Having planted the Nine-Illusion Heavenly Orchid, Qin Sang sealed his cave abode. He brought out the Five Elements Dharma-Breaking Sword, and after refining it, set it aside for the moment. Restraining his mind, he began reading the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter.
The remnant manual of the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter contained five layers in total. The first layer guided the practitioner through the process of drawing the sword into the spirit, nurturing the sword with the origin soul, and visualizing the killing talisman. Only after the second layer did one truly step onto the path of cultivation. The second to fourth layers corresponded to the Foundation Establishment stage, while the fifth layer corresponded to the early Core Formation stage; everything beyond that was missing.
Just reading the cultivation process of the first layer alone was enough to make one's scalp tingle with dread.
Reading through the entire chapter, Qin Sang felt a prick of apprehension in his heart, even though he had the jade Buddha's protection and did not fear having his sanity eroded by slaughterous intent.
When drawing the sword into the spirit, the origin soul would first suffer the agony of being sliced by the spirit sword. Furthermore, when the spirit sword was harbored within the origin soul to be nurtured and fused with it, one had to constantly endure the torment of sword qi gnawing at the soul.
During cultivation, immense willpower was required just to calm the mind and enter meditative stillness. Only after condensing the first killing talisman—when sword qi could be released and retracted at will—would this condition gradually improve.
Nurturing the sword with the origin soul was also a process of sword refinement.
For each layer of the technique, the practitioner had to visualize the killing talisman within the manual during cultivation, drawing the purest slaughterous intent into the origin soul. Using the origin soul as a furnace, one tempered the spirit sword with that slaughterous intent until a killing talisman was engraved upon the blade.
Once the killing talisman was formed and inscribed, the spirit sword's sword qi would naturally carry an extreme killing intent.
When engaging an opponent, the moment the spirit sword was unsheathed, an eruption of killing intent would exert a soul-chilling effect. Those with weak mental fortitude might even be frightened out of their wits by the terrifying killing intent, suffering defeat without a fight.
Besides that, the killing talisman could also aid the practitioner in drawing spiritual energy into the body, boosting cultivation speed to a certain extent. That was the very reason Qin Sang had chosen this technique without hesitation in the end.
Limited by his natural talent, he had to seize every possible chance to increase his cultivation speed. One killing talisman might not suffice to make up for the deficiency in his talent, but as his cultivation level rose and he condensed two or three killing talismans, his cultivation speed might perhaps rival that of a cultivator with a true spiritual root—something he had never dared dream of before.
No wonder Senior Qingzhu's cultivation speed had been so fast. His talent had not been as abysmal as Qin Sang's; with the boost from the killing talismans, he had surpassed true geniuses in one leap. Yet he had paid the price of a splintered origin soul and half-mad lunacy, and whether he was dead or alive today remained unknown.
Moreover, this was not the only requirement the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter placed on practitioners. It also required a spirit sword of superior quality to merge with the origin soul, serving as a life spirit sword cultivated in tandem with one's very existence.
The killing talisman was a talisman condensed from the utmost slaughterous intent.
Because this talisman had to be inscribed upon the spirit sword's blade, the requirements for the sword itself were extraordinarily high. If the spirit sword's material and strength fell short, the sword would collapse under the strain before the killing talisman could even finish forming.
If it were anyone else, they would need to select a suitable top-grade magic tool or high-grade magic tool, but Qin Sang could simply use his ebony sword.
The ebony sword had originally been a magic treasure fragment, so its toughness was beyond doubt; however, it still could not fully meet the technique's demands.
The Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter required that the spirit sword's composition be pure to the extreme: among the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, only spirit materials of a single element could be chosen. Impure, mixed materials could not withstand the killing talisman's oppressive pressure.
Later on, the Song family had hired a master artifact refiner to re-refine the ebony sword. Although it had become a magic tool that even Foundation Establishment cultivators could wield, many impurities had also been introduced to the spirit sword, leaving its quality far inferior to that of the original magic treasure. All of these impurities would need to be purged little by little by Qin Sang during the process of nurturing the sword with his origin soul.
According to Qin Sang's estimate, the ebony sword could at least bear two killing talismans, supporting him through his breakthrough into the middle Foundation Establishment stage.
Once all impurities on the ebony sword were cleansed away, the sword would turn into a sword embryo. Thereafter, Qin Sang would need to collect as much spirit wood as possible, refining it bit by bit into the sword embryo to strengthen the ebony sword.
When the ebony sword absorbed enough spirit wood, according to the manual's claims, provided the spirit sword's material was resilient enough, once he cultivated to the fourth layer—the late Foundation Establishment stage—and engraved the fourth killing talisman, the spirit sword's power would be sufficient to rival a low-grade magic treasure!
This spirit sword would also become one of his life magic treasures after he broke through to the Core Formation stage.
The reason it was only "one of them" was another miraculous aspect of the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter: after breaking through to the Core Formation stage, the spirit sword cultivated alongside the origin soul did not take up the cultivator's quota of life magic treasures.
If a practitioner were wealthy enough, they could completely forge another magic treasure, storing it within the dantian to be nurtured with core fire.
However, the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter was a remnant manual with no subsequent techniques beyond the middle Core Formation stage. If one switched to another cultivation method, they would have to give up their life spirit sword, reducing it to an ordinary magic treasure.
Of course, none of this was within Qin Sang's present considerations; possessing a life spirit sword that rivaled a magic treasure while still in the Foundation Establishment stage was something he could only look at and drool over for now.
Once the impurities in the ebony sword were refined away, only a tiny fragment of a magic treasure would remain. The gap between it and a genuine magic treasure was immeasurable—just how many wood-attribute spirit materials would it need to integrate before reaching the quality of a magic treasure?
After obtaining the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter, Qin Sang had conveniently consulted records on forging magic treasures at Pagoda Peak.
Even Core Formation cultivators, in order to forge a life magic treasure, had to travel across the realm, racking their brains and braving perilous secret realms, spending ten to several dozen years just to barely gather all the spiritual materials.
Some Core Formation cultivators even resorted to using top-grade magic tools and talisman treasures just to keep up appearances.
For Qin Sang, who was merely at the Foundation Establishment stage, even if he did not cultivate at all each day and rushed about outside year-round, with good luck he might perhaps manage to gather enough spirit wood within his lifetime. But his cultivation time would be completely squandered—what use would a magic treasure be then?
Unless Qin Sang could find one of the Ten Great Divine Woods spoken of in the legends of the cultivation world, only then would it be possible to accomplish the feat in a single stroke and possess a spirit sword rivaling a true magic treasure while still in the Foundation Establishment stage.
Yet those Ten Great Divine Woods existed only in ancient texts and legends. Even if they had once existed in the mortal realm, that had been during ancient times, when spiritual energy was abundant and heavenly treasures could be found everywhere. By now, they had long since gone extinct.
Qin Sang read through the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter from beginning to end, focusing especially on the five killing talismans within the technique. They were exceedingly profound and varied in form, yet identical in that every single one radiated earth-shaking killing intent.
The first two were manageable, but with the fifth killing talisman, Qin Sang did not even dare make contact with his spiritual sense.
Were it not for the jade Buddha helping him preserve his core self, the instant he touched it, he would have been dragged by the killing talisman into an illusion of a bloody battlefield, his sanity devoured by terrifying killing intent, reduced to a walking corpse.
Sitting cross-legged in his cave abode without moving, Qin Sang spent his time comprehending the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter.
Ten days later, Qin Sang abruptly opened his eyes. With a shift in his thoughts, the ebony sword flew out from his dantian and hovered before him.
Recalling the requirements of the Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter's first layer, Qin Sang used his spiritual sense to guide his spiritual power, engraving runes onto the ebony sword.
Before long, the ebony sword was densely covered with profound runes, and the spirit sword's form transformed drastically.
Qin Sang gazed at the ebony sword for a long time, his eyes gradually hardening with resolve. Finally, taking a deep breath, he drew the ebony sword into his sea of consciousness, bringing it right before his origin soul.
Chapter 139