Chapter 277 – A Few Strands of White Hair Give Rise to a Demonic Blade, Lofty Dreams are a Young Man’s Game - Part 2

The following day.

Li Yuan swallowed a fasting pill and locked himself in a secret room to study the Life Devour manual.

A single red candle flickered in the stillness, painting the chamber walls a stark white. The handwritten text, ancient and indistinct, sprawled in erratic lines that evoked some kind of ominous incantation.

Li Yuan pored over the Life Devour manual, utterly absorbed. Whenever he found a gap in the text, he filled it in using what he knew about a forger’s basic skills and logic.

By the end of the first day, he had grasped the essence of Life Devour.

To forge a spirit artifact, hearing the blood crystal quickening was foundational. Whether it succeeded depends on how well the user’s source blood integrates with the quickening. Different source blood produced different fundamental effects, which interacted with the blood crystal and metal, strengthening or weakening the spirit artifact. In other words, the true core of a spirit artifact was the wielder’s own source blood.

The Life Devour skill used the Ghost Hammer to siphon the weaponsmith’s lifespan and convert it into a mysterious force—infusing it into the blood crystal during the Quickening process right alongside the owner’s source blood. This granted the spirit artifact a second type of power, or triggered a mutation in the original blood power.

The manual detailed how to pinpoint the exact timing and how to

listen

to the pulse during the Quickening. Infusing one’s life force at different moments could produce different results.

If the source blood was added first, the spirit artifact’s power would be a mutated form of that blood. If the source blood was added afterward, the spirit artifact might possess two distinct powers—one from the blood itself; and another, more sinister force. That force could drain an enemy’s blood or even directly the opponent’s mind.

“So nasty, and so overpowered...” Li Yuan couldn’t help but sigh.

He examined every detail, completely absorbed in the process. His fingers traced invisible lines in midair, as though he were trying to sense some hidden resonance. Day after day went by in this manner.

Eventually, Li Yuan reached the jagged tear at the end of the scroll, but it hadn’t actually cut off much information. Right before the tear was a passage describing the weaponsmith’s thoughts on sacrificing his lifespan.

“This is a demonic hammer. I can feel it draining my life, and I even know how many years it’s taking.

It’s strangely polite. If I only want to give three years, it will stop at three. But it also lets me know that if I want to forge a truly exceptional weapon, I need to give at least 30 years.

Thirty years of life in exchange for a peerless spirit artifact...it’s worth it!

My name will be etched onto the pinnacle of weaponsmithing, admired by future generations!”

Li Yuan sighed softly. He had no idea what that weaponsmith’s name might have been. Had he not stumbled upon this record, no one would have heard the man’s story at all.

“Time...” Li Yuan murmured, an almost crazed, obsessive glint in his eyes. He was ready to try smithing a new weapon, and he had a hunch he might gain some small revelation this time.

However, Li Yuan had no plans to forge the weapon behind the third gate. He wanted to do so outside the city stronghold, on the very mountain where his father-in-law, Zhu Ban, had once worked.

The reasons were twofold, First, he wanted to prevent the Ghost Hammer from drawing the attention of the red insects within the third gate. Second, it was also to advance his own eventual escape plan. If people got used to him travelling far away, they’d pay less attention when he didn’t go quite so far.

No one objected to Li Yuan’s request to forge outside the city stronghold. However, Cui Wuji still ended up tagging along, driving the carriage to the foot of the mountain. Once there, Li Yuan used the Eternal Demon Bloom to raise a vivid red flower wall around the forging site. Cui Wuji settled down inside it, found a comfortable spot, and sat.

Outside the barrier, many blacksmiths and martial artists tried to visit, curious about the forging. But Li Yuan wouldn’t let them in. This was an important experiment, his first real masterpiece. He had decided to forge the spirit artifact for Jing Banfeng.

Why Jing Banfeng? Li Yuan worried the new weapon might warp the wielder’s temperament. If he gave it to Gu Xuejian, who was already quite battle-hungry, she might end up even more bloodthirsty. Since she was his son’s master, he wanted to avoid that at all costs. Jing Banfeng, on the other hand, was the type to avoid combat if at all possible. Even if the weapon had some side effects, it likely wouldn’t drive him to mindless violence.

Besides, the higher-ups didn’t particularly revere Li Yuan’s weaponsmithing skills. The spirit artifacts he’d produced so far were, at best, acceptable for a fifth rank martial artist who lacked any spirit artifact at all; they were hardly top-tier. Though Jing Banfeng was the head of the Jing Clan, he still needed a proper spirit artifact, so he accepted Li Yuan’s offer without a second thought.

Now Jing Banfeng arrived, crossing the flower wall by flying over. Holding out a jade vial of source blood, he smiled. “Master Li, I do already have a blade; maybe you could make me a little spirit

trinket

instead?”

His existing blade had been forged by Master Gong, and he wasn’t in a hurry to replace it. He doubted the spirit artifact Li Yuan produced could outperform that of the renowned weaponsmith.

Li Yuan stood silent, entirely focused, as if lost in a meditative state.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Jing Banfeng waited for a response but got none, so he shrugged and said, “All right, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be waiting down below.” He took flight once more, thinking,

Fine. If I end up with a second blade, maybe I can just throw it like a throwing dagger.

High atop the mountain, spring water gushed freely in May’s warmth, and the pear blossoms blanketing the northern slopes had already fallen. Li Yuan was reminded of his time here six years ago, apprenticing in the forge. The surrounding mountains rose like emerald screens, sealing away prying eyes from the outside world.

He cast a quick glance around before returning his focus to the equipment at hand—the finest blood crystals, bellows, furnace, quenching trough, tongs, anvil, and hammer...plus all sorts of refined metals. He wasted no words. He simply stripped off his outer robe, tied back his long hair, lit the fire, heated the forge, and began.

From his equipment box, Li Yuan drew forth the Ghost Hammer. Pitch-black and icy to the touch, it radiated a cold, sinister aura. Immediately, he felt it nudging against his life essence, a polite request for permission to draw on his lifespan. He didn’t consent yet; he would wait for the crucial moment, then allow 30 years to be consumed. This was, after all, just an experiment.

He was more than proficient in the routine steps by now, well beyond the point of needing

warm-up

swings. Soon, he reached that moment of

Quickening

, when the metal embryo stirred to life. This was where his prior training paid off. Through Wind-Thunder Perceiving Blooms, he could discern the faintest shifts in the forging process, as though all surrounding noise had fallen away, leaving only the elemental hum of metal in his ears.

Caught up in the flow, Li Yuan struck the embryonic blood crystal with fierce concentration. At the critical instant, he silently declared his willingness to part with 30 years of his life. All at once, his palm felt as if it were being sucked dry. A surge of life force poured into the Ghost Hammer, which briefly went rigid, like a corpse brought to sudden movement. The long, narrow handle resembled a twisted ghostly face, its limbs contorted and fused to form the hammer’s head.

From the outside, the Ghost Hammer still appeared utterly ordinary. Yet to Li Yuan, it felt as though it had morphed into a ghost—a ghost that had somehow transformed into an item.

BOOM!

He brought the hammer down. An almost mystical pulse of life force surged into the embryonic blade.

In that instant, a familiar notification flashed through Li Yuan’s consciousness. His

Eternal Youth

, which always showed him that his lifespan was infinite, flickered for the first time:

「

Additional cost of 30 years’ lifespan detected. Please select an option.

Option 1: Temporarily maintain the reduced-lifespan state; you may switch to Option 2 at any time. (Your strength will remain unaffected.)

Option 2: Immediately resolve the cost, reverting to your original state. Remaining lifespan: ∞–30

」

[1]

Ecstatic at this unexpected

perk

, Li Yuan instantly selected Option 1. Then, without missing a beat, he uncorked the jade vial. Letting Jing Banfeng’s source blood drip precisely into the molten metal, he furiously swung the hammer in a frenzy of sparks and clashing steel.

Klang! Klang! Klang!

Yin flames hissed and spat, stray embers shooting wildly into the night. When at last he quenched the metal, a deep crimson blade emerged, shot through with an eerie, muddied green shimmer. The surface of the blade was streaked with chaotic patterns that made one feel uneasy from a single glance.

Li Yuan painstakingly attached a hilt and fitted a scabbard. Once finished, he held the blade, tuning his senses to the power coursing within. As its creator, he could vaguely sense its abilities.

“A

demonic blade

...” Li Yuan murmured, noting how it steadily eroded its wielder’s strength.

But the more it drained, the more violently it enhanced the user’s speed, power, and reflexes. Then, once the wielder stopped fighting, or if they suffered a mortal wound...it would release all that lost power in a single burst, replenishing what had been eroded from the user’s own reserves. Afterwards, the blade would lie dormant for several hours, though precisely how many remained to be tested.

“It also seems it doesn’t need the customary nine-month

gestation

in a place teeming with life force. It can be wielded right away. Well, it did absorb 30 years’ worth of my lifespan, guess it doesn’t need any further feeding.”

Li Yuan paused, recalling that Jing Banfeng practiced the Evergreen Art. Normally, a fifth rank martial artist who cultivated it would end up with a spirit artifact devoted to rapid self-healing or weapon self-repair.

But by sacrificing 30 years of his own life, Li Yuan had twisted that mild recovery effect into something that eroded the user while simultaneously fueling a terrifying surge in their abilities, only to restore everything in one final burst. It was drastically more powerful than the run-of-the-mill spirit artifact.

Unfortunately, Li Yuan couldn’t use it himself, so he had no way of confirming just how formidable it might be in practice. He stood there, waiting.

1. Obvious, or maybe not so obvious math problem? But if you solve the equation,

∞–30 is just equal to ∞.

☜