Swallowing the Stars: I Have a Primordial Dao Seed

After successfully cultivating the third level of the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique, Zhou Yuan left the training ground and returned directly to the villa. Thinking of the cosmic crystals he had received, Zhou Yuan's first task was to absorb them using the Chaotic Origin Dao Seed.

Back in his room, Zhou Yuan first took out the small world ring that Zichen Pavilion had given him as a gift when they delivered the goods; the cosmic crystal was stored inside. With a thought, he entered the space inside the ring.

The moment Zhou Yuan stepped inside, he was stunned by the sight before him—a colossal mountain range made of cosmic crystals stretched out before him. The cosmic crystals, each containing one million Chaos Units, had a volume of one million cubic kilometers, directly dividing the world within the ring in two.

The world within this world ring is only 10,000 kilometers in diameter. The cosmic crystal lies horizontally within this small world, stretching nearly 10,000 kilometers from left to right and reaching a height of about 10 kilometers.

Zhou Yuan flew to the top of the Cosmic Crystal Mountain Range. With a thought, he summoned a projection of the Primordial Dao Seed. Guided by his consciousness, the Dao Seed instantly unleashed a terrifying suction force, like a bottomless black hole, devouring the entire Cosmic Crystal Mountain Range in an instant.

Looking at the Cosmic Crystal Mountain Range that had been completely absorbed, Zhou Yuan sensed an increase in the various energies of the Primordial Chaos Dao and nodded in satisfaction. He then focused his mind on the Dao Seed and issued the command to deduce the secret technique of weapon refining.

For the weapon-refining technique, Zhou Yuan specifically only needed to set up the deduction of the weapon-refining technique, without needing to include the corresponding equipment runes. This resulted in relatively less consumption of his source power.

As for the runes, Zhou Yuan could obtain them from equipment. Previously, when he was in seclusion at the Cosmic Mercenary Alliance outpost in the Cloud Rock Secret Realm, he had already thoroughly analyzed the rune structure of the Zhenkong Blade and the fifth-tier Force Battle Suit, and he had already solved the problem of the fifth-tier runes.

Zhou Yuan had previously attempted to forge a fifth-tier Void-Suppressing Blade, but both attempts failed in the virtual universe and in reality, primarily due to insufficient Origin Force. If the newly deduced forging technique could significantly improve energy utilization, he would be more confident of success.

In less than a second, the Chaos Origin Dao Seed completed its deduction. A massive flow of information instantly flooded into Zhou Yuan's mind. The sheer volume of information stunned him, and it took him a full quarter of an hour to sort through all of it.

This brand-new weapon-refining technique far exceeded Zhou Yuan's expectations. Not only did it increase energy utilization tenfold, but it also included a special refining method—by extending the quenching time, it significantly reduced the peak force required instantly.

This reduces the amount of energy a crafter needs to replenish while crafting, making it possible for crafters with less energy to craft higher-level equipment.

Zhou Yuan named this weapon-refining technique "Weapon-Refining Secret Technique 2.0" to distinguish it from the previous technique, which he named "Weapon-Refining Secret Technique 1.0".

According to Zhou Yuan's calculations, with his current Origin Force equivalent to the Domain Lord level, he already possesses the foundation to forge immortal divine weapons. The only bottleneck lies in whether he can successfully inscribe immortal-level secret runes.

Zhou Yuan carefully studied the details of the secret technique, memorizing all the runes and precautions in the weapon-refining method. Then, he connected his consciousness to the virtual universe and entered his own simulated weapon-refining arena.

He still intends to familiarize himself with the new arcane arts in a virtual environment first, to avoid wasting precious materials in reality.

The first step is to select the materials for forging the Zhenkong Blade. The Zhenkong Blade, as Zhou Yuan's chosen weapon, is of the same lineage as the Duanyue Blade. The Duanyue Blade requires D9-grade Star Iron and D9-grade Void Silver, while the Zhenkong Blade requires E9-grade Star Iron Refined and E9-grade Void Silver Refined.

Star Iron Essence and Void Pattern Silver Essence are quite valuable. Even in the virtual universe, the cost of refining them once is around one million universe coins, which is about the same as the cost of refining the Broken Mountain Blade in reality.

In the virtual universe, crafting is incredibly convenient as long as you have money. It not only provides various crafting furnaces for use, but also allows you to purchase a wide range of virtual materials.

"Beibei, prepare the materials and the forging furnace for refining the Zhenkong Blade," Zhou Yuan ordered the intelligent assistant.

"Yes, Master." Beibei's voice rang out, and instantly a giant forging furnace was constructed in the simulated weapon-forging field. The required materials were neatly arranged on the platform next to it—hundreds of tons of Star Iron Essence and one ton of Void Pattern Silver Essence.

Zhou Yuan instructed Bei Bei to start the refining furnace: "Bei Bei, start the refining furnace and raise the temperature to 5 K."

"Yes, Master." As soon as the words were spoken, scorching flames shot out from the bottom of the refining furnace, and the temperature inside the furnace soared instantly, quickly reaching the specified value.

Zhou Yuan took a deep breath, opened the furnace lid, and first put the E9 grade Star Iron Essence into the refining furnace. Under the high temperature, the Star Iron Essence quickly melted, turning into a ball of molten iron. After the Star Iron Essence had completely melted, he then put the Void Pattern Silver Essence into the furnace.

The silvery-white, hollow-patterned silver essence instantly turned into a liquid upon contact with the high temperature, merging with the molten star iron.

After the two materials were completely melted, following the steps of the Refining Secret Method 2.0, Zhou Yuan activated his mental power to construct a complex "fusion rune" inside the refining furnace.

The moment the secret runes formed, a peculiar fluctuation of laws seemed to emerge within the refining furnace, instantly shattering the Star Iron Essence and Void Pattern Silver Essence into extremely tiny particles. Guided by the secret runes, these particles rapidly fused together, ultimately forming a uniform silver-purple molten metal.

This step is much easier than the old method—previously, he needed to use his mental power to directly shatter the molten metal, which was extremely costly; now, he only needs to construct the secret runes to achieve the same effect, reducing mental power consumption by 90%.

The next step is the core of weapon crafting: tempering and inscription. This step must be done simultaneously; if the rhythm is disrupted, all efforts will be in vain.

Zhou Yuan mobilized the primal force within his body and slowly poured it into the refining furnace. His mental energy was highly concentrated. On one hand, he used the primal force to construct "tempering runes" within the refining furnace, and on the other hand, he divided his mind into two parts. One part controlled the primal force to form a synchronized energy cycle in the molten metal, while the other part began to inscribe the secret runes of the Zhenkong Blade.

The secret patterns inside the furnace and the special flow patterns in the molten metal resonate with each other, gradually quenching the molten metal.

Guided by Secret Technique 2.0, the secret patterns inside the refining furnace resonate with the energy circulation in the molten metal, causing the molten metal to slowly quench and its structure to change.

At the same time, the secret patterns of the Zhenkong Blade, like a fine spider web, gradually took shape in the molten metal and perfectly blended with the constantly quenched molten metal.

Time ticked by, and fine beads of sweat appeared on Zhou Yuan's forehead. Although the secret technique reduced the consumption of primal force, the consumption of mental energy was still enormous, especially since he needed to control multiple energy streams simultaneously; the slightest carelessness could lead to mistakes.

Bang!

Zhou Yuan was caught off guard, and his mental energy fluctuated slightly. The energy flow path in the molten metal failed to keep up with the pace of the quenching process, and the molten metal exploded instantly like a burst bubble, splashing scalding silver-purple liquid all over the inner wall of the refining furnace.

"It failed." Zhou Yuan let out a breath, his face not showing much frustration. The purpose of virtual simulation is to discover problems, and it's always more cost-effective to discover problems in a virtual universe with a small amount of money than to directly consume materials in reality.