The Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST 796 - Weapon Of Destruction Completed, Refining Poison

Qing Shui cautiously smelted the Jade Dragon Dagger to remove the impurities present in the material, thus forming a purer version of the dagger. Moreover, the poison could be absorbed better once the impurities had been removed completely.

Qing Shui had also discovered that the Jade Dragon Dagger has a distinct high-temperature resistance, a property that could determine whether the weapon was of an excellent quality. The impurities contained within the dagger seemed quite lminor as evidenced by the small amount of dirt particles leaking through the fire.

After that, Qing Shui took 15 Five Colored Poison Pearls and smelted them with the Jade Dragon Dagger until the dagger had completely submerged into the liquefied Poison Pearls. The Jade Dragon Dagger would require ample time to absorb the poisonous liquid effectively.

Even though the process was halted, Qing Shui decided to use the remaining time to temper other Poison Weapons and valuable materials that he had been planning for a long time. He looked at the giant 10,000-Year Coldsteel and took a portion of it to produce an abundance of Coldsteel Needles and Frosted Iron Balls.

The 10,000-Year Coldsteel was far more valuable than the 1,000-Year Coldsteel as they were obviously not of the same level. However, because of the higher value of the 10,000-Year Coldsteel, Qing Shui had thought that the Frosted Iron Balls produced with the said Coldsteel would be exceptional sturdy. But to his dismay, he found it impossible to use hidden weapons to release the Twin Dragon Explosion. The 10,000-Year Coldsteel could not be used to inflict impact damage for now due to the limitation of Qing Shui's current ability.

On the other hand, the Frosted Iron Balls and Coldsteel Needles forged from a 1,000-Year Coldsteel were designed for single use only. Basically, after using them once, the weapons would cease to be effective, thus rendering them useless. However, the 10,000-Year Coldsteel was different - it could be used multiple times as long as the weapon remained intact and could be retrieved. Despite that, the weapon would require replenishment of the poison to be able to use it again - this was the only drawback of the weapons forged from 10,000-Year Coldsteel.

The 10,000-Year Coldsteel Needles were as fine as the hair of an ox and as poisonous as the vicious snakes and scorpions!

Refining 10,000-Year Coldsteel was more laborious than refining 1,000-Year Coldsteel. The time required to refine the 10,000-Year Coldsteel was lengthening as well. One refining session could yield about nine batches of needles, with one batch yielding about nine needles. Thus, one refining session could yield at least 81 needles in total!

As long as Qing Shui had the materials required in his possession, the refining process would be swift. The nine-inch Coldsteel Needles seemed like a small amount when he put them together. Nevertheless, he took five of the Poison Pearls from the remaining 15 Five Colored Poison Pearls and smelted them with the Coldsteel Needles. Then, with the same process as the Jade Dragon Dagger, he allowed the poisonous needles to submerge into the poisonous liquid. All he had to do now was to wait patiently for the needles to absorb the toxins from the liquefied Poison Pearls completely.

There were quite a lot of 10,000-Year Frosted Iron Balls produced as well. Luckily, these weapons could be used more than once. If they were to inherit the same singular-use property of the 1,000-Year Coldsteel, Qing Shui would definitely rage for quite a while.

Three days had passed after he had finished forging the weapons. During his free time in the past three days, Qing Shui had studied the content of the [Poison Scripture] again. Frankly, it was all because of the [Poison Scripture] that Qing Shui was able to refine a variety of Poison Weapons and tamper with poisonous substances.

He felt extremely grateful for the book. Otherwise, he wouldn't be alive until now - he would have died in the hands of the Zuoshi Aristocrat Clan.

During the span of three days, the Jade Dragon Dagger had turned pitch-black. The poisonous liquid around the dagger had vanished, most likely absorbed by the dagger itself.

Qing Shui was satisfied after he had used his Spiritual Sense to analyze the reformed weapon. The most crucial part of a Poison Weapon was its core. The supreme core could become remarkably spiritualized after a period of time, as if forming a kind of bond with its user. The better the core, the better the weapons, armor and other artifacts would be. There was a rumor stating that the core of the Divine Weapons could communicate with the user telepathically - it was said that the core has a mind of its own.

He ate some food, cultivated for a while and took a good rest. After Qing Shui got up from his rest, he went to check on the Jade Dragon Dagger and discovered that it had completely absorbed the poisonous liquid. He proceeded to take the 10,000-Year Coldsteel that had already been tempered and put the dagger into a mould that he had prepared earlier.

Not long after that, he began smelting the 10,000-Year Coldsteel into liquid form and proceeded to pour the liquefied Coldsteel into the mould, coating the entire Jade Dragon Dagger. He had also prepared a sort of utensil nearby - a slender piece of tube than could be inserted into the mould from above. Once in awhile, the pitch-black liquid would drip into the mould in a consistent manner. The liquid was formed from melting the remaining Five Colored Poison Pearls in his possession.

The Primordial Flames continued to burn for the entire lengthy process. Qing Shui knew he couldn't be force an acceleration of the progress, so he activated his Spiritual Sense and slowly closed his eyes. The 10,000-Year Coldsteel continued to drip into the mould, which would take quite a long time for the process to finish.

A day had passed!

And then two days had passed!

……..

Finally, on the ninth day, the 10,000-Year Coldsteel was left with the size of a human thumb. The density of the 10,000-Year Coldsteel was abnormally high, yet the small lump of Coldsteel could still produce a generous amount of liquid after it had been melted. There was only a slight amount of liquefied Poison Pearls remaining as it continued to produce a drop into the mould after a brief period of time.

In between the process, Qing Shui had already consumed the Vital Essence Pills twice. If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to continue the refinement of the Poison Weapons, especially during the process where he was required to release the full power of the Primordial Flames. The constant production of the Primordial Flames was able to exhaust his energy very quickly. Fortunately for him, the Yin-Yang Image and the Qi of the Ancient Strengthening Technique were constantly in effect, otherwise he wouldn't able to go through the process with the Vital Essence Pills alone.

When the last drop of the 10,000-Year Coldsteel had fallen, Qing Shui let out a sigh of relief. However, the process didn't stop there, as the liquefied Five Colored Poison Pearls needed another hour to finish its last drop. But when it did, the entire dagger subsequently released a stream of thrilling black Qi, as well as an icy dark mist akin to a cloud of black smoke to the surrounding.

That was the cold Qi released by the 10,000-Year Coldsteel. The Primordial Flames continued to burn until the moment the Coldsteel had begun its infusion with the dagger completely. When the black Qi was released, it was an indication that the refinement was a success. All he needed to do now was to allow the 10,000-Year Coldsteel and the toxins to infuse the Jade Dragon Dagger completely.

The Poison Weapon emitted a green-black color during the entire process of infusion. Despite the subtle green color emitted from the weapon, he could still see the color quite clearly. That was the color of the Jade Dragon Dagger, meaning that it had been transformed into a core. Under these circumstances, it was normal for the Jade Dragon Dagger to become the core as long as it contained an abundance of spiritual energy. It wasn't necessary for the core to contain poisonous substance, however. The Jade Dragon Dagger had already been transformed into a poisonous core after Qing Shui had tempered it earlier.

He waited until the weapon had completely cooled down before he picked it up. The dagger seemed larger than before, measuring about one foot and three inches in length and three fingers wide. The whole structure of the weapon seemed like a broken three-feet long Greenedge Sword. It was cold to the touch but soon Qing Shui was able to feel the warmth slowly creep from his arms to his whole body. At that moment, he felt that he would be able to master the usage of a dagger due to the excellent quality of the weapon.

Qing Shui couldn't wait any longer and used his Spiritual Sense to analyze the weapon.

Poison Dragon Dagger!

Qing Shui was shocked but the name seemed appropriate the longer he thought about it. He continued below but the description had only contained a few words: Piercing attack with a poisonous effect.

He looked at the weapon with a perplexed expression. These few words were quite useless as he already had the knowledge that the attack would be poisonous to the touch. Even though he felt a little disappointed, he was still quite content with the end result of the refined weapon. He saw with his Spiritual Sense that the weapon was described to have a poisonous effect, which meant that the weapon must be quite lethal - that was all Qing Shui had ever wanted for the weapon.

It was a weapon of destruction!

Indeed, the Poison Dragon Dagger was a weapon of destruction that could be used for a strategy of surprise or even as a tool for an alternative kill during a struggle with his opponent. Qing Shui could only depend on these hidden weapons during a battle with opponents that seemed far more powerful than he was. If he could break through to the 7th Heavenly Layer of the Ancient Strengthening Technique, then he might be able to depend on his own ability to viciously slaughter his opponents. Utilizing poisons in a battle was actually one type of ability a martial warrior could cultivate. However, Qing Shui had been subconsciously rejecting that mindset due to his preference for physical strength and power.

Qing Shui was not a man who found pleasure in killing other people. However, some people deserved to be killed. Sometimes, killing was necessary in order to survive in this world.

A true man should strive to kill, even though he was not a man who would preach death. However, as a martial warrior, killing was inevitable. The success of a martial warrior was built on the lives of his opponents - the strongest of all could only climb to the top through a mountain of corpses.

Qing Shui would not slaughter innocent people either. When he was faced with the Zuoshi Aristocrat Clan and the Eastern Palace Aristocrat Clan, he had only killed the powerful martial warriors that were deemed dangerous for both the Qing Clan and the Heavenly Palace. Those who posed no threat to him were given the chance to flee. Human beings were born simple - they would eventually forget. The first generation may bear hatred in their hearts but the subsequent generations would eventually forget about their ancestor's hatred. In most cases, people would choose to forget when they were faced with a situation where they could not overpower the other party.

The Baima Aristocrat Clan was fated to be the stepping stones for both Qing Shui and the Heavenly Palace. These people would reap what they sowed and they would be the ones to bring about their own destruction. Qing Shui hated those who would bully the weak and fear the strong and the people from the Baima Aristocrat Clan were definitely those kinds. Because of that, he felt unobligated to be courteous towards the cowards of the Baima Aristocrat Clan. Otherwise, he would regret for eternity if he were to treat them differently than intended.

He had finally completed forging his Poison Weapons. Despite noticing the increased development of his Art of Forging, he still wasn't able to achieve a breakthrough for this technique.

The 10,000-Year Coldsteel Needles and 10,000-Year Frosted Iron Balls would require a few more days of poison infusion. However, with the existence of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, time was of no concern, so he had nothing to worry about.

It was evening when Qing Shui came out of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal. The sun had already reached the horizon, illuminating the sky with a fiery red color.

When he came out of his room, he could hear distinctive giggles outside the courtyard. It was the laughter of the twins, Qing Jun and Qing Yin. The ladies were also giggling in the middle of the courtyard with the kids.

Canghai Mingyue, Di Chen and Di Qing were being chased around by the two little kids.

The dawn had cast long shadows from their silhouettes on the ground, which seemed quite harmonious to the given atmosphere.

"Daddy….."

Qing Yin ran towards Qing Shui when she saw him. She pounced immediately before she was able to reach to her father. Luckily, Qing Shui caught her before she got hurt or fell to the ground.

The little girl wasn't afraid that she could fall to the ground. Instead, she giggled repeatedly while being cupped in Qing Shui's arm. Qing Jun had also ran towards Qing Shui, begging for a hug as well with arms wide opened when he saw his father hugging Qing Yin.

Qing Shui bent down and lifted him up with the other arm before he went towards the ladies. The two little kids were constantly bickering with each other while clinging to his chest. Qing Shui didn't mind at all - he quite enjoyed this kind of blissful moment.

"Are you done with your refinement?" Canghai Mingyue asked casually.

"Yeah, I'm free tonight to play with these two naughty kids." chuckled Qing Shui as he looked at the children in his arms.

Canghai Mingyue blushed an intense red. Qing Shui would always play with the children first before he would come to look for her. Good thing the twins had the habit of sleeping early. However, she never had a good sleep for half the night every time they had sex with each other…….

Days passed in a blink of an eye. He had already prepared what he could for the next battle with the Baima Aristocrat Clan. When he had the free time, he would guide the other members of the Qing Clan in their training, as well as enjoying the freedom and happiness of his current life.

At night!

"Qing Shui, I can't do this anymore."

Canghai Mingyue held tightly onto the unwearied Qing Shui as she pleaded him to stop with heavy breath.

He gazed at her irresistible elegance and beauty that had Qing Shui drowning in ecstasy. For a beauty like her to willingly make the most intimate love with him, it felt exceptionally wonderful. When their hearts were beating as one, Qing Shui felt that he was the happiest man on earth. At that moment, there was no envy for the immortals as he was filled with exuberant happiness.

"Mingyue, tell me, did that feel good?" Qing Shui smiled coyly at Canghai Mingyue.

"Not telling." Canghai Mingyue chided as she blushed from shyness.

"In that case…" Qing Shui smirked as he began to move his body provocatively.

"My dear, Yue`er felt good…." said Canghai Mingyue meekly as she buried her blushing face on Qing Shui's chest shyly. This had caused Qing Shui to fuel up his sexual desires once more, releasing all his passion on her again until she reached another climax.

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