Elder Ji stood beside the bronze cauldron, sweat covering his round belly. He watched the ten Sword Pellets slowly circling around Jiang Tian, his expression utterly complicated.
His lineage on Piyun Peak had been passed down through a single disciple, and the art of forging Sword Pellets was taught to only one person at a time.
Every month, he would forge a batch of Sword Pellets, and a large crowd would come each time.
Yet some months, not even a single Sword Pellet would be refined by anyone.
"Ten..." Elder Ji slowly closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
He recalled something his master had once told him.
And his master had heard the same thing from his own master.
"If someone can subdue and refine ten Sword Pellets in one go, give them the Sword Pellet passed down by the Founder."
Jiang Tian still had his eyes closed, as if all the clamor around him had nothing to do with him.
Inside him, another earth-shaking transformation was taking place.
Though the ten Sword Pellets floated around him, their ringing no longer came from outside. It echoed directly in his mind, in his heart, and through every inch of his flesh and blood.
The sound was no longer piercing or sharp. It had become long and deep.
He could feel the Sword Pellets resonating with him in a way he had never experienced before—not through qi, nor through spirit, but through a deeper, more fundamental connection.
The Sword Pellets looked perfectly round and blunt, yet their inner structures were astonishingly complex. Countless tiny strands of Sword Qi interwove in some unfathomable way, forming a perfect closed loop, each strand vibrating at a particular frequency.
Jiang Tian slowly opened his eyes.
He dragged a fingernail across his palm. Several