"Huh?"
An Jing, somewhat astonished, pried loose a skull like black jade from the vine monster. Pitch-black vines crawled out from the skull's eye sockets, swaying and twitching faintly like fleshy granulations, as if they wanted to become a snail or a hermit crab and crawl away to flee.
This strange sight made An Jing press his sword against the skull monster, setting its limbs thrashing like a flopping octopus, and he said curiously, "Quite strange—and quite hard, too. The fiend sword can't even pierce it."
"This is the true body of this monster." The Sword Spirit's tone was thoughtful. "I see. So it's not a spirit implanted into a demon—no wonder I couldn't sense any demonic qi on these glowing grasses... This is the skull of a cultivator who fell into demonhood. In life he most likely had a wood-element Spirit Root and had mastered the art of controlling spirit plants."
"After falling into demonhood, his flesh-and-blood body degenerated into this skull demon, which uses the cave's natural 'spirit-light vines' as its body and traps, ambushing and killing creatures that pass by."
"Destroy it," the Sword Spirit said indifferently. "This is the lowest tier of 'Remnant Demon,' without a complete sense of self."
"Mm."
An Jing nodded slightly and drove his blade in with force, stabbing through the mouth area to pin this skull hermit crab to the ground.
The Blood Killing Aura surged. The fleshy vines let out one shrill, mournful wail after another, then turned into streak after streak of pitch-black demonic qi and dispersed into nothingness.
Only a faint, hazy white-gray mist was left, drifting and refusing to scatter at the center of the skull, glimmering with a dim light.
"This is..."
An Jing was a little puzzled, but the Sword Spirit took a look and was somewhat surprised. "It's actually a 'Residual Echo'—quite useful."
"What is that?" An Jing's mood had eased a good deal after killing the monster, and he asked curiously, "And that Spirit Root—I heard you mention it last time at Suspended Fate Manor. What is that, exactly?"
"What one dwells on without cease will surely find its echo."
The Sword Spirit instructed earnestly: "In this heaven and earth, evil is devoured and what is true is restored. This Residual Echo is transformed from a thread of Mysterious Prime Qi left behind after a monster is destroyed and heaven and earth purifies all of it. The low-tier ones are just as you see before you—merely hazy mist. The high-tier ones transform into all sorts of divine marvel spirit forms: divine birds, dragons, and snakes; immortal pills and Daoist scriptures."
"Within a Residual Echo lie some of the memories or cultivation of the demonized cultivator or the monster—most pure and refined. A sufficiently powerful echo even has all sorts of divine marvel effects: it can forge dharma treasures, cultivate divine abilities, and heal wounds. It counts as a reward that heaven and earth grants us demon-slaying cultivators."
"That great formation in Suspended Fate Valley that awakened your Destiny Patterns—in essence it also used my power to help you annihilate your inner demons, generating Mysterious Prime Qi to aid you in awakening your Heaven's Mandate."
"However."
At this point the Sword Spirit sank into deep thought. "In my era, a Residual Echo was at minimum something left behind by a 'True Demon' or even a 'Great Demon.'"
"Moreover, the Residual Echo left by a True Demon always had its own distinct form—never just a wisp of breath like this... This is far too weak."
"Yeah... but why is that..." Muttering to itself up to this point, the Sword Spirit suddenly sank into confusion. "I seem to know—I was involved in it... but..."
"I don't remember..."
An Jing said nothing; he waited quietly.
"Sigh." After pondering a while, the Sword Spirit—being of a rather free and easy nature, and too disinclined to dwell on it—sighed. "Can't remember. Forget it."
"Does the echo help restore your memories, Fuxie?" An Jing spoke up now. The Sword Spirit chuckled softly. "Considerate of you. Of course it does."
"But given my nature, only a very, very powerful Extramundane Demon echo has any chance of repairing it. Don't even think about that for now."
The Sword Spirit looked at the white-gray qi. "As for this wisp of Remnant Demon echo, it can increase a trace of cultivation in the soul. Its effect on me is nearly nothing. But as for you—your mind just took a shock, so it's just right for you to recover a little and steady your foundations."
"I'll tell you the method of gathering and containing it, and you can take it into your soul."
Following the guidance, An Jing visualized the secret method and circulated his soul, drawing this thread of white-gray mist into the Divine Sea—upon entering the Divine Sea, it transformed into a hazy wisp of firelight that hung around the Sword Spirit's true body, like the stars encircling the great sun.
When An Jing entered stillness to practice Tranquil Sword Contemplation, he could invoke this thread of echo to stabilize his own soul.
After all this was done, the Sword Spirit slowly said, "As for Spirit Roots... I've told you before—prior to the Destiny Pattern Martial Path, the cultivation method of the era I came from was Spirit Root Qi Refining."
"Just as with the Destiny Pattern Martial Path lineage, without a Heaven's Mandate Destiny Pattern one cannot break through from Inner Breath to reach Inner Strengthening. Likewise, in the Spirit Root lineage, without a Spirit Root one cannot break through from the 'Spirit Awakening' realm to 'Qi Refining.'"
"I see." An Jing more or less understood: this was the most fundamental of talents, the one that determined the divide between immortal and mortal.
Ordinary people can cultivate as well, but at most they can cultivate only up to the peak of the first realm. Only those who possess a Destiny Pattern and a Spirit Root can continue to advance along the path of cultivation.
He couldn't help asking, "I do have a Destiny Pattern—but do I have a Spirit Root?"
"You do."
The Sword Spirit said, "And your talent is passable—a triple Spirit Root of 'Metal, Earth, and Wood.'"
"Among them, Earth generates Metal, Metal overcomes Wood, and Wood overcomes Earth. In the interplay of generation and conquest, Earth aids Metal while suppressing Wood, and Wood in turn overcomes Earth, forcing Earth into dormancy, so that only the Metal Spirit Root stands out and grows strong—you truly have no small talent in the way of Metal."
"That's why I recommended the Grand White Radiant Spirit Divine Restriction to you."
"A pity there are no resources."
An Jing felt a twinge of regret, but when he raised his head and looked at the attic of the ruins, something suddenly came to mind. "But wait, Fuxie."
"What if..." He narrowed his eyes and looked at that ancient attic, much of it built from metal. "Does it count as 'Five Metals'?"
"This..."
The Sword Spirit was stunned for a moment, as if it had never considered this. But when it followed An Jing's gaze toward that toppled heavenly pavilion hall and swept its eyes over those metal structures, its thoughts couldn't help but stir. "Right—scrap iron is still iron. Go take a look, and I'll appraise whether those Five Metals are of good enough quality!"
An Jing set off at once.
The surface layer of the toppled corridor pillars and beams was 'red copper,' covered in copper rust. Neither thieves nor the owner who had moved out back then would ever have thought to scrape these materials away, and very little of it was usable—only a thin layer at the very bottom was fit for use.
And those lamp stands, long since extinguished, were made of 'purple tin.' Old as they were, they were unexpectedly well preserved. The outermost layer of purple tin seemed to have been soaked by the high-grade lamp oil of that time, taking on a hint of brightness—the quality was not low.
Finally, An Jing also found quite a few 'black iron' nails on one wall. That was probably where notices or announcement documents used to be posted. Whoever cleaned up had been lazy and hadn't cleared away those densely packed nails, which were now to An Jing's benefit, and they were all very well preserved.
To sum it all up: usable red copper, five liang; purple tin, one jin two liang; black iron, three liang.
Chapter 55