Yaoguang returned to the Purple Firmament Institute. Shortly after the banquet concluded, he also received his payment from the chief of the Immortal Shadow Institute.

Inside a quiet room, he stared at the gold leaf deposit slip in his hand. "Five thousand spirit stones."

By presenting this slip to the Energy Department in any region, he could redeem five thousand spirit stones. Of course, five thousand spirit stones constituted a massive withdrawal, and he'd have to request an appointment in advance.

Still, Yaoguang felt he now had a level of wealth he had never experienced before.

"I can retire the Heavenly Being Pills now. I’ll start taking Indestructible Golden Body Pills directly. One bottle per realm, and the price is only six hundred spirit stones." Yaoguang smiled.

However, his expression soon turned strange. Six hundred spirit stones... "only"? Since when had he started considering six hundred spirit stones small change?

Unless they had a powerful benefactor, those great cultivators who promoted themselves through their own efforts, and especially body cultivators, might not save six hundred spirit stones even after two or three years of work.

Yaoguang shook his head and chose not to overthink it. "I invested so much time and energy into the Immortal Shadow 60. It is finally time to reap the rewards."

He moved his psychic mind into his mental world. Within that mental world, the Merchant branch was currently lush and green, waiting only for him to release his control so it could flourish. However, Yaoguang turned his gaze toward the Refiner branch instead.

Although he had previously remained committed to the path of strengthening his Martial Dao, he knew that if he wanted to obtain more spirit stones, specifically to secure the massive contract from the Nine Cauldrons Sect worth a million spirit stones, he had to focus on his Refiner skills.

"Sharpening the axe does not delay the woodcutting. Only when my Refiner tier reaches a sufficient level can I conduct business more effectively, gain more experience, and subsequently obtain a significant increase in my cultivation realm for both the Martial Dao and the Psyche Dao."

With that thought, he injected a vast amount of nourishment into the Refiner branch. In an instant, the branch grew to its limit and successfully bore fruit. Even after bearing fruit, the branch didn't stop growing. Following a brief tremor, it entered growth mode once again, expanding until it was second only to the Martial Dao branch.

As the Refiner branch grew, countless pieces of information surged into Yaoguang’s mind. He focused his mind and quietly processed the data. It took a full day before he finished organizing the Refiner branch.

"Compared to body cultivation, spell cultivation, sword cultivation, and psyche cultivation, the development of artifact refinement is... slow." His mind lingered on the branch.

If calculated by progress, his current progress as a Refiner was approximately at 35%. However, the division of the Refiner tiers was quite interesting. The range from 1% to 20% primarily contained information regarding low-grade spirit artifacts. From 21% to 40%, the focus shifted to middle-grade spirit artifacts. Following this pattern, 41% to 60% represented the experience required to craft high-grade spirit artifacts.

But the concepts of low-grade, middle-grade, and high-grade spirit artifacts involved here were somewhat different from those in the Great Cangwu World.

"The essence of the ancient tree belongs to high-dimensional cognition, the perception of surrounding things by a high-dimensional being capable of easily receiving infinite information. Its range of cognition is whatever 'It' sees, but... Its gaze is clearly not limited to a single Great Cangwu World."

For example, the Signless Infinity martial skill he practiced originated from a Martial Dao organization called the Signless Sect. Yet, within the Great Cangwu World, such a sect did not seem to exist. Furthermore, he had never seen any body refinement sect whose tempering of the first nine realms was more advanced or comprehensive than Signless Infinity.

The refinement methods he now perceived through the Refiner branch were compatible with all things. They included all those practiced by the artifact refinement sects of the Great Cangwu World, but weren't limited to just those; based on what he knew, some of these techniques were entirely unknown to the Great Cangwu World.

However, no matter how good the technology was, the one performing the refinement was still human. A faction with a development model entirely different from his own or Cangwu's would find even the most advanced technology useless. It was like handing longevity technology to a silicon-based lifeform; they would likely be baffled.

While high-dimensional cognition would not make such an error, some refinement techniques still shared common principles. Moreover, since he resided in Cangwu, the information he first perceived and remembered most vividly was naturally related to refinement knowledge that could be used in this world. Even if some things were unconventional, they would not stray too far from the norm.

"So while this refinement method is leaning a little bit towards an evil technique... it has great potential." Yaoguang focused on one of the methods he had gained access to, which functioned more like a secret art or a collection of trade secrets within the path of artifact refinement. It was called Thousand-Spirit Master: Spirit Artifact Chapter.

By planting an artifact spirit within every single flying sword, a cultivator can rapidly complete the refinement of the spirit artifact. This allows an ordinary flying sword to achieve the effects of a life-bound flying sword. Afterward, the human nourishes the artifact. By using the spirituality emitted by a sword cultivator, one can raise those spirit-artifact-level flying swords as if they were sword spirits. This results in a vast number of flying swords with autonomous characteristics. In the future, after these spirit artifacts are reclaimed, the cultivator only needs a very few psychic thoughts to manipulate them... Yaoguang’s attention lingered on this secret art.

The style of this technology reminded him of the methods used by the Lunar Fiend Empire. But he had to admit it was powerful. These flying swords were best used in conjunction with the psyche cultivation system, and the text recommended several psyche cultivation arts.

Yaoguang already possessed the most suitable one. It was an art he had obtained after organizing information upon breaking through to the Primordial Psyche Realm.

"Taiyuan Psyche Refinement Technique," Yaoguang said.

It was divided into four layers. Depending on the strength of the cultivator's psychic thoughts, the psyche refinement art could eventually split into 108, 1,024, 10,800, and finally 129,600 individual thoughts.

In other words, if this psyche refinement method were practiced to its limit, one could track and lock onto 129,600 targets simultaneously.

"In the Thousand-Spirit Master's peak state, I can control over ten thousand flying swords with a single thought... If paired with the Taiyuan Psyche Refinement..." Yaoguang took a deep breath.

1,296 billion! Simultaneously manipulating 1,296 billion spirit artifact flying swords?! Even if the lethality of the spirit artifact flying swords decreases without the direct contribution of a sword cultivator, with such a massive quantity, what force could possibly resist them once they flood the battlefield? This is swarm tactics! Yaoguang thought.

"A dual-cultivation system is truly powerful." Yaoguang sighed emotionally.

He was currently dual-cultivating artifact refinement and psyche refinement. Currently, all top-tier sects were adopting dual-cultivation systems, even developing various integrated paths that complemented one another.

However, these paths were considered top secret. They were even more confidential than the methods used to break through to the Golden Core Realm. Forget about Yaoguang, it was unlikely that even the higher-ups of the Nine Cauldrons Sect knew much about them.

"When I broke through to the Primordial Psyche Realm, I derived a divine ability called Psyche King. It has an extremely high compatibility with the Thousand-Spirit Master and the Taiyuan Psyche Refinement Technique. By combining them, their efficiency will multiply, making them way more effective than if used separately." Light flickered in Yaoguang's eyes.

Specifically, the Dao Fruit derived when he reached perfection in the ninth tier of the Refiner branch solidified his resolve. "Sky Net."

This was the third divine ability derived from the Refiner branch’s Dao Fruit, following the Refiner's Heart and the Refiner's Soul. By engraving divine runes onto the flying swords he forged, he could share the vision and perception of any of those swords.

This meant every flying sword acted as a network node. Although it was limited to vision and perception for now, as the flying swords he forged were sold to every corner of the world in the future, the entire world would fall within his range of perception.

Of course, achieving such a goal was still a distant prospect. He likely wouldn't have any hope of realizing it until after he reached the mastery stage of the Primordial Psyche Realm. For now, he had to prioritize selecting the right flying sword to forge to meet the requirements set by the Nine Cauldrons Sect.

"With this artifact refinement secret art, as long as the performance of the flying swords I forge isn't too poor, securing the order shouldn't be a problem. After all, the performance gap between a regular flying sword and a life-bound flying sword is nearly an entire tier. It’s almost like the difference between a conductor and a superconductor: When a regular flying sword channels a sword cultivator's true origin to execute sword arts, there is inevitable loss. A life-bound flying sword, however, allows a sword cultivator to unleash all of their combat power."

Despite this, Yaoguang still searched through the information obtained from the Refiner branch for a suitable spirit-artifact-level flying sword.

After a long time, he selected one. The tier of this flying sword was not high, merely a low-grade spirit artifact, but it possessed high speed and low energy consumption. It also offered a significant advantage in terms of production speed. Its only drawbacks were slightly lower stability and damage.

However, the issue of low damage could be resolved by the advantages provided by the "life-bound flying sword" attribute. As for the poor stability and its vulnerability to interference or suppression, that would depend on whether the allied psyche cultivators were effective. As long as his side's psyche cultivators could suppress those on the enemy's side at the start of the battle, the flaw would not become a major issue.

While the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s psyche cultivators were somewhat weak, that was only in comparison to certain top powers. They were certainly inferior to the Great Sun Sword Sect, but they could still easily bully the Xuanming Sect.

"This is the one. The speed and energy consumption meet the standards. I will treat the Thousand-Spirit Master's characteristics as a selling point for the flying sword, which essentially makes up for the lack of attack power. Combined with the advantage of rapid production, it should be enough."

Having finalized his target, Yaoguang began to digest the forging method for this flying sword and the application of Thousand-Spirit Master. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

***

On the ninth day, upon receiving Yaoguang's notification, Zhao He, Zhang Jianlin, Qin Yi, Yun Lai, and the others arrived at the Purple Firmament Institute simultaneously.

"It’s finished already?" Zhao He’s eyes held a glimmer of anticipation. "Can it meet the standards set by the higher-ups?"

"Yes. If I hadn't insisted on forging a sample, I could have submitted the proposal six days ago," Yaoguang said.

"You even forged a sample?" Zhang Jianlin asked, pleasantly surprised.

Standing nearby, Xiang Guangming smiled and said, "Three days ago, the chief led us in working around the clock without rest. By pooling the entire institute's strength, we finally managed to produce the sample."

"Everyone’s technique was a bit rusty during the initial production. Once we become proficient, the simple structure of this flying sword and the capacity of the Purple Firmament Institute will allow us to produce three swords a day. If we expand the institute's scale, producing ten swords a day would not be difficult."

"That fast?" Zhao He’s face was filled with shock.

The reason the higher-ups had only given the task force one year was that the situation in the East Sea was urgent and could not wait. Furthermore, nearly half the staff had left after the rumors of the Purple Firmament Institute's level being downgraded. If Yaoguang could achieve a production rate of three swords a day under these circumstances, it would be a huge competitive advantage.

"Let me see... Flying sword speed—Hmm?! A maximum of Mach 2.8? And the damage can reach level 5? The spiritual energy consumption for ten thousand kilometers is only 176?! This almost matches the energy consumption of a refined artifact flying sword!" Zhao He looked up in astonishment. "Is this data real?"