Chapter 1129 — Walk Shoulder to Shoulder with Me
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Seeing this, the blind old man and the Silent Smith set their minds at ease; they exchanged a glance and each nodded.
Shen Mu, as they had hoped, stirred his own insights amid the hammering; he not only mastered the knowledge the two had passed down in the course of their forging, but grew thoroughly deft in it besides. More than that, he entered a mysterious state, fusing his own insights, his understanding of the Dao, his spirit, and even his Dao-heart into the forging itself!
As he forged, halos of light surfaced around his body, and shadowy figures of ancient gods emerged from every part of him, great halos and small encircling those ancient deities, emblems of the Great Dao of primordial chaos. Resplendent Dao-notes rang out; his insights, his Dao-heart, his perseverance, his striving, all were hammered blow after blow into the divine weapon taking shape.
He reduced his Great Dao runes and his divine arts to the microscopic, and as the great hammer fell, branded them deep into every microscopic particle of the divine weapon, branded with utter earnestness. Whenever his yuan-qi and spirit-consciousness ran dry, he would take up the Primordial Essence Liquid and drink a mouthful; when the divine weapon grew too fierce, he would even steep and temper it in the Primordial Essence Liquid, sparing no cost.
After the Silent Smith and the blind old man finished forging the Butcher's divine blade, they saw that Shen Mu was still hammering away, without sleep or rest, and could not help but be astonished.
Yet neither of them gave it much thought; after all, what Shen Mu had learned was broad and miscellaneous, and microscopic forging must surely be time-consuming and laborious. The two elders rested for a good while, then opened the furnace again to forge boots and gloves for the Lame Elder.
Forging treasures for the Lame Elder took longer even than the Butcher's divine blade; the Lame Elder's cultivation method was peculiar, demanding treasures that could pass with him through all manner of seals and prohibitions, treasures to sharpen his art of thievery. This was a mighty trial for the Silent Smith and the blind old man.
By the time the two finished the Lame Elder's treasures, more than twenty days had passed; they breathed a sigh of relief and looked back, only to find Shen Mu still refining his divine weapon.
By now it could be seen that what Shen Mu was forging was also a sword, a most ordinary divine sword, with nothing remarkable about it.
Yet Shen Mu had already brought out the Heavenly Palaces one after another from his Yuan Embryo Divine Treasury, using those palaces to force the brand upon it!
The two exchanged a glance, and in their hearts they thought: the might of this divine weapon of Shen'er's must be terrifying indeed! They could tell that Shen Mu's divine weapon had only the outward form of a sword; in truth it bore Shen Mu's Great Dao and his aspirations, not merely a sword but a thing that could change its shape at will, and that was why the forging was so intricate.
The strange phenomena around Shen Mu drew inward; as the last hammer blow fell, there came a ding, and that blow struck the divine sword, and all at once the sword shattered with a clatter.
The Silent Smith and the blind old man were startled to the heart, and flew swiftly to his side, only to see that the divine sword Shen Mu had toiled over all these days lay in pieces on the ground!
The sword had shattered into countless motes of powder; because it was microscopic forging, the divine metals and divine materials had become the tiniest particles, well-nigh imperceptible.
Shen Mu snatched up a handful of the flying ash and stared dumbly, lost in thought.
The blind old man hurriedly opened his Sage Pupil to examine those particles, frowned slightly, and said softly, "Silent Smith, he means to fuse fifteen Imperial Throne cultivation methods into one and forge them into this sword.