277: Chapter 275 That won't do! It's too embarrassing!

"A Human-Powered Thruster?!"

Su Hongling's ruby-like eyes instantly went wide. She looked down at her long, sturdy legs that were full of explosive power, then looked at Su Lin. Her expression shifted from shock to daze, finally settling on grief and indignation.

"Old Man! Have you got it wrong?!"

Su Hongling hopped up on the spot, hands on her hips, pointing at her own nose as she hollered crossly.

"I am a Mahayana Stage Body Cultivator, for goodness' sake!

I'm a peerless powerhouse who can smash those five alien commanders into meat patties with a single punch!

Now you want me to be a laborer pulling a cart?! What's the difference between that and the donkeys turning millstones in the Human Realm?!"

"Pfft..."

Beside them, Luo Ximei couldn't hold it in. She covered half her face with her peacock feather fan, laughing so hard her body shook, causing the proud curves of her chest to heave violently.

"Second Senior Sister, how could Revered Master be treating you like a donkey?

You're the core power source of our battleship.

Besides, with the exception of your brute strength, who else could forcibly kick a battleship made of Primordial Dragon Bone through a Law Vacuum Zone where there isn't even any Spiritual Qi?"

"Shut up! Fifth Sister, don't think I can't tell you're calling me all brawn and no brains!"

Su Hongling glared fiercely at Luo Ximei, then turned back to Su Lin, grabbing his sleeve to begin her daily routine of acting spoiled and being difficult. "Revered Master~ can't we swap for someone else?

Can't Fourth Sister manifest lots of vines?

Let her whip it along! Or let the little shorty do it!

Isn't she a ghost cultivator? Floating in a vacuum would save so much effort for a ghost!"

Yue Xiaoxiao, who had been called out, shuddered all over and hurriedly shook her head like a rattle. "No, no, no!

Xiaoxiao can't do it! Xiaoxiao's Ghost Qi will dissipate instantly without the support of Spiritual Qi. Xiaoxiao can't pull a ship!"

"Alright, stop howling."

Su Lin was getting dizzy from her shaking, so he helplessly reached out and flicked her forehead. "This is the glory of a Body Cultivator; others wouldn't even be qualified to kick it.

Besides, it's not like I'm making you pull it from the outside; I'll build a specialized power Formation Plate inside the battleship.

You just need to exert your strength within it."

"That... that still won't do! It's too embarrassing!"

Su Hongling still muttered with some reluctance.

Su Lin sighed and used his trump card: "When we return from up there, I will personally cook."

"Deal!!!"

Su Hongling, who had just been full of unyielding defiance, changed her face faster than flipping a page. She instantly stood straight and patted her chest in guarantee: "Old Man, don't you worry!

Forget one ship, even if you loaded the entire Daochu Sect onto it, I could kick it all the way to the Heavenly Court for you!"

Seeing this girl's 'willing to sell her Soul for food' look, everyone facepalmed in silence.

...

Three days later.

At the back mountain of the Daochu Sect, the original emerald bamboo forest had been completely leveled. Now, it was a massive open-air forging platform.

In these three days, Gu Qiuyue had demonstrated the terrifying 'money power' of the Jiuzhou Chamber of Commerce's Great Proprietor.

She had practically forced open a green channel with money. Countless chamber merchant ships, loaded with top-tier Materials, transported various Formation Materials and auxiliary Ores to the Daochu Sect day and night.

And at this moment, right in the center of the forging platform, lay a gargantuan object.

It was a segment of Primordial Dragon Bone, a thousand zhang long!

Despite having endured millions of years of erosion, leaving the bone's surface a desolate pale white, the terrifying pressure of a Primordial True Dragon emanating from deep within the marrow still forced all birds and beasts within a hundred-mile radius to prostrate themselves, not even daring to breathe loudly.

"It's so big..."

Chu Weiwei circled the dragon bone once, looking up.

"I really want to scrape off some bone powder to mix into medicine!"

"Third Junior Sister, wipe your drool. Don't let poison drip onto the dragon bone."

"This dragon bone is to be the keel of the battleship. If you scrape off even an inch, I will be the first to sacrifice you to the heavens."

"Tch, Eldest Senior Sister is so stingy."

Chu Weiwei curled her lip and sulkily put away her notebook, but her eyes still drifted toward the dragon bone from time to time.

"Revered Master is here."

Someone called out.

Everyone turned their heads in unison to see Su Lin, clad in his Starlight Dharma Robe, walking up the stone steps to the forging platform at a leisurely pace with his hands behind his back.

"Revered Master!"

The seven disciples immediately went to meet him, surrounding Su Lin.

Even for routine project preparations, they were unwilling to miss any chance to establish their presence before their Revered Master.

"How are the preparations?"

Su Lin's gaze swept over the massive dragon bone, and he nodded slightly, a hint of satisfaction in his eyes.

"Reporting to Revered Master, the dragon bone has been cleaned. The chamber's best Artifact Refiners worked through the night using Nine Heavens Resting Soil to fill the tiny weathered cracks on the bone."

Gu Qiuyue stepped forward with her golden abacus, as serious as if she were reporting quarterly financial results.

"However, this dragon bone is too hard; ordinary True Fire cannot shape it. Revered Master must personally decide what to do next."

"No matter, leave the shaping to me."

Su Lin walked to the front of the dragon bone and took a deep breath, his Great Perfection of the Integration Stage cultivation slowly circulating.

"Qingxue, prepare the Mystic Ice."

"Yes, Revered Master."

Mu Qingxue stepped forward slowly.

Today, she wasn't wearing her signature snow-white flowy dress; instead, she had changed into a form-fitting ice-blue sword suit.

Her long hair was tied up high, and her unadorned face held an extremely focused coldness.

She walked to one side of the dragon bone and slammed both hands onto the ground.

An absolute zero cold wave that seemed capable of freezing time itself spread frantically from Mu Qingxue toward the thousand-zhang dragon bone.

The moisture in the air was sucked dry in an instant, turning into a sky full of ice-blue snowflakes.

Under the wash of the cold wave, the originally grey-white Primordial Dragon Bone rapidly condensed a thick layer of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice!

This wasn't ordinary freezing.

Mu Qingxue was using her Middle Stage Mahayana Dao of Ice to forcibly clad the dragon bone in an indestructible ice crystal shell!

"Cold, cold, cold... Seventh Junior Sister, can you watch where people are!"

Luo Ximei shivered from the sudden chill and couldn't help but take two steps back. A layer of black-and-white interleaved Demonic Fire immediately ignited around her to ward off the cold.

"If you hate the cold, you can get lost."

Mu Qingxue didn't look back, her hands pressed firmly against the ground as a continuous stream of ice-system Law poured out.

"You!" Luo Ximei was choked with anger. "If I weren't doing this for the sake of Revered Master's ship building today, I'd melt your ice shell completely!"

"Alright, stop bickering."

Su Lin spoke up to stop their daily squabble.

He looked at the Primordial Dragon Bone, now completely encased in Mystic Ice like a giant ice sculpture, and the starlight in his eyes surged.

"Hong Ling! Your turn!"

"Coming!!!"

Su Hongling, who had been waiting in mid-air, let out an excited long cry.

"Old Man, say the word, where do I hit?!"

"Dragon head position, three points diagonally down, smash it flat!" Su Lin accurately called out the coordinates.

"Watch me! Sledgehammer eighty!!"

Su Hongling didn't use any fancy Moves. She was like a red meteorite falling from the sky. Using the gravitational acceleration from high altitude, she swung her iron fists—capable of smashing stars—and slammed them heavily into the Mystic Ice at the front of the dragon bone!

“Clang!!!”

A deafening boom echoed throughout the Daochu Sect's back mountain.

In that instant, even the surrounding air was forcibly pushed out by this terrifying giant force, forming a brief vacuum zone.

The forging platform beneath their feet shook violently. If Gu Qiuyue hadn't spent a fortune setting up over a hundred shock-absorbing Formations beforehand, the back mountain might have collapsed from that single punch.

Under the perfect combination of ice and force, the indestructible Primordial Dragon Bone—made brittle by the coating of extreme-cold Mystic Ice—was forcibly smashed into a flat surface by Su Hongling's punch!

This was the "Cold Forging Technique" of the Cultivation World!

"Good! Continue! Middle section of the spine, three inches down, strike out a groove!"

Su Lin became the strictest supervisor, his Divine Sense fully active as he constantly directed Su Hongling's shaping.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Su Hongling was like a tireless human pile driver, flying up and down in the air. Every punch that landed carried an Aura of world-destroying power.

Ice shards mixed with bone powder drifted in the air, forcibly hammering this irregular dragon bone into the prototype of a streamlined battleship.

"Whew... I'm exhausted..."

After three full hours of smashing, even as a Mahayana Stage Body Cultivator, Su Hongling was panting for breath.

She landed from the air, sat on the ground with a thud, picked up a prepared water vat, and tilted her head back to gulp it down.

"Revered Master, the prototype of the hull is out."

Mu Qingxue retracted her hands from the ground.

She showed no signs of fatigue, merely walking silently to Su Lin's side and looking at him with her cold eyes, seemingly waiting for something.

Su Lin naturally understood her.

He practicedly pulled a clean handkerchief from his sleeve and naturally wiped away the layer of fine cold sweat on Mu Qingxue's forehead.

"Hard work, you did very well."

This scene caused the others resting nearby to instantly turn into 'lemon spirits' from jealousy.

"Stop acting weak! Why didn't I see you sweating when you were freezing people just now?"

Luo Ximei waved her folding fan, saying sourly, "Revered Master, your disciple also broke a sweat watching from the side just now. Why don't you help your disciple wipe it?"

As she spoke, she deliberately puffed out her chest and leaned in front of Su Lin, her seductive face written all over with a plea for attention.

"That's from the heat you made yourself with your Demonic Fire. Who are you blaming?"

Chu Weiwei mocked from the side, while quickly handing Su Lin a cup of freshly brewed spiritual tea. "Revered Master, you must be thirsty? Have some tea to moisten your throat.

I added Tranquilizing Grass to this."

"There isn't some strange medicinal catalyst in that tea again, is there?"

Cold Moon walked over and pressed down on the teacup, her eyes wary.

"Eldest Senior Sister! Don't make false accusations! This is pure tea!"

Seeing that several disciples were about to argue again over trivial matters like serving tea and wiping sweat, Su Lin sighed helplessly and clapped his hands loudly.

"Everyone, settle down! The ship is only half-built; the interior and Formations haven't been done yet!"

Su Lin walked to the ice-covered bone hull that had begun to take the shape of a battleship, then turned to look at Chu Weiwei and Luo Ximei.

"Weiwei, Ximei, next are the coating and concealment Formations."

"This ship must pass through the Law Vacuum Zone; it must not leak even a shred of life force."

"Weiwei, I want you to prepare the most toxic and corrosive invisible coating you have and coat the entire battleship hull.

I want any Void Realm Creature that tries to approach to have its very Laws corroded away along with its body!"

"Ximei, you are responsible for inscribing the Nine Serenities Heaven-Sealing Formation inside the hull to completely isolate the ship's Aura from the current world, turning it into a piece of rotting stone floating in the void."

"Yes, Revered Master!"

As soon as they heard there was serious work to do, Luo Ximei and Chu Weiwei immediately perked up.

Chu Weiwei excitedly summoned over a dozen large wooden barrels and began frantically mixing various liquids of eerie colors inside.

"Hehehe... a coating that corrodes Laws, now this is a big project."

As she stirred, she let out the sinister laughter characteristic of a villain. "I'm going to paint this ship dark purple. Anyone who dares touch it, I'll make their very Soul rot!"

"That looks hideous," Luo Ximei looked at her with disgust. "A battleship should have the majesty of a battleship.

I'm going to add something to the Formation so that while it's hidden, it emits an unlookable divine-demon pressure!"

"What do you know! Utility is most important! Your flashy demonic patterns will only expose the target!"

"Quack! I call this violent aesthetics!"

The two of them began busying themselves on the battleship while bickering.

Watching this group of noisy yet clearly divided disciples, Su Lin walked to a rocking chair nearby and sat down, taking a small sip of the tea—not knowing if it had been spiked.

"Revered Master."

Cold Moon had walked up to him at some point, holding a roll of blueprints, her brow slightly furrowed.

"The hull and power are settled, but the internal layout of this battleship..."

As an Empress, Cold Moon had extremely strict requirements for quality of life.

"I just took a look; although this dragon bone is huge, if the internal space is divided like an ordinary merchant ship, it would be far too crude."

She pointed to the central area on the blueprint, her tone carrying a hint of non-negotiable dominance: "Revered Master's living quarters must be set in the safest core position with the most abundant Spiritual Qi."

"I have already had a Warm Jade Dragon-Saliva Bed brought from the national treasury; it is a full three zhang wide.

There are also twelve Agarwood Screens and various Spirit-Gathering Formation Plates. The quality of Revered Master's rest must not be neglected in the slightest."

Listening to Cold Moon's arrangements, Su Lin nearly spat out his tea.

"Cold Moon, we are going to war, to launch a sneak attack on the Upper Realm's nest! Not to go on a vacation!"

Su Lin rubbed his throbbing temples. "Why are you putting a three-zhang-wide bed in the ship? Do you think there isn't enough space already?"

"Revered Master is mistaken."

Cold Moon's expression didn't change, and she even puffed out her chest righteously.

"Precisely because we are going to war, Revered Master needs better rest.

Besides, a three-zhang bed isn't that large.

If Revered Master feels tired on the way, I... as well as the Junior Sisters, must have a place to undress Revered Master and massage his shoulders and legs, right?"

She specially emphasized the words 'Junior Sisters,' but her golden eyes clearly wrote: 'Only I and Revered Master can be on this bed'.

"Eldest Senior Sister, the beads from your abacus calculation are hitting me in the face!"