Chapter 357 The Fifth Rune

The toughness of the Nine Netherworld Iron was beyond Yuan Ming's expectation. The refining process was extremely long. Fortunately, Yuan Ming had made sufficient preparations and even prepared a lot of medium-grade spiritual stones to make up for the spiritual power consumption of releasing the Dan Fire.

Ten days later, the Netherworld Iron Gourd was finally completely melted. Yuan Ming dispersed all the impurities in it, leaving only a fist-sized black iron slurry.

In addition to the Netherworld Iron slurry, the jade fragment in the gourd was still floating. After such a long time of burning by the Dan Fire, even the Netherworld Iron was melted into water, but the jade fragment did not change at all, and the luster of the surface even became brighter.

Yuan Ming opened the furnace remotely, took out the jade fragment, put it aside temporarily, and then raised his hand and sent the Soul-Destroying Sword placed aside into the furnace.

Although the number of runes that a magic weapon can bear is determined by the main material of the magic weapon, it is also closely related to its number.

Although the Soul-Destroying Sword is made of Nine Netherworld Iron as the main material, there is not too much Nine Netherworld Iron in the sword body, and it may not be able to withstand seven runes. It should be enough to melt the Netherworld Iron Gourd into it.

He learned a lot of refining methods from Hei Xiang, among which there is a unique secret technique called "Compression of Same Material".

This method is to increase the power of the magic weapon in disguise by adding the same spiritual material to the refining object and compressing and condensing it with special formulas.

This secret technique is very useful, which can not only increase the power of the magic weapon, but also will not destroy the original runes.

Time flies and it is ten days later.

Yuan Ming melted the body of the Soul-Destroying Sword, and then merged it with the previous Netherworld Iron slurry and began to compress and condense.

This step took much longer than Yuan Ming imagined. It took him nearly half a year to complete it.

After condensing, the Soul-Destroying Sword was slightly larger than before, the color became deeper, and the feeling of holding it in the hand was much heavier than before.

After refining the Soul-Destroying Sword, Yuan Ming did not immediately start the next step of refining. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the lotus platform and rested quietly.

In the past six months, he only used his spiritual consciousness to assist in refining the weapon, and he did not feel much tired.

It was just that the fatigue accumulated in the body after a long period of stimulating the Dan fire was difficult to eliminate, so even if he was in good spirits, he had to stop and rest temporarily.

Yuan Ming felt more and more weak in his body. When he was resting, he could not help but envy King Kong.

If he could temper his body to the strength of the innate body, his strength would be greatly improved.

Yuan Ming was daydreaming, and suddenly remembered that when he was in southern Xinjiang, he had sold a favor to a body cultivator named Long Hao. He had not been able to possess this person with black incense before, so he gradually forgot about it. Now he remembered that he did not know whether he could possess this person after entering the Dan formation stage and take the opportunity to learn a method of body refining.

Of course, now he is practicing both the Dharma and the Soul, and has invested several times more energy and time than others. If it weren't for the continuous supply of elixirs and willpower, and the smooth practice of the top-notch techniques such as the Nine Yuan Jue, he would not be able to reach his current level.

In terms of physical cultivation, he does not have a very obvious advantage now. If there is no special opportunity, blindly practicing will not necessarily yield good results even if he puts in a lot of energy, and will also occupy his time for other aspects of cultivation in vain, which will not be worth the loss.

Half a month later, Yuan Ming's body was completely restored, and after adjusting his state, he began to refine again.

The next step is to carve runes.

Although he has entered the Dan Jie period, because the Nether Iron is extremely hard, not to mention that it has just been compressed and quenched, Yuan Ming still has to take out the high-quality carving knife he purchased and carve runes on the Soul-Destroying Sword stroke by stroke.

The first rune he carved was the one with the "curse" effect.

The complexity of this rune far exceeds all the runes Yuan Ming has mastered. Even though he is confident that he has practiced enough and his soul strength is far stronger than before, he still dare not be careless when he is actually carving it.

But when his carving knife just made the first stroke, an accident happened.

As the carving knife passed, a shallow dark mark immediately appeared on the Soul-Destroying Sword. At the same time, Yuan Ming saw that the Soul-Destroying Sword suddenly glowed, and an inexplicable suction appeared on the dark mark, along with the carving knife, spreading into Yuan Ming's body.

Yuan Ming only felt that his whole body of mana was pulled into the dark mark, and the strands of mana filled the lines just carved bit by bit, but the dark mark seemed not satisfied, and the suction on it jumped again.

The inexplicable force pounced on Yuan Ming's sea of ​​consciousness, causing the soul power in it to flow out towards the dark mark just carved.

Seeing this, Yuan Ming was shocked, but he had to finish the rune carving. Since he had already made the first stroke, he had to finish all the subsequent lines in one go, otherwise all his efforts would be wasted.

He did not hesitate, took a deep breath, and then forced himself to calm down and continued to carve.

With each stroke, the suction force on the Soul-Destroying Sword would increase slightly, making Yuan Ming's carving more difficult. He had only carved less than one-fifth of it, and he felt as if there were thousands of mountains blocking the carving knife. It took a lot of time to carve a simple vertical line.

At the same time, on the Soul-Destroying Sword, the lines that had been carved, the faint spiritual light lit up little by little, and the speed was always a little slower than Yuan Ming's carving knife.

Until now, Yuan Ming has realized that the rune he wants to carve is not ordinary, and its spiritual charm is even enough to break the convention, mixing the two processes of carving runes and infusing spirits, which should be separated.

However, whether it is a magic weapon or a magic treasure, in the step of infusing spirits, it is necessary to fill it with unimaginable spiritual power. Ordinary refiners choose to put spiritual stones into the furnace when refining to provide the required spiritual power.

However, Yuan Ming can only use his own mana and even soul power to complete this very consuming step of infusing spirits.

Although he is sitting on the lotus platform at this time, his spiritual power has increased greatly, and his will power is constantly replenishing his soul power, but in terms of mana, he still gradually feels a sense of exhaustion emerging from his body.

Yuan Ming dare not stop and can only temporarily draw out a trace of mana, call the spiritual stone prepared before to his side, and continuously absorb the spiritual power in it to fill the need for infusing spirits.

Gradually, the situation eased.

Yuan Ming's carving knife slowly but steadily carved the runes, and his mana and soul power were like a trickle, slowly filling the rune gaps. Everything was going smoothly until seven days later.

On the Soul-Destroying Sword, the "Curse" rune was only a few lines left to take shape, but the sword suddenly shook at this time. At first, the amplitude was small, but as the rune carving progressed, the shaking amplitude became larger and larger, and it was to the point where Yuan Ming had to forcibly hold it down with his hands.

Faced with this situation, Yuan Ming seemed expressionless, but his heart was more anxious.

With his current level of refining, he naturally saw at a glance that this was a symptom that the Soul-Destroying Sword could not withstand the rune engraving, but he had clearly refined and compressed the Soul-Destroying Sword before, and if it was just the fifth rune, it would be impossible for it to be unable to withstand it anyway.

The problem could only be with that rune.

Yuan Ming had anticipated that the Soul-Destroying Sword might not be able to fully withstand the three magical runes, but he had never thought that the Soul-Destroying Sword, after being refined and compressed, could not even withstand one of them.

However, things had already come to this point, and Yuan Ming had no room for regret. He could only grit his teeth, hold the carving knife tightly and carve, while pouring the mana and soul power in his body into the sword, trying to speed up the carving and infusing the soul.

Time passed bit by bit, and soon another day passed.

Under Yuan Ming's forced suppression, the shaking of the Soul-Destroying Sword was always restricted to the range that did not affect the carving, but its sword body was already covered with cracks, and it seemed that it might break and shatter at any time.

And Yuan Ming's carving knife was only a hair away from completing the carving. Although it was so fine that it was almost invisible, it was like a natural moat, separating success and failure.

At this time, Yuan Ming's eyes were red, and veins on his forehead were bulging. The fingers of the hand holding the carving knife were white, obviously he had used up all his strength and was ready to go all out.

Suddenly, Yuan Ming felt the carving knife in his hand loosen, and the thousand-pound force that had just stopped him turned into a breeze and dissipated. Yuan Ming's heart jumped, and he quickly raised the carving knife to prevent leaving extra scratches.

But at this moment, the suction force on the cracked sword, which had already tended to be flat, surged again. Yuan Ming's left hand holding the Soul-Destroying Sword seemed to be stuck to the sword, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull it off.

But this time, the Soul-Destroying Sword no longer absorbed his magic power, but devoured his soul power like a giant whale. The soul power in Yuan Ming's sea of ​​consciousness quickly dried up, but in the next moment it was filled with the pure will power that poured in crazily.

In this way, the suction and release, Yuan Ming's soul was even affected, and he felt waves of dizziness and tingling that appeared and disappeared from time to time.

He felt like a channel for conveying soul power, sandwiched between the Soul-Destroying Sword and the lotus platform.

After an unknown amount of time, the Soul-Destroying Sword seemed to have absorbed enough soul power and gradually slowed down its suction force, so Yuan Ming was finally able to pull his hand away from the sword.

He breathed a sigh of relief and looked down, only to see that all the cracks on the Soul-Destroying Sword that had appeared during the previous refining had disappeared, replaced by smooth purple lines that intertwined with each other, like a dragon attached to the Soul-Destroying Sword, magical and extraordinary.

The fifth rune, success!

The five runes on the sword were all shining at this time, but the last rune representing "curse" was fading away rapidly, as if it would completely dissipate in the next moment.

Yuan Ming's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly took out the Soul-Destroying Sword, bit his tongue, and spurted a mouthful of blood on the sword, then wrapped the Soul-Destroying Sword with Dan Fire again, fusing his blood with it.

Gradually, Yuan Ming felt a vague connection between himself and the Soul-Destroying Sword. Then he cast a spell without hesitation, absorbed the Soul-Destroying Sword into his body, and used the Dan fire in his body to wrap and warm it.