By the time Princess Qianqian and the others hurried in at the news, Yue Yang was already cradling a strange-looking sword in his hands.

The blade was translucent through and through, soft and pliant as a length of silk.

A meter long. Two fingers wide.

Its edge was narrow, its ridge shallow, thin as paper and clear as jade.

The sword had been made by Yue Yang using a means as unbelievable as it was impossible. No matter who looked upon it, no one could have imagined that this thing had been fashioned out of the God-Slaying Mystic Metal — a material even a god struggled to work. Before this, Yue Yang had used God-Slaying Mystic Metal to make armor, and only through enormous strain could he manage the “clumsy” heavy plate: purple-black, thick and solid, weighty and hard, with defense that overturned the heavens but that the Divine Punishment Empress and the others had not liked one bit. Who could have imagined that the very same God-Slaying Mystic Metal, worked by the very same person, could — by a different method — undergo so heaven-and-earth a transformation?

Never mind the others. Even Yue Yang himself stood there dumbstruck, cradling the sword he had just made.

Long, long moments.

Unable to accept, even now, this thing his own hands had wrought.

Not out of dissatisfaction — but from a joy so overwhelming that he seemed suspended in a dream, afraid to trust that the truth had really arrived so wonderfully.

“One thought, and it is made? So that’s how gods create — you really can do it this way…” The Divine Punishment Empress, in a sleep-robe with a pair of massive dangerous weapons practically felling the entire room, murmured to herself, half distracted.

“So that’s it! God-Slaying Mystic Metal cannot be forcibly changed by external force. Of course — it holds the will of the ancient great gods within it. Any act that fights the Law-force is going against the grain of heaven. On the contrary, if we use divine mind to guide it, we can achieve twice the result with half the effort. Rain-sister, wow, you really are a lucky star — you’ve enlightened this blockhead again! If it weren’t for you, Rain-sister, this idiot would probably have crawled off to some empty corner to sit and cry from exhaustion!” Princess Qianqian had a sudden dawning realization and heaped high praise on Yue Yu for the offhand comment that had inspired Yue Yang.

“It has nothing to do with me. I was just talking off the top of my head.” Yue Yu’s heart was as sweet as honey, but she would not grasp at the credit. In her mind, whatever help she could give her little brother was only what she should be giving.

“Talking off the top of your head still depends on who is doing the talking! I couldn’t manage it!” Yi Nan stuck out her cute little pink tongue, drawing a round of laughter.

“If God-Slaying Mystic Metal can become a sword clear as jade, could it change into even bigger things?” Luohua raised a further question.

“Absolutely!” The one who unconditionally, eternally believed in her big brother was, of course, little sister Yue Bing.

In her mind, her big brother was omnipotent.

And besides, the God-Slaying Mystic Metal, “guided by divine mind,” was already sitting in front of them, tangibly, in this new form.

If it could undergo this change, then it certainly must be possible for it to become other forms and other shapes as well. It all depended on the direction of Yue Yang’s divine mind. This substance, which no one for ten thousand years had been able to crack, apparently had limitless possibilities inside it — it was only that this treasure from before recorded time had never had anyone who knew how to guide it.

It had to be guided by divine mind. It could only be shaped that way…

Why was it that for tens of thousands of years the eight Divine Sovereigns of Mountain Beyond the Mountain had only been able to make hovering motherships, and nothing else? How had Yue Yang, for his part, managed it? Everyone was curious, and they turned their eyes on him in one motion, waiting for him to explain. Divine mind was necessary, but there had to be a still more important reason. Otherwise Mountain Beyond the Mountain would not have had only the hovering mothership as its super-weapon of choice.

Yue Yang was smug just now — although before all this it was Yue Yu who had (accidentally) inspired him, his own comprehension was not to be underrated either.

Seeing everyone’s expectant eyes on him —

He preened, took a few steps in a self-important gait with his hands behind his back, and looked for all the world like some grizzled old scholar who had, after a lifetime of exams, finally topped the imperial roll. He coughed pretentiously twice — enough to try Princess Qianqian’s patience past the breaking point. She reached for her specially crafted one-hundred-ton hammer, ready to give Yue Yang’s head a good ringing lesson, before everyone quickly rushed in to hold her back.

It was Sick Beauty who stepped in and got Yue Yang out of it. On the surface, she took Princess Qianqian’s side and glared over at him: “You, you, always oblivious to how anxious the rest of us are…”

And then she comforted Princess Qianqian while, at the same time, confiscating the one-hundred-ton hammer.

“I confess! I’ll come clean!” Yue Yang’s tone was that of a small-time crook caught with the goods trying to talk his way out.

“Speak!” This time nobody was giving him any room for his usual nonsense.

“All right, all right, this is the truth,” Yue Yang sat down in the chair Xiao Nu had brought over, enjoyed her gentle massage, and began to explain his insight with great gravity: “God-Slaying Mystic Metal has one great requirement — the Immovable Will. A completely unshakable Sovereign Intent. Whoever wants to change its form has to place absolute trust in what he is doing. Whatever object in the world he wishes to shape from it, the creator cannot harbor a single shred of doubt, or the attempt fails — or rather, will simply never succeed at all. The eight Divine Sovereigns could create hovering motherships because they believed they would succeed. Taiyan and Bingli had succeeded before them, and had left behind a ‘method of construction.’ They didn’t know that other things could also be made. Without absolute belief, without absolute certainty in their hearts, all their attempts had only one outcome — permanent failure.”

“Of course, aside from Sovereign Intent, two other things are key,” Yue Yang paused briefly, marshaled his words, and continued: “One is the compatibility between the creator’s own creative faculty and the Law-force within the God-Slaying Mystic Metal. The higher a person’s imagination, the stronger his creative faculty, the better the fusion — and the more God-Slaying Mystic Metal will yield to his will. The second, and more important, is the creator’s own inherent power.”

“Inherent power?” Some of the smaller girls, like Yi Nan and Yue Bing, did not quite catch this.

“Something like that?” Others, like Princess Qianqian and Yue Yu, half-grasped it, half-not.

“You can see a hint of it in the fact that Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer and Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou make the largest hovering motherships.” Yue Yang had not finished before the Divine Punishment Empress happily took over: “I get it — the stronger a person’s divine power, the higher the tier, the greater the creative force he can exert on God-Slaying Mystic Metal!”

“Ahhh, if that’s the case, then my new dress can be left to you to create, you big scoundrel!” the Southern Wilderness Demon King laughed. “I was going to make one myself, but my tier isn’t up to it. Whatever I made wouldn’t be good enough, so I’ll have to trouble you to help… I want one like this — I’ve had the design drawn up for ages, and I couldn’t make it before, so I never mentioned it. I’ve wanted a dress like this for so long!”

“Have me making dresses?” Yue Yang, for his part, went blue in the face.

“Come on, sweetheart, I just really want it!” the Southern Wilderness Demon King — that pipa-girl-tempered lass — went straight into her most saccharine wheedling.

“You want it? Save it for bedtime. I promise I’ll satisfy you then.” Yue Yang, for his part, firmly refused. Even if the God-Slaying Mystic Metal could indeed be turned into a beautiful dress by unlimited possibilities, having him — a great big grown man — make a girl’s dress was a piece of face-losing his face could not survive. Absolutely not!

“Right, of course. Making dresses — what nonsense is this, dragging him around like that?” Luohua, rarely, took Yue Yang’s side.

“Luohua-girl, you understand me best!” Yue Yang, for his part, was so moved his eyes actually welled up.

“Call me City Lord,” Luohua pulled out the airs of a superior, patting Yue Yang’s shoulder with her little hand as she reminded him. “My beloved head-of-personal-guard, you haven’t forgotten your duties, have you?”

“Guarding the City Lord’s person — earth may split and heaven may collapse, my body may shatter into powder, but unto death I shall not forget! Am I on bed-warming duty tonight?” Yue Yang was ecstatic — a treat like this was falling right into his lap!

“There’s no need,” Luohua shook her head and waved her hand. “This City Lord merely thinks it is time to give a certain head-of-personal-guard — one who idles about all day, gets by with the bare minimum, and shows no ambition whatsoever — a little bit of work. For someone of my exalted status as City Lord, wearing the same outfit day after day is simply not proper. That is a serious dereliction of a certain head-of-personal-guard’s duty.”

“Your meaning is?” Yue Yang, for his part, asked carefully.

“If a certain head-of-personal-guard still wants to sneak into the City Lord’s bed while on nighttime watch, wants to steal blankets, be lazy and slack off, sleep like the dead — if he still wants to keep his complimentary bed-warming privileges — then this City Lord feels he needs to take his duties a little more seriously.” Luohua counted off on her fingers, casually enumerating: “If a certain head-of-personal-guard only offers up one utterly gorgeous dress, that plainly wouldn’t do. This City Lord’s mood would not brighten in the least. On top of the dress, there must also be weapons, war dolls, carriages, flying-ships… If there is no lavish castle, what kind of City Lord is that? If a certain head-of-personal-guard cannot come up with all of those, then that head-of-personal-guard might as well just resign. Someone who can’t handle any of it shouldn’t be daydreaming about warming any beds!”

“There is nothing I cannot do — anything at all, I can handle it!” Yue Yang, for his part, felt that a man could never admit weakness. Especially in front of the woman he loved — what kind of frame of mind was it to say “I can’t”?

“I’ll be watching, then.” Luohua patted Yue Yang’s shoulder, with a City Lord air of I have great expectations of you.

“Ahhh… would I be allowed to just find a rope and go hang myself?” Yue Yang, for his part, asked weakly.

“By this standard, then before any of that happens, I want a full set too…” Princess Qianqian’s words weren’t even finished before Yue Yang, for his part, keeled over and burst into inner tears. “Tiger-girl, please, don’t kick a man when he’s down. Show me some mercy, spare me a way out!”

“By this standard, everyone gets a set. Everyone has a share. No one gets left out!” Princess Qianqian sniffed coldly. “Or else a certain Wolf can sleep alone tonight.”

“Thud.” That was the sound of Yue Yang, for his part, fainting on the spot.

Everyone was overjoyed.

Rarely — very rarely — did Princess Qianqian ever get such a chance.

Normally, even when Princess Qianqian issued a decree, there were always some especially soft-hearted girls who would secretly slip Yue Yang some help — like Xiao Nu, forever on her master’s side; like Sick Beauty, gentle as water and dignified as a lady; or like Luohua, whose mouth was hard but whose heart was soft, always the first to lift a ban on him!

Luohua — City Lord Luohua — put up a show of always making things hard for her beloved head-of-personal-guard, when in fact she was ceaselessly creating opportunities for him.

Just now, for instance, she had counted on Princess Qianqian, unlike the others, not asking him for anything of her own.

So she used a bit of provocation to draw her out.

Princess Qianqian, sure enough, took the bait. Not to be outdone, she pushed her own list of demands out into the open, and even piled on an extra clause… Even if the others hadn’t asked, Yue Yang would sooner or later have made all these things for them. But Princess Qianqian tacking on an extra clause meant she would inevitably have to stay behind to supervise him — creating, in unspoken form, an opportunity for the two of them to be alone. Those who couldn’t see it thought Luohua was just being coquettish with Yue Yang. In truth, it was nothing of the kind.

Only a few could see the true purpose behind it, and, of course, the ones who could see would never say.

With the outcome settled —

The Divine Punishment Empress yawned and turned to leave.

Watching little Yue Bing comfort her big brother — “I don’t want a dress or a carriage or a flying-ship or a castle” — Yue Yu and Sick Beauty shared a smile…

Castles were out of the question. As for carriages and flying-ships, no chance either.

Even if he could manage them.

There was not nearly enough material.

What Yue Yang had to improve on right now was the “Black Tortoise War Armor” everyone had unanimously judged clumsy and heavy. With the “one thought and it is made” method in hand — while Yue Yang, for his part, suffered like a common laborer — for the sake of a satisfying love life, for the sake of a brighter tomorrow, Yue Yang, for his part, had to charge forward with all his might. Piece by piece, similar in style but each one unique, a perfect war armor was recast, guided by divine mind, transformed into set after set of one-of-a-kind, uniquely-designed “Black Tortoise Sacred Armor.” These super-Sacred-tier armors in every conceivable form, crystalline and translucent, were such that no one, gazing on them, would have dared imagine that they were the same clumsy, heavy, dull-and-rigid plate as before.

Even more marvelous — every time Yue Yang, at enormous personal cost, used God-Slaying Mystic Metal to reshape or fashion anew a “Black Tortoise Sacred Armor” for someone, the Creation Divine Pearl inside his body, brimming with chaos-energy, would gain another degree of spirit and another degree of radiance…

But Yue Yang, wholly absorbed in the act of creation, did not notice the change in it at all.

Creation was bitter work, but Yue Yang enjoyed it.

Because now, at last, he truly felt what it was to be a creator: one thought, and it is made; nothing beyond his reach.

(End of Chapter 1158)