What did it mean to say that something was a long story?
When events were tangled and complicated, impossible to sum up in a single sentence, it was a long story.
Han Zhan was baffled.
To his eyes, the fluctuation of magic power Luo Chen projected outward was no longer the sixth-layer Golden Core realm from when he had first entered the Land of the Fallen Demon, but the eighth-layer Golden Core realm!
As for within, Luo Chen's terrifying physique—capable of withstanding attacks from True Artifact-grade sword pills—had undoubtedly made immense strides since leaving Penghu.
The two combined made it obvious what kind of marvelous fortune Luo Chen had encountered after they parted ways in Mingzhaotian.
For an ordinary cultivator, this would already be a heaven-sent miracle. Such gains had saved him at least several decades of bitter cultivation! No matter how one looked at it, it was an unqualified blessing.
The soaring rise in his Qi refinement cultivation stemmed beyond doubt from that mysterious spring. After soaking in it for over a year, Luo Chen's cultivation had quietly climbed to the very threshold of the ninth-layer Golden Core.
Yet for Luo Chen, the change in his body refinement realm was what commanded his deepest attention.
At that moment, two entries gleamed brightly on his attribute panel:
[Realm: Eighth Layer Golden Core 99/100, Fourth Order Desolate Ancient 35/100]
Two simple entries, yet they contained a multitude of details.
What did it mean to go from having just stepped into the Fourth Order Desolate Ancient realm, without any tempering, directly from 1 to 35? To put it another way, it was no different from an early Nascent Soul cultivator instantly leaping from the first layer to the third layer... no, the fourth layer!
The progress bar at thirty-five already exceeded a third of the entire stage. That was precisely the decisive factor that had allowed Luo Chen, once he seized the opportunity, to overpower and pummel the early Nascent Soul Feiyunzi.
Such an earth-shaking transformation had clearly originated from that "Nirvana"!
For it directly involved his foundational immortal art—the *Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Sutra*.
The clash between the Nine Refinements Beacon Fire and the Nirvana Holy Flame had destroyed his second primal core, and that titanic force had nearly dragged him into a bottomless abyss. Luo Chen had seized the opportunity, circulating the *Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Sutra* to forcefully initiate the physical body's nirvana. Relying on his vital Golden Core, the horrifying vital essence of the Taisui's true body, and that sliver of primordial Nirvana Holy Flame, he had narrowly weathered the storm, completing three tribulations and one nirvana of the Nine Tribulations and Three Nirvanas: the Blood Tribulation, the Flesh Tribulation, and the Bone Tribulation—Physical Nirvana!
This maneuver had not only delivered Luo Chen from danger and reshaped a flawless physique, but had also allowed his body to cross instantly from early Fourth Order Desolate Ancient to the middle stage. Beyond that, it had even transformed his constitution into a Fire Spirit Body, making him far better suited for cultivating fire-attribute arts.
He had survived, indeed.
Misfortune leaned upon fortune, and fortune lurked within misfortune!
Compared to these gains, what he had lost pained Luo Chen far more deeply. Many claimed Luo Chen possessed profound karmic luck, and he often made self-deprecating jokes to that effect. Yet it was only ever jest. Luo Chen never believed he was some chosen one of heaven; everything he had was won through his own sweat and calculation.
The Five Spirits Dao Physique, capable of cultivating all methods concurrently! The second primal core, the very foundation of birthing a second Nascent Soul upon breaking through to the Nascent Soul realm! Even that Taisui body, brimming with boundless vitality—consuming and refining it in such a crude, raw manner was an agonizing waste for a Tier 4 grandmaster alchemist like Luo Chen! If handled properly, heaven only knew how many divine pills and spirit medicines he could have concocted from that single Taisui corpse. Even if used strictly for body refinement, Luo Chen could have amplified its medicinal efficacy tenfold or a hundredfold through alchemy and supplementary herbs, easily supplying his body refinement needs for the entire Fourth Order Desolate Ancient stage. Eating it raw had been an outright desecration of heaven's gifts!
All told, Luo Chen summarized the current changes in his body with eight words: *Profit in the present, loss in the future.*
Amid the silence, Luo Chen did not know how to explain all of this to Han Zhan, or perhaps subconsciously shrank from speaking of it.
Watching Han Zhan concentrate on refining the Penglai Octagonal Pavilion, Luo Chen could not help but study the puppet body a few times. Han Zhan's harvest in Mingzhaotian's Puppet Realm had been nothing short of extraordinary! Aside from missing the supreme puppet inheritance, he had obtained a total of nine powerful puppets: seven at the peak Golden Core realm, and a Nascent Soul puppet crafted entirely from spirit wood, ideal for housing Han Zhan's Nascent Soul and allowing him to release magic power smoothly and naturally. Beyond those, there was that fleetingly glimpsed White Tiger puppet! If Luo Chen's eyes had not deceived him, it was definitely a terrifying existence on par with a late Nascent Soul cultivator!
And that was without even mentioning Luo Chen's own gains from the Pill Hall's inheritance. It was fair to say that virtually every cultivator who walked out of the Land of the Fallen Demon alive had reaped substantial rewards. It was true for Luo Chen, true for Han Zhan, and went without saying for the rest.
Luo Chen had a mountain of matters awaiting his attention, but the most critical was only one: the Purple Monkey Flowers could not be compromised!
"The Purple Monkey Flowers that Sang Jiugong has been cultivating for me on Purple Spirit Island concern my opportunity to form a Nascent Soul. I cannot abandon them under any circumstances."
Although the thirty-six pill recipes he obtained in the Pill Hall included a recipe for a human Nascent Soul Formation Pill, its ingredients were wildly varied and the refinement subtleties entirely distinct. In the short term, Luo Chen had no way of mastering that recipe. But the ancient recipe for the Nascent Soul Formation Pill he had acquired from Azure Pill Valley and Han Zhan had been in his hands for decades! His grasp of it was deep enough that he could begin concocting it at any moment. More importantly, among the necessary materials, the Five Elements Lotus Platform was already in his possession, and the assorted auxiliary ingredients had been steadily gathered over the years. As soon as the Purple Monkey Flowers matured, he could begin refining the Nascent Soul Formation Pill!
With a flick of Luo Chen's fingers, magic power surged, and a faint glimmer emerged from his storage ring. Overhanging eaves stood tall above an exquisite eight-sided structure, its windows and doors crafted with vivid precision, resembling a miniature wooden carving held in the palm of a hand. It was none other than the Penglai Immortal Sect's heritage True Artifact—the Penglai Octagonal Pavilion! At first glance, Han Zhan saw that it was merely inches in size, easily held in one palm.
"Senior, can you refine this item on my behalf?"
Han Zhan beckoned, and the miniature pavilion floated into his grasp. He sent his divine sense within, examining it closely while calculating the feasibility of refining it. "It is a True Artifact without question, capable of bridging the inner and outer spiritual energy of heaven and earth. However, this treasure seems to have gone unrefined for over a thousand years. There are numerous divine sense restrictions left upon it, but they do not belong to a single person; rather, they belong to many."
"According to Cave Master Moyun, this treasure ranks as a heritage True Artifact of the Penglai Immortal Sect. It is maintained by dedicated caretakers but does not bind to a single master. The Penglai Immortal Sect has endured for countless generations, roaming deep within the savage reaches of the North Sea, often encountering naturally born spirit herbs. They frequently dispatch disciples bearing the Octagonal Pavilion to transplant those herbs, so they intentionally refrained from placing overly powerful restrictions on it, making it convenient for disciples to use." This was the very treasure Luo Chen had snatched away from the experts of the Myriad Immortals Association and Penglai Immortal Sect on the Mutian Plain. Inside the Penglai Octagonal Pavilion grew a large patch of premium Divine Irises, originally transplanted from the Mutian Plain by Penglai's Yu Gao. Capable of receiving spirit herbs and allowing them to grow uninhibited, it was renowned as a portable spirit herb garden.
Han Zhan came to a realization. Seeing Luo Chen's urgency, his thoughts shifted, and he deduced most of what lay on the younger man's mind. "If you want to take the Purple Monkey Flowers, you can simply take them. You don't necessarily need to use the Penglai Octagonal Pavilion!"
Luo Chen explained patiently, "Most of the Purple Monkey Flowers on Purple Spirit Island have not yet matured; they do not meet the baseline criteria for concocting a Nascent Soul Formation Pill. By my estimate, it will take at least another ten to twenty years before they ripen. If harvested prematurely, all previous effort will be wasted." The Penglai Octagonal Pavilion could transplant all manner of spiritual flora along with the surrounding soil, without harming the herbs' medicinal vitality. Luo Chen intended to use the pavilion to carry away every single Purple Monkey Flower on Purple Spirit Island to prevent Moon Hermit from tracing him there.
Now Han Zhan understood completely. "You are worried about Moon Hermit?"
Luo Chen nodded, his expression solemn. "That woman has an overwhelming desire for control, toward people and objects alike. Although I do not know what that gray light was, the fact that she was willing to cast Fairy Feileng aside just to seize it shows how determined she was! As for that gray light now... in short, Moon Hermit will not let me off. Therefore, I must put distance between us and give her no opportunity for vengeance. Once she returns to the Myriad Immortals Association, it is highly likely she will mobilize the endless rogue cultivators of the Association to hunt me down, or even pry into the location of Purple Spirit Island through those close to me! Before leaving, I must take the Purple Monkey Flowers with me!"
Recalling the power Moon Hermit had displayed in Mingzhaotian, Han Zhan felt a chill in his heart. Even though he had unleashed the late Nascent Soul White Tiger puppet acquired in the Puppet Realm and struck with advance preparation, he had failed to wound her, which testified to Moon Hermit's sheer strength. Luo Chen drawing the ire of such an enemy was a disaster waiting to happen!
Han Zhan looked at Luo Chen in surprise. "Are you in such a hurry? This treasure encompasses all five elements and incorporates the three variant attributes of wind, thunder, and ice. Once you form your Nascent Soul, you could refine it yourself. Why have me do it?"
Luo Chen shook his head. "I cannot wait that long. I need to be able to use it within a year—no, within half a year. The sooner, the better!"
"Very well! Leave it to me!" Han Zhan nodded. "Don't worry. If you only want to reach the level of those Golden Core Penglai disciples like Yu Gao who collected the Divine Irises, that won't be difficult for me. I only need to refine a few key restrictions. But there is one thing: near the core formation, I detected traces of several auras of magic power sealing off the deepest core restrictions. If I am to refine those, doing so in the short term is entirely impossible. Even with my powerful divine soul, it would take several decades."
Having secured Han Zhan's promise, Luo Chen breathed a sigh of relief.
He pulled his attention back from Han Zhan, turning his gaze toward the silent gray cauldron resting within his sea of qi.
The detonation of that True Artifact had been terrifying beyond measure. Back on Cloud Sea Square in Mingzhaotian, Feiyunzi had taken advantage of Luo Chen's distraction to detonate his damaged True Artifact golden bell, tearing free from the Hunyuan Cauldron's restraint. Luo Chen's natal treasure had suffered grievous damage in the blast, and the backlash through their soul connection had injured Luo Chen's own divine soul. Had his body not been suffused with the Taisui's monstrous vitality constantly mending his flesh, he too would have been severely wounded. At that moment, Luo Chen had feared the cauldron would shatter to pieces. Amid shattered artifacts, severed limbs... and splattered blood essence, Luo Chen had no time to think and had instinctively recalled his natal treasure. While both the Hunyuan Cauldron and the Xuanchen Armor possessed self-repair functions, the effect was relatively faint, requiring their master to replenish materials and temper them day and night with magic power and true fire to restore them.
Yet now, looking inward, Luo Chen saw the Hunyuan Cauldron within his sea of qi completely whole! He could find no trace of a crack, not a single damaged formation. Aside from having shrunk by about a third of its original size, it was as if it had repaired itself entirely.
There was only one possible reason for such an astonishing transformation: that streak of gray light! When the teleportation array in Mingzhaotian activated, the gray light had chased after him of its own accord and plunged directly into the Hunyuan Cauldron.
Yet to his bewilderment, over the past few months, he had found no trace of the gray light within the cauldron. It had blended in completely, without the slightest resistance! Examining it closely at this moment, Luo Chen still could not make head or tail of it.
*What was that gray light, exactly? If even Moon Hermit couldn't subdue it, why would it throw itself at me? Could there really be some truth to the notion that heavenly treasures choose their destined masters?*
Regarding this turn of events, Luo Chen was utterly perplexed. Luo Chen had never believed himself to be favored by heaven; everything he had achieved came from diligence and calculation. Thus, he refused to believe that legendary tales of treasures seeking him out would happen to him.
*Why would the compatibility between the Hunyuan Cauldron and the gray light be so perfect? Merging seamlessly, with zero rejection. Could it be because the gray light was previously suppressed inside the Heaven Refining Cauldron, another cauldron-type treasure? But that makes no sense either. The artifact spirit of the Heaven Refining Cauldron saw through my cultivation of Primordial Monarch Qixia's technique and chose to self-detonate rather than let me have the cauldron or the gray light.*
*That object left behind by the Heaven Refining Demon Lord—was it crafted by his own hands? If so, its rushing toward the Hunyuan Cauldron implies my natal treasure must have some connection to the Demon Lord. But that's absurd. From inception to blueprint, from materials to forging, this cauldron has never had anything to do with the Heaven Refining Demon Lord...*
Abruptly, a faint, hidden thread connected within his mind.
Luo Chen recalled the forging process of his natal treasure, past memories resurfacing. Back then, an unforeseen accident had occurred during the refinement of the Hunyuan Cauldron. That mishap had consumed all of Luo Chen's materials, prompting Tianyezi to contribute his treasured Green Duckweed Nether Wind, which ultimately forged the Hunyuan Cauldron's terrifying foundational depth. On the day of its completion, it had become a high-grade treasure! And that mishap had originated from an unknown bloodstain upon an exceptional Fire Spirit Diamond. At the time, Luo Chen had only felt that the aura of the blood was unimaginably terrifying. Tianyezi, believing the blood was exceptionally suited for artifact forging, had let it remain rather than expelling it. Han Zhan had not personally participated in that expedition to the Demon Sea, and upon returning, Luo Chen had not said much, mentioning only that the Master of Baizao Mountain had ambushed him.
*Could that blood belong to the Heaven Refining Demon Lord? Did the gray light, also a relic of the Demon Lord, actively seek out the cauldron after it cracked and exposed the scent of his blood? Furthermore, in my early years, whenever I used the Hunyuan Cauldron to concoct pills or forge weapons, it yielded miraculous results. I assumed it was the cauldron's own virtue. Looking back now, the credit belongs to that blood! The Heaven Refining Demon Lord possessed godlike mastery over alchemy and weapon forging; even a single drop of his blood carries miraculous properties!*
If one searched for an explanation for that final encounter in Mingzhaotian, this was the only hypothesis that made sense. If the battle between the Heaven Refining Demon Lord and Primordial Monarch Qixia was historical truth, then the presence of Primordial Monarch Qixia's Nirvana Holy Flame in Mingzhaotian was only natural. Approaching it from the other direction, Primordial Monarch Qixia must have held items belonging to the Demon Lord as well. The Yuan Demon Sect had monopolized the Land of the Fallen Demon for a thousand years, undoubtedly retrieving countless treasures. Even if Deification experts dared not enter personally for fear of perishing, relying on generations of dazzling prodigies from a sacred ground should have reaped them fortunes beyond measure.
Yet this raised another puzzle. Over a thousand years, the Yuan Demon Sect should have grown vastly stronger. Under such conditions, how could they have been annihilated in a single stroke by the North Sea demon alliance? Was it solely because Ancestor Blood Sea perished in Mingzhaotian? Or did the endless demon races of the North Sea truly possess some invincible powerhouse that even the Yuan Demon Sect's mighty figures could not match?
No, that seemed unlikely. If such a being existed, how could it have been sealed in the Arctic Yama Heavens by the ancestor of the Soul Refining lineage?
It defied logic! Luo Chen could find no answer. After a long while, he shook his head. If he could not figure it out, he would set it aside for now; it had nothing to do with him anyway. Whether true or false, it was not good news for him at present.
Then another doubt surfaced: he could not activate the Hunyuan Cauldron! This was his own natal treasure—what did it mean if he couldn't drive it? After all, a Hunyuan Cauldron that merely approached the realm of a True Artifact was still not a True Artifact, separated from that golden bell by an absolute chasm in tier. For a treasure of such sublime materials and profound foundations, this was an unprecedented anomaly. If he could not use his most familiar cauldron when it came time to refine the Nascent Soul Formation Pill, trouble would follow.
Gazing at the dormant little cauldron, Luo Chen's heart sank. While meditating and circulating his cultivation, that question surfaced once more: *Where did all my magic power disappear to?*
The little cauldron sat peacefully rooted in his sea of qi, swallowing what little magic power Luo Chen currently possessed.
*Forget it, now is not the time to dwell on this. The Hunyuan Cauldron repairing itself is already a stroke of fortune. As long as no further complications arise, a solution will present itself eventually. Right now, restoring my magic power and returning my strength to its peak is the most critical task.*
Luo Chen slowly withdrew his concentration. He retrieved a top-grade True Flame Pill, swallowed it, and began slowly refining it. His reserves of True Flame Pills in his storage ring were running low. Without a third-rank spirit vein, relying solely on pills to recover magic power was agonizingly slow—especially now that he was at the eighth-layer Golden Core realm, requiring more than double his previous volume of magic power.
***
Three days later, the merchant ship of this Golden Core clan abruptly changed course amid stormy seas.
"Turn the helm! Turn the helm! Turn the helm!"
"Fighting broke out ahead again!"
"What's going on? Didn't they say this sea route belonged to the Moluo Stream now?"
"Who knows! The Azure Sea Alliance launched a massive counteroffensive against the Moluo Stream recently, and the Penglai Immortal Sect reduced their forces for some reason, leaving the Moluo Stream fighting alone. Never mind all that—steer clear of the battlefield before we get caught in the crossfire!"
In a battle of this scale, even the slightest shockwave catching their ship would spell doom. Even if it meant delaying delivery, they had to alter course.
Just then, the captain caught sight of a black-robed man stepping out from a cabin toward the edge of the deck. The clan's leader was an early Golden Core cultivator named Sui Jie. He looked into the distance at the dazzling clash of magical treasures lighting up the sky and the monstrous waves whipped up by countless powerhouses, his expression taut with panic.
"Little Friend Gu Chen, a fierce battle rages ahead. It would be wise to retreat indoors."
The black-robed man glanced at him and cupped his hands. "Thank you, Fellow Daoist Sui, for your hospitality these past days. I have urgent business that cannot wait, so I will take my leave now."
Sui Jie frowned. For a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator to address him as "Fellow Daoist" seemed rather lacking in propriety. But the next instant, his eyes widened.
A powerful surge of magic power erupted from the black-robed man called "Gu Chen," not a shred inferior to his own. No—as the waves of magic power rolled outward, their pure, domineering intensity forced Sui Jie to take a step back!
With a single glance, Sui Jie realized this man's magic power was as vast as an abyss, something only old monsters who had cultivated for three to five centuries in the Golden Core realm could possess. This man's cultivation crushed his own by leaps and bounds!
His voice stiffened. "Forgive my blind eyes for failing to recognize Mount Tai. I wish Fellow Daoist a smooth journey."
Luo Chen smiled, nodded, and leaped into the air. Midair, a wooden kite one and a half zhang long materialized beneath his feet. He formed an incantation gesture, and the wooden kite circled the merchant ship once before shooting straight toward the heart of the battlefield.
In Sui Jie's eyes, the wooden kite carrying the black-robed Daoist was like a moth darting into a flame, plunging directly into the towering waves and blinding brilliance of the war between righteous and demonic factions.
"What kind of urgent matter could possibly drive him to risk his life, refusing to detour, just to force his way through this battlefield?"
Chapter 702