talent might spend their whole lives unable to overcome a bottleneck, a poignant and lamentable fate. At such a juncture, a single pill from an Alchemist could resolve the issue with ease!

Yet Alchemists were vanishingly scarce in the cultivation world. Not only were the requirements to become one exceedingly strict, but after countless ages, many of the rare ingredients needed for alchemy had long since been exhausted.

Even if one could find an Alchemist willing to help, without the necessary herbs and materials, making pills was nothing more than an empty dream.

Given these constraints, the scarcity of Alchemists was only to be expected.

Yang Yan had once been tempted by these two coveted professions, but to become either an Alchemist or an Artificer required two crucial prerequisites: fire-element spiritual power, and a soul force far surpassing the ordinary.

Soul force was a mysterious yet tangible thing, and Yang Yan’s understanding of it was still vague. As for fire-element spiritual power, he had not possessed it originally, but now, with the assistance of the Nine Nether Lunar Arts, this obstacle had been overcome.

Beyond innate requirements, there was also the matter of immense financial resources.

To cultivate a high-level Alchemist or Artificer required an astronomical investment, far beyond what the Zhang clan could currently afford. Moreover, without a skilled master, it was almost impossible to achieve success through self-study.

For all these reasons, Yang Yan had to set aside his aspirations for the time being.

With the Martial Tournament of the Clans fast approaching, it was unrealistic to expect his cultivation to improve by a whole level in such a short time. Thus, Yang Yan decided to purchase some magical artifacts to give himself a better chance at victory.

Of course, the Imperial Treasure Pavilion only sold Mortal Tools and a handful of lower-grade Spirit Tools. Let alone Jinhuan City, even if higher-grade treasures were available, Yang Yan could not afford them even if he sold himself.

He wandered back and forth in the shop, examining items, but his brow remained furrowed and he shook his head repeatedly.

Zi Ling, ever considerate, simply followed his lead and did not interrupt him.

“Excuse me, how much is this?” After a while, Yang Yan pulled a gleaming curved saber from the shelf, studied it for a moment, and asked.

“You have a keen eye, young master! This is a lower-grade Spirit Tool. It cuts through iron as if it were mud and is called the Shunyu Scimitar. The price is five mid-grade spirit crystals!”

To cultivators, worldly gold and silver were as worthless as scrap metal. Spirit crystals, however, were the universally accepted currency of the cultivation world on the Tianyuan Continent, graded by the density of spiritual energy contained within—low, medium, and high—with each grade worth ten times the last.

These spirit crystals, mined from crystal veins, contained pure spiritual energy that could be refined and absorbed directly, making cultivation much faster than drawing energy from the air—hence their popularity.

As the third young master of the Zhang clan, Yang Yan, despite his lack of progress and the frequent bullying he endured, had managed to save up eight mid-grade spirit crystals over the years. Yet, this single blade would cost him more than half his fortune, leaving him rather reluctant.

“What about this one?” Yang Yan shook his head and picked up a spiked weapon beside it.

“This is the Qilin Auspicious Spike, a lower-grade Spirit Tool as well. The price is six mid-grade spirit crystals!”

…

Yang Yan asked the prices of several more items, but each time he shook his head.

Just as he was about to give up and try his luck elsewhere, he suddenly let out a soft “Hmm?” pausing as his gaze landed on a longsword in the corner of the shelf.

The sword looked quite ordinary—one might even say shabby. It was dull, its blade marred with patches of rust, appearing no better than scrap metal.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, this battered sword gave Yang Yan a profound sense of kinship.