An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Hiss!

A wisp of azure flame appeared around his hand and flowed along the shaft. Under the heat of the Withering-Flourishing True Fire, the concealment surrounding its material gradually burned away, revealing an aura so dense and immovable that it seemed to carry the weight of the earth itself.

Luo Chen was astonished. ”Primordial Weight Heavenly Mountainstone!”

According to ancient records, this stone was essentially a meteorite that had fallen from beyond the heavens. Though the stone itself had not been especially large, no one could move it after it struck the earth. Its impossible weight and celestial origin had earned it the name Primordial Weight Heavenly Mountainstone.

That also explained why the halberd’s grade was so low. The stone gave the halberd its overwhelming weight, but its unyielding nature made carving formations into it exceptionally difficult. Even Flying Cloud had been unable to refine it any further.

Luo Chen was still considering its potential when the azure flames suddenly surged across the shaft. The surface of the halberd began to soften under the heat. ”Wait—stop!”

He hurriedly beckoned for the Withering-Flourishing True Fire to withdraw. The fire sprite had gotten carried away and had nearly melted the halberd!

Luo Chen fixed it with a stern look. ”Yes, I know you’re powerful. Are you satisfied now?”

The flame had become unusually active ever since it awakened sentience. He had suppressed its spirituality in the past, but after forming his Nascent Soul, he no longer felt the need to restrain it so heavily and had allowed its spirit to grow on its own. Unfortunately, that newfound freedom seemed to be making it increasingly uncontrollable.

Ignoring the flame’s aggrieved reaction, Luo Chen planted the halberd into the ground. He would need to spend some time refining it, but once that was done, it would give him another powerful option in battle.

”Whoa, my luck really is something, isn’t it?”

With the halberd set aside, he turned his attention to the spirit stones Flying Cloud had left behind. Their combined value came to roughly 500 million low-grade spirit stones. Adding the thirty thousand top-grade spirit stones he had obtained earlier brought his total fortune to an astonishing 800 million. In fact, even that figure did not include the ten supreme-grade spirit stones he had taken from Han Zhan. Treasures of that caliber were strategic resources rather than ordinary currency, and their true value could not be meaningfully measured in low-grade spirit stones.

Luo Chen clicked his tongue in amazement. ”I guess it’s true. No one gets rich without a windfall. I spent years carefully managing everything I had, but spirit stones kept coming in and going right back out. Even if I had another two hundred years, I probably wouldn’t have saved this much. But after just a few life-or-death battles, I’m suddenly rich as hell. A few more of these and I’ll never have to worry about spirit stones again.”

Despite his satisfaction, he had no intention of pursuing wealth this way again. Every windfall he had seized had come at the risk of his life, and no amount of wealth was worth courting that danger again.

Before resuming his cultivation, he placed his imprint on Flying Cloud’s belt and changed its color to red. Once it was securely fastened around his waist, he settled down and returned to cultivation.

***

Years passed as Dragon Abyss Island entered the final stretch of its decline. After one last resurgence, the island’s spirit energy began to drain away into the sky, the land, and the surrounding sea. The island’s formations depended on those veins for power, so as the veins weakened, the formations faded with them. Dragon Abyss Island had long passed the height of its prosperity. Its inevitable collapse had begun.

Luo Chen’s long seclusion, however, was bearing fruit. In the third year after stabilizing his cultivation, he had improved the Azure Yang Great Handprint and broken through the restrictions on Han Zhan’s storage pouch. Two years later, he had opened Flying Cloud’s storage belt and reaped an astronomical harvest from it. By the seventh year, he had completely refined the True Artifact Soul-Summoning Banner.

The Penglai Eightspire Pavilion, on the other hand, was far more troublesome. He had spent much of the eighth year attempting to refine it, but everything he tried ended in failure. He eventually abandoned everything else and turned instead to a ritual refinement technique Han Zhan had used. Although the technique did not grant him complete possession of the pavilion, it allowed him to at least control it to a certain degree.

The difficulty lay in the pavilion’s background. It was a True Artifact of the Penglai Immortal Sect, and though the sect had never fully entrusted it to a single person, generations of cultivators had layered it with countless restrictions upon it. With Luo Chen’s attainments, unraveling them all and completely refining the pavilion would take several decades. For now, the control he had gained was more than enough.

By the ninth year, he watched as the progress bar for his cultivation technique filled to Grandmaster (1000/1000). The entry flickered and then transformed into the words Perfected Mastery.

Hmmm... Nothing?

Unable to detect any changes, he began cultivating once more. The scarcity of spirit energy around him made it easier to judge the technique’s efficiency, so he divided his attention and carefully tracked the flow entering his body.

The result immediately put him at ease. Luo Chen let out a relieved breath. ”It’s drawing in half again as much as before. The improvement isn’t huge, but it should be just enough to support my cultivation in this realm. That means I don’t need to rush to replace my core cultivation technique anymore.”

The Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Scripture truly deserved its reputation as the foremost fire-attribute cultivation technique. Even though he possessed only the Golden Core Chapter, reaching Perfected Mastery had elevated his absorption efficiency enough to meet the basic needs as a Sage.

Yet the improvement did not end there. As he continued drawing in the ambient spirit energy, he sensed a subtle change in the way the fire-attribute spirit energy responded to him.

When Luo Chen unfolded his Nascent Soul Domain, every scattered stream of fire-attribute spirit energy surged toward him. The pressure of his domain flooded the abyss and settled over everything within it. Certain of what he was sensing, he extended a hand and called out, ”Come out.”

The next moment, the Withering-Flourishing True Fire emerged cautiously. It trembled under his gaze before tentatively extending several of its branches toward him.

”Just as I thought.”

Luo Chen’s eyes brightened and guided the branches into his Domain. In an instant, an intense destructive power began spreading outward. Stone softened wherever it passed, while rocks throughout the cavern began melting under the rapidly rising temperature.

Not wanting to damage the cavern any further, he flew out and rose into the sky.

”Black King!”

Black King, who had been cultivating on the island, looked up. ”Master, are you testing another technique?”

Luo Chen smiled down at him. ”This one’s simple. Reinforce your whole body with origin energy and see if you can withstand my Infinite Blaze Prison.”

Black King agreed without much concern. Nascent Soul Domains had little effect on archaic beasts because their origin energy naturally resisted a Domain’s restraining force. Luo Chen had discovered this long ago and had already taught him how to use that resistance properly.

Now, faced with the prison, Black King waited calmly for it to fall. However, his expression soon changed when he saw wisps of green smoke rising from his body. ”How’s that possible?”

Hoooooo...

Luo Chen slowly exhaled as he scrutinized the flame cage with joy in his eyes.

Now he understood where the technique’s true transformation lay. The increase in cultivation speed was modest and merely kept the Golden Core Chapter viable at his current cultivation. Far more valuable was the extraordinary authority it granted him over fire. He could command fire-attribute spirit energy that had never been refined or marked by him, and even tangible flames bent to his will as though the technique placed him above them by nature.

The Withering-Flourishing True Fire made that authority undeniable. Since awakening its spirit, the flame had grown so out of control that Luo Chen had recently been forced to rebuke it. Now it trembled before him and submitted completely to his control.

That absolute obedience allowed him to weave the true fire directly into the Infinite Blaze Prison. The fusion did more than strengthen the domain’s flames; it also carried over the true fire’s innate ability to consume the life force of living creatures, transforming the prison into something far more dangerous than a simple means of suppression. It had developed an entirely new divine ability, which Luo Chen promptly named Void Melting.

Any foreign energy caught within the domain would gradually burn away. Even spirit energy of other attributes could not withstand its influence; Black King’s origin energy, which normally allowed him to resist the restraints of a domain, had already begun to erode.

The advantage this would grant Luo Chen in battle was enormous. Once Luo Chen unleashed the Infinite Blaze Prison, his opponent would gradually lose the ability to draw upon ambient spirit energy, while every trace of fire-attribute spirit energy would remain under Luo Chen’s command. His enemy would grow weaker with every passing moment, while his own power continued to rise. Under such conditions, victory would be all but assured.

”A hundred years of hard cultivation... and it was all worth it!”

That was no exaggeration. A full century had passed since he first obtained the Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Scripture and began cultivating it. None of the techniques or secret arts he had learned throughout his life had demanded so much time and persistence. Now that he had finally reached Perfected Mastery, the reward had surpassed his expectations.

I wonder what surprises the Nascent Soul chapter holds....

He indulged in the thought for a moment before returning to the abyss.