Within the illusionary Paradisiacal Swordland, Heifeng Jiansui was picking out books, flipping through them and putting them back into the shelves. This was a mechanical action repeated hundreds of times before. Using the powers of raw memorization and his ‘Boundless Scriptures Showing Dao’ art to memorize every manual in a jiffy, he had already covered ten bookshelves before.

Every book’s back was marked by a single dot of spiritual force from his Battle Spirit. It was a way of marking his advancement on the momentous task of reading through every book in this library!

Like this hours proceeded into days which turned into weeks which transformed into months. After flipping through countless books on myriad subjects, Heifeng Jiansui gained a clearer comprehension on various subjects. Most manuals were on sword arts, but the books on talismans and spells weren’t few either. There were basic mortal martial arts, there were manuals on poison and there were historic accounts and fiction novels as well.

Devoted to his memorizing, only a few days were left before he completed every book in the library. After scanning the library again for missed books, he left the library, returning to the true world.

Only a week remained for the three months to end. His body was without activity for three months. While there would be few problems due to the formation set up, it would be best for him to return and exercise himself at the earliest.

+++

Getting off the jade mat he was meditating on, Heifeng Jiansui withdrew the sword sheathed on his hip and began performing the Foundation layer of his Quintessence Sword Arts. After 15 minutes, his bones were emitting cracking noises and skin looked as if it would peel off. Finally sheathing his sword, he returned to the jade mat. It was time to check the manuals imprinted in his mind.

+++

Heifeng Jiansui was now in his Soul Space. Within it, a small library seemed to have been built. The ‘Boundless Scriptures Showing Dao’ Art had transformed this barren space into a book storage. Walking up to a shelf with a plaque of ‘Bloodline Arts’ fixed on it, Heifeng Jiansui began to earnestly read through the manuals.

The books dealing with bloodline arts weren’t few, but they usually had only a single facet of their arts dealing with it. For example, the Golden Talisman Body had a stage where blood collected from demon beasts would be fused into the body, the ‘Bloodboost Layer’. Most of the arts were like this, using the blood essence of beasts to refine the body or certain treasures.

Luckily, there was a manual which was different from the others, unexpectedly uniquely suited to him. The Phoenixflame Marrowforge was an art which would refine his body and bloodline into that of a phoenix. Since he possessed a relatively pure phoenix bloodline, it would refine his body further and remove impurities!

Unfortunately, it required a Phoenix Marrow Pill to cultivate in. While he did possess these pills, he certainly couldn’t digest them without dilution. And cultivating this technique required swallowing these pills whole!

“Maybe if I read some other manuals, I can figure out a way to cultivate this technique without pills…” Holding on to this hope, he began browsing the vast library within his mind.

+++

“Mother, my seclusion ended successfully. My comprehension of blacksmithing has increased as well! As such, I will be training my forging arts by accepting missions from the Ten Thousand Sword Paradise… Even though I will not be in seclusion, it would be similar to closed-door training.” After three months of non-interaction, he told his mother that he would be training in seclusion for more time.

“I suppose you have truly embarked on your path of cultivation. Let me inform you something, your sister has broken through to become a 4th stage Beastmaster! She can now fuse bloodlines of beasts together to train her physique! While she can only train the foundation of her mortal body for now, on the date the battle for the Black Phoenix Bloodline, she can use it to train her physique to the level of a 9th stage Body Tempering cultivator!” Hearing the warning about the progress of his mortal enemy, Heifeng Jiansui had a thoughtful expression…

“That girl must be training in the ‘Black Phoenix Allbeast Ruler’ art. While cultivating in it is quite fast in the beginning, it will inevitably lower the density of the bloodline. Even so…” The Black Phoenix Allbeast Rule formation’s refining technique was written down in this manual. It wasn’t uncommon for a grand scripture to have other arts penned down in it.

“Due to the thickness of her bloodline, she began training in this art since the age of 3, so she can be said to have a good foundation. As for the side-effects of lowering the bloodline density, there are quite a few ways of resolving it, so it isn’t too much of a problem!”

“While she has been training herself as Beastmaster with the backing of the Five Sacred Beasts Sect, you are a Sword cultivator of the Ten Thousand Sword Paradise! A Sword Immortal’s true path is of attack, so if you train yourself wholeheartedly defeating her will be a cinch!” Saying this, she stroked her son’s head.

After exchanging these words with his mother, Heifeng Jiansui returned to his room and entered the Illusionary Swordland, going to the Mission Hall for some forging missions.

After checking the mission lists for forging missions, he took out the highest paying missions accessible to him (top grade Mortal rank swords, along with Dive Sword Spirit arrays inlaid) and accepted them all.

[Equipment materials will be sent within 24 hours. Kindly do not move from your set coordinates during this time.]

After this, he went to the Treasure Hall and browsed around for Earth Rank materials. Earth Rank materials were still separated into low, mid, high and top grades and the materials he wanted were all low grade Earth rank. However, their prices were still miles above top grade Mortal rank.

“I don’t need them now, but I’ll need them in three months or so. But for now…” He glanced at the equipment materials which he couldn’t afford yet, and resolutely left the virtual world.

+++

After a brief call to his mother warning her of flying swords delivering items, he returned to his room. This time, he put up the Black Phoenix Allbeast Rule formation, removed some remaining top-grade materials and began forging.

After his mission had been completed, the spatial ring was one of the many containing top-grade Mortal materials that he had appropriated before the Emperor terminated his access to unlimited materials. It would be unfair if he didn’t butcher this fat pig!

In the forging room, the sound of hammers banging resonated with the quietness of the rest of the residence. Heifeng Jiansui finally wiped the sweat off his brow as he looked at the finished 9 pillars forged from different elemental Mortal top-grade materials! This was another Black Phoenix Allbeast Rule formation!

Putting the new formation away in his spatial ring, he thought about the different ranks of blacksmiths. While it was possible to refine higher grade equipment from lower grade materials, the difficulty would increase with every grade. For example, refining Common mid-grade equipment from Common low-grade materials was something that could be accomplished by nearly every blacksmith. Common high-grade equipment from Common mid-grade materials was trickier. As for refining Common top-grade equipment from Common high-grade materials, it could be only accomplished by veteran blacksmiths.

Refining Mortal low-grade equipment from Common top-grade materials was the sign for a high-grade sect’s Forging Hall outer disciples!

Further, refining Mortal mid-grade equipment from Mortal low-grade materials was a test for qualifying into inner disciple with strength of 3rd Stage Body Refining. Refining Mortal high-grade equipment from Mortal mid-grade materials could be accomplished by core disciples with cultivation of 6th Stage Body Refining. And refining Mortal top-grade equipment from Mortal high-grade materials could only be accomplished by true disciples with the cultivation of peak Body Refining!

“Even though I have the strength of a peak Body Refining cultivator with this formation, I could not refine a Mortal top-grade equipment from Mortal high-grade materials before my seclusion. I wonder if I can do that now? We shall see that when the flying sword comes with the materials tomorrow. Now… time to see if the method I have devised for training Phoenixflame Marrowforge art works as planned.”

There were many methods of training body refining arts. Some could be trained with only the energy within the body, while others required pills. Some required special arrays for condensing unique types of qi.

The Phoenixflame Marrowforge required the special bloodline energy of a Phoenix to enter the bone marrow and refine them to perfection. A Phoenix Marrow Extract was required for training it. Without it, one could use the pure awakened energy of the bloodline to refine the marrow, but it would be wasteful, burning innate potential to cultivate external arts.

The essence of the technique was using phoenix qi to refine the marrows of the bone. Heifeng Jiansui had devised an alternate, unorthodox method to accomplish this this by piecing together the techniques from the Ten Thousand Sword Paradise’s archives.

After recovering his energy, he went to cleanse himself with a purifying bath. After this, he changed the formations so that they may converge energy into the Black Phoenix Allbeast Rule formation. After they were completely saturated, he changed the divine pillars into thin needles.

Setting up the formations so that they may block all sound, he finally checked everything once before commanding the needles to pierce into his body.

The screams emitted by the boy never left the confines of the room.