The Ministry of Works officials rebuilt the Fang Prefecture Foundry from scratch. Quinn Shepherd redesigned the Grand Furnace, and the entire foundry took on a new look: mechanical forging giants filled the halls. As the Grand Furnace fired up and the giants began to operate, the workshop instantly became a hive of activity.
Dan Yousin and the others busied themselves with debugging the machinery, while Quinn activated the Overlord Three‑Core Art, circulating vigorous yuanqi. For most people at the Six Directions Treasury stage, they first cultivate a spirit weapon; only after perfecting the Six Directions realm do they form a Primordial Spirit—and even then, it’s incomplete, requiring entry into the Heaven‑Man Realm before it can fully manifest and roam the Void. Quinn, however, formed his Primordial Spirit first, and only afterward began cultivating his spirit weapon.
His Primordial Spirit was still weak, far from the stage of full manifestation. If it could manifest and appear behind him, that would mean he had reached the Heaven‑Man Realm.
But between Six Directions and Heaven‑Man lies the Seven Stars Treasury, and he had only just entered the Six Directions stage—still a long way to go before reaching that level.
His ability to let his Primordial Spirit roam was pure coincidence—a stroke of luck triggered by encountering a master like Xu Shenghua, whose presence stirred his mind and spirit, leading to his riverside enlightenment and joint wandering with Lynn Ling.
According to orthodox cultivation order, he still needed to gestate his spirit weapon within the Six Directions Treasury first.
Running the Overlord Three‑Core Art, Quinn immediately felt his yuanqi flow through the Spirit Embryo, Five Luminaries, and Six Directions Treasuries. His soul merged with his Spirit Embryo, essence condensed, and the Primordial Spirit formed again. He drew in the world’s creative power, and his cultivation speed was much faster than before.
"Do others cultivate like this too? But from what the Crown Prince said, it seems their process is different…"
He couldn’t help but wonder—according to Lynn Ling, others shouldn’t be able to form a Primordial Spirit at this stage.
Once the Primordial Spirit is formed, cultivation speeds up dramatically; if not, progress is just step by step, slow and methodical.
He set aside his doubts for now and focused intently on running the Overlord Three-Core Art, circulating his own yuanqi and mobilizing his blood and qi. Within the Six Directions Treasury, streams of essence converged, continuously flying toward the treasury’s center, where a spirit weapon was slowly taking shape.
The Six Directions Treasury gives birth to spirit weapons, and their form is always the one most compatible with the practitioner’s own scripture. Such spirit weapons differ from ordinary ones—they breathe and grow with their master, evolving alongside them.
The formation of a spirit weapon doesn’t even require conscious design; it naturally emerges as the practitioner cultivates.
At this moment, his spirit weapon’s form was still under construction, its shape unclear—just a ball of light. His essence streamed in from all sides of the Six Directions Treasury, merging into that glowing sphere.
Within the essence, faint rune imprints could be seen, mysterious and intricate. For Quinn, these runes represented his own arts and techniques, simply expressed in the form of runes.
Lynn Ling’s Nine-Dragon Armament and Serena Yunxiang’s Thousand-Silk Thread also bore such rune imprints; when forging a spirit weapon, these marks must be branded onto the weapon itself.
The essence flying toward the sphere of light manifested as sword-pattern imprints—each ray of essence merging into the sphere as if countless flying swords were sinking into a Sword Pill.
A Sword Pill isn’t really a pill, but a collection of swords—dozens, hundreds, even thousands of blades refined together.
So, at its core, a Sword Pill is still a sword.
When the Six Directions Treasury nurtures a Sword Pill spirit weapon, the sword-shaped essence flies in from every direction and fuses into a spherical form. The sword-shaped essence is called sword-yuan, and only after all sword-yuan has merged into the Sword Pill can one forge their own Sword Pill. The number of flying swords inside must match the number of sword-yuan strands.
To forge a Sword Pill, each sword must be refined down to a size finer than a needle, then merged into the spherical form. This means every sword must be hammered to the perfect size—a truly difficult task.
That’s why Sword Pills are so expensive. Many cultivators simply use sword cases instead, which hold fewer flying swords and require beast bone with Glutton bloodline to expand the interior space. Even sword cases are costly.
The Imperial Academy provides each Academy Fellow with a sword case, spending a considerable sum from the national treasury every year.
The truly wealthy Academy Fellows often hire famous masters to forge Sword Pills for themselves—making the Sword Pill a symbol of status.
"So my spirit weapon is a Sword Pill. Sword Pills may be hard to forge, but for me, it’s not that difficult."
Quinn never felt Sword Pills were particularly valuable—back in Oldridge Village, Granny Sue tossed them everywhere under her bed, and the chickens even ate a few.
Even more terrifying, Mute Smith had an entire box full of Sword Pills, heavy as a mountain.
Besides, after learning forging from Mute Smith, making Sword Pills was laborious but not truly difficult for him.
However, inside his Six Directions Treasury, sword-yuan kept streaming into the light sphere. Quinn did a quick count and his face paled: already over five thousand sword-yuan strands had merged!
In other words, he would need to forge five thousand flying swords to make his own Sword Pill.
And not only that—more sword-yuan kept flying in, meaning it wasn’t just five thousand flying swords.
He wasn’t worried about affording the Sword Pill; money was never his concern. What worried him was the weight!
Even if thousands of flying swords were forged as fine needles, the total weight wouldn’t change. Condensing so many swords into a small pill would make it absurdly heavy!
In the Everpeace Empire, flying swords are graded from ninth to first rank. Ninth-rank swords weigh about two jin and are the lowest grade, made from ordinary iron and used by common folk. But even a ninth-rank Sword Pill would weigh ten thousand jin!
Higher-grade flying swords are even heavier. Second-rank swords often weigh hundreds or thousands of jin, while only first-rank swords—like Quinn’s Grand Guardian’s Sword—are both light and strong.
The Grand Guardian’s Sword was forged from the finest materials by master swordsmiths, and only a dozen exist. Even Quinn couldn’t hope to gather enough for a Sword Pill of such quality.
“Third-rank swords are made from elite cold iron and cold iron crystal, but they’re far too heavy. If I forged a Sword Pill from them, I probably couldn’t even activate it—the Sword Pill alone would exhaust me.”
Just as Quinn thought this, his sword-yuan finally stopped; all told, he had eight thousand sword-yuan strands.
"Eight thousand swords—that’s insane! Even with all my money, I’d go bankrupt!"
Quinn’s heart sank, but then he saw other essence flying in—Buddha-shaped lights streaming from all directions into the sphere.
"Wait, isn’t this supposed to be a Sword Pill?"
He was baffled. If it was a Sword Pill, it should have stopped by now—so why were Buddha-shaped essence still arriving?
Besides Buddha-yuan, knife-yuan also streamed in—blade-shaped essence merging into the sphere. Next came dao-diagrams: Wuji, Taiji, Four Phases, Five Elements, Eight Trigrams—all sorts of dao-yuan.
Then came all kinds of runes: insect patterns, beast patterns, dragon and phoenix marks, bird sigils, divine glyphs, demonic sigils, and even Netherworld script—an absolute jumble.
Quinn’s face turned from pale to nearly purple. These symbols must be the result of his Grand Unification Art—there were just too many scriptures and divine arts, from Grand Buddha Mahayana Scripture to Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra, Nine-Dragon Emperor Art, his butcher’s knife method, and more. The Heavenly Demon Sutra alone held countless bizarre techniques.
Even the numerology algorithms of the Grand Mystery Numerology Canon appeared, manifesting as part of his spirit weapon’s form.
"With all these forms, what will my spirit weapon even look like?"
He was deeply uneasy—would his Sword Pill turn into a freak stuffed full of random weapons?
Even being a freak wasn’t the worst part—the real question was, how heavy would this spirit weapon be?
How much would it cost to forge?
After a long while, every last strand of essence vanished into the sphere. Its glow faded, and the shape inside gradually clarified.
Quinn steeled himself, almost afraid to look—worried his spirit weapon would be hideous.
Finally, he mustered the courage to peek into the Six Directions Treasury—and was stunned. His spirit weapon was still a Sword Pill, not some outrageous monstrosity. It wasn’t a giant Buddha impaled with knives and diagrams, as he’d feared.
It was still a Sword Pill—only now, every sword-yuan inside bore extra marks: Buddha-yuan, dao-yuan, knife-yuan, bird and beast runes, dragon and phoenix scripts, divine and demonic glyphs, and Netherworld characters.
Quinn let out a sigh of relief. "At least it’s only crushingly heavy—not enough to flatten me outright. But this Sword Pill does seem bigger than most. If I could refine it into the water-like style Mute Smith once made for me, it might end up smaller…"
Daniel Shan and the others spent hours debugging the foundry, finally finishing by the next day. The Arsenal roared to life.
Quinn, having stayed up all night cultivating his spirit weapon, was still full of energy. He called Daniel over: "My spirit weapon’s form is set, but forging it will be a hassle—I’ll need eight thousand sword embryos."
"Eight thousand sword embryos?"
Daniel jumped in fright. "Cult Master, eight thousand sword embryos would be enough to make a sect’s town-protecting treasure! Are you sure you need that many swords?"
Quinn nodded, sighing, "Getting all eight thousand blades to the right size and forging them into a Sword Pill gives me a headache."
Daniel hesitated. "Eight thousand blades could arm an elite army. To make so many sword embryos, you’d need the finest metal…"
"Before the last disaster, I sold some medicine and made a bit of money."
Quinn thought of Fox Ling’er, the one who managed his money, and felt a bit nostalgic for the little fox. "I still have a million Everpeace Coins. Is that enough?"
Daniel was startled, then laughed. "How could we let the Cult Master pay? Each hall of the Holy Cult routinely collects heavenly materials and treasures. For example, our people at the mines often keep the best finds for ourselves rather than reporting them to the state."
He glanced around to make sure no one was listening, and whispered, "The Holy Cult’s rule: the best materials are offered to the Emperor, but the very best go to the Cult’s own treasure vault."
Quinn was taken aback.
Daniel smiled. "Forging the Cult Master’s spirit weapon is a major event—so the treasure vault’s materials are at your disposal. With your order, Heaven-Craft Hall can withdraw enough fine metal to cast eight thousand sword embryos. They may not match the Grand Guardian’s Sword, but they won’t be much worse."
Quinn exhaled. "Where is the treasure vault?"
"You don’t know where your own treasure vault is?"
Daniel couldn’t help but laugh. "Of course it’s on Sacred Descent Mountain."
Quinn was speechless.
Daniel led him out of the Arsenal, heading straight for Sacred Descent Mountain.