Jiang Tang was once celebrated as a genius, but his remarkable abilities eventually turned him into a resource that powerful organizations wanted to control. After escaping that role, he enters a world filled with cultivators, factions, and larger-than-life figures who all seem determined to define him before he can define himself. Some see a future ruler, others a dangerous rival, and still others simply a useful worker. Jiang, however, insists that he wants an ordinary life. The problem is that every new encounter makes that ordinary future harder to reach—and reveals more about why his abilities matter.
Chapter 42: Pursuing the Limits
Huge waves crashed against the shore, and the tide submerged the reefs beneath Jiang Tang’s stilt house. Jiang Tang stepped through the spray, gliding as lightly as a swallow to the entrance of the Black Reef Hall. He gave a slight bow to Hua Mo Leng, who was waiting respectfully at the door, and said, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Senior Brother.” “Junior Brother?” Hua Mo Leng gave Jiang Tang a once-over and chuckled, “Now that you’ve shed that old skin, you’ve really gotten a lot fairer.” “Huh?” Jiang Tang was taken aback. He touched his face and said, “Yeah, I am fairer!” Jiang Tang’s dark complexion wasn’t from sun exposure; it was due to the powerful bloodline of the Ao Ancestor. No matter how fair-skinned the men and women were who married into the Ao family, their children were always dark-skinned! Of course, this wasn’t like the dark-skinned people on Earth; rather, it was a bronze complexion that looked healthy and vibrant, giving the Ao family men a ruggedly masculine appearance and the women unparalleled sensuality. The fact that Jiang Tang had become fairer meant he was truly no longer related to the Ao family at all! Hua Mo Leng, naturally unaware of Jiang Tang’s thoughts, tossed several storage pouches to him and said, “There are only two months left. Time is tight, so hurry up and get ready, Junior Brother.” “Mm-hmm.” Jiang Tang caught the storage pouches, bowed his hands in thanks, and was just about to leave when Hua Mo Leng suddenly said, “As for the spot—if no one bids over a thousand crystals, take your senior sister with you.” Jiang Tang paused, then gave a wry smile. “I will.” Hua Mo Leng said no more and turned to enter the grand hall. Jiang Tang took a deep breath, leaped over the stone steps at the hall’s entrance, and made his way toward the Snake Bridge, splashing through the waves. Half an hour later, at the Xian Zong Spirit Artifact Pavilion. Jiang Tang stood inside the Spirit Artifacts Hall, one arm crossed over his chest and the other hand resting on his chin, staring blankly at several small weapons of varying hues displayed on the counter. “Junior Brother Jiang, Senior Brother Lu bestowed upon you this small piece of Fourth-Grade Golden Essence. As a primary material, these are the only weapons you can forge with it. I advise you to think it over carefully. Setting aside the power it would grant after inscribing runes, the spiritual energy it consumes alone might be too much even for a Golden Core cultivator to handle. It would be better to use it as a secondary material to forge a Third-Grade, Upper-Tier flying sword.” Jiang Tang had used the Third-Transformation Cold Iron Hand before and had a rough idea of the spiritual energy consumption involved. If the Cold Iron Hand were at the Fourth Transformation, using it would undoubtedly drain all his spiritual energy in an instant. However, using Golden Essence as a secondary material would be an absolute waste. Even if it could be extracted, the quality of the material would have dropped by one grade. “Is there any way to fuse it with lower-grade materials while still maintaining the Gold Essence’s fourth-grade quality?” “Absolutely impossible.” ” The disciple from the Spirit Artifact Pavilion shook his head immediately and said, “If you really can’t bear to part with it, I’d recommend a senior brother to assist you. He has a unique forging technique: he uses refined iron ore as the base material, plates it with Golden Essence, and engraves it with Gang Symbols and Power Symbols. The weapons he forges aren’t heavy, but once infused with spiritual energy, they can reach a thousand jin or even ten thousand jin without compromising the quality of the Golden Essence. However, since it’s merely a gold plating, it’s prone to damage.” Jiang Tang’s eyebrows twitched slightly as he asked, “I wonder if that senior brother is still at the Spirit Artifact Pavilion?” “He is, but to be blunt, a third-grade flying sword is enough for many people to last a lifetime!” Jiang Tang clasped his hands and spoke frankly, “Please introduce me, Senior Brother.” The disciple had no choice but to lead Jiang Tang into the inner chamber. This inner chamber was not located within the main hall of the Spirit Artifact Pavilion—it encompassed an entire valley! Each hall of Xian Zong occupied an entire valley, and each valley contained hundreds or even thousands of courtyards. Arranged from highest to lowest in terms of a disciple’s cultivation level and status, these courtyards housed anywhere from one to ten people. Yet Jiang Tang was led to a private courtyard—a clear indication that the disciple residing there must be of extraordinary cultivation and status! “Stunning! This piece of gold essence is truly magnificent—it’s definitely a fourth-grade item.” In an instant, a crowd of disciples surrounded Jiang Tang so tightly there was no room to move. Jiang Tang wasn’t annoyed, however; on the contrary, he was overjoyed. Just as he was about to say, “The highest bidder wins,” suddenly, a beam of white light descended from the clouds above. It instantly startled all the disciples into taking a step back, and they bowed in unison, saying, “We pay our respects to Senior Sister Gao.” “Jiang Tang, we had an agreement—you have to give the spot back to me.” “Um… I have urgent business to attend to, so I’ll take my leave now!” Before Jiang Tang could even process what was happening, all the disciples around him had vanished! “Senior Sister Gao, what do you mean by this?” Jiang Tang’s expression darkened as he said coldly, “Our relationship hasn’t reached the point where you’d make a joke like this, has it?” “You’ve turned pale, yet you’ve taken to frowning.” Gao Heng’s lips curled into a smile as she sat down on a smooth, rounded boulder. She patted the empty spot beside her and said, “Sit.” Jiang Tang ignored her and said, “Cutting off someone’s livelihood is like killing their parents.” “You little brat!” Gao Heng leaped up, reaching out to wrap an arm around Jiang Tang’s neck and give him a thorough beating, but he dodged her with a quick sidestep. “Senior Sister Gao, if you want a spot, name your price—but anything less than 1,200 crystals is out of the question.” Gao Heng stared at Jiang Tang for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t have any crystals, but if you give me the spot, once we’re on Spirit Island, I’ll protect you with all my might—I’ll even do whatever you say!” Jiang Tang gave Gao Heng a once-over and asked, “Does that include keeping me warm at night?” “Boom!” A brief but fierce brawl immediately erupted on Black Reef Island. “Jiang Tang, do you really think you can make it back alive from Spirit Island relying solely on your own strength?” A quarter of an hour later, Gao Heng stood with her hair disheveled and rage boiling within her, her five-colored light sword pointed directly at Jiang Tang. Jiang Tang looked at his slashed white robe and sighed. “No crystals, no deal. If you keep pestering me, I’ll report you to the Law Enforcement Hall.” “You… Fine, crystals, then. Twelve hundred…” “Two thousand.” As soon as Jiang Tang finished speaking, he flew straight into the high-legged building. Gao Heng was stunned; she hadn’t expected Jiang Tang to actually dare to raise his price on the spot! “I’ll just have to see if you can actually sell this spot,” Gao Heng snorted coldly before sitting cross-legged on a rock. However, Jiang Tang emerged shortly afterward, not so much glancing at her as he and his bald puppet practically flew toward the Snake Bridge. Gao Heng immediately followed, determined to stop any disciple from purchasing the spot. Along the way, she not only followed him to the back mountain of the Spirit Artifact Pavilion but also entered Zhang Chaozhou’s private courtyard with Jiang Tang. As for this woman who had suddenly appeared, it would have been one thing for Jiang Tang and Dongfang to ignore her, but Zhang Chaozhou didn’t even glance at her. Instead, he produced a pair of massive refined-iron hammers, each shaped like a pumpkin, and said, “Each weighs five hundred jin; the pair comes to exactly one thousand jin. Once gilded, the gravity runes can increase their weight to ten thousand jin. However, I recommend that you spend a little more on materials to engrave second-tier variable-force runes.” Dongfang replied, “A single-tier gravity rune weighs exactly one hundred jin. The effect of a force-multiplying rune depends on spiritual energy and can be freely adjusted from ten to one hundred jin—it’s simply easier to use, but it doesn’t enhance the weapon’s power. The heavier the weapon itself, the greater the boost from a third-tier force-multiplying rune. Why not use a third-tier one?” Zhang Chaozhou looked at Dongfang in surprise and said, “That’s true, but force-multiplier runes are third-tier, requiring even more valuable materials, yet their effectiveness isn’t great. This piece of gold essence can withstand at most fifteen layers, with a maximum strength of fifteen thousand jin—and it still can’t be used with complete freedom.” “But what if we combine it with ten layers of ‘Heavy Force’ and ten layers of ‘Multiplier’?” “You must be joking. Rune effects operate independently. If you engraved them that way, the total would only amount to 12,000 jin.” “The gold essence itself isn’t heavy; the weight comes from the refined iron. One hundred jin of refined iron can engrave a single layer of the ‘Gravity’ rune. ‘Multiplier’ enhances the total—when engraved on the gold essence, it doubles the weight the gold essence can bear.” Zhang Chaozhou was startled upon hearing this and muttered to himself, “One thousand jin of refined iron can exactly withstand ten layers of Gravity Runes; combined with ten layers of Multiplier Runes, that’s twenty thousand jin! If we add physical strength to that, the force of this strike…” Dongfang suddenly interjected, “Combining Jiang Tang’s arm strength with impulse, momentum, and gravitational force, the power of a single downward hammer strike would be no less than 300,000 jin. What I want to know is, if we engrave the runes this way, will the Golden Essence be able to withstand it?” “Three hundred thousand! Uh… yes, it can—as long as we pair it with a hundred-fold Gangqi rune, it’ll definitely hold. The question is whether Junior Brother Jiang can actually pull it off! Also, can you even engrave that many? That’s the absolute limit of what the Golden Essence can withstand!” Zhang Chaozhou nodded. “Don’t worry about the runes.” As he spoke, Dongfang glanced at Jiang Tang, then nodded and said, “He’ll be fine from now on.” Jiang Tang remained expressionless, while Gao Heng, standing behind him, was completely dumbfounded. A single hammer blow packing 300,000 jin of force! If a Yuan Ying cultivator dared to take it head-on, they’d likely be smashed into mincemeat! “Agreed!” Zhang Chaozhou was even more enthusiastic; he, too, wanted to try this method of artifact forging. If it really worked, it would definitely set a new precedent! 1989
