Chapter 89 – Sword Repair

It had been a long time since anyone had seen such a ruthless beast handler…

After collecting her ten thousand spirit stones, Lian Mu felt completely refreshed. The feeling of having money made her both physically and mentally pleased.

Green Bean was still unconscious. Since it had helped earn some money, Lian Mu decided to let it sleep a while longer and wandered around on her own.

In the Beast Battle Arena, only the high-tier area was lively. That area was divided into two parts: one was the Free Combat Field, and the other was the Ranking Field.

In the Free Combat Field, beast handlers could only sign up through the silver-masked man, who would then randomly assign opponents. The Ranking Field, on the other hand, followed a strict leaderboard system based on each spirit beast’s number of victories—ten points per win, and the higher the score, the higher the ranking.

For lower-ranked spirit beasts who wanted to climb the board quickly, their handlers could directly challenge those ranked above. If they won, they would swap rankings.

“Sigh, what a shame. Half the month’s already gone and my spirit beast is still stuck in the middle of the pack. Looks like we won’t make it into the top ten.”

As Lian Mu passed the Ranking Field, she heard two people sighing near the entrance. In front of them was a bulletin board showing this month’s leaderboard for spirit beasts.

She stopped and walked over to take a look as well.

“I heard that once the Beast King is chosen in the second half of the year, the Pavilion Master of Feihai Pavilion will give a big reward to the top handlers. Last year, I heard they gave out a batch of Tier-1 Refined Jades, and a pretty powerful beast handler snatched them up. So jealous.”

While listening, Lian Mu glanced at the leaderboard. The spirit beast at the very top even had its own image. Judging from its appearance, it was a tamed Flame Beast. Streams of crimson fire flowed through cracks in its hide, and its hollow eyes seemed to hold a cluster of fire within.

From what she knew, magical beasts were naturally violent. If one wanted to tame them as spirit beasts, they had to be raised from the moment they opened their eyes—meaning the cub must be taken from the womb and carefully nurtured, including removing its innate miasma.

This Flame Beast was massive and looked like it had been raised for years. A beast handler capable of suppressing something that powerful must be incredibly strong.

Lian Mu glanced at Green Bean again—tiny, greedy, and dazed. If they went up against something like that, it would probably be completely helpless.

Besides, she was planning to sell Green Bean soon. There was no point in taking it into the Ranking Field. Better to hang around the Free Combat Field and make some quick cash.

She abandoned any idea of entering the Ranking Field and turned toward the Free Combat Field instead.

Nearby, there was a specialty store for spirit beast rations. Lian Mu walked in and scanned the shelves. They were filled with all kinds of food—an overwhelming variety.

“What would you like, young friend?” the shopkeeper asked with a cheerful smile. “We’ve got insect feed, meat feed, mineral feed, even pills to soothe a spirit beast’s emotions.”

Lian Mu got straight to the point. “Got any magical beast materials?”

The shopkeeper’s smile stiffened. “…Nope. For that, you’ll want the spirit materials shop down the road.”

Lian Mu: “None of the spirit beasts your customers feed here eat magical beast materials?”

“Why would a spirit beast eat magical beast materials?” The shopkeeper looked genuinely puzzled. “You’re an artifact refiner, aren’t you? Can’t afford materials from the spirit shop, so you’re picking a fight here?”

Lian Mu: “…You’ve misunderstood.”

She thought for a moment. If even this shopkeeper had never seen a spirit beast that ate magical beast parts, then Green Bean was clearly one-of-a-kind among spirit beasts.

Since she couldn’t buy any feed, she came up with another solution—using spiritual energy to forcibly wake Green Bean up, then heading over to the silver-masked man to draw more than ten match slips.

The silver-masked man jumped in surprise. “Didn’t your spirit beast just fight a match? Doesn’t it need to rest?”

“No need,” Lian Mu replied.

“Maybe feed it something first?”

“If it wins, can’t it just eat the opponent’s spirit beast directly?” she asked.

All the opponents on the slips were low-tier magical beasts. Green Bean was usually lazy, but when food was involved, it was quicker than anyone.

Lian Mu thought this was the perfect setup. She got the money, and Green Bean got fed.

She headed toward the corresponding battle arenas with her match slips, leaving the two silver-masked officials at the registration booth speechless.

“…”

The man registering names gave a long look. “No wonder the Boss picked her—definitely a special one.”

The one holding the drawing tube also sighed. “Yeah… I haven’t met such a black-hearted beast handler in hundreds of years.”

No food, yet forcing her spirit beast to work—who else would do something like that?

“Let’s just hope that spirit beast of hers survives until the Pavilion Master returns…”

…

Lian Mu took Green Bean through several arenas. Just as expected, the moment it smelled a magical beast, it jumped right up.

Low-tier magical beasts didn’t have strong attacks. After their miasma was washed away, their agility dropped sharply.

After its first battle, Green Bean had absorbed the White Jade Mantis’s regenerative ability, allowing it to heal rapidly from injuries. It quickly became fearless—going from getting pinned down to chasing after the magical beasts and biting them to shreds.

One beast handler after another watched in horror as their spirit beasts were devoured down to the bone. The psychological damage was real.

They had no idea why—it just shocked them. “How can your spirit beast still…?”

Lian Mu understood now. Spirit beasts had been gone so long that few cultivators remembered they could eat magical beasts.

With that in mind, she unleashed Green Bean, letting it tear through the Free Combat Field.

By the end of the day, Green Bean was finally full, having grown noticeably larger—nearly big enough to fill her entire palm.

Her spatial pouch was full too. By dusk, she counted the money. It was about enough.

Green Bean napped on her shoulder while she walked down Feihai Street, drawing countless stares.

“That’s her! Unbelievable—whatever that thing is, it killed the Gold Beast I’ve been raising for three years!”

“Strange… her back looks familiar, like I’ve seen her somewhere before…”

Lian Mu ignored them all and headed straight for the spirit materials shop.

“Seventh-tier Flamegold, enough to repair a sword.” She pulled out Wealth Bringer and showed the shopkeeper the broken edge.

The shopkeeper had just been cleaning up and turned around—locking eyes with her.

Both of them froze. “…”

Lian Mu: “You again? Weren’t you at the Star-Plucking Tower?”

The shopkeeper dusted off his clothes and said, “Fancy seeing you again, young friend. Actually, I have businesses in both places. The person you met wasn’t really me.”

Lian Mu frowned. “What do you mean?”

He pulled out a bronze mirror and held it up to reflect them. Only Lian Mu’s face appeared.

Then he took out a stack of small talisman puppets and explained, “The people you saw at the Star-Plucking Tower and Feihai Pavilion were just my talisman clones. In this line of work, it’s not convenient to show my true self.”

He glanced at her sword and immediately frowned. “Your sword… what happened? It’s almost completely destroyed.”

Only a short piece remained of the bottom half.

“Ran into someone. Nearly lost the whole sword,” Lian Mu replied casually.

The shopkeeper said, “It’s in such bad shape that I recommend reforging it from scratch. With such a large portion gone, trying to merge new material will be incredibly difficult.”

“I don’t have time to forge a new one. It’s urgent.”

Lian Mu didn’t waste words. She pulled out the money and said, “Let’s try fixing it first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll think of something else.”

The shopkeeper sighed. “Alright then. You young ones—can’t talk you out of anything.”

The sword was so broken it was barely a blade anymore. Fixing it with spirit materials would be nearly impossible—only a high-tier spiritual-root artifact refiner might be able to pull it off.

He measured out the quantity of Flame Gold for her, took the spirit stones, and then reminded her, “Feihai Pavilion doesn’t offer any magical beast bounties, and magical beast materials are rarely sold here. Your sword is of seventh-grade, but you won’t be able to find seventh-tier Gold Beast Spirit Armor around here.”

“I have my own way,” Lian Mu replied.

With that, she bought a few other spirit materials. Feihai Pavilion also had designated areas for artifact refiners to forge weapons—completely free of charge, far more generous than Star-Plucking Tower. After purchasing the materials, she went straight to one of the exclusive smithing rooms for refiners.

The shopkeeper was right—she really had no access to seventh-tier Gold Beast Spirit Armor at the moment. But she still had a melted sword.

The sword she had retrieved from the Sword Pavilion of the Returning Immortal Sect—she had brought it back from Star-Plucking Tower and kept it stored in her spatial pouch ever since, never reshaping it.

While reading in the Azure Profound Sect’s Library Pavilion, she had learned a new method: melting down another sword to separate and reclaim its materials—essentially a way to reuse rare spirit materials.

That sword had been forged from a mix of spirit materials. Though she still didn’t understand how it had perfectly balanced materials of different grades, she had figured out that its base included seventh-tier Gold Beast Spirit Armor.

The Azure Profound Sect had indeed built its reputation on artifact refiners; even this kind of advanced material-recycling method was casually included in low-tier books—proof that the sect’s upper library must hold even more powerful refining techniques.

Lian Mu placed that sword into the forge and activated the platform with a surge of spiritual energy.

Green Bean woke up, crawled down her arm, and paused at her wrist, several pairs of eyes staring at the gradually melting sword on the forging platform.

It was full now, so it simply watched without any urge to leap down and devour.

Lian Mu placed Wealth Bringer into the other forge and added the Flame Gold, first to fuse with the half-remaining blade.

Once the other sword had completely melted into a pool of crimson liquid, Lian Mu followed the knowledge she’d memorized, sliced open her fingertip with a small blade, let her spiritual energy blend into a bead of blood, and dropped it into the forge. The blood retained its form.

The two forging platforms were linked without obstruction. A narrow stream of blood infused with mixed spiritual energy extended between them, bridging the melted swords on both sides.

She closed her eyes. The spiritual energy in her dantian drained faster, but she didn’t stop—manipulating the blood bead to draw out the Spirit Armor essence from the sword and transfer it to the other forge.

Green Bean tugged at the hem of her robe with its pincers, staring blankly at her. Sensing the spiritual energy radiating from her, it grew restless and tried to cling to her, only to be flicked away.

It struggled for a moment, flipped over, then climbed up onto the table toward the spatial pouch. It squeezed in through the opening.

A short while later, Green Bean emerged again, pushing a chunk of tower-shaped fluorite out with difficulty.

Thud—the fluorite dropped to the floor, cracking along one side.

Green Bean crawled toward the fluorite, just about to nudge it again when it was suddenly lifted into the air.

“What are you messing with now?”