The sect master’s question struck right at Su Zhuyi’s heart.
Su Zhuyi had no idea what kind of sword it was either.
But regardless of what sword it was or how powerful, it was a sword Su Zhuyi couldn’t control at will.
The flying sword had already acknowledged her as master, but she couldn’t sense the broken sword’s existence in her sea of consciousness. However, she vaguely felt a weak soul connection, proving it had indeed acknowledged her as master.
This broken sword’s acknowledgment was the same as Little Skull’s situation. As long as they were unhappy and wanted to leave, she couldn’t stop them even if she knelt and begged. Both the flying sword and Little Skull’s acknowledgment belonged to one-sided soul contracts, meaning she had no binding power over either the flying sword or Little Skull.
Su Zhuyi was a pragmatist. For her, magical treasures she could use at will were much better than immortal treasures she couldn’t control. She just wanted a handy weapon!
Speaking of which, the current Su Zhuyi had two magical treasures and one spirit pet.
One was her life-bound magical treasure, the dao artifact Liuguang Mirror.
One was an unnamed broken sword.
And one was Little Skull.
Among them, she couldn’t sense the dao artifact at all, she could sense the flying sword but couldn’t use it, and Little Skull would obey but wouldn’t kill…
Su Zhuyi: “…”
It wasn’t even as good as her former farming hoe—nodding and bowing, stupid and obedient.
Unfortunately, the little hoe had already sunk into the sword river along with her storage bag.
She stood there without speaking. The sect master was extremely anxious inside but still appeared quite calm on the surface, looking at her with eager, burning eyes. Elder Hu rushed to Su Zhuyi’s front and directly reached out his hand, almost touching that patch of azure light. But the moment his hand approached, he felt a chill. His life-bound flying sword at his waist rang with a “zheng” sound, making his heart tremble, and he instinctively withdrew his hand to press on the sword at his side.
The precious sword trembled lightly—a somewhat panicked trembling that made him inexplicably flustered. Only by pressing the sword body firmly with his fingers did his flying sword calm down.
“That azure light is extraordinary!”
Su Zhuyi didn’t know what her broken sword was called. It was covered in rust, ugly, and broken in half. Though it seemed very fierce and evil, taking it out like this would invite ridicule, and might even make Qinghe feel she’d embarrassed her master’s face…
Thinking this way, Su Zhuyi simply had Little Skull hand out the Songfeng Sword.
Little Skull hugged the Songfeng Sword and crawled to the gourd opening, extending the sword hilt outside the gourd mouth. The Songfeng Sword seemed to have a scabbard, and she drew the Songfeng Sword from the gourd-shaped scabbard without needing to exert force, as Little Skull was there handing her the sword.
Her posture was elegant and completely composed.
She drew the sword, thrusting the Songfeng Sword out of the azure light. With a flip of her wrist, she deftly executed a sword flourish and declared loudly: “Songfeng Sword.”
At that moment, her voice rose high, echoing through the valley, full of heroic spirit and high ambition.
Everyone saw that within the azure light, an azure pine faintly stood within, full of vibrant life and lush greenery.
When the Songfeng Sword emerged, it let out a light whistle, causing all the flying swords of the cultivators present to ring in unison, vibrating continuously as if harmonizing with it.
“Drawing the sword creates an artistic conception, ten thousand swords harmonize with it—this, this is an immortal sword?”
As Su Zhuyi’s words fell, before she could appreciate everyone’s reactions, thunder exploded in her mind again.
“Hmph!” The broken sword gave an angry snort, making blood seep from her ears as if her hearing had been deafened.
Little Skull transmitted from within her sea of consciousness: “What are you snorting about? If you have something to say, say it. Daddy said only pigs go ‘hmph hmph.'”
Broken sword: “Hmph!”
Except for disciples of the Beast Taming Sect, generally speaking, a cultivator could only contract one spirit beast. Similarly, spirit treasures and spirit swords couldn’t be too many—the consequence of having too many or too powerful ones was that the cultivator’s primordial spirit couldn’t bear it. Of course, the stronger one’s power, the stronger the primordial spirit. By the Nascent Soul stage, there would be many fewer restrictions.
Just like now, Little Skull and the broken sword’s brief exchange made Su Zhuyi’s blood surge, and her head split with pain. She gritted her teeth and endured. Never mind appreciating others’ shocked and envious expressions—she couldn’t even respond to the sect master’s congratulations.
“I’m very tired,” Su Zhuyi managed to say. “Where is our spirit boat?”
The sect master also noticed Su Zhuyi seemed somewhat unwell and immediately said, “I’ll escort you there.”
The spirit boat was flying in the sky with Gujian Sect cultivators meditating and practicing on it, so the spirit boat hadn’t been put away.
The sect master discovered something strange about the azure light around Su Zhuyi. Feeling intimidated when he approached, he didn’t carry her up to the spirit boat but led the way in front. Once on the spirit boat, Su Zhuyi said, “Sect Master, my clothes are torn. Please trouble you for a set of disciple robes. I’m injured and have no pills left—I need some medicine too.”
Being a Righteous Path disciple was indeed good—she could openly ask the sect’s elders for these things. Su Zhuyi was becoming increasingly satisfied with her identity in this life.
…
So her clothes were torn—no wonder she was shrouded in misty clouds with what seemed like fireflies flying above her head.
Sect Master Duan Linshu looked at Su Zhuyi within the azure light, thinking that subduing an immortal sword wasn’t easy—this girl had suffered quite a bit.
“I don’t have disciple robes, but I have a golden silk soft armor. It’s not quite suitable for female disciples—I originally planned to put it in the sect as a reward for disciples. How about you make do with it for now?” Saying “make do” didn’t seem quite right either—that was a spirit treasure.
However, Su Zhuyi had obtained an immortal sword and brought honor to Gujian Sect. Rewarding her with a spirit treasure was appropriate.
“Thank you, Sect Master.” She reached out her hand, then paused halfway. “There’s no artifact spirit in the spirit treasure, is there?”
Little Skull’s primordial spirit was much stronger than hers, and the broken sword far exceeded her as well. She couldn’t suppress these two—if another one came, her head would explode!
The sect master shook his head. “This golden silk soft armor was just recently refined. If you wear and nurture it for a hundred years, developing an artifact spirit wouldn’t be difficult. This is…” He originally wanted to say it was refined by Master Fan and had a ninety percent chance of developing an artifact spirit in the future. But before he finished speaking, Su Zhuyi had already unhesitatingly taken the golden silk soft armor.
It seemed like she didn’t hope for an artifact spirit but rather hoped there wasn’t one. Just as he was puzzled, he heard Su Zhuyi say: “Thank you, Sect Master. I’ll go back to my room to change clothes and rest a bit before coming out.” Then that patch of azure light hurriedly entered the spirit boat cabin. Seeing this, the sect master didn’t think much of it and returned to the foot of Sword Mountain.
The Gujian Sect had twenty-four disciples who entered Sword Mountain this time. Now, only Su Zhuyi had emerged, and she had obtained an immortal sword. Such a good start made him so happy he couldn’t stop grinning. He wondered if there would be more surprises next. What sword could that good seedling from the Yunxiao Sect obtain?
…
Su Zhuyi returned to her room and put on the golden silk soft armor. When worn, the soft armor became a golden silk outfit. Though she liked bright colors, this completely golden outfit had no decorative patterns and had metal plate-like pieces front and back, looking…
Really couldn’t be called attractive—like wearing a stack of gold foil sheets.
If worn by someone else, it would probably look extremely vulgar. Su Zhuyi looked at herself in the water mirror and helplessly curled her lip.
This golden glittering outfit was refined by that guy surnamed Fan.
There was an artifact refining master in the cultivation world named Fan Jinxin, who claimed he lacked gold in his five elements and took such a name. Later he specifically learned artifact refining just to deal with metals. His artifact refining talent was also extremely high—by seven or eight hundred years old, he had already become an artifact refining master capable of refining spirit treasures. But the magical treasures he refined had one fatal flaw.
That was ugliness.
In her previous life, after Su Zhuyi became famous, what she looked down on most were magical treasures refined by Fan Jinxin. Once, a self-proclaimed romantic man took a spirit treasure he refined to win her favor, wanting a night of romance with her. She directly killed that person. Later, because of this incident, she offended Fan Jinxin. Among those who besieged her back then was that guy surnamed Fan.
She never expected that in this life, she would wear golden armor refined by her enemy…
After changing clothes, Su Zhuyi tried contacting the broken sword—no response. She simply infused her spiritual consciousness into the Songfeng Sword and asked: “Hey, that broken sword is quite close to you. What’s its background?”
The Songfeng Sword also didn’t respond.
Just when Su Zhuyi thought it wouldn’t answer either, the Songfeng Sword spoke.
“Once upon a time, someone buried a sword.”
“Later, there was the Sword Tomb.”
“I don’t know what it’s called.”
“I only know it’s the first sword in the Sword Tomb.”
Su Zhuyi: “…”
She hadn’t expected the broken sword to have such a significant background. When it left, Su Zhuyi seemed to hear ten thousand swords crying out—could they have been saying, “Ah, the ancestor has been taken away?”
“After flying swords enter the Sword Tomb, they gradually forget memories, forget former masters, and wholeheartedly wait for new masters,” the Songfeng Sword said softly. “This is the meaning of the Sword Tomb’s existence.”
“But if we wait too long, we’ll even forget our names.”
“So it has no name.”
The Songfeng Sword’s voice was very gentle, but its words made Su Zhuyi pause slightly. Just then, she heard Wu’er say: “Oh, you don’t have a name? How about I call you Little Azure? I’ll take you to play with Xiaoxiao from now on.”
With a “smack,” a streak of azure light struck Little Skull’s head, making him hold his head with both hands, tears in his eyes, grievously standing beside Su Zhuyi and tugging at her sleeve.
The spirit boat flew in the sky. It was now evening, and looking out through the window, the sky was full of sunset clouds, making even the tables and chairs on the spirit boat glow red.
In the distance, azure Sword Mountain was veiled in rosy light, losing some of its sharpness and gaining some tenderness.
Su Zhuyi glanced at distant Sword Mountain and somewhat hesitantly probed: “How about I call you Qingxia?”
After speaking, her heart jumped, feeling a chill rise from the soles of her feet. So Su Zhuyi also quickly covered her head with both hands…
Maintaining the same posture as Little Skull. Only those who had been struck on the head by the broken sword knew exactly how much it hurt.
Broken sword: “Hmph!”