Chapter 859: A Distant Past

The water vapor inside the Heavenly Lightning Array gradually dispersed as well. He Lingchuan’s vision cleared, revealing a landscape crisscrossed with trenches, all scorched furrows carved into the earth by lightning.

This entire stretch of land had suffered tremendous damage.

There was actually still one person inside the array, slumped crookedly on the ground. He Lingchuan focused his gaze and was astonished to find that it was Perfected Sanshui!

He was still breathing. His robes were charred black, while his left hand and both legs below the knees had been reduced to charcoal. Nothing remained of his previous immortal bearing.

He Lingchuan slowly walked over and stopped in front of Perfected Sanshui, then withdrew his mask.

Perhaps it was the final clarity before death, but Perfected Sanshui’s gaze was clearer than ever.

He struggled twice to sit upright, but no longer had the strength.

Once a mighty immortal capable of moving mountains with one hand, he had now fallen to such a miserable state.

He Lingchuan crouched down and carefully helped him lean against a large rock.

“What happened in the battle just now was unavoidable. I hope you won’t hold it against me, Perfected One.”

This was, after all, a great figure from several thousand years ago and one of the people who had forged the Generous Pot. He Lingchuan was willing to show him due respect.

There was no hatred in Perfected Sanshui’s eyes, only some lingering frustration. “The Generous Pot should never have existed. Back then, I took away the Spirit-Sealing Pot Lid precisely to interrupt its evolution. Yet in the end, you people still found it and brought it back. Sigh, what fools you all are.”

He Lingchuan knew that by “you people,” Perfected Sanshui did not mean only him, but the countless people who had obsessively pursued the Generous Pot throughout the ages.

“The Generous Pot’s evolution was never interrupted, not once.” He Lingchuan then added softly, “Take a look around.”

The secret realm they stood within was itself a creation of the Generous Pot.

Perfected Sanshui was momentarily speechless.

Faced with such a firsthand source, He Lingchuan could not resist asking, “What exactly is so dangerous about the Generous Pot?”

Naluotian’s avatar had mentioned earlier that Perfected Sanshui was actually one of the immortals who had forged the Generous Pot. His understanding of it should therefore far exceed anyone else’s.

“The most important treasure used to forge the Generous Pot was actually a massive fragment that had been knocked off the Tianluo Star.” After Perfected Sanshui said this, he looked at He Lingchuan. When he saw that the other party’s expression remained unchanged, he realized that he already knew this. So he continued, “Back then, under the leadership of Perfected Shou’an, we intended to forge another divine artifact capable of resisting the Tianluo Star’s influence on the mortal realm. Who would have thought the process would stray further and further from our intentions until we ultimately forged something like the Generous Pot?”

“Was forging the Generous Pot considered a failure?” How could something this profound possibly be called a failed product?

“Not exactly. But what emerged was completely at odds with our original intentions.” Perfected Sanshui shook his head. “Everyone involved in the forging was a great expert in artifact refinement. Normally, before a magical artifact was even completed, we could predict what the finished product would be like with considerable accuracy.”

“But this particular forging was extraordinarily tortuous. The Generous Pot went into the furnace three and a half times. The first two attempts ended with the furnaces exploding. Heh, and both of those furnaces were precious treasures in their own right.” Perfected Sanshui licked his lips. “I vaguely sensed something was wrong and said this was Heaven’s will, that we should stop trying.”

“But when everyone saw how difficult even a mere fragment of this Heavenly Demon supreme treasure was to deal with, they refused to accept defeat. We thought that since we were capable of driving its master out of the mortal realm, how could we possibly be incapable of handling even a single tiny fragment?”

The Generous Pot had been forged after the great war between immortals and gods. The Heavenly Demon had already been driven from the mortal realm, and signs of spirit qi’s decline had begun to appear. Yet the immortals who had taken part in that world-shaking war still carried the momentum of their great victory and the prestige of having saved the world. They remained proud enough to look down upon heaven and earth alike.

“So everyone decided to try again. My attempts to dissuade them failed. This time, Immortal Shou’an activated the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace beneath Mount Shou’an, the headquarters of the Grand Return Sect, to refine the fragment of the Tianluo Star.” Perfected Sanshui recalled, “That Heaven-and-Earth Furnace was not an artifact created by man. It was a naturally formed furnace deep within the earth, containing primordial chaos true qi from the beginning of creation itself. It could refine all things. No matter what kind of divine weapon something was, it could not withstand its flames. Oh, and it also gave birth to spirit creatures like the great fire spirit Juju.”

So that was Juju’s cradle? He Lingchuan thought to himself that it was no wonder even the arrogant Heavenly Palace and Beijia treated Juju so well. The creature was not only tremendously powerful, but it even had quite the distinguished origin.

Put simply, as long as Juju remained close to that subterranean furnace, killing it would be no easy task.

“No one expected that this forging would take only eighteen hours!”

He Lingchuan let out an “Ah,” genuinely surprised. Back then, Fleeting Life had merely been reforged and rejoined rather than completely melted down and forged from scratch, yet even that had taken several days. For a divine artifact on the Generous Pot’s level to take shape in only eighteen hours was absurdly fast.

He also remembered the name “Immortal Shou’an.” At the Dun Garden auction held by Fang Canran, a broken sword tip had once gone up for sale. It had come from Immortal Shou’an’s life-bound magical artifact and also contained boundless gold, eventually fetching the astronomical price of 870,000 taels of silver.

Of course, Immortal Shou’an’s own reputation carried even greater weight. Not only had he been the sect leader of the Grand Return Sect, but he had also been one of the leaders who rallied the immortals against the Heavenly Demon during the ancient war.

If even a broken tip from one of his swords could sell for 870,000 taels, how much would a Generous Pot he had personally helped forge be worth?

The tempting thought flashed through He Lingchuan’s mind for only an instant before he smothered it.

What was the point if he could not sell the thing?

“The instant the Generous Pot was completed, red light filled the heavens. Lightning flashed and thunder roared for three days straight. We knew that only the birth of a treasure powerful enough to shake heaven and earth could produce such a phenomenon.”

“When we examined it, we discovered that the magical artifact was extremely peculiar. It clearly contained tremendous power, yet its interior was utter chaos. Despite that chaos, however, it behaved with extraordinary stability. More importantly, it had no artifact spirit, and most likely would never be capable of producing one. That was the unanimous conclusion of all of us, as well as our greatest regret.”

“Can a magical artifact without an artifact spirit even be called a divine artifact?” Perfected Sanshui gave a bitter smile. “Without an artifact spirit, it would never acknowledge anyone as its master, nor would it obey anyone’s commands. Yet it was also dangerously unstable. If all that stored power ever leaked out, the consequences would be unimaginable.”

“But the powers contained within it were extraordinarily varied and abundant, as though they gathered together the finest essences of two different realms. Immortal Shou’an even believed it could help us comprehend the supreme Great Dao. We had seen countless Heavenly Demon treasures before, but none had ever fascinated us like this one. Once we began studying it, we spent more than a hundred days doing nothing else.” Perfected Sanshui shook his head. “Two among us achieved enlightenment very quickly and advanced yet another step beyond their already extraordinary cultivation. I cannot explain that sensation to you.”

He Lingchuan nodded, entirely at peace with that.

Their levels were too far apart. There was no point forcing himself to understand, just as a summer insect could not comprehend ice.

“We desperately needed some way to communicate with it. Then someone proposed simply putting it back into the furnace one more time and directly implanting an artifact spirit! This time no one objected. Even I strongly supported the idea.” He let out a long sigh. “Looking back now, we truly must have been blinded by obsession.”

He Lingchuan was surprised. “You can actually do that?” It sounded extremely difficult.

“Artifacts without spirits are far too common. If the magical artifact itself is good enough, you can simply transplant an artifact spirit into it. That process is also known as spirit implantation. It is rather like something farmers commonly do, called... called...” Perfected Sanshui was clearly growing weaker and momentarily lost the word.

“Grafting?”

“Yes. Implanting fresh life into a strong foundation. It was a common technique in artifact refinement. You people don’t do that anymore?”

He Lingchuan rubbed his nose. “Artifact refinement in later generations is very different from what it was in your era. Anyway, so you implanted an artifact spirit into the Generous Pot?”

By this point, he could vaguely guess where the story was going.

“Everyone wanted to contribute their own artifact spirit. Faced with something like the Generous Pot, who wouldn’t harbor at least a little selfish desire?” Perfected Sanshui paused to catch his breath.

He Lingchuan noticed that his knees had already begun dissolving into foam.

It seemed he would not last much longer.

“In the end, my Spirit-Sealing Treasured Seal—or the Spirit-Sealing Treasured Lid, as you may call it—was given the opportunity. It was placed into the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace to be used for the spirit implantation on the Generous Pot.” Perfected Sanshui lowered his voice. “The artifact spirit of the Spirit-Sealing Treasured Lid was an innate spirit. It had already awakened its intelligence back when it was still a piece of metal essence roaming all over Mount Xiling. That is what we call metal and stone awakening to spirit, an exceedingly rare occurrence. Later, despite being reforged two or three times, that artifact spirit remained perfectly in tune with my mind. After accompanying me for more than a thousand years, our bond grew extraordinarily close, and it helped me suppress countless greater monsters. If it were still with me, heh, I wouldn’t have been using the Heavenly King Seal against you today. You might not have been able to withstand it at all... In any case, sending it in was unquestionably the most suitable choice at the time.”

Hearing this, He Lingchuan immediately thought of Fleeting Life. A magical artifact could become like a kindred spirit. That was precisely the relationship between himself and Fleeting Life, and it had also been the relationship between Perfected Sanshui and the Spirit-Sealing Treasured Lid.

“This forging took even less time. Barely an hour after the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace began refining, I suddenly sensed the Spirit-Sealing Treasured Lid desperately calling to me for help!” Perfected Sanshui and the treasured lid had been connected mind to mind, allowing him to sense changes in its artifact spirit. “The Generous Pot was actually trying to swallow it! Not implant its spirit, not merge with it, but devour it!”

“Uh...” That hardly surprised He Lingchuan. He fed the Generous Pot things every few days.

But several thousand years ago, Perfected Sanshui and the others had known absolutely nothing about the Generous Pot’s nature, so naturally they had been utterly shocked.

“We were just preparing to halt the forging when the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace suddenly erupted.” Perfected Sanshui could not help but raise his voice as he added, “I still remember that apocalyptic scene to this day. Fortunately, we joined forces with Juju and ultimately managed to suppress the eruption. Otherwise, the Grand Return Sect’s headquarters and the entirety of Mount Shou’an would have been burned to ashes.”

Mount Shou’an was the mountain later known as Mount Xu. He Lingchuan listened silently, remembering the volcanic eruption he himself had caused while wreaking havoc on the Heavenly Palace.

Compared with what the Generous Pot had done back then, the trouble he had caused seemed positively minor.

“Only afterward did I learn that at the exact same time that earth fire erupted at Mount Shou’an, eleven other volcanoes within 25,000 kilometers also erupted, accompanied by earthquakes and tsunamis. Two island states to the south even sank beneath the sea entirely.”

“...It was that powerful?” No wonder he said the Generous Pot was refined three and a half times, so it’s because the fourth attempt was never completed.

“Juju went deep underground to investigate and discovered that the volcanic eruption had been caused by the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace rupturing and earth fire surging upward.” Perfected Sanshui shook his head. “Without the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace suppressing it, Mount Shou’an rarely enjoyed peace afterward.”

At that, realization suddenly dawned on He Lingchuan.

So that’s why the main peak of Mount Xu possesses such a spectacular ring-shaped lava lake!

When he had visited Tianshu Peak, he had found it unbelievable that the Heavenly Palace was actually built atop an active volcano.

It turned out the rupture of the Heaven-and-Earth Furnace had triggered the eruption of earth fire, creating that peculiar landscape.

No wonder both the later Grand Return Sect and the Heavenly Palace had treated Juju so lavishly. Apparently, from that point onward, only Juju had been capable of keeping the earth fire under control.