Chapter 1532 — The Finest of Swords

"I am still the strongest Heavenly Artisan, but Worry-Free Village is no longer the Founding Emperor era of those days.

" The words fell like a drawn blade with its edge bared, and even the Founding Emperor could not help but dim before them, for though his sword Dao had branded thirty-five layers of void, he could hardly parry such a thrust.

Worry-Free Village had indeed swept away the decay of former days, yet compared with the Founding Emperor era it still lacked much, and could not return to that age of keen reform and striving endeavor. From top to bottom the will to fight remained unchanged in Worry-Free Village, but the accumulated weight was hard to reverse, and whenever the Founding Emperor went to Jingping he felt only a vigorous and striving spirit, changing day by day, while upon returning to Worry-Free Village he could feel no such spirit.

Such was Jingping now. Jingping could gather the finest talents under heaven and forge a sword for Shen Mu with the strength of an entire nation, fusing the essence and spirit of the age into the forging.

The Worry-Free Village of today could no longer do this.

Li Youran walked into the Dao fire, the mightiest Heavenly Artisan of the Founding Emperor era, his realm immensely high, his cultivation even above that of Jingping's strongest Heavenly Artisan, the Silent Artisan.

With his joining, the speed of casting quickened at once.

Yet only then did Li Youran see that in the Dao of casting the Silent Artisan was in no way inferior to him, and in certain respects had already surpassed him.

In casting, the Silent Artisan had achieved the unity of the vast and the minute, and when he forged, his hammer work was square yet without corners, as the great vessel is slow to complete and the great image has no form.

And yet his hammer work was also exquisitely fine, every blow falling upon the tiniest particles, carving delicate patterns upon the smallest motes. Such craft Li Youran did not possess.

In matters of the great he was far stronger than the Silent Artisan, for whether Worry-Free Village or the Other Shore Ark, both were towering and immense, such colossal divine artifacts as even the Celestial Court could hardly refine.

But in matters of the minute he fell far behind.

He also wished to see the Silent Artisan fulfilled, and so he served as his assistant, lending his own comprehension of casting to aid the Silent Artisan, helping him advance one step further upon the Dao of casting and grasp still deeper principles.

One divine weapon after another belonging to prehistoric mighty ones gave off earth-shaking power within the Dao fire, but the Dao fire was too fierce, causing the Great Dao brands hidden within those weapons to crumble and melt away, causing the Great Dao that those prehistoric mighty ones had sacrificed into their weapons to collapse and liquefy.

Those Great Daos ruined by the fire broke apart into domains of the Great Dao, and those domains also collapsed within the Nine Heavens of Dao Fire, turning into Dao patterns. The Dao patterns in turn disintegrated again, turning into runes.

This spectacle let all who took part in the refining and all who watched beyond the Dao Fire Ancestral Ground perceive many secrets of cultivation. The divine ability users and gods and devils of today, though their arts grew ever more profound, had not yet reached the flourishing of past universes.

All along, the path followed by divine ability users and gods and devils in cultivation was that of Great Dao runes, divine abilities, and Dao patterns, with Dao patterns forming Dao chains to make domains.

As for domains, they rested in the hands of only a few, becoming secrets never passed on.

Only when the Founding Emperor transmitted the Dao realm system and the sword domain to Jingping did domains, that higher path of cultivation, gradually become known to divine ability users and gods and devils.

A domain was mastery of laws, and having reached this step, the divine ability users and gods and devils of the world felt only that no road lay ahead, that the path had reached its end.

Yet above domains there lay a still deeper road of cultivation, for the Founding Emperor built his sword domains layer upon layer, and upon the road toward the Ultimate Void, the ultimate domain of sword Dao, the Sword Dao Great Luo Heaven, remained unperfected, so that until the final moment even he did not know what scenery lay above domains.

Wei Suifeng and Prince Youming had glimpsed something deeper from a single Dao pattern in Miluo Palace, but they had never spread it abroad.

Now, as the heavy treasures of prehistoric beings disintegrated within the Nine Heavens of Dao Fire, all present beheld still more profound secrets of cultivation.

The masters of these treasures Shen Mu had gathered had not attained the Dao, yet many had touched its edge, and no few had walked even farther than the Founding Emperor.

As their treasures melted in the Dao fire, they broke down from deep Dao realms into Dao chains and Dao patterns and Great Dao runes, a revelation of great启迪 even to the Founding Emperor. And yet even Great Dao runes kept dissolving in the Dao fire, turning into the purest spirit power and spirit qi.

Within the Dao fire, Heavenly Artisans swung great hammers, beating that spirit power and spirit qi into the molten slurry, while formation masters struck in turn, branding Shen Mu's runes and Dao patterns and domains.

The scene left even the Four Ancient God Emperors staring tongue-tied, for of those melted treasures, not one was weaker than a Celestial Venerable treasure, and some were stronger.

Any single piece brought forth would likely yield nothing to the Founding Emperor's Worry-Free Sword.

More crucial still, such treasures numbered over a hundred.

To produce one or two would be one thing, but to bring forth so many at once was wealth that even the Four Ancient God Emperors combined could not match.

"So many treasures melted down could fill a whole sea," Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon shook his head and murmured, "What sword could need so much divine material?

Such a sword simply cannot be forged, with so much divine gold and divine stuff, to use even one part in a hundred would be fine.

" Hearing this, the Founding Emperor raised a brow, drew the Worry-Free Sword, and said lightly, "Does the Eastern Emperor know how much divine gold and divine material went into this sword of mine?

" Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon studied the Worry-Free Sword, seeing a blade some four feet long, and supposed such a sword could not have taken much material, yet the fame of the Worry-Free Sword was widespread and its might terrifying, for the Founding Emperor had once borne it into the Celestial Court, fought the Heaven Alliance, and beheaded Celestial Emperors.

Such a treasure could never have been made from a few catties of divine gold.

"Within this sword of mine lie hidden thirty-three heavens, its body hollow, able to hold the whole of Worry-Free Village inside.

" The Founding Emperor sheathed his sword and said lightly, "When Li Youran forged for me, the divine gold and divine material he used piled more than mountains high. Even several hundred great mountains would not refine such a sword.

Eastern Emperor, the Dao of casting has already become a Great Dao, not something you can fathom.

" Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon fell sullenly silent. With his temper, had any other man spoken to him so, he would long since have raised a hand to destroy him, but since the speaker was the Founding Emperor, he could only listen.

Once the hundred-odd treasures had melted, tens of thousands of Heavenly Artisans began to forge the first heaven of the divine sword, and countless divine golds and divine materials flowed like water to the side of each mighty-sinewed Artisan to be hammered into shape, the consumption of material enough to make one click the tongue.