Their conversation had been delightful. Elder Zou and the others had intended to host a banquet in celebration, but Qin Sang tactfully declined.
After resting in his cave dwelling for the night, Qin Sang returned to the fire chamber the next day and had Ran Luo send over the spiritual materials the guild had accumulated. His artifact crafting skills were clearly superior to the gaunt youth's, so the materials Ran Luo delivered were all of the highest caliber, intended for him to concentrate on forging top-grade magic tools.
While crafting for the guild, Qin Sang obtained an abundance of rare spiritual materials to practice with without expending any effort. His crafting skills would improve by leaps and bounds—a true win-win.
While waiting in the fire chamber for Ran Luo to deliver the materials, Qin Sang summoned the ebony sword and drew out a section of spiritual wood from his mustard seed bag.
This was the core of a Jiaoshan tree, a precious spiritual wood not inferior to cold metal, which Qin Sang had uncovered in Du Han's mustard seed bag.
The ebony sword was only a low-grade magic treasure. According to the descriptions in the *Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter*, a low-grade magic treasure could carry at most six killing talismans.
If he could not elevate the quality of the ebony sword, it would become a bottleneck hindering his breakthrough when advancing to late Core Formation.
To advance the ebony sword from a low-grade magic treasure to a medium-grade magic treasure, there was no telling how many spiritual materials it would need to devour. Aside from woods on the level of the Ten Great Divine Woods, other spiritual woods provided limited enhancement and could only be accumulated bit by bit.
Qin Sang knew clearly in his heart that the sooner he began, the better, lest the ebony sword truly become an impediment when the time came.
However, while the ebony sword was devouring spiritual wood, it could not be used in combat.
After forming his core in the Bear Mountain region, Qin Sang had needed to hunt demon beasts deep in the Western Frontier.
Afterward, he had been traveling continuously, fearful of encountering unexpected dangers along the road.
Thus, though Qin Sang possessed several pieces of decent spiritual wood, he had never found an opportunity to let the ebony sword devour them.
Now, crafting for the Qiongyu Guild while staying on Duyan Island guaranteed his safety. The guild had amassed quite a number of demon beast corpses, and he estimated he would not be leaving the island for at least six months to a year. Qin Sang took this opportunity to have the ebony sword devour several pieces of spiritual wood.
Guided by his true essence, the Jiaoshan tree core floated before Qin Sang.
The wood was entirely pristine, pure as white snow.
With a thought from Qin Sang, the ebony sword hung suspended upside down above the Jiaoshan tree core. Sword qi manifested, wrapping around the wood.
With his current understanding of artifact crafting, Qin Sang easily grasped the characteristics of the Jiaoshan tree core. The sword qi penetrated gently through it, severing and purging the impurities within the spiritual wood.
Before long, only the purest spiritual wood origin remained of the Jiaoshan tree core.
A faint smile curled at the corners of Qin Sang's lips. He pointed toward the ebony sword, and a suction force erupted from it, drawing the spiritual wood origin into the blade without missing a single shred.
The ebony sword was already a magic treasure; suppressing the spiritual wood origin of the Jiaoshan tree core was not difficult.
Qin Sang's expression was utterly relaxed.
Unexpectedly, the moment the spiritual wood origin was completely devoured by the ebony sword, an unforeseen change suddenly occurred!
As if touching something within, the spiritual wood origin—originally snow-white with faint traces of cyan—suddenly became tinged with crimson, which spread outward with lightning swiftness.
In the blink of an eye, the spiritual wood origin completely lost its spirituality, turning into a useless lump of waste!
The ebony sword returned to its previous state!
Qin Sang's face fell drastically as an ominous premonition seized his heart.
This was unmistakably the foul power of the Boundless Blood Mulberry!
When this spiritual wood origin came into contact with the ebony sword's origin, its inferior quality left it unable to withstand the foul power of the Boundless Blood Mulberry, ruining it completely.
This was something Qin Sang had never anticipated.
Before forming his core, Qin Sang had attempted to have the ebony sword devour spiritual wood, and a similar scene had occurred.
At the time, however, he had assumed it was because his cultivation was insufficient to control the power of a magic treasure, so he had not paid it much mind. He had never imagined it would remain the same even after Core Formation.
Qin Sang's expression grew exceedingly solemn. Linking his entire mind to the ebony sword, he took out several other varieties of spiritual wood one after another and tried them all. Without exception, every single one failed.
This appeared to stem from a confrontation between the spiritual woods themselves, independent of Qin Sang's will.
Unable to endure the foul taint of the Boundless Blood Mulberry, the instant they made contact, the origins of these spiritual woods lost all spirituality, let alone being devoured.
Back when the ebony sword devoured the Boundless Blood Mulberry, it had killing talismans to stabilize it and counter the foul power. Now, the new spiritual woods were no match for the Boundless Blood Mulberry.
If a spiritual wood were to merge into the ebony sword, the prerequisite was that its quality could not be inferior to that of the Boundless Blood Mulberry.
Whether this was due to the nature of the Boundless Blood Mulberry itself or if other divine woods possessed similar traits, Qin Sang had no way of knowing.
"Could it be... that from now on, I must find woods on par with the Boundless Blood Mulberry among the Ten Great Divine Woods just to advance the ebony sword? Those celestial flora that exist only in legend are surely not inferior to the Ten Great Divine Woods, but no one knows if they truly exist, and they are even rarer than the Ten Great Divine Woods."
Qin Sang murmured to himself, his expression exceedingly grim.
Only after arriving in the Canglang Sea did he learn that the Lesser Cold Domain was already considered a bountiful land in the cultivation world, yet even there, the Ten Great Divine Woods had appeared only thrice in ten thousand years.
Although the Canglang Sea was countless times larger than the Lesser Cold Domain, it was far more barren. Where was he supposed to find any of the Ten Great Divine Woods?
"Must I really return to the Lesser Cold Domain before reaching late Core Formation?"
Wuya Valley in the Lesser Cold Domain was the only place Qin Sang knew of where one of the Ten Great Divine Woods might still be found.
Back then, the entire Boundless Blood Mulberry had shattered, its fragments scattering across Wuya Valley. Though the Wuji Sect Master and his companion had entered Wuya Valley with the aid of the Sin Abyss to conduct a thorough search, some pieces had surely slipped through the net.
As for forging a new life spirit sword from scratch, Qin Sang dared not make such a reckless attempt.
Not to mention the immense difficulty of forging another magic treasure, replacing his life spirit sword was tantamount to abandoning the killing talismans upon its blade. Due to the nature of the cultivation method, the killing talismans on the life spirit sword were intimately bound to his cultivation. Qin Sang had no idea what consequences would follow, and unless pushed to the absolute brink, he dared not take such a gamble.
"Fortunately, elevating the ebony sword is not an urgent matter. It will take a long time before I cultivate to late Core Formation, giving me ample time to find a solution. Bottleneck, bottleneck... So this is the bottleneck of the *Origin Soul Sword-Nurturing Chapter*!"
Qin Sang chuckled wryly. His previous thinking had been far too naive.
How rare were the Ten Great Divine Woods? A tangible bottleneck was not necessarily easier to overcome than an intangible one.
"No!"
Qin Sang's eyes suddenly narrowed.
"Anything is possible. Searching for the Ten Great Divine Woods might not be the only way. Perhaps I can blaze a new trail and find a solution through artifact crafting. It seems my decision to pursue artifact crafting was the right one. Going forward, I'll need to dedicate a portion of my energy to improving my crafting skills."
He beckoned the ebony sword into his palm.
Qin Sang stared at it for a long while without any clues, but he knew well that his artifact crafting was still at a rudimentary level, so he was not discouraged.
At that moment, a knock sounded on the stone door of the fire chamber.
The Qiongyu Guild had delivered the spiritual materials.
Qin Sang retracted the ebony sword into his origin soul, suppressed the distracting thoughts in his mind, and began to concentrate on artifact crafting.
Inside the fire chamber, seasons passed unnoticed.
Before he knew it, half a year had passed since Qin Sang set foot on the island.
Over the past six months, he hurried back and forth between his cave dwelling and the fire chamber, never once venturing far from Duyan Island, while top-grade magic tools were brought into existence one after another by his hands.
Chapter 680