Chapter 1527: Sword Planting

Having made his decision, Han Li wasted no time. With a flip of his palm, the jade slip gifted by Elder Jiang appeared in his hand.

This time, he wasn’t studying sword techniques but delving into the method of refining his flying swords.

Though he had skimmed through it before, given the importance of the matter, Han Li decided to scrutinize it thoroughly once more.

Before long, he withdrew his spiritual sense, narrowing his eyes in contemplation.

According to the jade slip, there were three methods to completely purge impurities from the flying swords.

The first was the simplest, requiring almost no external aids. It involved using the Spirit Infant’s fire to gradually refine and eliminate all non-wood-attribute materials from the swords.

This method was the easiest and carried the least risk.

However, the materials in his current flying swords had long since fused into one. Forcibly separating and refining them would take an unimaginably long time—likely three to four hundred years. Moreover, during this period, he would have to continuously channel the Spirit Infant’s fire, severely hindering his own cultivation.

Given the excessive duration, Han Li dismissed this method almost immediately.

The second method involved a technique called the “Nine Flames Gold-Melting Art,” detailed in the jade slip. If he gathered several special fire-attribute pills and secluded himself for seventy to eighty years, he could use this technique, aided by the pills, to forcibly expel the impurities from the Emerald Swarm Swords.

However, this approach was extremely dangerous. It would also damage some of the wood-attribute essence within the swords, severely weakening them. Additionally, the required fire-attribute pills were exceedingly rare and difficult to acquire.

Elder Jiang had proposed assisting Han Li in refining his swords using this very method.

But Han Li had no interest in such a self-destructive approach.

That left the third and final method—one that was the most impractical for most people and required the longest time.

Elder Jiang had appended a note at the end of this method, stating that it was merely a theoretical speculation he had never personally attempted. However, if followed precisely, there was an eighty to ninety percent chance of success. And if it worked, the benefits would be astonishingly immense.

This method, which Elder Jiang called “Sword Seeding,” was a form of grafting.

According to the instructions, one needed to find young spiritual trees and plant them in a place rich in spiritual energy. Then, using a secret technique, the flying swords would be sealed within these trees. As the trees grew, their innate wood-attribute spiritual energy would gradually transform the other materials in the swords into wood-attribute, eliminating the need to forcibly remove anything.

Once the trees matured, the swords, having been nurtured by the wood-attribute energy for so long, would not only avoid severe damage but also reach an unimaginable level of purity.

Though the swords’ power might not increase immediately, with minimal further refinement, Han Li could easily elevate them to the state of “Sword Heart Illumination.”

Of course, such a perfect method had its fatal flaw—time.

According to the jade slip, the process from planting the swords to fully transforming their material attributes would far exceed the duration of the first two methods.

After all, spiritual trees grew slowly. Even the most common varieties required at least a thousand years of careful cultivation to mature.

During this period, the swords couldn’t be used at all, and all the trees had to be protected from accidental destruction. Any mishap would render the effort futile, and even replanting the swords in other trees wouldn’t compensate for the loss.

As for how many years the Sword Seeding would take, there was no fixed limit. But one thing was certain: the longer the swords were seeded and the rarer the trees, the more refined the swords would become.

After reading this method, Han Li was overjoyed and immediately decided to adopt it.

While Sword Seeding might be impossible for others, it was perfectly suited for him, given his ability to accelerate plant growth.

With the small vial, cultivating thousand-year or even ten-thousand-year spiritual trees was trivial.

However, he harbored slight doubts about whether using the vial to hasten the trees’ growth would truly work for Sword Seeding.

But since this method required little effort and could be tested quickly, he resolved to try it first.

If it failed, he could always fall back on one of the other two methods.

With his mind made up, Han Li flicked his sleeve, and a jade-green box appeared.

The lid flew open, revealing an ordinary-looking withered green bamboo with some roots still attached.

This was a small section of Golden Lightning Bamboo, complete with roots, that Han Li had intentionally reserved after forging his swords.

Though the jade slip didn’t mention it, using spiritual trees identical to the swords’ primary material would undoubtedly yield better results. Moreover, knowing that Golden Lightning Bamboo leaves could be used to refine the formidable Golden Lightning Annihilation Thunder, he planned to harvest some for future use.

With a thought, Han Li summoned his Second Spirit Infant and handed it the wooden box and one of his swords.

He instructed it to test the method with one sword first. If it worked, he would mass-produce Golden Lightning Bamboo and seed the remaining swords accordingly.

After the Second Spirit Infant departed with the box and sword, Han Li closed his eyes to rest briefly. When he reopened them, he took out a milky-white vial.

Tilting his head back, he let a drop of True Toad Liquid fall into his mouth before commencing his true cultivation.

No matter how powerful a treasure or technique, without sufficient mana, it was like a rootless weed—a truth Han Li had long understood.

With a hand seal, golden light shimmered across his body as the True Devil Dharma Form materialized behind him once more.

The three-headed, six-armed form assumed a meditative posture, its six hands forming profound seals while golden runes continuously emerged from them, swirling in a vast golden halo before merging back into the Dharma Form’s body.

Han Li’s expression remained impassive, his skin occasionally revealing golden scales as spiritual light rippled across his surface, exuding an air of profound mystery…

Time passed unnoticed in cultivation—days, months, years—yet the chamber door remained shut.

During this period, the Second Spirit Infant occasionally appeared in the herb garden, manipulating a giant ape puppet before vanishing again.

Outside the cave, mid-tier demons from Black Hidden Mountain arrived several times with rare materials to trade for Woodbell Flowers, each appearing as if disaster loomed.

The Second Spirit Infant simply spent some time accelerating the flowers’ growth, then had the Soul Devouring Beast transform into Han Li’s likeness to deceive the demons, effortlessly completing the trades.

Seeing that the “Soul Devourer” could still produce so many Woodbell Flowers, the demons sighed in relief, their panic subsiding somewhat.

As seasons turned and over a hundred years slipped by, the giant island remained largely uneventful, its tranquility seemingly unbroken.

But one day, an extraordinary celestial phenomenon manifested above Han Li’s cave.

Clear-sky thunderclaps resounded endlessly as milky-white spiritual clouds materialized out of thin air, converging toward the mountain peak.

Across a radius of ten thousand li, multicolored specks of light emerged from the earth and trees, shooting skyward before bursting into radiant mist that surged toward Han Li’s abode.

Within moments, the colossal mountain was enveloped in layer upon layer of dense five-colored mist, its hues shifting brilliantly.

Meanwhile, another spectacle unfolded in the sky.

The milky clouds coalesced into a massive ring spanning over a hundred li in diameter. At its center, azure hurricanes formed, howling as they drew the five-colored mist upward, tearing and fusing it anew.

As the storms intensified, more spiritual light was sucked into the vortex, until the hurricanes themselves shimmered with shifting hues. Yet the influx of five-colored radiance from all directions showed no sign of abating, and the mountain’s luminous shroud grew even thicker.

This awe-inspiring phenomenon startled all beasts and low-to-mid-tier demons across Black Hidden Mountain.

Ordinary creatures, sensing the overwhelming spiritual pressure, cowered trembling on the ground, paralyzed by fear.

The more intelligent demons, however, flew from their dwellings toward the spectacle, only to halt a thousand li away as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

Gazing at the radiant mountain and the eerie cloud ring, they exchanged bewildered looks.

Among them were the ox-headed beast, the three-headed serpent, and others who had traded with Han Li. Recognizing the location, they huddled together, their expressions a mix of shock and disbelief.

“Is that human advancing? Such a phenomenon—could he be reaching the Spirit Commander realm?” croaked the three-headed serpent’s central head.

“Most likely. Ordinary breakthroughs don’t produce such signs,” the ox-headed beast murmured, eyes fixed on the distant spectacle.