Sword Casting Manor.

After Ning Zheng came back, he kept feeling like the Jiu Shui Spiritual Root in his hand was a hot potato.

The more precious the thing, the more it spooked him, like he might've been dragged into some invisible whirlpool.

What he really wanted was to secretly grow his power, mine, mine, mine, and then one day stun the whole world.

Not keep helping this particular client forge some overpowered Immortal Weapon.

"But since I'm already in the game, I can't refuse."

Ning Zheng let out a quiet sigh.

This Spiritual Root was no small matter, so he could only go straight to Jiucai Rong and roughly explain the situation.

At once, Jiucai Rong and the others, who were busy and hyped up, were shocked: "What, a second order from Jiu Shui?"

The Food God was stunned too, and followed up with a roast: "Looks like the result of our last forging got this big client's super five-star review."

Shao Chaikun didn't stop either: "See? The repeat customer's here."

Jokes aside, business was business. After a round of discussion, they immediately sorted out the logic and unanimously agreed: the main storyline has started up again!

Why?

Because they were called Sword Casting Manor.

Every main storyline they'd ever had was inseparable from the two words: [forging iron].

Now that their core job had shown up again, they had to start Duang Duang hammering away, to forge a historically unprecedented super Divine Weapon.

After all.

In their eyes, the Otherworld idle adventure team was ultimately something far away on the horizon, not fit to be the main plot; the main plot had to be within the Nine-State World.

It was obviously the Jiu Shui Divine Weapon right in front of them.

"If you ask me, Jiu Shui's a smart guy." At this moment, Immortal Aunt couldn't help but speak up.

"How so?" Lin Meimei's eyes widened, full of curiosity.

"What was that Sun Moon Divine Weapon Jiu Shui ordered before?" Immortal Aunt looked all mysterious. "We didn't get it at the time, but thinking about it now, heh, it was clearly tailor-made as Xin Xichen's exclusive Immortal Weapon, no doubt about it, right?"

"Which shows he didn't trust us back then and used Xin Xichen to test the waters first."

"Now that he's seen the exclusive Immortal Weapon in Xin Xichen's hands is insanely strong, he's fully convinced of us, so he's letting us forge his own exclusive Immortal Weapon."

Everyone listened and felt that did make sense.

After all, this era was the era of Immortal Weapons, Immortal Pills, and Immortal Techniques.

A Xin Xichen with an exclusive Immortal Weapon could crush Phoenix Yi and Cursed at the same level, because what they had were just trash Divine Weapons from the old era.

So the combat power boost from an exclusive Immortal Weapon for a Cultivator was absolutely outrageous!

"Makes sense."

The Food God suddenly saw the light. "By the way, it's not just Jiu Shui who placed an order with us. I heard that in the last few days, Cursed and Phoenix Yi also tried to contact us through Ximen City—they want an Immortal Weapon too."

Shao Chaikun: "They're jealous of Xin Xichen, obviously. Right now only we can forge Seven Colors Immortal Weapons; everyone else's tech just hasn't caught up."

Lin Meimei looked smug: "Sigh, can't be helped. We have to take Jiu Shui's weapon order first. We're Saints of the Human Race, and Jiu Shui's shown us great appreciation, after all."

Daojiu: "By the way, where'd the Medical Fairy go?"

Immortal Aunt: "Huh? Oh right, she seems to still be in audience with His Majesty along with Dizzy. Forget her for now, we'll ask what they talked about when she comes back."

They launched into another round of discussion and started studying that incredibly precious Jiu Shui Spiritual Root.

After a simple round of testing, they basically understood it.

The Spiritual Root of Emperor Jiushui took the form of a rice ear, sprouting nine rice-blossom Spiritual Roots.

The Spiritual Root of the Mother of Non-Life took the form of a pregnant woman, giving birth to nine umbilical cord babies.

At a glance, you could tell Jiu Shui was the optimized, updated version.

The connection to the Mother of Non-Life was basically hammered in stone!

But everyone had already more or less expected that, so it wasn't surprising.

Still, someone muttered that they knew too much, and wondered if they'd get silenced. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"This Spiritual Root is wild. It's like a Dao Tree with all these Spirit Root Divine Techniques growing on it. Worthy of Jiu Shui."

"One tree like this has got to be better than some old lady popping out Divine Technique babies in her belly, right?"

"Hah? 'Some old lady' my ass, have some respect for the elderly. I didn't feel weird about it before, but thinking about it this way the art style is kinda grotesque."

...

In the afternoon, Dizzy and the other one came back.

They'd basically just chatted some family gossip with Dao Yueniang. The Royal Family had deepened their ties with Ximen Academy and had also hinted around the idea of a marriage alliance with the Royal Family.

Clearly, they were still thirsty for Xirong Manor Master's body.

They'd also discussed how the New Technique Magic Coins were changing the world structure, and the impact of the Sea Race Tear Stones on the economic market.

In short, it was all sorts of random stuff.

Ning Zheng really had no interest in paying attention to any of it.

These management chores were usually handled by the blacksmiths anyway. There was no way he could micromanage every department, and if the blacksmiths weren't good at anything else, when it came to this sim-management game, they were absolute top-tier experts!

Worth mentioning was—

In the last few days, Sword Casting Manor had completed full popularization of the "Masked Spirit Root," to the point you could practically call this Spiritual Root the "Player Spiritual Root."

A bunch of blacksmiths had leveled up at high speed, and over a dozen Cultivators in the Three Elements Realm had popped up.

The Manor's combat power had exploded!

They were no longer a bunch of weaklings.

This made Ning Zheng feel a bit relieved: "As long as they have the basics for self-defense, that's enough. I don't expect them to be great fighters; combat isn't their job."

In Ning Zheng's eyes—

The player blacksmiths under the Sword Casting Manor line were in charge of management and logistics, taking the non-combat Profession route; he didn't need them charging on the front lines.

The Embers blacksmiths from the idle adventure team line, after becoming natives and living for hundreds or thousands of years, were in charge of the combat route, charging on the front lines of the battlefield.

"With that setup, if we keep deploying adventure teams again and again, the Jiucai Rong of all the Parallel World versions across the All Heavens and Myriad Realms… might one day run into each other."

"They might even meet face to face and fight."

"For all we know, some era might come where the entire world is filled with different versions of Parallel Space-Time blacksmiths, all fighting each other to be the protagonist of the era in a giant massacre!"

"Artist, man, put down your pen. The outside world is full of my blacksmith variants from every world."

Ning Zheng's expression turned odd as he followed the blacksmiths' train of thought and吐槽ed, "Origin of the Myriad Worlds: Sword Casting Manor… being launched one by one, putting a green hat on world after world."

This wasn't impossible.

Just look at that fake Chronicles of Time next door. Those fake blacksmiths under that artist's banner are one lineage, right?

And the blacksmiths from the Metal Stone World are another lineage, right?

Those two are definitely going to throw down!

Then add in the ones that'll show up in the future, plus the random fodder from the original Sword Casting Manor…

"A battle royale, basically."

"Our Sword Casting Manor blacksmiths just need to hide and slack off… the outside is full of Otherworld super-native blacksmiths." Ning Zheng's expression grew even stranger. Listening to the chirping bunch in the plaza behind him still studying the Jiu Shui Spiritual Root, he silently followed the little path down the mountain.

"Quick, look, look, isn't this cool?!" When he got home and pushed the door open, he saw Sun Moon Su Yuniang holding a spinning shell-like top—it was clearly a success in her research: an Extraordinary creature that spins for life.