Hermit in the Mountains

As autumn arrives in September, plants begin to wither, leaves turn yellow, and fallen leaves return to their roots, carrying a faint sense of autumn's desolation in the wind.

Halfway up Changsheng Peak, in the living room of a wooden house, Gu Changsheng sat cross-legged. On the table in front of him were eighteen one-meter-long heartwood logs, and on his left and right feet were piles of Jinghuo Copper and Jinghan Iron.

Gu Changsheng stretched out his hands and placed them at the ends of the heartwood. A wisp of withered magical power emerged from his right fingertip, and a grayish-brown thread entered the heartwood. Under the control of his divine sense, the grayish-brown thread rotated at high speed.

The power of the withered magic rotated from right to left, and wherever it passed, the wood inside cracked, crumbled, and turned into powder, as if it had been hollowed out by insects.

The power of the withered magic vanished from his left hand in an instant, and emerald green threads flew out from Gu Changsheng's left hand and disappeared into the heartwood of the tree.

The power of glory moves in the opposite direction from left to right, following the trajectory of the power of decay.

The process of withering and refining, and flourishing and growing, strengthens the natural cycle of withering and flourishing within the heartwood.

Gu Changsheng alternately used the power of decay and prosperity to gradually strengthen the decay and prosperity power inside the wood, transforming it into wood with the decay and prosperity attribute. Only when the decay and prosperity attribute is combined with the wood can it be used as a material for refining weapons.

When the third cycle of withering and flourishing was halfway through, the wood suddenly broke, and all the work was in vain.

Gu Changsheng was not discouraged by the failure. He continued to retrieve new heartwood. With the experience from the first attempt, the second heartwood quickly completed two cycles of withering and flourishing tempering. He did not attempt a third cycle of withering and flourishing tempering.

He refined all sixteen remaining heartwood pieces on the table twice, reserving them as nourishment.

Gu Changsheng began the second step: if one tree has an upper limit, then he would combine two. He stacked the two heartwoods that had been tempered twice together, pressing them down with both hands to prevent them from falling.

The power of divine sense penetrated into the interior of the upper wood, guiding the faint natural cycle of life and death within it into the lower wood.

A few minutes later, the wood above broke, while the two strands of natural life and death forces intertwined inside.

Gu Changsheng smiled. His plan was working. He took another piece of wood and placed it on top. He repeated the same operation sixteen times.

The tabletop was covered with broken walls and ruins made of heartwood, with only one remaining heartwood emanating a faint power of decay and renewal.

Gu Changsheng meditated to recover his mental strength and began the third step. He picked up a piece of refined cold iron ore from the ground with his left hand and a piece of refined fire copper ore with his right hand, placing them on either side of the wood.

Gu Changsheng channeled his divine sense into the right side of the refined fire copper ore, moving each grain of copper ore imbued with spiritual energy into the wood. After moving the copper ore, he turned to the left and moved the cold iron gravel imbued with spiritual energy.

Gu Changsheng's spiritual power moved the spiritual energy-infused minerals and gravel into the wood bit by bit, like ants carrying food.

Three days and three nights passed, and the table in front of Gu Changsheng was piled with heartwood, copper ore, iron ore, and waste from twin lotus flowers.

A wooden sword, one meter long and three fingers wide, stands out among a pile of scrap.

This wooden sword is Gu Changsheng's masterpiece; it is a sword blank that he nurtured with various materials over three days and three nights.

The internal structure and materials of the wooden sword are vastly different from what they used to be. It can be considered a wooden sword imbued with spirituality, but unfortunately, the spirituality cultivated by human hands is only superficial and still needs to be forged.

The fourth step involves tempering the sword blank on the side, giving birth to a higher level and more stable spiritual structure, laying a solid foundation for engraving patterns.

Gu Changsheng held the wooden sword with both hands, and a transparent gas enveloped the wooden sword, forming a sealed alchemy furnace. His right hand would occasionally send out grayish-brown threads into the gas furnace, piercing the wooden sword from all sides until his magic power was exhausted.

Whenever the power of the Qi-refining furnace is exhausted, a wisp of emerald green thread will fly out from the fingertip of the left hand to continue refining the wooden sword.

The power of decay was purified, and the power of prosperity was used to repair it. This cycle was repeated eighty-one times, consuming eighty-one strands of decay and prosperity power from Gu Changsheng to complete the tempering of the sword embryo.

After the sword blank is quenched, all the pits and bumps on the wooden sword disappear, the surface of the entire wooden sword is smooth and without any patterns, and the internal materials are fused together and are compact.

Gu Changsheng activated his Dharma Eye, and a different scene appeared inside the sword embryo. Withered and flourishing particles were evenly distributed to form the structure of the sword, and spiritual material formed the sword body.

His method of weapon forging is quite unique. He materializes the intangible natural power of decay and prosperity, compressing it into special decay and prosperity attribute particle materials. He uses these particles to construct the sword's skeleton, and then fills it with spiritual materials to form flesh and blood, allowing them to fuse together and form a complete sword embryo.

That is why Gu Changsheng named his weapon-refining method "The Art of Withering and Flourishing".

Once one path is mastered, all paths become clear.

If you want to craft other types of magical artifacts in the future, you only need to first construct the core structure of the artifact in your mind, and then slowly fill it in to obtain the artifact blank.

The Art of Nourishing Vessels by Renewing and Cultivating them starts from the internal structure, producing a vessel embryo of higher quality than that of the Fire Refining method. However, it also has drawbacks. This technique requires extremely high comprehension to understand the core structure, super strong mental power to construct the core structure, and abundant magical power to fill the vessel body.

The Art of Withering and Flourishing has a fatal flaw: only those who specialize in the Way of Withering and Flourishing can use this art.

Gu Changsheng's deduced techniques were all most suited to his own attributes. He never thought that the core techniques he mastered would be universal or universal.

The main point is that even if I'm willing to teach you, you can't use it unless there's a cultivator who, like him, specializes in the Dao of Withering and Flourishing, but we also need to consider their comprehension, spiritual sense, and magical power.

As long as the cultivation threshold is high enough, the cultivation conditions are numerous enough, and the cultivation process is complicated enough, even if tens of thousands of copies of the weapon-refining techniques are printed and spread throughout the world, very few people can learn them all.

For example, the Heavenly Rank cultivation technique that a powerful human being comprehended and circulated online is something you couldn't learn even if you were given the opportunity.

The Art of Nourishing and Renewing Vessels is a top-tier cultivation technique in the cultivation world.

This is why modern society still distinguishes between elementary school level, middle school level, university level, master's level, and so on, as well as top-level experts and emperors who have attained enlightenment.

Three days and three nights later, Gu Changsheng finished engraving the weapon patterns inside the sword blank. He pinched his right hand into a sword finger and flicked it upwards at the sword on the table. A wisp of withering and flourishing magic power and a wisp of divine consciousness power entered the sword, and several weapon patterns were activated.

"rise........."

As the sound rang out, the sword lying quietly on the table trembled and made a crisp clanging sound.

"Ding, ding, ding, ding..."

The three-foot-long sword slowly hovered in mid-air, standing in front of Gu Changsheng. (One foot = 33.3 centimeters)

The sword, Tongtian, is grayish-brown, three feet long, and three fingers wide, with emerald green patterns engraved on its blade.

Gu Changsheng moved his right hand in a sword-like gesture, the three-foot-long sword flying through the air with his fingers, sometimes circling around him, sometimes flying up and down.

He suddenly waved his right hand towards the door, "Go..."

The three-foot-long green sword whistled through the air, a tearing sound echoing through the air. In the blink of an eye, the sword flew a hundred meters away, severing several golden-inlaid jade bamboos.

"Clang—"

The bamboo was cut in half at the waist, the cut was smooth and even, and it fell down with a clatter.

"return........."

With a wave of his hand, Gu Changsheng sent the three-foot-long Qingfeng sword, which had been charging forward, flying back to him after curving upwards.

He naturally gripped the hilt of the sword with his right hand and held the sword horizontally in front of his eyes to examine it.