The sword spirit explained, “Back when you were in the Body Tempering stage, did you progress especially fast, barely needing to train, yet your physical strength increased day by day?”

Emily Thompson said, “I trained diligently every day when I was a child! My progress was fast, but maybe that’s because I practiced so hard…”

“Oh? Did you ever train to the point of torn tendons and broken bones, or ruptured internal organs?”

“Who would train to that extent!”

“Your ancestor Brian Sullivan did. Anyway, since you’ve never even coughed up blood, don’t talk about hardship. You’re simply relying on your bloodline advantage.”

“…Fine, fine.” Emily Thompson paused, then said, “So, how should I make use of my bloodline advantage? That Immovable Overlord Body—will you guide me in cultivating it?”

“Of course, that’s a basic part of repaying my debt. Besides, when a mount encounters difficulties, the master is naturally obliged to help.”

“…Even though I still don’t like this mount-master relationship, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“By the way, you signed a master-servant contract with me, but only mentioned what you’d do for me. Don’t you need anything yourself?”

This question from the girl made the sword spirit’s favorability toward her rise a bit more, because he did indeed have a request for his own mount.

“There are indeed some trivial matters I need your help with… My sword world was razed to the ground by the Great Demon God Emperor. To rebuild it, I’ll need a large amount of materials and pure true essence.”

Emily Thompson smiled and said, “Alright, if I succeed in my cultivation in the future, I’ll definitely help you collect materials and provide you with true essence. But this process might take a long time.”

“Oh, thank you, I’m in no rush.” The sword spirit thanked her earnestly.

After they thanked each other, the atmosphere relaxed a little. The sword spirit felt that they had established a basic level of trust, so he planned to ask her about the current state of the world and such matters.

But before he could speak, he heard Emily Thompson say, “By the way, you took it upon yourself to sign a contract with me, but I still don’t know your name.”

The sword spirit said, “Hmm, that’s an interesting question. I’ve forgotten the name I had as a human. After I was reborn as a divine sword, your ancestors often called me Sword Brother or Divine Sword. As for you…”

Emily Thompson laughed lightly, “Do you want me to call you Sword Senior?”

“No, considering the difference in our seniority and the contract relationship, you should call me Master.”

“…”

Emily Thompson felt her nerves, which had just relaxed, suddenly tense up again. The veins at her temples bulged, and she gripped the sword hilt tightly…

Then she felt a few ancient, badly worn characters on the hilt, two of which were still barely recognizable.

When Emily Thompson was training in the inner sect, her family had hired a teacher from the Heavenly Book Pavilion to teach her ancient script reading and writing—after all, the world was vast, and ancient cultivators’ ruins were often unearthed. If there were cultivation manuals, they would naturally be written in ancient script, and if you couldn’t read them, it would be hard to judge their value.

And during those years in the inner sect, Emily Thompson had always been a top student in both cultivation and academics, so even though the characters on the sword were truly ancient, she could still barely make them out.

“These characters say… ‘Nine’, ‘King’?”

The sword spirit sensed the girl’s touch and explained, “That was a sword ornament made for me by Olivia Harris. The front says ‘Jiuzhou’ and the back says ‘Sword King’, supposedly to display the majesty of the divine sword. But I always suspected she was teasing me, because every time I showed someone that ornament, they’d laugh so hard they’d roll on the ground… And when I confronted Olivia Harris, she’d act spoiled and make a fuss, crying and whining in front of me. As a dignified divine sword, I couldn’t really argue with a little girl. The Jiulong group also said that offending the number one beauty of Jiuzhou was more dangerous than offending the Great Demon God Emperor, so I just let it go… Come to think of it, it seems that two of the four characters have been worn away—the ‘zhou’ and ‘sword’ characters. Even the lustrous white amber couldn’t withstand the erosion of time. Just how many years have I slept? What year is it now?”

But Emily Thompson didn’t pay attention to the latter part, and murmured, “Xiangzhou Qingyuan, May 13, 2017… Hmm, since only the characters ‘King’ and ‘Nine’ are left, I’ll call you Henry Martinez from now on.”

“Huh?”

The girl giggled, “Henry Martinez, let me show you around and help you get familiar with the place. From now on, we’ll be working hard on cultivation together.”

Chapter 003: Purification

Xiangzhou Qingyuan, May 13, 2017—the first day of the new world, at dusk, with radiant clouds filling the sky.

The sword spirit, or rather Henry Martinez, discovered through a few simple conversations with his mount that the changes in this world were far beyond his imagination.

Perhaps he had truly slept for too long, for the world no longer had anything called the Jiuzhou Continent. The world was now known as Xiangzhou. The calendar was no longer the Jiuzhou calendar, but the Xiangzhou Qingyuan calendar. The sword spirit remembered that his battle with the Demon Emperor was in the year 3113 of the Jiuzhou calendar. Who knew how long the war lasted, but when he opened his eyes again, it was already Xiangzhou Qingyuan, May 13, 2017.

Xiangzhou possessed vast lands, almost boundless, no less than the former Jiuzhou Continent. But there were no raging wars as in Jiuzhou, nor were there surging demonic tides dividing the land. Here, all was peaceful and prosperous. If not for the spiritual wind still filling the world, and the familiar bloodline aura within Emily Thompson, the sword spirit would have suspected that he had shattered the void in the final battle and arrived in an entirely new world.