17: Chapter 17 Broken Gun and Hidden Gold

Jiang Yan squatted down, placing both palms on the two halves of Murong Yan's corpse.

The corpse was still warm. The cross-section from the Blazing Flame Slash was scorched by high heat, the flesh and blood presenting an eerie charred black color, with edges curled up like paper scorched by fire.

Through the burnt clothing, he could feel the muscles beneath the skin slowly cooling, but the blood remaining deep in the chest cavity had not yet completely coagulated—the high heat of the Blazing Flame Slash had sealed the major blood vessels at the cross-section, which instead allowed the vital essence to be preserved inside the corpse.

He circulated the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture.

A suction force was emitted from his palms.

The two halves of Murong Yan's corpse began to twitch.

This was a natural reaction of muscles after death, but the twitching when vital essence was being extracted was far more violent than normal—the torso and limbs spasmed simultaneously, like a snake cut in two that was still writhing.

The blood in her body flowed in reverse, gathering from the limbs and bones toward her chest, then surged into his Meridians along Jiang Yan's palms.

The vital essence of an Innate Martial Artist was fundamentally different from that of an ordinary Martial Artist.

It was not a difference in quantity, but in quality.

The vital essence of a Second-rate Martial Artist was thick, like overcooked porridge.

The vital essence of an Innate Martial Artist, however, was "alive"—the blood contained residual True Qi, and this True Qi had lost its owner's will, crashing about like wild horses without a master when sucked into Jiang Yan's body.

Murong Yan's True Qi was rigid and domineering, consistent with her style of using a long spear—open and closing, advancing without retreat.

This True Qi rampaged through Jiang Yan's Meridians.

It caused the inner walls of his Meridians to ache faintly.

Jiang Yan's expression did not change, but the fingers pressed against the corpse tightened slightly, his knuckles turning white.

He operated the devouring technique of the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture, binding, suppressing, and transforming this rampaging True Qi thread by thread.

The devouring power of the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture was like a millstone, grinding Murong Yan's True Qi bit by bit, stripping away her martial will, leaving only the purest energy.

Inside his Dantian, the pale red nebular vortex began to accelerate its rotation.

The newly surged energy was drawn into the center of the vortex, stripped, compressed, and assimilated during the high-speed rotation.

The color of the vortex gradually deepened from pale red to a warm crimson—the color of morning glow reflecting on the surface of water.

The volume of the vortex also expanded by a circle, originally occupying about one-third of the Dantian space, now expanding to nearly one-half.

The orbit of the spiritual power vortex also expanded accordingly, the spacing widened, and the rotation speed became faster.

Jiang Yan opened his eyes.

Qi Refining Stage 1 Middle Stage.

He could feel that the power surging within him was about twenty percent fuller than before.

He lowered his head to look at Murong Yan's corpse.

Both halves of the remains were already shriveled, the skin clinging to the bones, the eye sockets deeply sunken, and the lips retracted to reveal white, bone-like tooth roots. A standard dried corpse drained by the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture.

Jiang Yan withdrew his hand and wiped the bloodstains from his palms on his knees.

According to this standard, absorbing the vital essence of another four or five Innate Martial Artists at the Middle Stage should be enough to touch the threshold of Qi Refining Stage 2.

Of course, the premise was being able to find that many Innate Martial Artists—in a place like the Jin Kingdom, Innate Martial Artists were not exactly cabbages.

He dragged the two halves of Murong Yan's dried corpse together and gave them a shake with his palm.

The corpse shattered into powder like weathered clods of earth, mixing into the scorched earth on the ground.

With a gust of wind, the powder rose into a small cloud of grayish-white dust and then dispersed completely.

Then he picked up the long spear that had been broken in two.

The spear shaft was snapped in the middle, the break scorched crimson by the high heat of the Blazing Flame Slash, and after cooling, it presented a dull reddish-gold color.

Jiang Yan touched the edge of the break with his fingers—it was smooth, without the burrs produced when ordinary steel breaks.

This was the unique luster of gold essence after being melted by high heat and then solidified.

Ordinary steel would have long since vaporized at that temperature; only gold essence could remain.

"No wonder."

No wonder this spear could block his Spells so many times.

Fireball Technique hitting the spear shaft only left shallow marks, and when Ice Spike was shattered by the spear tip, the shaft didn't even bend.

Wind Blade cutting onto it was directly deflected—he had always thought it was the blessing of Murong Yan's Protective Aura, but now it seemed the material of the spear itself was the key.

He flicked the section with the spear tip with his finger.

"Ding—"

A crisp sound, the reverberation lingering for a long time, failing to dissipate in the empty cave for a long while.

In the distance, a few crows were startled in the treetops, cawing as they flew away.

Ordinary steel absolutely could not make this sound—the sound of gold essence was like striking crystal, clear and distant.

Jiang Yan probed the spear shaft with his spiritual power.

The feeling of spiritual power flowing in the broken spear was completely different from that in ordinary ironware.

Ordinary ironware obstructed spiritual power, like water flowing through a shallow beach full of rocks, stumbling and bumping, with every inch of progress consuming extra spiritual power. If too much spiritual power was circulated, it would directly shatter.

But this broken spear had almost no obstruction to the conduction of spiritual power—spiritual power poured into the spear shaft, flowing from the break to the spear tip, as smooth as water flowing over a smooth stone slab.

His brows raised slightly.

The content of gold essence was even higher than he had expected.

Jiang Yan put the two sections of the broken spear together and carefully inspected the distribution of the material.

The gold essence content in the spear tip was the highest, accounting for more than forty percent—each ridge line of the triangular spear tip was cast from repeatedly folded and forged gold essence, and the forging patterns between the ridge lines were as fine as hair, layer upon layer.

The gold essence content in the spear shaft was slightly lower, but still about twenty percent, winding through the ordinary steel in a filamentary shape, like the blood vessel network of a human body.

"Six jin," Jiang Yan said in a low voice.

The total amount of gold essence in the entire long spear was just over six jin.

Added to the thousand taels of gold he brought out from the Zhou Family secret chamber—that thousand taels of gold could refine three taels of gold essence—it totaled at least six jin and five taels.

Six jin and five taels of gold essence.

Jiang Yan's fingers tapped lightly on the broken spear, emitting a "ding" sound.

Enough to refine a Flying Sword.

If he were to refine this much gold essence from gold himself, with his Qi Refining Stage 1 cultivation, he could only maintain the spiritual fire for two hours a day, which would take at least two or three years.

Now, after one battle, the Materials were directly gathered, and there was even a surplus.

This spear of Murong Yan's was probably her trump card—for an Innate Martial Artist to be able to get so much gold essence to cast a spear, there must have been some Opportunity behind it.

But now, this Opportunity belonged to him.

Jiang Yan wrapped the two sections of the broken spear with cloth. The cloth was a piece of outer robe cut from Murong Yan's corpse, black and sturdy in texture.

He wrapped the broken spear tightly, tied it with three strips of cloth, and carried it on his back.

He did not stay in the original place for long.

Before leaving, Jiang Yan operated the Cleansing Technique.

Spiritual power turned into fine water mist and surged from his palms, wiping away all the scents and traces he had left one by one—the aura on his body was washed clean, the mud on the soles of his shoes was stripped away, the footprints he had stepped on the ground disappeared one by one, as if someone had wiped away water stains on a table with a rag.

Even the place where he had squatted, the two shallow pits pressed by his knees, were smoothed out by the spiritual power.

On the scorched battlefield in front of the cave entrance, more than thirty corpses lay in disarray.

Some were burned to charcoal, curled into a ball, with arms and legs curled in front of their chests, like a baby's posture.

Some were still smoking, thin white smoke rising from the charred trunks, blown away by the mountain wind. The air was mixed with the stench of burning and the smell of blood, so thick that it made one's throat tighten.

The corpses of the two severely injured Second-rate Martial Artist captains lay at the edge of the battlefield.

The square-faced one was leaning against a giant rock, his head tilted to one side, his thick-backed broadsword falling three steps away.

The one who used twin blades lay on the ground, one hand still maintaining the posture of reaching for the hilt, his fingers frozen in mid-air.

Both had lost their breath at some point—perhaps from excessive blood loss, or perhaps the aftermath of the Blazing Flame Slash had shattered their heart Meridians.

Jiang Yan walked over and tried to absorb their vital essence.

His palm pressed onto the chest of the corpse, and the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture operated—no reaction.

Having been dead for too long, the vital essence had already coagulated and deteriorated, losing its value for absorption.

He withdrew his hand and turned to walk into the depths of the mountain forest.

He cast the Wind Control Technique, his toes lightly tapping on the gravel and withered leaves, and his body drifted forward several zhang.

The mountain wind brushed past his ears, carrying the scent of pine resin and earth.

The canopy overhead blocked most of the sunlight, with only sporadic light spots falling on the ground, jumping with the swaying of branches and leaves.

He found a new cave in another mountain peak a hundred miles away.

The cave was on a cliff halfway up the mountain, and the entrance was covered by an old, crooked pine tree.

The root system of the pine tree coiled on the rock like a giant python, and the canopy slanted out from the cliff wall, blocking the cave entrance tightly.

Looking up from below, one could only see a patch of dark green pine needles and could not discover the existence of the cave at all.

Jiang Yan pushed aside the pine branches and squeezed in. The space inside the cave was not large, about two zhang square, but it was dry enough.

There were no water stains on the rock wall, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of pine needles—it was unclear whether they were blown in by the wind or brought by small animals like squirrels to build nests.

Stepping on it felt soft, making a faint rustling sound.

In the depths, there was a tiny fissure, no wider than two fingers, through which air flowed, carrying the scent of damp earth.

There was wind passing through the fissure, making a low wailing sound, like someone playing a flute from far away.

Jiang Yan untied the broken spear from his back and placed it in the corner.

Then he sat down cross-legged.

The pine needle-covered ground was much more comfortable than rock, and he could feel the elasticity and dryness of the pine needles through his clothing.

He closed his eyes and began to regulate his breathing.

Spiritual power flowed slowly through his Meridians, and every time he completed a Great Circulation, the crimson nebula in his Dantian became one point more solid.

The mountain wind whistled past outside the cave, blowing the pine branches at the entrance to rustle, the sound of pine needles rubbing against each other dense and continuous, like rain falling from afar.

A few hours later, Jiang Yan opened his eyes.

His spiritual power had recovered to eighty percent. Enough.

He took the two sections of the broken spear out of the cloth wrap and placed them horizontally in front of his knees.

The gold essence particles at the break glowed slightly in the dim cave—it was a faint reddish-gold halo, not dazzling, but exceptionally clear in this darkness, like a few sparks in the dark night.

The work of refining gold essence was about to begin again.

Six jin and five taels of gold essence, plus the thousand taels of gold that still needed to be refined—this would be the largest material harvest since his Rebirth.

Jiang Yan's fingers brushed over the spear tip of the broken spear, his fingertips touching the fine forging patterns on the triangular blade edge.

These patterns were like the growth rings of a tree, circle by circle, recording the number of times this spear had been repeatedly folded and forged.

Each layer of forging pattern represented a heating, folding, and hammering—at least a hundred layers.

The artisan who forged this spear had good craftsmanship. But in the end, it was only the level of a Mortal artisan; there was no spiritual power coordination during forging, and the potential of the gold essence was far from being unleashed.

When he refined all these gold essences and re-forged them into a Flying Sword with spiritual fire—that would be a true Magical Artifact.