"Whatever happens to the sword will happen to you," I said with a laugh.
"Then I'll become one with it, won't I?" Qu Jiao still looked as though she could endure it. She was probably still convinced that she would become an artifact spirit in the end. After all, she had always believed that her body was beyond saving, and that no amount of treatment could help. Only after experiencing it herself would she accept the truth. So I said, "From today onward, continue cultivating the wood-thunder poison by taking Jade Paste into your body, but there will be one extra step. While cultivating, you must also refine this sword. I'll teach you how to do it. You'll still need to take Numbing Immortal Pills, but I'll gradually reduce their effects according to your condition."
"This... all right. I really am becoming more and more hopeless, aren't I..." Qu Jiao sighed, then nodded anyway. She took the incantation formula I gave her and began cultivating step by step.
Seeing the girl enter meditation once again, I decided not to keep watching over her. Her condition would need to improve gradually and steadily, with every step carefully monitored. With this sword, she probably wouldn't faint again, so I should go check on Zi Jiang's cultivation instead.
The little girl had cultivated quite well. She had reached the second layer of the newly imparted Threefold New Sleep Life Formula, and her stored immortal power should have more than doubled. Once her storage capacity reached three times its original amount, that Jade Heaven Vein-Pattern Sword would be able to display more attribute combinations and unleash wondrous techniques. The Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams arrangement could indeed save magic power, but only by coordinating the attributes with one another could it evolve into an