Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST 987 – Completed Sword, A Stronger Big Dipper Sword, The Regulation Of The World

Luckily, the amount of materials were abundant, and they were all top notch, too. With Qing Shui’s powerful Art of Forging, he had faith that the Big Dipper Sword could triple in power if he managed to refine the sword from its foundation. He might be able to increase the power by a little bit more than three fold, but anything further would be extremely unlikely to occur.

Qing Shui’s diligent cultivation of his skills, including the Thousand Hammer Technique, and his usual routine of forging, smelting, and refining, allowed him to stabilize his Art of Forging at the Penta-color stage. With that, he was finally able to refine the Big Dipper Sword like he had planned.

Now it was time to refine the weapon!

Qing Shui suspended the Big Dipper Sword in the air and began conjuring his Primordial Flames. This flame had become even more ferocious after his powers had surged, but the necessary heat of the flame could only be preserved if the flame was limited to three inches – a limit of his current power.

The terrifying Primordial Flames proceeded to burn the Big Dipper Sword with its ferocious heat. At first, Qing Shui was afraid that the Big Dipper Sword would instantly melt, so he controlled the flames with caution while using his spiritual sense to observe the melting point of the weapon.

Eventually, he noticed that the Big Dipper Sword was able to withstand the high temperature of the fiery heat, even if what the sword was made out of was unknown. He had gotten the sword by chance from a deity cave, so Qing Shui was able to affirm that the Big Dipper Sword was definitely an item of extreme value and quality.

After burning the sword for a certain period of time, Qing Shui finally stopped. He took out a Pure Gold Dragon-Headed Cane, a Violet Jade, and the precious Wolf Fang. He then proceeded to place the Big Dipper Sword into a sword mold. After torching the sword, an ancient-like halo appeared, shining dimly with a faint light.

Qing Shui then suspended the Wolf Fang, the Cane, and the Violet Jade above the sword before he started by smelting the fang. This time, the Primordial Flame burned with an energy that could devour one’s soul, enveloping its flame around the Wolf Fang.

Time passed by slowly, and the Wolf Fang seemed to remain the same as before. Qing Shui was as calm as an old monk as he continued to wait. After an hour, he slowly closed his eyes and entered his sea of consciousness.

The Yin-Yang Image in his sea of consciousness was circulating at an unbelievable speed, much faster than before. The pearl from the Niwan Palace also circulated as quickly as the Yin-Yang Image itself. Qing Shui didn’t notice any changes to the Primordial Flame, but he knew that its temperature and incineration ability had increased by multiple times, without any changes to its appearance.

Five of the Twelve Heavenly Meridians had been cleared. The fifth meridian had already been in the small success stage when the prior four meridians had been cleared. As of now, Qing Shui’s Primordial Flames was able to improve greatly due to his upgraded spiritual energy. He could coagulate his flames to about the thickness of a thumb, drilling into the Wolf Fang, like a drilling bit made of diamond.

The current ‘Primordial Flame Whip’ was longer and finer, but could unleash a formidable force much stronger than before – this was an improvement of the Primordial Flames’ power.

High-level Focused Concentration!

Qing Shui gathered all of his focus on the Wolf Fang for about six hours until a change occurred The Wolf Fang was began to melt into a brilliant dew. He didn’t dare slow down his effort, so he continued to burn the Wolf Fang with the high intensity flames.

Another hour passed.

Finally, the Wolf Fang began to melt!

The brilliant lustre of the liquid dripped slowly onto the Big Dipper Sword!

Clink!

A faint but clear sound echoed softly before the liquid was quickly absorbed by the sword. Then, another drop of liquid dripped until the few subsequent drops of the liquefied Wolf Fang were absorbed into the sword. The Big Dipper Sword was beginning to undergo a slight change as well.

Qing Shui expanded his spiritual sense and continued until the Wolf Fang had sufficiently dripped onto the sword. After four hours passed, Qing Shui then began to smelt the Violet Jade and the Cane together. The Wolf Fang was set aside after it cooled down. It had been more than enough for the sword, so Qing Shui expected that the Wolf Fang wouldn’t be used up completely for this session of refining.

The Pure Gold Dragon-Headed Cane and the Violet Jade were different than the Wolf Fang in terms of their melting points, as they required a significantly shorter amount of time to melt into a liquid state. Both of these materials slowly dripped onto the sword, and, like before, the drops of liquefied materials were absorbed by the Big Dipper Sword almost immediately.

The Dragon-Headed Cane was quite moderate in size, so it didn’t take too long for a third of it to melt off completely. On the other hand, the Violet Jade, that was the size of an infant’s brain, completely melted into the sword.

The Violet Jade was just enough for the refining of the Big Dipper Sword. He needed a bit more of the gold from the Pure Gold Dragon-Headed Cane. About half of the Cane would do. After an hour passed, Qing Shui finally put the Cane aside after he acquired enough gold for the sword.

He picked up the Violet Star Thunder God and proceeded to rapidly quench the Big Dipper Sword in a bucket of water, evaporating the water in the process. After that, he placed the sword on the forging block and began hammering the weapon.

With progressively increasing strength and speed, Qing Shui continued to hammer the sword with an expression as calm as the serene waters. Even though he felt exhausted from the continuous work, he was brimming with a confidence that pushed him to strike his hammer in a consistent resolution.

Clink!

Suddenly, a ray of brilliant penta-colored lights appeared, causing Qing Shui to halt his movements and wait for the lights to fade away. He was a bit bewildered, of course, but was also happy to see the brilliant lights shining from the sword.

The penta-colored lights completely enveloped the sword like a cocoon. Based on his past experiences, the lights would always fade away quickly, almost instantaneously. However, the lights didn’t fade as quickly this time, perhaps indicating that the sword might become stronger than expected.

Five minutes later, the penta-colored lights began to fade away. At that moment, Qing Shui reacted strangely to the Big Dipper Sword as he continued to observe the weapon. The sword seemed to have a life of its own.

The sword was filled with a denser ancient qi, its surface inscribed with some sort of obscure marks or patterns that strangely emitted an antique aura of bleakness throughout the surroundings. The aura felt heavy to his senses, but Qing Shui was more surprised to find an indentation on the hilt of the sword. The groove didn’t affect the splendidness of the sword. Instead, the groove made it seemed like there was an eye on the hilt. If Qing Shui wielded the hilt, as he would most of the time, the ‘eye’ would not be visible.

Another indentation on the sword.

Heavenly Vision Technique!

Qing Shui proceeded to scan the sword for additional changes.

Big Dipper Sword: Formed from the convergence of the unique silver sand of the Heaven and Earth, the materials were then forged into a sword by a skilled blacksmith. The sword can unleash lethal damage power while allowing the user to gain four times the power, and increasing both speed and attack speed by 20%. There is a 20% chance of increasing the attack damage by multiple times for each attack, subsequently decreasing 10% of the damage received. The user also has a certain chance of receiving an unexpected surprise from the sword.

That’s powerful! Too powerful…..

Qing Shui was floored by the newly refined Big Dipper Sword. He used to envy the Skywolf Claw that he had given to Mingyue Gelou, which had a 10% chance of increasing its attack damage by multiple times. However, he was lucky this time as the Big Dipper Sword had a 20% chance of doing so…

The difference of 10% seemed insignificant, but that was enough to cause a great disparity between their chances of activating the supplementary ability. If he was lucky, activating the ability four times or five times in a row wasn’t out of the question. If the percentage was lower than 20%, this became much more unlikely.

The four times increase to his power was the least expected attribute he had expected from the sword. If he had to guess, this might have been an effect inherited from the Wolf Fang, an authentic fang acquired directly from a divine beast.

No explanation was needed for the 20% increase in speed and attack speed. As mentioned before, speed was the most crucial aspect of a martial cultivator in the World of the Nine Continents, even more important than strength. Moreover, the 10% decrease to damage received was a feat not to be underestimated, as 10% was a lot, with Qing Shui’s current power. If he were to receive 100 stars of damage, he would only be inflicted with 90 stars of damage. Combined with the ability of the Emperor’s Qi, the damage received would be far less than 90 stars.

Qing Shui smiled, feeling satisfied with the new Big Dipper Sword. However, he was at a loss about the last part of the description of the Big Dipper Sword.

Those who can use a sword like this will definitely receive a certain amount of unexpected surprise.

Qing Shui was puzzled for a moment, but decided to wield the Big Dipper Sword for now.

As he held the sword in his hand, a stream of aura akin to the aura of spiritual sense immediately flowed into his body and circulated throughout his veins with agility. At that moment, he had a feeling that the Big Dipper Sword was some sort of living weapon, with a life of its own.

Humm Humm~

The Big Dipper Sword vibrated abruptly. The sudden aggressive behavior of the sword most likely stemmed from that ‘divine beast’, which prompted Qing Shui to use his mental ability to soothe the weapon. When the Big Dipper Sword finally returned to normal, a faint yet domineering energy resurfaced again and went straight to his body, particularly into his meridians and Dantian area.

The Golden Pellet in the Dantian area began to circulate with an unbelievable speed, the domineering energy enveloping the Golden Pellet itself. Eventually, the Golden Pellet began to absorb the energy, expanding in size into a more substantial form.

This caused Qing Shui to panic for a while, because he was afraid that the Golden Pellet had gone awry. If something went wrong with the Golden Pellet, he would be at a loss, without a single clue on how to fix it.

Qing Shui tried to sense his power next, but this caused him to make an odd expression instead. The domineering energy had increased his overall power by an additional 30 stars…..

Was that a reward from the Big Dipper Sword or the divine beast?

Despite the domineering trait of the energy, it felt quite subtle to his senses. He thought he would’ve only gained a small increase to his power because of the faint energy, but he didn’t expect the amount to be close to 30 stars. It was more than sufficient to say the least. The sudden change to his power kindled Qing Shui’s motivation to further his cultivating.

After everything was said and done, it was time to cultivate his sword techniques!

With the refined sword in hand, Qing Shui soared through the air and skillfully demonstrated his Combination Sword Technique. The Four Moves combination had the ability to increase 40% of his strength. Without the refined sword in hand, he would go nowhere with the Four Moves Combination Sword Technique. Now, he could demonstrate his moves naturally and in a swift motion.

Boom!

A loud explosion rang out, which Qing Shui was more than happy to hear. His overall power had reached the strength of 150 stars, including the application of the Heavenly Talisman and the auto-activation of his Nature Energy and State of Immovable as Mountains. His power was able to reach its peak through the application of his mental ability.

The Combination Sword Technique form, consisting of the Heavenly Thunder Slash, Frenzied Bull’s Strength, Shield Attack, and Expert Focused Concentration, was able to reach the damage of 4000 stars alone. Even though this form was still lacking compared to the Raging Blow before its upgrade, he was able to use this form to unleash the Sword of Sixth Wave technique with great proficiency. Most importantly, the speed of this form was incomprehensible. When the tip of the sword pierced through the air, a black hole could be seen forming. The surrounding atmosphere would resemble the flow of a cyclone which appeared behind the sword handle.

That was awesome!

Bang!

With another powerful strike, two black holes appeared in an instance, emitting a terrifying suction energy that could devour anything within close proximity.

This was the effect of doubling the damage power of the consecutive strike.

8000 stars!

Even in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, he could release an attack with 8000 stars worth of damage……

With that thought it mind, Qing Shui quickly exited the realm and rose through the air. Using his Nine Continents Step, he moved 20,000 li away, until he reached the deeper parts of the Heavenly Palace Mountain.

He wanted to see if he could unleash 5000 stars worth of damage in one go.

Qing Shui switched his weapon to the Violet Star Thunder God. He planned to strike the Raging Blow with his current weapon, which would probably reach a damage of about 5800 stars, surpassing his goal of 5000 stars.

Raging Blow!

Qing Shui was stunned when he felt the powers within his body exceeding the strength of 5000 stars the moment he began circulating the Raging Blow. It was only when he released his attack that he could clearly feel the limited output of its potential. He was only able to release 5000 stars of damage through the Raging Blow.

Just like a water tank, he could not pour out every last drop of water immediately, but could only drain out water slowly with a bucket every single time….

With this in mind, Qing Shui continued to strike the Raging Blow for about an hour before he stopped completely. He felt good about himself, and he was more than capable of going to the Demon Gate or the Lion King’s Ridge.

However, he decided to increase the power of the members of the Qing Clan before he departed to his next journey. At the same time, he would increase his own powers too, ideally to 200 stars, before journeying to the Lion King’s Ridge. If he could do that, then he would be able to reach the power of 5000 stars through the use of his Big Dipper Sword. Combined with his debuff abilities, Nine Palace Steps, and Formations techniques, he was all set to defeat his opponents once and for all.

He felt a bit relieved after settling his own power, but was depressed again when he thought about Di Chen. She was still missing, but he wasn’t worried about her safety too much, as her cultivation base was enough to protect herself from harm. Now that she had become stronger, she would soon forget about him. He had to start all over again to win her heart back, despite his frustration towards the matter. It would be extremely difficult given the current circumstance.

Qing Shui activated his Nine Continents Step and returned to a place nearby the Qing Residence. The sky was beginning to lighten up, so he decided to go to the backyard and start his morning practice.