Chapter 73 – Level Nine Artifact Soul

As Li Guanqi stepped onto the altar, everyone instinctively held their breath, their gazes fixed on him.

Suddenly, Sword Spirit’s voice rang out urgently in his mind.

“Who the hell is your grandfather?!”

Buzz!

Li Guanqi felt like he had been plunged into a misty, illusory world. Tools and weapons were littered everywhere on the ground: knives, spears, swords, halberds, axes, hooks, pitchforks...

There were even pill cauldrons, hammers, magical brushes, prosthetics, shields, and more. The entire space was littered with items, stretching endlessly into the distance.

Each item radiated a powerful energy, glowing with the light of various elements. Intricate and complex patterns adorned their surfaces.

“What are these? Why are there so many of them?” Li Guanqi said.

Then, with a touch of sarcasm, he added, “Am I supposed to pick one?”

He wandered through the space, observing his surroundings. It didn’t take long for him to notice a pattern—powerful weapons stood in isolation with no other items nearby, as if claiming territory of their own.

He spotted a purple sword embedded in the ground with lightning crackling all over it. There were no weapons within a ten zhang radius of it.

As he approached, the sword let out a sharp, ringing cry, as if showing off.

Li Guanqi reached out slowly. However, before he could touch it, an inexplicable, transcendent feeling told him that the sword was not suitable for him.

He looked at the crying sword and retracted his hand without hesitation. He said gently, “You’ll find someone better suited to be your master.”

The sharp cries of the sword echoed across space, sending other items as far as tens of zhang into the air. Then, the cries became gentler, as if pleading to make him stay.

But Li Guanqi had already made up his mind. He closed his eyes, refusing to even use his heart’s eye. Enveloped in darkness, he let his instincts guide his steps as he ventured deeper into the void.

Slowly, all the items moved aside to make way for him, as if they were alive.

Under his robes, dense and mysterious patterns emerged on his skin, glowing with an eerie, blood-red light. The further he went, the more formidable the items became. He passed swords far stronger than the one he had just rejected—yet he didn’t stop.

Meanwhile, outside in the Spirit Testing Pavilion, Song Ru frowned deeply. The process of opening Li Guanqi’s spirit void was proving to be inexplicably difficult. The spirit stones placed on the altar were vanishing at an astonishing rate.

Li Nanting rushed up to the altar and placed thirty high-grade spirit stones on the altar without hesitation.

Inside the spirit void, a faint red thread emerged from between Li Guanqi’s brows, extending toward the sky.

Sword Spirit’s gaze dropped to her own chest in shock, where a similar red thread had appeared.

It’s the Mount Meru Immortal Rune! Su Xuan... Who the hell are you?!

Did you draw blood runes on him to hide his Empty Spirit Body?

You planned to completely bind my fate with his using this karmic thread!

Sword Spirit fixed her beautiful eyes on the youth’s back.

In the end, she made her decision with a wistful look on her eyes. She muttered, “In that case, I’ll choose him!”

Suddenly, a startling crack of thunder rang across the void.

A gigantic mountain loomed before Li Guanqi, its peak obscured from view. At the summit, a sword glistened under a red light, barely discernible.

Li Guanqi’s eyes traced down the mountain and realized it was no mountain—it was a gigantic pile of countless items and weapons. At its peak, the blood-red sword exuded an unmistakable majesty, as if surveying the world’s sentient beings from above.

The clouds above the Purple Sun Pavilion started to swirl. Dense black clouds gathered, stretching for a hundred li in every direction.

Howling gales tore through the air. Thunder rumbled. The region’s spirit qi appeared to be agitated, and the spirit mist covering the Purple Sun Pavilion roiled like boiling spring water.

Within the sect, disciples who had already awakened their spirit voids collapsed to their knees. Their artifact souls materialized against their will, trembling on the ground.

The spirit void between Li Guanqi’s eyebrows had reached ten zhang wide and was still expanding. Song Ru’s face turned pale. He used his vital force to shove all the disciples out of the door immediately.

The spirit stones on the altar were quickly turning to dust, so Li Nanting took out all the high-grade spirit stones he had and placed them on the altar.

Buzz!

The spirit void was still expanding.

Fifty zhang! A hundred! Three hundred! Five hundred!

In the spirit void, Li Guanqi had finally climbed to the mountain's peak, where he saw the blood-red sword.

It was three chi and one inch long. It had a slanted cut where the narrow tip of the blade should have been. Despite the missing tip, it was hard to miss the sharpness of this blade. The blade’s edges were steeped in deep crimson, as if stained by the blood of countless enemies.

Intricate patterns wove across the hilt, twisting like countless blood-red whiskers coiling around the crossguard. With a sense of knowing in his heart, Li Guanqi reached out.

Buzz!

When he grabbed the sword, the mountain beneath his feet collapsed suddenly. All the weapons in the void disappeared in an instant.

Li Guanqi asked softly, “Sword Spirit, was that you...?”

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

There was no response.

Meanwhile, on the altar, the nine stone pillars shone with blinding white light, slowly turning blood red.

Beyond the doorway, the gathered crowd peered inside, their gazes locking onto the youth standing on the altar, blood-red sword in hand.

The stone pillars meant for testing the artifact soul’s level turned red and then exploded.

Li Guanqi opened his eyes. With a single thought, he stored the artifact soul in his spirit platform. His connection with the artifact soul made it feel like a part of his own body, almost as if the sword had become an extension of himself.

He also felt like his connection with Sword Spirit had deepened significantly.

The strange phenomenon in the sky gradually disappeared as Li Guanqi leaped off the altar.

Li Nanting had an incredibly wide grin on his face, making it seem like his head was about to split in half. He approached Li Guanqi, patted his shoulders, and burst into laughter.

“Good, good! A level nine sword soul? Your talent is truly exceptional compared to others! You’re blessed with great fortune!

Hahahaha

!

The Seven Strings Sect disciples sulked even harder, not daring to meet his gaze.

Li Guanqi smiled awkwardly and did not say anything.

Meanwhile, the Daxia Sword Sect’s disciples threw their arms in the air, cheering wildly. “Level nine! And it’s a sword soul too! Heavens...”

“

Hahahaha!

We’re definitely going to receive a secret realm now!”

“Junior Brother Li lives up to his reputation. His talent is just something else!”

Ye Feng gulped, looking at Li Guanqi like he was some kind of alien.

He muttered under his breath, “Why didn’t a guy like you go join some holy land in the Central Territory and become a monk?”