Ji Ning descended from the skies, landing next to the Five Elements Cauldron. He turned to look at the ancient stone platform next to it, as well as the the blood-colored sword placed atop it. The sword’s body was still filled with cracks.

“Violetjewel…” Ning stared at the sword for a moment, then waved his hand. Whoosh! A large amount of treasures came flying out of nowhere, every single one emanating astonishingly powerful auras. The treasures almost instantly formed a small mountain in size. These were virtually all of the Protocosmic spirit-treasures Ning had acquired from the hundred-plus True Gods and True Immortals.

And after sweeping through so many True Gods and True Immortals, Ning had also acquired a Chaos treasure. The Chaos treasure was a great warhammer that sparked with countless flickers of lightning.

“So many Protocosmic spirit-treasures…well, no point to having too many of them.” Ning pointed to the distant Five Elements Cauldron. “Activate.”

Rumble…

The Five Elements Cauldron instantly began to emanate an aura of power and might as its handles radiated with five blinding colors of light.

“In you go.” Ning released a thin sliver of sword-attribute divine power that immediately swept all those Protocosmic spirit-treasures up. The sabers, swords, axes, beads…the various Protocosmic spirit-treasures continuously flew into the mouth of the Five Elements Cauldron, which furiously ground them apart and extracted the Five Elements essence from within them. In just ten seconds, Ning had thrown nearly thirty Protocosmic spirit-treasures into the cauldron, transforming them into tiny bits of debris. The amount of Five Elements essence inside the cauldron’s storage region had increased by quite a bit as a result.

The many Protocosmic spirit-treasures flew in, batch by batch.

Any major power of the Three Realms would’ve been terrified by this sight. Ning himself felt pain in his heart as well, but for the sake of repairing Violetjewel…it would all be worth it.

Crackle…hiss…pop…

Sounds of treasures being broken down rang out continuously from within the Five Elements Cauldron. The mountain-sized pile of treasures that had been next to it was shrinking rapidly, at a pace that could be detected with the naked eye. Soon, almost all of the treasures were completely used up.

“So much essence?” Ning looked at the Five Elements Cauldron. The storage region within it now contained an enormous amount of Five Elements essence.

A large amount of debris and rubble flew out from within the mouth of the cauldron. As it flew out, it was merely the size of a sphere that was roughly a few meters in radius, but once it completely exited the cauldron it quickly expanded to become a massive mountain of debris that was thirty thousand meters high. Ning ‘pincered’ the rubbish with his divine power, then gave them a casual toss. Swoosh! The massive pile of debris flew hundreds of kilometers away, and where it landed a giant mountain was born.

“Let’s see if it works, this time. Based on my previous experiences…this amount of essence should be enough.” Ning turned to look at the blood-colored sword atop the stone dais. Swoosh! The sword instantly flew into the air and came to hover in front of Ning.

“Emerge.” Ning pointed at the sword.

Five streams of colored energy surged out from the Five Elements Cauldron; the gold of Metal, the blue of Water, the green of Wood, the crimson of Fire, and the black of Earth. They swirled around the blood-colored sword in circles, and Violetjewel instantly began to shudder. It was like a starving beggar who had suddenly encountered a scrumptious feast. It instantly began to furiously devour the ‘food’ surrounding it. The five streams of energy completely surrounded it, but one could still vaguely see that the surface of the blood-colored sword was slowly beginning to heal. Some cracks were visibly growing smaller and smaller before disappearing entirely.

Time slowly passed.

More and more of the energy streams flowed out of the cauldron and into Violetjewel. The speed at which the sword was being repaired at was noticeably much faster now than when Ning had been using Pure Yang treasures.

It spend more than two hours swallowing the energy of the Five Elements essence before the cauldron finally ran empty.

“Eh?!” Ning stared at the beautiful blood-colored sword hovering in the air, a slight frown on his face. The sword was breathtakingly, terrifyingly beautiful, but two tiny cracks could still be seen on the body of this beautiful sword. These two were the two final cracks that remained.

“It actually isn’t repaired yet.” Ning frowned. “What should I do? I’ve used up almost all the Pure Yang treasures and Protocosmic spirit-treasures. I only have a single Chaos treasure that I don’t need, but there’s a limit to how strong this cauldron is. It wouldn’t necessarily be able to destroy a Chaos treasure,” Ning mused to himself.

The Five Elements Cauldron was just a Protocosmic spirit-treasure. It would be extremely difficult for the cauldron to destroy a Chaos treasure and extract essence from it.

“Oh, right.” Ning suddenly thought of another treasure. With but a thought, he instantly caused an ape-shaped golem to appear in the air. It was the Envoy of All Things.

“The critical components to this Envoy are all destroyed. There’s no point keeping it around. The Seamless Gate paid an enormous price to create each of these Envoys; when a Daofather is in command of them, they are all capable of unleashing power close to that of an overlord-class figure. This treasure is far more useful than a Chaos treasure, and it is made from more valuable materials as well.” Ning secretly nodded to himself. “It has to have a great deal of Five Elements essence within it.”

Although the Envoy was powerful, the physical makeup of the Envoy itself was merely comparable to top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasures. For such an enormous, powerful golem to reach the Chaos treasure level in its entirety was far too difficult.

“Go.” Not hesitating at all, Ning threw the Envoy into the Five Elements Cauldron as well.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The Envoy instantly began to be ground apart. It was extremely hard to forcibly break apart a top-grade Protocosmic spirit-treasure, but the Five Elements Cauldron was able to accomplish it easily. It operated on the basis of principles that were completely antithetical to the existence of treasures such as the Envoy! After a long while, the entire Envoy had been completely harvested. Nothing was left but some debris, with a large amount of Five Elements essence having been extracted.

“A single Envoy contains far more essence than a hundred Protocosmic spirit-treasures. No wonder the Seamless Gate, despite all of its vast resources, was only able to produce a few of them.” Ning’s eyes lit up. He immediately guided the extracted Five Elements essence outwards, sending those five streaks of energy to once more swirl around Violetjewel.

Rumble!

Violetjewel began to emit a ringing soon as it quickly absorbed the Five Elements essence. Ning carefully stared at those two small cracks, watching as they quickly shrank in size and depth, then completely disappeared. Next, some of the shattered rune-lines on the inside of Violetjewel began to be repaired as well. However, repairing the internal structure of Violetjewel was far more difficult.

A short while later, all of the Five Elements essence was used up. The amount of internal damage that had been repaired, however, was almost negligible.

“World God Northrest’s words were correct.” Ning sighed softly. “Repairing the surface layer is easy, but repairing the internal damage…it’ll be thousands of times more difficult.”

“Fortunately, the most critical and precious part of the sword, its core, remains perfectly intact. Even though my sacrifice of the Envoy and all those treasures only allowed me to repair the surface layer, the sword can still once more unleash some of its true power.” Ning stretched his hand out and the blood-colored sword fell into his hands.

As soon as the blood-colored sword entered Ning’s hands, he could sense the inconceivable power held within it.

However, because the internal structure of the sword was badly damaged, only a portion of its full power could be unleashed at present.

“What a terrifying sword.”

Ning gently swung the sword.

Whoosh.

The space in front of him split apart, creating a tear in space that stretched out to ten thousand kilometers.

“Although only part of its power is usable, it’s still terrifyingly strong. Thanks to this sword, in all the Three Realms my offensive attack power is most likely number one. Only Keeper Everwood, Lord Tathagata the Buddha, and a few others who are extremely skilled in defense would be able to withstand a head-on blow from me,” Ning murmured softly to himself. The existence of this sword made a huge difference to him in terms of power.

Without this sword, Ning was still an overlord-class figure, comparable to an Elder God…but with it, he stood at the very peak of power, even amongst overlords! As for exactly who was stronger and who was weaker, that was a question that could only be settled through actual combat. It had been a long time since the war that had ended the Primordial Era, after all; no one knew exactly how much stronger the major powers on each side had become. Perhaps there were other figures who were hiding their true power as well.

For example, Buddha Jueming of the Buddhist Sangha. He had also trained in the [Solitary World God], and also had the [Nine Elements Destruction]. Ning believed that after so many years of training in it, Buddha Jueming had to have become an extraordinary figure as well. However, Buddha Jueming remained very low-key in the Three Realms, which was why most major powers viewed him as being just an ordinary True God or Daofather.

“It is important to be cautious at a time like this.”

“It’s best if I avoid using Violetjewel, but if I’m forced to use it, I’ll need to ensure that it has a tremendous effect.” Ning knew very well that unleashing his trump card in a sudden, explosive manner would make it extraordinarily effective. If Violetjewel was to make an appearance, he wanted to make sure that the major powers of the Seamless Gate would lose their lives as a result.

“Come here.” Ning willed it, and the blood-colored sword immediately flew into his body, resting itself within the Jindan region inside of him.

“Now, it’s time to go deal with True God Shiyu.” Ning wanted to acquire the Heavengazer Tower very badly. The thing he needed the most right now was time. If he was able to master a Heavenly Dao, he would have a chance of becoming an Ancestral Immortal or Elder God!

Swish. A Darknorth sword appeared in Ning’s hands.

There were a total of six Darknorth swords. During his recent battles, he had encountered some True Gods and True Immortals who would rather die than bend the knee to him. Ning had shown them no mercy at all and slain them, allowing all six of his Darknorth swords to be upgraded to the Chaos treasure level. However, according to how World God Northrest ranked things, Ning’s six Darknorth swords could only be considered standard-grade Chaos treasures.

Chaos treasures, according to the records which World God Northrest had given Ning, could be divided into standard-grade, high-grade, and top-grade treasures.

“Against True God Shiyu, the Darknorth swords will be enough.” Darknorth sword in hand, Ning transformed into a black lightning serpent that disappeared into the horizons.