Chapter 87: The Cultivation Technique

Ye Mo returned to the cabin’s bedroom, entered the ancient painting, and handed over the hard-won blueprint for the Black Iron Spirit Sword to the little fox.

The little fox was overjoyed.

“With this blueprint, I’ll be able to forge the Black Iron Spirit Sword very soon, hee-hee!”

As soon as Ah Li received the blueprint, she set her master aside, wholly absorbed in studying how to craft the Black Iron Spirit Sword.

Ye Mo watched her for a while, then left the ancient painting quietly, not wanting to disturb Ah Li.

He spent half an hour in the cabin cultivating the Water Arrow Technique, and then returned to the ancient painting to check on the progress.

However, Ah Li was still delightfully engrossed in the blueprint.

After repeating this several times, Ye Mo’s impatience gradually gave way to calm.

“There’s no need to be anxious. Forging weapons isn’t something that can be accomplished overnight. If I tried to forge a sword myself, it would probably take several months, or even a year or two, just to get started as an apprentice. Ah Li can forge weapons, but she still needs time to figure things out.”

Ye Mo steadied his heart and resumed his cultivation of the Water Arrow Technique, deciding to enter the Immortal Village in the ancient painting once a day to check on Ah Li’s progress.

After a night passed, at dawn the next day, Ye Mo entered the artifact workshop inside the painting again.

“Master, I’ve already forged a Black Iron Spirit Sword!”

Ah Li presented a black spirit sword as if offering a precious treasure.

“So fast! You managed to forge the Black Iron Spirit Sword in just one night! I once asked the apprentices in Donglai Immortal Village, and they usually study for at least a year, with only about a twenty percent success rate. If those apprentices knew you could forge one in a day, they’d call you a genius.”

Ye Mo was delighted and quickly took the black spirit sword.

He was not exaggerating; the children apprenticed to weapon forging in Donglai Immortal Village often spent years before even becoming apprentices. To advance from apprentice to full-fledged weapon smith was an even longer road—five or ten years was not uncommon.

“Hee-hee! Thank you for the praise, Master!” The little fox’s expression was full of pride.

Ye Mo carefully examined the blade and noticed two hair-thin lines. He ran his fingers over them and turned to Ah Li, saying, “But the blade of this Black Iron Spirit Sword still has two very fine cracks. Will that affect its durability?”

“Oh, you noticed! Actually, this is just an inferior-grade Black Iron Spirit Sword. I didn’t control the heat properly last night, which left two small cracks and greatly reduced the quality—it doesn’t meet the standards on the blueprint. The blueprint says each hair-thin crack reduces the sword’s durability by ten percent. Any cracks make it an inferior product,” Ah Li said, sticking out her tongue with a mischievous smile.

Ye Mo nodded, thinking to himself whether he should try to sell this inferior sword cheaply.

“Never mind, I’ll just melt it down and try again,” Ah Li said, already tossing the inferior sword back into the furnace.

“Huh, you can reforge an inferior Black Iron Sword?” Ye Mo was surprised, then realized. He’d thought the sword was a loss and regretted wasting the materials.

“The materials for weapon forging can usually be recycled. Not just this sword—if you bring back other discarded spirit weapons, Master, I can extract useful materials from them and reforge them,” Ah Li explained as she added wood to the furnace. “Weapon forging is different from alchemy. If you fail at alchemy, the materials are ruined and can’t be reused.”

“Understood.” Ye Mo nodded, making a mental note.

Ah Li’s intellect was extraordinary, and her talent for forging could only be described as genius. Ye Mo was deeply impressed—he knew he couldn’t match her skill if he forged weapons himself.

Ah Li’s second attempt resulted in a sword that met the standard—a proper first-tier Black Iron Spirit Sword. The rate of inferior products was very low; out of ten swords, only two or three were flawed.

As days passed, the inventory of Black Iron Swords inside the painting grew steadily.

“Ah Li, when will you be able to forge second-tier Black Iron Swords?”

“Second-tier Black Iron Swords are much harder to make than first-tier ones! My success rate for first-tier swords is about eighty percent, but if I try second-tier now, the rate will drop to twenty or thirty percent, and I’ll need to reforge most of them. That would be a waste of time!” Ah Li scratched her head in frustration. “Let me get more practice first, then I’ll be able to make second-tier spirit swords soon. Master, please be patient!”

Ah Li threw herself into forging with great enthusiasm.

Knowing this, Ye Mo stopped bothering her. The art of forging takes a long time to master.

He took one or two Black Iron Spirit Swords and set up a small stall at Donglai Immortal Village’s night market, selling them for spirit stones to fund his cultivation.

Compared to the Five Elements Spirit Swords, the Black Iron Spirit Swords Ye Mo sold were certainly low-tier. Yet, as long as the price was cheap enough, they would attract the attention of other poor cultivators. On the market, a first-tier Five Elements Spirit Sword cost one hundred spirit stones, while a first-tier Black Iron Spirit Sword went for twelve or thirteen.

Every evening, Ye Mo sold Black Iron Swords for ten spirit stones each at the night market—mainly to itinerant cultivators who were short on money but needed a sword.

As for buyers asking about the swords’ origins, Ye Mo claimed they were oddments brought by a friend via sea ship, just to earn a little extra.

This kind of small-scale reselling at market stalls was common in all the Immortal Villages of the Eastern Sea. Some low-level cultivators even made a living running goods between villages, buying low and selling high for profit. As long as the goods weren’t particularly sensitive, no one cared.

Ye Mo’s business was essentially all profit—zero cost.

After more than ten days of setting up his stall, Ye Mo finally accumulated over a hundred spirit stones. He figured that would be enough to buy a halfway decent cultivation manual.

Ye Mo had already checked the shops: the worst manuals cost a dozen spirit stones, while a slightly better one started at a hundred.

That night, Ye Mo took his hard-earned spirit stones and hurried to a shop in Donglai Immortal Village that specialized in selling various secret manuals.

Without a cultivation manual, how could he talk about cultivation at all?

Previously, Ye Mo had been too poor to afford a manual, and his cultivation had stalled at the first level of the Qi Condensation stage after just breaking through to the Spiritual Core stage.

Now that he finally had some spirit stones, he needed to buy a cultivation manual as soon as possible. Every day’s delay was a day lost in training.

The shop was not particularly large.

When Ye Mo entered, several cultivators were already browsing.

“Fellow cultivator, what are you looking for? We have all kinds of cultivation manuals, rune books, and spell imprints—the best selection in the village,” a young shop assistant in his twenties immediately came over enthusiastically.

Ye Mo rolled his eyes. There were only two or three secret manual shops in Donglai Immortal Village, and this one was the largest, so of course it was the best.

“I want to buy a cultivation manual,” Ye Mo said, glancing at the categories on the shelves.

“Which element does the master require?” the assistant asked.

“Which element? …I’m not really sure,” Ye Mo replied, caught off guard.

He’d read in ancient books that cultivators had different spiritual root types, but he didn’t know his own.

“Ah, then you must be new to cultivation. It’s best to let the shopkeeper check your spiritual roots first!” The assistant quickly caught on and led Ye Mo to the back.

“Shopkeeper, this new cultivator wishes to purchase a cultivation manual,” the assistant reported respectfully to an elderly man in his sixties behind the counter.

The old shopkeeper was engrossed in a tattered book. At the assistant’s words, he slowly put the book aside and studied Ye Mo carefully.

“Fellow cultivator, you’re not sure which type of manual to buy?” the old shopkeeper asked, sipping his tea.

“I’ve only just become a cultivator and don’t know much yet. Please advise me, senior,” Ye Mo replied, shaking his head. In truth, he had no idea what kind of manual to buy—he was a complete novice.

“In that case, let me explain. Cultivation manuals are divided by spiritual root attributes into nine types: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, Ice, Wind, Thunder, and Dark. That is, the Five Great Elements, the Three Lesser Elements, and one Dark. Each attribute has its own set of manuals—the first eight for human cultivators. The Dark attribute is for ghost clans, so we’ll skip that.

Of course, there are also some manuals with no attribute requirements, which anyone can cultivate.

Surely you’ve heard of spiritual roots. Choosing a manual begins with knowing your own attributes. If you choose a fire manual but have weak fire roots, your cultivation will be painfully slow—not worth it. Have you ever had your spiritual root attributes tested?” The old shopkeeper stroked his beard calmly.

“No,” Ye Mo replied.

He had read about spiritual roots in the ‘Chronicles of Cultivation.’ The only thing he was sure of was his water root, since he could use the Water Arrow Technique.

“Then I’ll test them for you. If you purchase a manual here, the test is free of charge,” the old shopkeeper said with a kind smile.

“Very well, then I’ll trouble you,” Ye Mo agreed. He had to get tested, spirit stones or not—otherwise, he was in the dark about his own situation.

Ye Mo followed the old shopkeeper to a small room at the back of the shop.

The shopkeeper produced a purplish-black stone that glimmered faintly with golden light.

“This is a spirit stone for testing spiritual roots. Grip it tightly and infuse your mana, and you’ll see your attributes,” the shopkeeper explained.

Ye Mo took the stone nervously, took a deep breath, and focused his mana into it.

As he did, the stone quickly radiated eight different colors of light, dazzling and bright.

“Eight… Eight colors?” The old shopkeeper was clearly stunned. He sighed softly, shook his head, and looked at Ye Mo with a touch of pity.

“You possess all eight spiritual roots—the Five Great Elements and the Three Lesser Elements. Such a complete set is extremely rare in the cultivation world! Of course, the more roots you have, the weaker each one tends to be. Judging from the intensity, each is about ten to fifteen points. Your total potential is high, but too diffuse. What a pity!”

The shopkeeper clicked his tongue in wonder.

Ye Mo’s face clouded.

He knew exactly what that meant.

For cultivators, the more spiritual roots, the less potent each one. The purer the root, the easier the path. In the test, the brighter the color, the better the root.

His eight roots were nearly identical—mediocre, in a word.

Ye Mo felt a wave of helplessness. Spiritual roots were innate, not something one could change later in life.

Well, so be it! Mediocre is as good as it gets. I was just an ordinary martial artist—now that I’ve forged a spiritual core and become a cultivator, I must give it my all.

No matter how ordinary my talent, I will cultivate and improve. And I still have the ancient painting—with its help, I will not lag behind those with greater gifts.

After a brief moment of disappointment, Ye Mo clenched his fists and silently encouraged himself.