Chapter 1127 — A Peerless Sword

"So then, Earth Mother, will you do this or not?" Lord Heaven asked.

The Earth Mother gritted her teeth. "If I do it, there will be no place left for me in Xuandu either. The Patriarch God King will surely hunt me down, until I have no road to heaven above nor door in the earth below! Your only reason for saving me was to use me to wipe out the Heavenly Court's forces in Xuandu!"

Lord Heaven looked at her. "Once you have done it, I will lend you the Western Emperor's Breathing Soil."

The Earth Mother Primordial Sovereign, reeking of killing intent, said in a shrill, stern voice, "I will do it!"

Shen Mu parted from Ling Yuxiu and returned to the Supervisory Foundry. Over at the foundry, the Headman, the Alchemist, Granny Zhu, the Lame Elder, Lord Huo, and the Deaf Elder had all arrived; the Butcher had gotten in touch with them, and they had come here through the teleportation gates forged in each city.

Now Jingping was rich and powerful beyond measure, shipping in every kind of material without cease from the various heavens; forging them into divine weapons and refining them into spirit pills at Jingping, it had more than enough to sustain the teleportation gates of every city.

The elders of Yincan Village gathered in one place, raising another great clamor. The Silent Craftsman had already sorted the materials by category and made everything ready, matching the proportions of divine-weapon materials to each person's cultivation art and divine ability.

The divine weapons Jingping forged for the Heavenly Court were all standard-pattern arms, turned out by the Supervisory Foundries as if off a flowing stream, each foundry handling one or two stages of the work.

But as Jingping's mightiest Heavenly Artisans and formation masters, the Silent Craftsman and the Blind Elder did their forging with their own hands, and that was no small matter.

The Headman wanted a sword with a scabbard, not a sword pill. The Butcher wanted two divine sabers. Granny Zhu's divine weapon was a Dao wheel able to bear her own Great Dao divine ability. Lord Huo wanted nothing but a Zen staff. The Lame Elder wanted a pair of gloves and a pair of boots.

The Deaf Elder wanted a brush and an inkstone; the Alchemist wanted a pill-refining furnace; the Blind Elder wished to temper and refine his Dragon-Tuo Divine Spear; and as for the Silent Craftsman himself, he would forge a new grand furnace and iron hammer.

Shen Mu watched from the side. When the Headman's sword was being forged, the Headman sat nearby and unleashed his sword-Dao divine ability, sword-Dao runes flying up in profusion; the Blind Elder used formations to congeal that sword-Dao divine ability into microscopic runes, which the Silent Craftsman struck with his great hammer, hammering them into the sword blank!

Shen Mu looked closely: within the ancestral shrine's divine metal, each microscopic particle of divine metal was branded with the tiniest sword-Dao runes—a sight that made one gasp in admiration.

This art of hammer-tempering involved micro-calculation, micro-carving, micro-formations, micro-branding, micro-forging—nothing that could be accomplished by any Heavenly Artisan or formation master whose cultivation had not reached the utmost limit!

Even a being like the Headman, to forge such a divine weapon, had to expend vast vital qi, energy, and divine consciousness; essence, qi, and spirit all had to be poured into the weapon.

Only when the divine weapon merged with one's own spirit could it unleash its power to the fullest!

Midway through the forging, the Headman's vital qi ran dry, his energy withered, his divine consciousness depleted; he had to rest several times before he could go on.

The Blind Elder said, "If it goes on in fits and starts like this, I fear the divine sword cannot be completed in one continuous breath, and the weapon's power will suffer for it."

Thereupon Shen Mu had Dragon Qilin fetch the Gourd Heaven Bottle and take out some primordial essence liquid to distribute among them, and only thus did the Headman recover quickly.

The Silent Craftsman glanced at the primordial essence liquid and said flatly, "Shen'er, bring more of that water—for quenching!"

Shen Mu was startled, his head aching, but he gritted his teeth and had Dragon Qilin bring out still more primordial essence liquid for the Silent Craftsman to quench the divine sword.

This sword of the Headman's was the most exquisite of arts, allowing not the slightest error; the power of the finished divine sword would even far surpass the Headman's own strength!

Shen Mu observed for a long while and gained a great deal.

Micro-calculation was his own creation, but micro-formations, micro-carving, micro-branding, micro-forging, and micro-runes had all been pioneered and developed by Jingping.

In those years, the leaders of the Jingping Reform had every one of them seen the promise of micro-calculation and scrambled to study it; and by today it had at last given rise to many achievements!

The Headman's divine sword took more than ten days to forge, and consumed vast quantities of primordial essence liquid; at long last the divine sword was complete!

When the divine sword was finished, throughout the Supervisory Foundries on both banks of the Tu River, ten thousand divine weapons rang out in unison, quaking without cease!

When the Headman grasped the sword, the ringing of those ten thousand weapons grew even more violent.

He steadied his mind; just as he was about to draw the divine sword from its scabbard, the Blind Elder hastily stopped him. "The king of ten thousand weapons—its power is greater than your own. The first time it leaves the scabbard, the divine sword is certain to assert its might! Go outside to draw it, and put some distance between yourself and this place; the divine weapons in the foundries on both banks cannot withstand its sword-might."

The Headman walked out of the foundry; the others poured out after him, stirred beyond words.

The Headman drew his sword—both to prove that all their toil of these days had not been wasted, and to prove the fruits of ten years of the Jingping Reform!

Just as the Headman was about to draw, the Blind Elder frowned. "Farther."

The Headman rose into the air, away from the foundries on both banks, and said, "How about here?"

The Silent Craftsman bellowed, "Farther still."

Helpless, the Headman kept rising, and called out loudly, "How about here?"

The Silent Craftsman checked the quivering of the divine weapons in the foundries and shouted, "Farther still!"

Higher and higher the Headman climbed, until his figure could no longer be seen by the naked eye; his voice came from far off: "And now?"

"Dragon-Tuo, how goes it?" the Blind Elder asked the Dragon-Tuo Divine Spear.

The black dragon divine spear at his waist swam slowly and said, "Before the sword leaves its scabbard, I already feel its blade-light piercing my body, and the pressure on me is immense. If it is drawn, the divine sword will assert its might and press down upon every sharp thing around it; I will surely be severed by that blade-light!"

The Blind Elder called out at the top of his voice, "Farther still!"

The Headman flew up into the heavens, higher even than the Yuanmu tree of Jingping's capital. Looking down, he could see only the capital and the Yuanmu, while the dragon veins all around had shrunk to the smallest thinness.

He looked up: fly any higher and he would before long come near the star chart. He hastily sent his divine consciousness surging downward, asking, "How is it now?"

After a moment, Shen Mu's divine consciousness came back to him: "Headman, Grandpa Blind and the others mean for you to go higher still."

The Headman was furious. "Any higher and I will have run off beyond the heavens! There is no way this divine sword's might is that strong—to sever the divine weapons in the foundries from such a distance!"

He boldly drew the sword, and the divine sword left its scabbard.