Chapter 33: The Jade Profound Scripture

With the stable supply of raw materials provided by Daoist Pinglu, Song Qingming's path of talisman crafting became much more consistent. No longer lacking materials, he gradually settled into a routine. Time seemed to return to normal; after returning to Lingyuan Mountain, he dedicated more time to cultivation, aside from the fixed hours required for talisman crafting.

It had been nearly three months since Song Qingming returned to Lingyuan Mountain. During this time, in addition to his steady growth in cultivation, his talisman crafting skills had also made rapid progress due to the abundance of materials.

He could now easily craft five or six types of mid-grade spiritual talismans. The success rate of his specialty, the Golden Light Talisman, had risen to nearly forty percent, finally breaking even with the spirit stones he had lost in his early stages and establishing him as a qualified mid-grade talisman master.

During these few months at Caolu Mountain, in addition to Daoist Pinglu providing materials on schedule, Qin Zhen had also been visiting frequently. Qin Zhen took good care of him, not only purchasing many of the talismans Song Qingming produced but also introducing him to many rogue cultivator clients. Consequently, the talismans Song Qingming made over the past few months had suddenly become highly sought-after goods at Caolu Mountain, and his business continued to thrive.

This truly brought a smile to Song Qingming's face. Unfortunately, his supply of mid-grade crafting materials always ran out early each month, so he had no immediate plans to mass-produce talismans. He understood that he could not be too greedy with this source of wealth; in a place like Caolu Mountain, carrying too many spiritual items would inevitably attract the greed of late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators.

Now that he was temporarily out of crafting materials, Song Qingming finally had some rare leisure time. He decided to take this opportunity to spend time refining the high-grade flying sword he had obtained in Guiyun Market.

The reason he had not chosen to refine the sword earlier was that refining a high-grade magical tool was no easy task; the time required to refine a tool of this level was far greater than that for a mid-grade one.

Last time at Mount Funiu, it had only taken Song Qingming a little over a day to refine the Blazing Sun Sword. However, the Taixu Sword he was refining this time was a high-grade magical tool. The higher the grade of the tool, the more complex the refinement process and the longer the time required.

Song Qingming estimated that this refinement would take at least three days. Before starting, he had already requested several days of leave from Song Changxin, claiming he needed to enter seclusion.

After leaving Guiyun Market, he had been in a rush to return to Qinghe County, and the constant traveling had left him no time to refine the item. Upon returning to Lingyuan Mountain, he had been busy with talisman crafting every day until he finally found this opening in his schedule.

Taking the Taixu Sword out of his storage bag, Song Qingming carefully observed the flying sword from top to bottom once more.

The silver blade was about three feet long, with a crimson stripe running through the center. A white tassel hung from the cyan hilt. As a high-grade flying sword, the Taixu Sword appeared quite unremarkable on the surface; placed in that ordinary grocery store back then, it would have looked like an extremely common magical tool.

To this day, Song Qingming still did not know what exactly about this mediocre-looking high-grade flying sword had attracted him. It was merely a vague, intense intuition from within his heart that had guided him to find it.

He had pondered this for months but could never figure it out.

Since it was fate, he decided to let it be. After adjusting his state, Song Qingming released a thread of spiritual power from his body, quickly wrapping it around the Taixu Sword. As he slowly drew the spiritual power out, the crimson blade was soon completely covered by white spiritual energy.

Holding his breath and concentrating, Song Qingming extracted a drop of essence blood from his body and placed it upon the blade. Soon, the white-wrapped Taixu Sword began to vibrate, emitting a low humming sound.

The time taken to refine the Taixu Sword exceeded Song Qingming's expectations. It wasn't until five days later, as a burst of white light dispersed, that the spiritual power in Song Qingming's body, carrying the previously released essence blood, finally entered the body of the Taixu Sword.

Seeing that his essence blood had entered the blade, Song Qingming hurriedly increased his spiritual power input, hoping to merge the essence blood into the magical tool in one go to complete the refinement.

At that exact moment, the Taixu Sword suddenly transformed into a dazzling ball of white light. As the light faded, a sharp crack rang out. With a sudden *bang*, the Taixu Sword snapped into two pieces and fell to the ground, leaving Song Qingming breaking into a cold sweat.

Song Qingming stared blankly at the two broken pieces of the sword, his mind going completely white. This had cost him one hundred and fifty spirit stones; how many talismans would he have to craft to exchange for another high-grade magical tool?

*Was my refinement process wrong?*

*Or was I too young and fell into the trap of those master and disciple? How can the quality of this flying sword be considered high-grade?* Song Qingming mentally reviewed his process again. There truly hadn't been any major issues with his refinement; even if the refinement had failed, it shouldn't have resulted in the immediate destruction of a high-grade flying sword.

It seemed it truly was a quality issue with the tool itself. Ultimately, he was the one who had actively chosen to buy it. Even if he had been set up by those two, he could only accept it now. He would just have to encounter them again at Guiyun Market if the opportunity arose.

With a bitter smile, Song Qingming used his Object Control technique to pull the broken sword into his hand. Just as he was about to put it into his storage bag, he suddenly felt a strange fluctuation of spiritual power coming from the broken blade. Lifting the half-section of the sword to look closely, he was surprised to find something hidden inside the blade.

Upon extracting it, it appeared to be a scroll of cultivation techniques. Song Qingming opened it and read carefully, discovering it was a Daoist cultivation manual titled *The Jade Profound Scripture*. It had no specific requirements for spiritual roots, but it only contained the portion for the Qi Refinement stage.

It was unclear whether the techniques for the Foundation Establishment stage and beyond were sealed by some high-level restriction, as the subsequent pages appeared completely blank. Song Qingming attempted to access them but found that his current abilities were entirely insufficient to open them, so he had to give up.

It seemed to be a somewhat special Qi Refinement manual. He wondered why that person had hidden it inside the Taixu Sword—was his attraction to the sword that day because of a connection to this manual?

Song Qingming looked at the *Jade Profound Scripture* in his hand with a mixture of laughter and tears. He had spent one hundred and fifty spirit stones thinking he had suffered a total loss, only to find a silver lining in the form of an unexpected Qi Refinement manual. He wasn't sure if he had gained or lost.

The value of cultivation techniques is difficult to estimate. A typical Qi Refinement manual with elemental attributes might be worth at most a dozen spirit stones in a market. For rare manuals with special abilities, one might not even be able to buy them with a hundred spirit stones. If he turned it over to the family's Golden Treasury Pavilion, he might even receive more spirit stones.

However, Song Qingming did not yet know the effects of this manual and did not dare to present it to the family recklessly.

"Since it is fated to be mine, I should practice it myself first. If there are no issues with it, I'll make a copy to hand over to the family when I have time," Song Qingming muttered to himself.

Over the past two hundred years, the Song family's Golden Treasury Pavilion had collected dozens of Qi Refinement manuals, but none contained this specific technique. As long as he copied it into the pavilion in the future, it would certainly benefit the family, and he could exchange it for merit points.

Within the *Jade Profound Scripture*, there was only one divine ability among the Qi Refinement techniques that could slightly increase one's cultivation speed, called the "Spirit Gathering Technique," which was a supplementary cultivation spell.

The cultivation world was not lacking in such spells that could accelerate progress, but most could only increase speed by ten or twenty percent. The Song family's Golden Treasury Pavilion also held similar spells, but they were restricted by spiritual roots, requiring Water or Wood roots to practice.

Song Qingming lacked the Water element and did not possess a Water spiritual root, so he had not practiced such a technique before. This Spirit Gathering Technique he had just obtained perfectly filled that gap.

Although this divine ability could not be used against enemies, it was still useful. Combined with the fragmented map he possessed, Song Qingming estimated he could increase his cultivation speed by about twenty percent. Coupled with his long-term consumption of cultivation-enhancing pills, he was nearing the cultivation speed of a practitioner with three spiritual roots.

Although the *Jade Profound Scripture* lacked powerful combat spells, it was quite good as a supplementary manual. Obtaining this was a harvest of sorts, and the gloom caused by the breaking of the Taixu Sword gradually lifted from his face.

Currently, Song Qingming did not lack spirit stones, he took medicinal pills every month, his cultivation was steadily rising, and his magical tools were of decent quality. What he lacked was precisely a method like this to help increase his cultivation speed.