Chapter 98
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Analysis
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"...I've gone on too long. My apologies."
The professor from the Primordial School, who had been pounding his chest repeatedly, bowed his head to the visitor who had come seeking counsel and to his fellow professors with whom he had been conducting research together.
He then smacked the teaching assistant on the back of the head.
"Eek!"
"No worries, it happens."
"Then... let's resume the research."
The Primordial School delved into the primordial forms of sorcery and the essential power of souls.
The Endowment School bestowed established sorcery frameworks onto objects, solidifying them to create dharma bases.
The Transmutation School manipulated and altered the properties of matter.
Professors from these three fields—elderly scholars with doctoral degrees—pressed their heads together and began scrutinizing the bizarre substance before them as if to dismantle it.
"...No matter how many times I look, it's absurd. It's truly spirit energy. It's unbelievable that a human could handle spirit energy, but to have materialized it entirely... How on earth did you do it?"
"It's less like materializing spirit energy and more like dematerializing the sword and synchronizing it."
"...What nonsense is that? I'm not well-versed in transmutation, but matter and non-matter don't just switch back and forth that easily, do they?"
Staring at his fellow professor with an incredulous expression, the colleague wore the exact same look.
"No, absolutely not..."
"...Truth be told, I didn't intend it from the start, so even I don't fully know."
Melt down the demon weapon, Blood Curse, to form the vessel's foundation.
Compress titanium alloy to forge the blade.
Infuse the created sword with spirit energy.
The concept was merely to craft an external dantian capable of accumulating and steadily growing qi.
She was confident in forging the finest sword, but creating an artifact imbued with mystery was a first even for So-hyang.
A lightning-like epiphany struck during the refining process, and actual lightning tempered it, resulting in an unintended masterpiece.
"Dematerializing it into data form and storing it in the body? That's what super-peak masters with materialized absolute arts usually do..."
"Ah, not quite. It's less 'data' and more like a spirit body, less 'in the body' and more like becoming one with the soul residing in the upper dantian."
"Hmm, you've been using the word 'feeling' a lot. Does that mean even you haven't properly formalized it? Just intuitive sensation?"
"Intuition is plenty valid when dealing with martial arts, isn't it? It seems similar in origin to ancient divine objects like those from the primordial era, so gleaning even intuitive information is something."
"...From the vibration response, it appears only pre-existing metals without altered essences were used as raw materials. Correct?"
"Oh ho, yes. I thought excluding other variables was best for bestowing spirit energy."
"What was the original material? The density is anomalously high, and the properties have shifted enough to change the color tone—hard to speculate."
"...We used a metal with these characteristics. Do you recognize it?"
"Heavens, that filthy stuff that won't melt no matter what, yet crumbles disgustingly when extracted via alchemy, and repels essence infusion like a curse...?"
Titanium, the raw material for the spirit sword, was typically treated as nameless scrap iron in the current Central Plains.
However, research institutions like the Academy were aware of its existence.
It was simply too impractical, used only for experiments.
"Alloying it in this ratio dramatically improves the properties. Tests showed it rivals cold iron to some extent."
"...That's an impossible new material! But looking at the sword now, even cold iron-level properties don't explain the strength. How—"
"Ah, that's just from melting it with sufficient firepower and compressing it physically."
"What?"
Before long, So-hyang had donned a lab coat provided in the research room alongside the professors and dove into various experiments and information sharing.
"Thirty-seventh cycle repulsion confirmed, netherworld light injection, scattered reflection expanded to three-tenths..."
The teaching assistant assisting with the research, eyes half-dead, cast various spells while fulfilling the role of a living measuring instrument and calculator.
"...Do you understand any of that?"
"It's definitely Central Plains tongue, but not Central Plains tongue...?"
The general and Number One... the two warriors had no choice but to stand there like fifth wheels.
In truth, it would have been stranger for a fellow warrior to chime in equally among the doctors.
The conclusion was this.
"I get the gist, but honestly, no clue!"
So-hyang's spirit sword was an object on par with the unknown divine artifacts that remained unsolved to this day.
"It feels just like researching imperial relics like the Yellow Dragon Jade Throne or the imperial seal... We have the fabrication methods and records, but no grasp of the principles...?"
"Even excluding the raw material processing, it's spec-out-the-wazoo."
No groundbreaking new methods were used—just pure, overwhelming firepower and physical compression molding.
The alloy was replicable enough, but the bizarre forging process was beyond imitation.
Above all, there were no more ways to analyze the spirit sword in detail.
"Illumination observation and reaction to external stimuli only reveal so much."
"Indestructibility, indestructibility is the issue! No, what kind of indestructibility is this? It's not even a demon weapon!"
"It does have a demon weapon at its core."
"No? Even for a demon weapon, this level of toughness is absurd...?"
Indestructibility didn't mean absolute invincibility under all circumstances.
It shreds under gang qi.
Severing space shatters it.
Overwhelmingly condensed qi crushes it.
Intent projection reduces it to powder.
Yet it was called indestructible because it resisted overwhelmingly against all other physical forces.
"Simply put, even bearing the mass of Mount Tai or crushed by ocean depths leaves not a scratch."
"No matter what you do with pure physical force, it won't break. A wondrous property."
In short, even if So-hyang punched it after removing her titanium piercings, not a mark.
Of course, the surroundings would be devastated, but the indestructible object itself would remain unscathed.
In other words, impregnable, unchanging, unyielding properties.
At any rate, this indestructibility posed a massive obstacle to investigating the spirit sword.
"Can't even test for scratches, and peering inside is nearly impossible. A shame..."
At that moment, the teaching assistant, engrossed in muttering orders, spoke up.
"How about partially destroying a piece?"
Focused solely on research objectives in a mechanical fashion, it proposed the most efficient solution without regard for propriety or convention.
"No, what barbaric nonsense...!"
Naturally, the professors recoiled in horror at the suggestion.
The three professors and So-hyang had shared information thoroughly, coming to understand the spirit sword's functions intimately.
The spirit sword was the core of So-hyang's new martial path—equivalent to a dantian and acupoints for a typical warrior.
The qi element among the three treasures of essence, vitality, and spirit; the identity of the Sword Path Sect.
In essence, it was proposing to smash a warrior's dantian... utter madness.
Even the embezzler who, having ruined his life, dreamed of underworld lordship with audacious theft hadn't lost that negative ingenuity.
However, these professors were no less fanatically obsessed with academia...
"...Hmm."
"Sssup..."
"Ahem—"
Though verbally refusing, their eyes betrayed intrigue, inevitably pondering the possibility.
"Oh ho, you want to try breaking my spirit sword...?"
Noticing this, So-hyang narrowed her eyes and murmured lowly, as if amused.
"Ah, no! Just a fleeting thought, no intention to— well, there was a bit..."
"But really, couldn't we just scrape off a tiny bit...?"
"—You madmen! Terribly sorry! My colleagues live for research, so their social graces..."
Suggesting to nick and experiment on a murim man's dantian—rude enough to warrant instant execution.
Especially for a super-peak master treated as asymmetric warfare asset; no exaggeration to say death loomed.
The Primordial School elder embodied the typical crotchety old man temperament.
The Endowment School friend had clear eyes lost in his own research world.
The Transmutation professor, who prided himself on some social sense unlike his friends, paled, clamping their mouths and bowing in apology—
"Sounds fun. Shall we try?"
But So-hyang didn't share the common sense of other murim folk, so she readily agreed.
"Crazy, it worked."
"Whoa! Really!?"
"...Wait, you're serious?"