The cave was completely destroyed. No one could walk through the passage. Jiang Chen felt lucky that he hadn’t started to clear up the rocks, otherwise he would be exhausted.
After a while, he arrived at a wide space.
A sword was radiating there. The whole cave was illuminated by it.
Legendary weapons emitted lights. That was another characteristic of them.
This sword was rectangular, with a triangular tip. Its sides were white, and its center was red. The handle was crimson.
When it was radiating, it looked like a rainbow in a vast, clear sky.
Jiang Chen was quite attracted to this sword when he saw it, like women were attracted to exquisite jewelry.
The spiritual sword sensed Jiang Chen’s presence and started to tremble fiercely. It broke layers and layers of rocks with a lasting thud and flew out of the cave.
Something crossed his mind. He took back his holy awareness in haste and dodged to the side.
The flying spiritual sword scraped through where he had been sitting. The gravel it brought up was flying everywhere.
The spiritual sword grounded into the dirt, as if it were waiting for Jiang Chen to pick it up.
Jiang Chen walked up to it and tried to draw it out of the dirt with his right hand, but the sword didn’t move a little bit. Even its brilliant rays started to dim, like an extinguished fire.
He realized something and used his left hand to draw the sword. The spiritual sword started to shine instantly, as if it were very excited.
He heard a voice in his mind.
“You are left-handed. I almost thought you were mediocre.” The voice couldn’t heard by ear, so he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
“Are you the soul of the sword?”
Jiang Chen was very surprised. He thought, “It’s unexpected that there is a spiritual sword with a soul in the Nine Heavens Continent, and I’ve taken it so easily.”
“You seem very knowledgeable.” The soul of the sword sounded astonished.
“Are you a soul created by the universe or were you caught?” Jiang Chen didn’t answer him, but asked a question.
Some shameless forgers would catch monsters that had wisdom similar to human beings in order to endow legendary weapons with their souls.
There were even frenzied forgers who used human souls.
The weapons with these kinds of souls weren’t as excellent as those created by the universe. Sometimes the souls could even destroy the legendary weapons.
“You do know a lot. But for now, you don’t deserve to hear my answers.”
“You want to recognize me your lord?”
“Exactly. I’ll only recognize you as my lord if you show you have enough talent. Otherwise I’ll fly away at once.”
“You’ve come out of the cave, though. Was it not because you’ve recognized my talent?”
“Not enough,” the soul of the sword answered.
Jiang Chen thought for a second and started to tell his story in a calm voice.
“I’ve got the holy pulse. Although I was deprived of it, I’ve recovered two pulses by now.
“I had practiced sword methods for only three months when I mastered the spirit of the sword.
“If you recognize me as your lord, I promise I’ll take you with me to the top and become the master of all regions. I even can make you a renowned sword of the Sword Pond.”
Jiang Chen made a promise that no weapon soul would decline.
The Sword Pond was the holy land of the Sacred Zone. It was the dream of all swords.
This sword was shocked by Jiang Chen. It kept silent for a long time, then said, “You really do know a lot. However, what if I’m already a renowned sword of the Sword Pond?”
“There are 63 renowned swords of the Sword Pond. I know each of them by heart. You’re not among them.”
“Your information is outdated. There are 74 now.”
“Really? Anyhow, it seems we’ve gone off on a tangent.”
More than 500 years had passed. Jiang Chen didn’t feel surprised at all to learn that there were eleven more renowned swords.
The spiritual sword didn’t hesitate, “I’ll recognize you as my lord.”
Once the sword said this, it started to adopt a different attitude. “Some time ago, a fool with average talent came here. However, he resigned himself to his destiny. He destroyed the cave when he found he couldn’t take away the spiritual sword. I don’t know how much longer I would have been trapped here if your holy awareness hadn’t entered the cave.”
Jiang Chen didn’t respond. He only said, “Please introduce yourself.”
“I’m unable to recall anything at the moment. I know nothing about my previous lord, since the energy of the sword has been severely weakened in the past years.”
Jiang Chen frowned, “Don’t you know even the name of the sword?”
“No, I don’t. My memory is fragmentary. For example, I know the Sword Pond.”
Jiang Chen was disappointed to hear this. People who had swords of this level would usually be called by an alias, an alias as the sword’s lord to show he was the owner of a legendary weapon.
For example, the owner of the Rainbow Sword was called the Lord of the Rainbow Sword. There was also the Lord of the Snow Sword, and so on.
It was a pity that he didn’t know this sword’s name.
“I’ll call you Redcloud. From now on you are the Redcloud Sword.” Jiang Chen gave it a name.
I’ll make the name Redcloud famous, and I will be the first Lord of the Redcloud Sword.
Jiang Chen was extremely inspired by this thought.
However, the Redcloud Sword only said, “There are still some treasures in the cave. Do you want them or not?”
Jiang Chen gazed blankly for a while, and then nodded affirmatively. “Of course.”
Jiang Chen entered the cave that could collapse again at any time. The Redcloud Sword had cleared the passage, so people could walk through it if they crouched down.
Nevertheless, the dust that kept falling from the ceiling and the noises it made were quite disturbing.
Jiang Chen found a ring with the help of Redcloud.
A mustardseed ring? And it’s top grade.
The name mustardseed ring came from a Buddhist metaphor of a mustard seed containing the Sumeru mountain. It was a treasure used for storage.
A top-grade mustardseed ring not only had a huge space for storage, but an anti-corrosion effect. As long as the ring wasn’t damaged, the panaceas stored in it would never go bad.
Jiang Chen opened the mustardseed ring excitedly.
But, it was empty. It was almost fifteen feet high, and contained a space bigger than one thousand square feet.
I can put the Redcloud Sword here.
The Redcloud Sword was a spiritual sword, hence it would draw attention from people. Jiang Chen wouldn’t have to worry about it if he kept it inside the mustardseed ring.
The class of a spiritual treasure was decided by the class of its ware pattern.
For example, Jiang Chen’s new bow had the pattern of fire on its arrows, which was a class-one pattern. So the bow was a class-one spiritual treasure.
The spiritual treasures that could generate weapon souls needed to have a class-seven or higher pattern, which was created through various ware patterns of different properties.
When Jiang Chen was in the Sacred Zone, he could mix three kinds of class-seven ware patterns.
That was why he knew how gorgeous the Redcloud Sword was, since it had five kinds of ware patterns, all of which were higher than class-seven. The mixing skill used to make it was also marvelous. Jiang Chen was enamored with it.
Unfortunately, the Redcloud Sword was damaged. It used to be a class-eight spiritual treasure, but at the moment it was only a class one.
It would not be as easy to repair a spiritual treasure of this level as it would be to repair the bow.
He had to collect materials and spent some time figuring out a way to repair it.
“Do you still remember how the sword was so severely damaged?” Jiang Chen asked the soul.
“In a battle – a battle as devastating as an earthquake.”
Jiang Chen nodded. The previous lord of the Redcloud Sword probably died in that battle and left the severely damaged Redcloud Sword behind.
“Take your time. When the Redcloud Sword is repaired, your memory will come back as well,” Jiang Chen said.
He thought of the current situation in the Southwind Ridge and set off immediately.
The Southwind Ridge was being besieged by the Qingcheng Sect, the Fiery Lion Gang, and the Bloody Hand Gang of the Hundred Thousand Mountains. They were extremely aggressive, intending to carve up the Jiangs’ properties.
The Jiangs had three main industries in the Southwind Ridge that were essential to their livelihood.
The first was mining. It was the main reason that the Jiangs to chose to settle down in the Southwind Ridge. It was abundant in mineral resources. Even after years of exploitation, it still had huge amounts of minerals underground.
The second was the herbal mountain. With the Jiangs’ endeavors, more and more medicinal materials were produced every year.
The materials Jiang Chen had used to refine the Gathering Qi Pills were from the herbal mountain.
The third was the mountain where Jiang Chen had gone to during the winter hunt. It guaranteed each family a source of meat from the abundant beasts in the mountain.
At that moment, the three forces had agreed on how to split up these resources. Among them the Qingcheng Sect was the strongest, so they would take the mine.