Chapter 258 : Forging the Twin Immortal Blades
Eldrin Chen gazed upon the forging methods for the two Immortal Swords [supreme-grade enchanted blades], his heart trembling faintly.
Whether it was the Thousand Demons Demon-Slaying Sword [a sword designed to slay a thousand fiends] or the Hundred Spirits Immortal-Slaying Sword [a sword designed to slay a hundred immortals], both were Immortal Swords of astonishing latent potential. In theory, the potential of this pair of swords was limitless.
In ancient times, the Sword Master who forged that pair of Immortal Swords created blades peerless under heaven; their power was considered rare even among Primordial Solar Supreme Treasures [the highest class of enchanted artifacts, rivaling the primordial sun].
"These two swords..."
Eldrin Chen pondered silently, finally storing away the two scrolls containing the methods.
Both the Thousand Demons Demon-Slaying Sword and the Hundred Spirits Immortal-Slaying Sword were feared by the world. One earned the hatred of Demonic Cultivators [practitioners who use dark, often sacrificial, methods for power], the other instilled dread in the Human Race.
Forging them to the fourth rank was one thing, but attempting to refine them into Demon-Subduing Supreme Treasures [supreme artifacts of demon-suppressing power] would likely invite significant trouble.
Demons and monsters feared the divine might of such swords and would not wish to see a pair of Demon-Slaying Immortal Swords [immortal swords specialized for slaying demons] come into being.
Yet, though the forging methods for these two swords were unorthodox, they resulted in exceptionally formidable Demon-Slaying Immortal Swords. Their lethality against evil spirits and the Demon Race would be truly terrifying.
"Why dwell on such distant thoughts?" For the best reading experience, visit audio~novel.com.
Eldrin Chen shook his head with a wry smile. Something like a Demon-Slaying Immortal Sword [a legendary sword forged specifically to slay demonic beings]—one could choose not to use it, but it was unwise not to possess it.
He and the demonic fiends were mortal enemies by nature. Why should he care about their opinions? If fate granted him the opportunity to forge an Immortal Sword [a supreme weapon of immortal rank] in the future, what reason would he have to hesitate?
According to the notes from the Verdant Void Sect, within the Eastern Sea region, it was not just one faction of the Human Race that had forged such a pair of Immortal Sword to resist evil fiends. There were even those who had refined the Thousand Demons Demon-Slaying Sword into a Fifth Rank Demon-Slaying Immortal Sword.
After storing these ancient texts, Eldrin Chen took inventory once more and discovered a historical chronicle of the Verdant Void Sect.
With a mere glance, he was immediately drawn into the depths of this historical record.
Opening the first page, his eyes fell upon a line of text:
Path Calendar Year Thirteen Thousand Four Hundred.
The Founding Patriarch of the Verdant Void Sect, Verdant Void Master [the revered title of the sect's founder], followed Imperial Sovereign Jiang from the Central Ancestral Domain [the mythical heartland of human civilization].
After one hundred and ninety-six great battles, they reclaimed the Eastern Region Great Wasteland, their forces advancing to the shores of the Eastern Sea Cultivation World [the cultivation realm bordering the Eastern Sea], recovering vast territories for our Human Race...
"The Path Calendar Year Thirteen Thousand Four Hundred?"
Eldrin Chen's eyes narrowed slightly, his brow furrowing in thought.
The current year is the nineteen thousand three hundred and twenty-third year of the Path Calendar. This means the Verdant Void Sect followed Imperial Sovereign Jiang here over six thousand years ago.
Furthermore, the use of the word 'reclaimed' here carries profound implications.
It implies that the Eastern Region Great Wasteland was once ancient territory of the Human Race, though it is unknown why it was lost, only to be taken back six millennia ago.
The meaning behind this is terrifying. In the distant, ancient past, the Eastern Region Great Wasteland was home to a flourishing Human Race cultivation Immortal Realm. Then, after a great war, the entire Eastern Region cultivation Immortal Realm was utterly destroyed.
What kind of war could have caused the fall of a cultivation Immortal Realm as ancient and vast as the Eastern Region Great Wasteland?
Were the demonic forbidden domains that now litter the Eastern Region Great Wasteland born suddenly, or were they nails driven deep into the land by fiends and demons in that distant era six thousand years ago, and many times since?
Eldrin Chen's gaze grew heavy and contemplative as he continued reading:
In the thirteen thousand six hundredth year of the Path Calendar, the Founding Patriarch established his orthodoxy on Starry Abyss Island in the Eastern Sea, founding the Verdant Void Sect.
After a thousand years, the entire Verdant Void Sect followed Imperial Sovereign Jiang, driving the evil demons out of the Purple Seal Realm.
Thus concluded the seventh reclamation of the ancestral lands of the Purple Seal Cultivation World...
A tremor of dread passed through Eldrin Chen's heart. The seventh reclamation... did that imply the Eastern Region Great Wasteland Cultivation World had been utterly destroyed and rebuilt seven times over?
Furthermore, according to the knowledge he had absorbed since childhood, the Purple Seal Realm was said to possess a history spanning at least several million years. Why, then, did the records of the Path Calendar [the official chronicle of the cultivation world's major events] extend back less than twenty thousand?
What of the time before those twenty millennia? What was the true state of the Purple Seal Cultivation World in that lost age?
The historical annals of the Verdant Void Sect held no answers to these questions, offering only the barest of notes:
In the year fifteen thousand nine hundred of the Path Calendar, Imperial Sovereign Jiang transcended the heavenly tribulation and ascended to immortality. Alone, with only his sword, he entered the Demonic Abyss [a festering pit of demonic energy and corruption] to sever the Karma [the metaphysical bonds of cause and effect] he had accrued in the Mortal Dust [the mundane, mortal world]. Continue reading this story at audio-novel . com.
He departed... and never returned.
A millennium later, the Founding Ancestor and several dozen other True Lord and Path Lord cultivators journeyed forth together.
They, too... never returned.
In the year seventeen thousand of the Path Calendar, the Demonic Abyss Cataclysm descended once more. The Eastern Sea Cultivation World was grievously wounded, and the Second Generation Founding Ancestor fell in battle.
In the Path Calendar [a system for recording major cosmic cycles] year eighteen thousand, three successive sect masters battled three Demon Monarch [powerful rulers of demonic hordes] to the death, their strength utterly spent…
Eldrin Chen watched in silence, a profound and chilling weight slowly settling in his heart.
There were no records for the year nineteen thousand of the Path Calendar. Three centuries prior, the Verdant Void Sect [a righteous cultivation sect] had been utterly annihilated in that very war.
The Verdant Void Sect was a bastion of heroes, its disciples ever standing on the front lines against the tide of evil. Yet, in the end, Path Sun Lin met his demise not in glorious battle, but through the treachery of others. The injustice of it was a bitter draught.
"…"
For the first time in this life, Eldrin Chen felt a suffocating dread, a terror so profound it defied words.
Within the recorded history of twenty thousand years, the Eastern Region Great Wasteland [a vast and perilous frontier region] had already fallen seven times, its Human Race reduced to mere cattle for demons and monsters.
This immense horror struck at the core of his being. The very Immortal Realm [the higher plane of existence for cultivators] had been destroyed more than once. The sheer scale of this cataclysm stole the breath from his lungs.
Even after Imperial Sovereign Jiang ascended to immortality, he had failed to quell the Great Tribulation [a cataclysmic era of conflict and upheaval]. The darkness lurking behind this failure sent a cold shiver down Eldrin's spine.
He had never lived in a world free from war. It was merely that others had been holding up the sky before him, shielding him from the storm.
The sky was veiled by a miasma that blotted out all else; between heaven and earth, a sea of fire seethed and roiled; across the mountains and rivers, naked rivers of molten rock flowed.
Eldrin Chen closed the ancient tome and lifted his gaze to survey this world. He felt that this purgatorial realm, shrouded by the Flaming Prison Sea of Fire, was like a microcosm of the vast world beyond.
In that moment, he finally understood why Exquisite Jiang had told him that knowing too much could affect one's Dao Heart [the foundational will and clarity of purpose in a cultivator's path].
"Demons and fiends…"
Clad in robes as white as snow, he stood silently within this hellish world.
Without uttering a single word, he simply watched it all, standing there in profound stillness for a long, long time.
"…"
Cultivation was a process both tedious and immensely long.
Eldrin Chen sat cross-legged amidst the purgatorial flames, opened his alchemical furnace to refine several batches of Spirit-Nourishing Pill [pills that replenish spiritual energy and vitality], and then began to visualize and contemplate the Falling Sun Ridge.
While restoring his Primordial Spirit [the spiritual core and highest essence of a cultivator's being], he would study the classics left by predecessors and, in parallel, deduce and refine the Five Elements Cultivation Art.
In the third year, he deduced a water-attribute cultivation art and named it the 'Heavenly River Positive Water Scripture'.
That Heavenly River Positive Water Scripture could not only cultivate one to the Violet Sanctum 9th Tier, but the spiritual force [the refined energy cultivated and wielded by practitioners] it produced was exceptionally pure, enduring, and possessed a recovery rate far surpassing that of the Solar Solar Fire Scripture and the Bulwark Earth Sovereign Scripture.
Six years later, he advanced further, creating a metal-attribute cultivation art. Eldrin Chen named it the 'Western Pole White Emperor Scripture'.
Nine years later, Eldrin Chen deduced the final piece of the Five Elements Cultivation Art. This method was a wood-attribute cultivation art.
Its combat power was merely ordinary, but it could increase a cultivator's lifespan by one Sixty-Year Cycle.
Even more astonishingly, Eldrin Chen integrated the strengths of various arts to resolve the inherent drawbacks of longevity-extending techniques. Cultivating it would not affect one's chances of a Golden Core breakthrough.
Generally speaking, any cultivation art capable of extending lifespan without hindering advancement potential would rank among the pinnacle of Golden Core-grade techniques.
By this merit alone, this art deserved to be counted among the very best of Violet Sanctum-grade techniques. Thus, he decisively named this scripture the Verdant Emperor Longevity Scripture.
After completing the deduction of the Five Elements Cultivation Art, Eldrin Chen initially intended to continue fusing the five arts into one. However, realizing such a synthesis would not be the work of a single day, and needing to return to Chu Nation with haste, he reluctantly set the thought aside.
Thus, time flowed swiftly by. In the twelfth year of his secluded cultivation to refine his spiritual sense, his mastery in that domain finally brushed against the threshold of the Golden Core realm. This chapter appears courtesy of audio - novel . com.