It felt warm and smooth as jade, like touching one of his own fingers.
Jiang Ding could clearly sense a close connection between himself and the Talisman Sword. It resembled the bond with his blood essence, though it was much weaker. The only good news was that the connection had stopped fading.
When he tried feeding it internal energy, the Great Sun Spirit-Gathering Array activated and drew faint traces of spiritual energy from the air. Together with the nourishment of his internal energy, this strengthened the connection. It was no longer a spring without a source.
The change, however, was so slight it was almost imperceptible.
At this rate, an ordinary mortal could never nourish it enough for combat in his lifetime. It would remain a mere plaything.
So some inventive martial artists had devised two ways to speed its growth.
They could nourish and temper the sword with medicinal herbs decades or even a century old, improving its spirituality and modestly accelerating the process. What had once taken sixty years might then take only forty years of uninterrupted work before the sword was ready for combat.
But a martial artist was generally at least in his thirties by the time his internal energy reached perfection and he qualified to forge a Hundred-Step Flying Sword. Even with ample decades-old herbs and no mishaps along the way, he would be nearly eighty when he finished.
He would already have one foot in the coffin.
Forty years of painstaking daily nourishment and tempering, consuming enough old herbs to make a mountain—all for this?
Besides, the martial world was treacherous. How could anyone go forty years without a mishap?
Did he think he was the chosen son of destiny?
What truly worked was regularly refining it with blood essence!
That could accelerate the