The Desolate Era

Book 24, Chapter 32 - The Quintessence Core of the Sword

As the Five Elements Cauldron descended upon the mountain peak, it shone with a blindingly bright burst of light that illuminated the entire area.

The white-robed Ji Ning sat down in the lotus position, placing Violetjewel before him.

“Begin!” Ning waved his hand, causing an enormous pile of treasure fragments that was more than thirty meters tall to suddenly appear a short distance away from him. The treasure fragments consisted of broken bits of sabers, swords, beads, ropes, banners, staffs, greataxes, cauldrons, flying boats, Immortal palaces, and other things that were all at least at the Protocosmic spirit-treasure level. After being badly damaged and broken into pieces, they were now much less valuable than they were before, but it was actually even easier to extract energy from them than it was from undamaged treasures. After all, there was now no need to actually grind them apart!

“Go.” Ning sent out a surge of Immortal energy to scoop up the treasure fragments.

Whoooosh! The treasure fragments surged out in a stream, beginning to flood into the Five Elements Cauldron. This was a Chaos-level Five Elements Cauldron, and it quickly reduced the treasure fragments to tiny bits of dust and debris, completely absorbing the Five Elements essence from those treasures and storing it into the cauldron’s storage region. Just ten breaths worth of time later, the entire pile of treasure fragments had been completely used up.

Rumble...a large amount of debris came flying out from the Five Elements Cauldron.

“Again.” Ning once more waved his hand, causing another thirty meter pile of treasure fragments to appear next to him.

The treasure fragments were once more broken apart and transformed into debris, the Five Elements essence having been sucked out of them.

Ning had purchased 108 cubes worth of treasure fragments. 108 cubes of chaos nectar was a sum that was comparable to the entire networth of many ordinary World-level experts, and he had used it all to purchase treasure fragments. The amount of treasure fragments he now had was absolutely extraordinary!

It took six full hours to go through it all! Finally, six hours later, the treasure fragments had been completely consumed.

“Come.” Ning picked up a jade gourd, causing streams of golden yellow energy, watery blue energy, green wood energy, fiery red energy, and dark earthen energy to soar out of the cauldron and into the mouth of the jade gourd. Only after a long period of time was the Five Elements Cauldron completely emptied of Five Elements essence.

Ning waved his hand, putting away the cauldron as well.

“This gourd has 108 cubes worth of Five Elements essence.” Ning hefted the jade gourd in his hands. He had been very lucky, but had still nearly died in the Ruins in order to acquire such a fortune.

“Violetjewel...show me your true power!”

Ning willed it, and Violetjewel suddenly appeared in the air before him. Ning took hold of Violetjewel, then placed it next to the jade gourd. Five Elements essence immediately began to fly out of the jade gourd, flooding straight towards Violetjewel. The essence swirled around Violetjewel before slowly seeping inside of it.

On the surface, Violetjewel looked as though it was in perfect shape. Its internal structure, however, was unbearably mangled. It was like a building that looked pristine from the outside but was filled with shattered support beams; although it looked nice, it was actually quite weak.

By the same principle, Violetjewel looked as though it was in perfect shape from the outside, but it was actually very weak! The only reason why it was still so powerful was because it was simply such a fantastically good weapon that even in its present state, it could still unleash the power of a Dao weapon.

Crackle...

The damaged internal structures of Violetjewel furiously devoured the Five Elements essence pouring into it. The healing began to occur at a very slow pace, as every single bit of it was very difficult to repair.

The core of the sword was its quintessence. The closer the healing process came to the quintessence core, the more difficult it was to repair it.

Because the surface of the sword had been repaired, the sword was able to absorb Five Elements essence much more quickly than before. As more and more of it was repaired, it began to absorb the Five Elements essence faster and faster as well. However, there was simply so much essence that more than six days and nights passed in the blink of an eye, with Violetjewel continuing to ravenously absorb the essence.

“It has already consumed thirty cubes...it is more than half-healed by now.” Ning actually frowned. “But the closer we get to the core, the harder the repair process will be.”

Another day passed.

“Fifty cubes...it still needs a bit more...”

“Sixty cubes...seventy cubes...still needs a little more...”

The sword was clearly almost completely repaired by now, but as as they drew closer and to the core, the repair difficulty began to increase at a staggering rate.

“Eighty cubes.”

“Ninety cubes.”

“Ninety-five. Ninety-six. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight!” Ning was carefully attuned to this sword which he bound all those years ago. Finally, the last bit of damage that was located extremely close to the quintessence core was also repaired.

After using up ninety-eight cubes worth of treasure fragments, Ning had finally, completely repaired Violetjewel.

Rumble...

The blood-colored sword hovering in front of Ning emitted a joyful aura. Ning smiled as well, not suppressing the sword and allowing it to burst forth with its true aura of power.

A stream of sword-light that looked like blood-colored water blasted out in every direction.

Whooooooosh.

As the sword-light howled forth and spread out around Ning, the prisonworld itself began to tremble.

“What?!” Ning was badly shocked.

“This is a prisonworld, a place meant to hold prisoners. When my true body uses the azureflower seal and strikes at full power, it can cause the prisonworld to faintly tremble. But just now...I didn’t even control or activate Violetjewel. Its own natural aura was enough to cause the prisonworld to shudder?!” Ning was stunned.

“This weapon is far more powerful than any Dao weapon! A hundred times more powerful? Perhaps a thousand times more powerful?”

“How powerful would I be if I could control it?!”

As Ning stared at the illusory lake of blood that had spread out around Violetjewel, he was afraid to even imagine how much power this sword truly contained.

“Come over here.” Ning extended his hand.

The aura of bloody sword-light immediately vanished as Violetjewel obediently flew into Ning’s hands.

Reinforced and strengthened by the azureflower energy, Ning poured his divine power into the sword, planning on delivering a full-force strike. But just at that moment...

“Blood and water...”

“A sword like water...a sword like blood...”

An indistinct, unclear voice suddenly spoke out from the quintessence core of the sword. Because Ning’s divine power had filled the sword, he was able to sense this voice in detail.

He could sense the solitary pride contained within the sword’s quintessence core...

In fact, Ning could almost see a solitary, proud figure appear. That lonely figure figure seemed to wield a sword that caused Ning to feel a sense of awe and veneration. When the intent of that sword exploded forth, it crushed stars, shattered worlds, and wiped out all living beings. Nothing could stop this surge of sword-intent, which seemed to be capable of tearing apart even the primordial chaos itself.

Whoosh.

Ning came back to his senses. Only now did he realize that he had been in a dazed state for fully half a month!

“This sword’s quintessence core...?” Ning had acquired Violetjewel a long time ago, but in the past he had never noticed anything remarkable about its quintessence core. Only after fully repairing Violetjewel did the sword’s quintessence seem to come to life, allowing Ning to get a glimpse of an utterly supreme sword-intent that completely eclipsed the sword-intent left behind by the diagram of the Hundred Streams of the Windsource Ning had seen years ago.

The only thing Ning had ever seen which could possibly be compared to this surge of sword-intent was the power which had emanated from the words ‘Waveshift’ which he had seen on the walls of Waveshift City.

It was just as exalted and ineffable! In fact, it seemed to carry an aura of perfect and eternity.

“Eternity?” Ning murmured softly to himself, “No wonder this sort of weapon is referred to as an Eternal weapon.”

Chaos weapon.

Dao weapon.

Eternal weapon!

Eternal weapons were weapons that contained their own quintessence cores, which made every single one of them incredibly marvelous and unique. No two Eternal weapons were exactly the same.

Generally speaking, only figures on the level of Daolord Badlands or Daolord Windsource would have access to such weapons! Of course, every so often a lucky junior might be able to acquire such a weapon...such as World God Northrest, who had found an Eternal weapon of his own!

“I have this strange feeling. It is as though the full power of Violetjewel can only be unleashed when I’m able to completely unleash the might of the sword’s quintessence core.” This insight suddenly flashed within Ning’s mind...but the next moment, he just grinned wryly. Completely unleash it? What a joke! One would need utterly incredible insights into the Dao necessary to completely unleash the quintessence core’s power. Ning was far, far from being able to do such a thing.

Fortunately, his path was the Dao of the Sword, and he had his own insights into this Dao.

“Let me test out its power first.” Ning held Violetjewel in his hands as he soared into the skies.

......

A black-haired old man was seated in the lotus position in a different part of the prisonworld.

Swoosh.

A white-robed youth suddenly flew over from afar.

“Triult.” Ning spoke out.

“Master.” The black-robed elder hurriedly rose to his feet. He had been thoroughly cowed by Ning’s power. By now, all of the Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals in the entire prisonworld had been subdued by Ning, while Swordfather Triult was the first one who had submitted to Ning.

“Don’t move,” Ning instructed.

The black-haired elder glanced curiously as Ning walked towards him.

Ning suddenly struck out with his sword. As he did so, it carried the intent of the ‘Killsword stance’ which Ning was working on. Although Ning had yet to master this stance, the bit of insight he did have was able to resonate with Violetjewel’s quintessence core and unleash just a bit of its power, causing it burst forth from Violetjewel.

Ning had the feeling that with a bit of power from Violetjewel’s quintessence, he had the power to break almost anything.

Slash! A blood-colored sword-light flashed through the air.

With a ‘clank’ sound, the translucent black chains connected to the black-haired old man were split in half.

The black-haired elder’s eyes instantly turned huge. “W-what...”