"Fair enough!"
Looking at the clouds below his feet that were floating around the ice peak like giant waves, Yan Liren said, deep in thought, "I thought that it was because I did not polish the three primeval swords hard enough that I could not meld with the sword and wield them at will. But on second thought, I was not interested in polishing them wholeheartedly at all. As it turns out, it was because I was not interested in polishing them wholeheartedly!"
"Judging from the wear and tear on your 'fourth sword'," Li Yao said, "the sword must've been with you for at least fifty years before you rose. I believe that it must've been given to you by someone very special, and it must've been irreplaceable for you, right?"
Yan Liren's eyes were deep and gloomy, as if he were mired in memories from a long time ago. There was no telling whether he was happy or sad as he mumbled, "It was indeed given to me by someone very special.
"You've seen my body, too. I have congenital deficiencies. At that time, nobody was optimistic about my future and thought that my achievements would be limited no matter how hard I tried.
"She was the only one who thought highly of me, believed in me, and supported me. After I was deprived of all my training resources, she secretly shared her spiritual herbs and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures with me. She even bought the sword with everything she had.
"Do you see the dazzling jewels on the scabbard? Haha, she is not someone who understands swords. She only thinks that the more beautiful it is, the more powerful it is. This sword has almost cost her everything. It can be said that she was ruthlessly ripped off!"
"I still remember that when she gave me this sword, I was at my lowest point on the path of cultivation. I was so low that I wanted to give up on the path of the sword and become a menial disciple who dealt with the affairs of the common people!"
"At that time, her status was much higher than mine. When I saw this sword, I was shocked and happy, but I also felt a little inferior. For a moment, I didn't dare to take the sword. I asked her. She trusted me so much. What if I couldn't become an unparalleled Sword Immortal like what others said? What if I couldn't become an unparalleled Sword Immortal?"
In the raging wind, Yan Liren's voice carried a weird magnetism, which attracted Li Yao's attention to his story without him knowing it. He could not help but ask, "What did she say?"
Yan Liren smiled. He stabbed the immaculate short sword that Li Yao had just crafted into a crevice casually. Then, he pulled out the old, broken sword from his waist and held it in his arms. Looking at the world below the clouds, he leisurely said, "Her smile was — was a silly smile. She said that it did not matter. She gave me the sword because she was not a sword immortal at all. She only liked to see how I looked when I drew my sword!"
"Oh," Li Yao said meaningfully.
"At our level of cultivation, as long as we find a suitable divine ability, it is not impossible to change the shape of our bones and flesh and completely change our appearance."
Looking at the unpredictable clouds, Yan Liren said, "The Purple Pole Sword Sect once went through a lot of trouble to search for Cultivation arts that could change the body size. As they expected, they found several secret arts that could increase the height of the body and the length of the limbs.
"Although it was impossible for me to reach the height of eight feet, it was still possible for me to turn into the appearance of an ordinary person."
"I know. Although they don't say it out loud, they always feel that having such an ugly signboard like me is really an eyesore. Sword Immortals should be handsome, elegant, and otherworldly. How can they be someone with such an honorable appearance like me?"
"However, if what she likes to see is how I draw my sword right now, why should I change my original appearance for the eyes of the irrelevant people in the mortal world?"
"Understood!"
Li Yao took a long breath in relief and said sincerely, "Now that you have spoken so frankly, I know how to reforge the sword. However, it will take a long time and cannot be rushed. It will take at least a year and a half. Please don't be hasty, Brother Yan!"
"It doesn't matter to me."
Yan Liren smiled casually. "Just take your time, Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture. Not just a year and a half, I can wait for a couple of years or even twenty years."
"Why is that?"
Li Yao was dazed for a moment. Pondering for a moment, he asked, "Don't you want your secret sword to be reforged as soon as possible, Fellow Cultivator Yan?"
"It will be great if it can be reforged as soon as possible."
Yan Liren frowned. "However, my sword arts are already so marvelous, delicate, and rarely-seen right now. If I have a secret sword that can be perfectly melted with me, won't I really be invincible?"
Li Yao: "… Cough, cough. Cough, cough, cough. What's wrong with being invincible?"
"Being invincible will be too lonely."
Yan Liren sighed. "With my capability today, there are no more than ten people in the entire world who deserve my full attention and the most perfect sword attack. Every one of them that I kill will be one less.
"I really don't want to kill them!
"However, no matter how reluctant I am, I will kill all of them one day. Even Wu Xingyun and Meng Chixin, the two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage who dominated the world in the past, will inevitably be found by me and executed, body and soul alike!
"Right now, with Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture's help, the day will be much shorter!
"After all the experts in the world have been slain by my sword, who should I wave the most perfect sword attack at?"
"…" Li Yao.
"Haotian, Haotian, why are you so unfair?"
Yan Liren suddenly leapt to his feet and roared at the boundless sky furiously. "Why? Why did you give me such a strong life? Why did you make it so easy for me to reach the level of invincibility? Why did you have to make this world so small? Look at it, it's full of chickens and dogs. Why didn't you give birth to a few more experts for me to kill? "
"Why? Why did you do that?"
Yan Liren seemed to have gone mad. Invisible sword auras soared up and tore the sky apart, leaving pale traces in the sky!
"… Brother — Brother Yan, don't be too excited," Li Yao said. "In fact, has it ever occurred to you that there is always someone better than you? Maybe there is a vaster world beyond this one, and there are more experts that are worthy of your challenge?"
"Are you talking about the deities' realm, Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture?"
Yan Liren gradually calmed down after venting his anger to his heart's content. He looked back at Li Yao and shook his head in disapproval. "For tens of thousands of years, there has always been a legend in the world of Cultivators that as long as one reaches the level above the Divinity Transformation Stage, with the mysterious secret arts, they will be able to break the void and ascend to the deities' realm, becoming immortal deities!
"However, where is the so-called 'deities' realm 'exactly?
"I've read a lot of ancient notes. Tens of thousands of years ago, the spiritual energy in the Ancient Sages Sector was much more intense than it is right now. There were too many experts above the Divinity Transformation Stage. Many super experts once rushed out of the Ancient Sages Sector and ascended to the sea of stars in search of the 'deities' realm '!
"However, most of the super experts above the Divinity Transformation Stage never returned. They vanished into the boundless sea of stars!
"According to the experts who luckily escaped back to the Ancient Sages Sector, there was no deities' realm outside of the Ancient Sages Sector at all. Instead, it was a place of emptiness and darkness that was devoid of air, life, and resources. The darkness had no end at all. It was like an ocean that was billions of times larger. It was impossible to get out of it!
"If they tried to break out by force, they would only end up as dry corpses in the darkness after a long flight when all their resources and spiritual energy were exhausted!
"For tens of thousands of years, countless unparalleled experts who dominated the Ancient Sages Sector were killed in such a way!
"I once read the notes of a Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator from the era of the Great Chu Dynasty twenty thousand years ago.
"The Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator was a noble of the Great Chu Dynasty. He was very ambitious and spent a hundred years gathering assets, magical equipment, and spiritual energy, all because he wanted to break out of the 'black ocean' that surrounded the Ancient Sages Sector and search for the deities' realm!
"He drifted in the dark sea of stars for thirty years. He thought that he had arrived at an unprecedented place, but he accidentally discovered a divine boat that was a hundred times more precise than the one that he had prepared. Inside the boat was a vivid body, too.
"After searching the items left on the body, he discovered that the body belonged to a great Cultivator in the Void Refining Stage who had risen and destroyed multiple dynasties fifty thousand years ago!
"Even a great Cultivator in the Void Refining Stage and a starship a hundred times more precise than his died miserably on their way to search for the deities' realm!
"The noble of the Great Chu Dynasty, who was at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, was so frustrated that he was almost mentally deranged. He completely lost the courage to continue searching for the deities' realm. It took him another few decades before he finally escaped back to the Ancient Sages Sector!
"Sigh. Many mortals think that the ever-changing stars in the sky are the residence of the deities. In fact, the vast stars that we see are just glittering corpses floating in the dark ocean!"
"The path to deities' realm is a boundless one. Where is the so-called deities' realm exactly, and how can we reach it?"
Li Yao thought of something and said, "Why are you sighing, Brother Yan? Since the 'deities' realm 'is a well-known name, it can't be a groundless place, can it? Perhaps the deities' realm does exist, but it is not possible to reach it simply by rushing forward. You can only be teleported out with certain magical equipment that looks like teleportation arrays! "
Yan Liren glanced at Li Yao weirdly and said, "Interesting. Your theory is rather similar to Wang Xi's."
Li Yao's heart almost skipped a beat. He lost his composure and exclaimed, "What?"
"Wang Xi once asked me if I had the feeling that the Ancient Sages Sector was like a lone island surrounded by a dark ocean or a bottomless well, and that the so-called 'unparalleled experts' were just a bunch of frogs at the bottom of the well who could not jump out at all!"
Yan Liren smiled and said, "Then, Wang Xi said that perhaps we had been using the wrong approach for a hundred thousand years. It was impossible to jump out of the well, but it was possible to crawl out of it by drilling a hole nearby!"
I can't hold it any longer after being so excited for a few days. Today, I will take a rest and refresh my head so that I can sort out my thoughts later. I'll just update twice. After I sort out my thoughts, I will certainly speed up again! (To be continued.)
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