An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Chapter 1048: The Monarch's Inheritance

To mortals, anyone born with any kind of spirit roots was considered a potential immortal. Even if those people never practiced cultivation arts, ordinary martial training and a life free from serious injury or illness were enough to grant them longer lives than common people. Living past a hundred was nothing unusual. In the cultivation world, however, spirit roots were only the most basic requirement for cultivation. By themselves, they could hardly be considered a special constitution.

Luo Chen had found that cultivation aptitude came down to three factors: the spirit root, the divine soul, and the physique. There was not much to say about the spirit root part; the number and quality of one's spirit roots determined cultivation speed. It was as straightforward as it could get. There were certain nicknames for rare varieties, like heavenly spirit roots and anomalous spirit roots, but they all fell within the same regular framework.

Divine soul aptitude, meanwhile, encompassed a person's comprehension, temperament, innate soul foundation, and even the wisdom they might have retained from a previous life. It was an extremely complex matter. As for the physique part, that concerned the body's natural qualities—muscles and bones, meridians, acupoints, and so on. For example, someone like Li Yingzhang, with the Ninefold Winding Body, possessed meridians fundamentally different from those of ordinary people. Those born with the so-called divine strength were much the same; the structure and density of their bones and muscles were far beyond those of normal individuals.

These three forms of aptitude were not as clearly divided as they seemed at first glance. During infancy and childhood, in particular, they could influence and alter one another. Most commonly, variations could be triggered by the connection between spirit roots and the physique. The so-called Innate Geng Metal Sword Body, for example, arose when a metal spirit root's unusually high affinity with heaven and earth gradually reshaped the cultivator's physique through that connection.

That same affinity carried over toward weapons, lending such cultivators an almost instinctive control that made them just as deadly with a saber as with a sword. The name itself had nothing to do with the weapon they favored: "Saber Body" simply lacked the elegance of "Sword Body," and so the latter had become the common term. Correspondingly, constitutions such as the Nine Yang Divine Body and the Wood Spirit Body developed in much the same way. When a particular elemental spirit root was overwhelmingly dominant, it could gradually transform the body and even influence the cultivator's affinity for external objects.

Among all such special constitutions, the Five-Spirit Dao Body was undoubtedly one of the most incredible. Those who possessed it could cultivate in any of the five elemental paths with efficiency comparable to a heavenly spirit root cultivator devoted to a single element. They had virtually no restrictions regarding the cultivation arts they could practice, and after advancing to a higher realm, they could even change their core cultivation art without suffering any adverse effects.

The advantages of such a physique were difficult to overstate. Even if they cultivated all five elements at once, their speed would still surpass that of an ordinary cultivator with three or four spirit roots!

Luo Chen had learned of this physique from an ancient text of the Myriad Immortal Society. It described not only the constitution's characteristics, but also the various techniques previous generations had used to develop and make use of it. One detail, in particular, had left a particularly deep impression on him: cultivating multiple paths simultaneously! The Five-Spirit Dao Body could reconcile the clashing qualities between the five elemental spirit energies, allowing its practitioner to practice multiple techniques simultaneously.

As long as the cultivator did not mind a reduction in cultivation speed, then they could enjoy severalfold greater mana reserves. In battle, it also freed a cultivator from the usual restrictions of elemental compatibility. They could adapt to the situation, choose the most suitable element, and use elemental restrictions to overcome their opponent.

For this reason, anyone with the Five-Spirit Dao Body was regarded as a prodigy by the major sects. Any force would spare no resources in nurturing such disciples, and with sufficient support, the concern of slower cultivation became almost meaningless. These cultivators not only advanced quickly but also invariably possessed combat strength far beyond their peers.

As Luo Chen sat quietly in the spirit spring, he guided his mana through his body and found that the conversion between different elemental energies had become smoother than before. Even water and fire, which should have resisted one another, now flowed together with hardly any conflict.

Moreover, when cultivating, his speed now surpassed even the pseudo-heavenly spirit root effect granted by the Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Scripture. This fact alone filled Luo Chen with excitement. He lowered his gaze to look at the diluted spring water in his hand and fell into thought. This spirit spring is just... preposterous! My five-element spirit roots and ancient beast physique gave it something to work with, but what brought everything together to form the Five-Spirit Dao Body is definitely the water here!

However, this was not the time to study his newly developed physique, nor investigate the spring water itself. Luo Chen rose to his feet and stepped out of the small pool. It was only two zhang across, and when he reached its edge, he paused to look back at the glowing water with reluctance. "If I were a Sage, I could probably absorb all its power. What a waste... But it would be an even bigger waste to leave it here."

He sent a pulse of mana into the spirit beast pouches at his waist. They glowed faintly as Black King and Heavenjade emerged, their enormous bodies immediately making the dim chamber feel cramped.

"Make yourselves smaller."

Black King obediently shrank down, but Luo Chen still found him too large and had him reduce his body further. By the time he was about one zhang long, Black King was already groaning miserably. "Master, is this small enough? I can barely breathe."

Luo Chen gave a brief grunt, then looked at Heavenjade, who had taken human form. "Both of you, get in and soak."

Black King instinctively looked toward the steaming pool and asked, "In there?"

Heavenjade frowned. "With him?"

Such a rare opportunity lay before them, yet the two were still hesitating. Luo Chen could not be bothered with them; he merely swept his sleeve and tossed both of them into the pool. "How much you guys can absorb depends on yourselves. Make it quick. Don't hold me up."

He then turned and strode out of the dim side hall, leaving Black King and Heavenjade in the spring to stare at one another in bewilderment.

But very quickly, their confusion vanished. A powerful energy was pouring into their bodies. It seemed to contain boundless transformative power that reshaped their demon physiques.

The process was agonizing. Black King endured it somewhat better, while Heavenjade found the pain nearly unbearable. Even so, they gritted their teeth and endured. They could both sense that this power was not harming them. On the contrary, it was remaking their bodies in ways they could scarcely comprehend.

This might well be the greatest opportunity of their lives, and their master had given it to them just like that. Never in their lives had they experienced such generosity.

***

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Luo Chen's footsteps rang across the white jade floor as he moved through the palace at an unhurried pace. While he kept watch on the structures around him, part of his attention remained focused inward. Within his sea of qi, he placed his Golden Core back into the Primordial Unity Cauldron, positioning it so that he could unleash the Infinite Blaze Prison at any moment if he encountered danger. His movements were rather careful, because the Law Scrutiny Pill he had refined himself was still resting inside the Primordial Unity Cauldron. It would be best if the two did not collide.

After making the necessary adjustments, he turned his attention fully to the palace itself. Its overall style resembled the stone house from the trials earlier, yet in terms of detail, they were worlds apart. Even with his experience, he could not identify all the materials used in its construction, although he could easily tell that each was exceptionally precious and rare. These materials had been fused together so seamlessly that the entire palace seemed to have formed as a single natural whole.

Before long, three paths appeared ahead of him.

"Multiple choice again?" He followed his instincts and chose the one on the far right. After only a few breaths, he reached the end of the passage, where a faint but complex pill fragrance drifted from a side hall.

"Hm?"

Drawn by the scent, he pushed open the doors and found rows upon rows of empty wooden shelves stretching through the hall like a dense forest.

He crossed the distance in a flash, took down a jade bottle from the nearest shelf, and pulled out its stopper. To his surprise, there was... nothing inside. The anticipation that had risen in his heart vanished at once. This was clearly a hall for storing finished pills, but every bottle had been emptied. Even the formations meant to preserve the pills had fallen dormant after losing their source of spirit energy.

"What in the hell... Was it the cultivators of the devil sect? How did they even get inside?"

With a face full of regret, Luo Chen held a top-grade spirit stone and casually crushed it. Powder sifted through his fingers as he confirmed that the spirit energy within had long since been drained away, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.

This place must have contained tens of thousands of pills, perhaps even millions, enough to sustain a top-tier force for generations. If he had inherited such a reserve, he would never have needed to struggle for cultivation resources again. He could have lived off it for the rest of his life without exhausting it, especially if there had been high-tier pills like the Law Scrutiny Pill inside...

"Perhaps they created more than just the Law Scrutiny Pill. Even that one formula shows how extraordinary Heaven Refiner was. A fifth-tier pill was certainly not their limit. They could have reached the sixth tier... even the seventh..."

Even as he was murmuring to himself, the disappointment was impossible to miss. He withdrew from the side hall and closed its doors behind him, then returned to the three-way junction. After a brief hesitation, he chose the path on the far left. For some reason, he had a hunch that the middle path would either lead to the main hall or the exit. Before leaving, he wanted to explore a little more.

He followed the passage until another side hall came into view. Its carved beams and painted rafters were adorned with reliefs of exotic beasts, giving it a far grander appearance than the pill storage hall. Luo Chen drew a slow breath before pushing open its ancient doors. Like before, there were wooden shelves that filled the hall, but unlike those in the previous room, these had clearly been built to store books.

This time, he had not come for nothing. Although most of the hall was empty, more than a hundred protective barriers still shone among the shelves, each enclosing an item that had somehow survived both the passage of time and the greed of whoever had visited before. Their light reflected in Luo Chen's eyes as he quickly approached, but he soon slowed down. Every barrier contained a terrifying power, and he was not certain he could break even one with his current strength. Especially the one at the very back... On the tallest bookshelf, a blurry black page slowly floated in the air, radiating an aura that made Luo Chen wary of even looking at it.

Just as he hesitated, the hall seemed to sense his presence. One by one, the protective barriers withdrew until the shelves were left open before him.

"Did it recognize that I passed the inheritance trial?"

The aura of the spirit spring still lingered around him. After a moment of thought, Luo Chen walked to the nearest item and picked up a book made from silver beast hide. The moment it left the shelf, the faint light surrounding it faded away. When he slowly unfolded the hide, he found an alchemy art unlike any he had seen before. It was called the Withered Bone Art. It used beast bones as the catalyst, fused with the alchemist's essence blood, and then used the lives of living beings as fuel. According to the text, fresh resentment produced the best results.

"Why does this feel a little evil?"

Luo Chen put the book into his storage ring and turned to the next item. It was a book engraved upon a vicious ghost statue, titled Seventh Scroll of the Golden Ghoul Clan.

Luo Chen had read about fiends before. Allegedly, there were some kind of ghosts or evil spirits that haunted the Yellow Springs and the Netherworld. But a Golden Ghoul was something new.

"What in the world are those? Are they some kind of devils?"

He recalled the records from the third trial. They had briefly mentioned a devil race connected in some way to ordinary fiends, one known as the Golden Ghouls. If that was the case, then the text before him likely contained alchemical knowledge unique to their race.

He did not have time to examine the remaining items in detail. After putting away the Golden Ghoul text, he moved from shelf to shelf and collected everything he could, sweeping everything away as quickly as he could. Only when he reached a thick tome bound in black did he finally stop.

Its title was Heaven Refiner's Pill Codex.

Unless this was some kind of insane coincidence, this had to be an alchemy text personally written by Devil Lord Heaven Refiner.

Luo Chen stood in silence for a moment before looking up at the shelves that filled the hall. "Maybe this is what the inheritance is really about. Seventy-two alchemy books covering humans, demons, devils, and all kinds of lesser races. If someone masters all of them, becoming an alchemy grandmaster or even a Saint Alchemist is a matter of course. They might even take another step forward and comprehend the Laws of Alchemy..."

He began walking again, his hands moving quickly. The books on the shelves farther back were just as strange and varied, but their contents were much sparser. Rather than complete alchemy arts, they contained alchemical formulas, some whole and some incomplete. There were thirty-six in total, most of which he could examine freely. Their tier ranged from the first to the fifth, and the formula for the Law Scrutiny Pill was among them!

Although he could study the Law Scrutiny Pill formula, the other fifth-tier formulas remained sealed behind restrictive barriers that blocked his divine consciousness. The final three formulas drew his attention far more strongly—he likewise could not view them in full, but their names and tiers were still visible. One was the Spirit-Stabilizing Pill, while another was called Void Discernment Pill. Both were sixth-tier formulas, pills that only Monarchs could consume.

As for the final formula, just holding it caused Luo Chen to tremble. The page was completely shrouded in black mist, which blocked not only his divine consciousness and mana but even his sight. Yet as soon as he touched it, a single piece of information entered his mind: Eighth Tier, Dao Integration.

For a long moment, Luo Chen could not find the words to describe what he felt. He carefully placed the formula inside his Ink Ring, concealing it in the deepest corner and burying it among the many unremarkable books he had collected.

Only after securing it did he leave the side hall. Yet before stepping through the doors, he paused, turned back, and bowed deeply. Since he had received this inheritance, he had to offer the courtesy owed by a disciple to his master. Unfortunately, Heaven Refiner was not present. Otherwise, Luo Chen would have willingly performed the traditional ritual of kneeling three times and kowtowing nine times.[1]

"It's a pity I don't know the Monarch's true name. Devil Lord Heaven Refiner is only a Dao title. Otherwise, I would set up a headstone and offer incense in thanks so their soul could rest in peace."

Suppressing the excitement still churning within him, he retraced his steps to the three-way path. By the time he arrived, he had forced himself to calm down. There was only one path left, and it was time to see where it led.

Hence, he followed the final passage deeper into the palace until his footsteps stopped before the entrance to a large hall. The moment Luo Chen looked inside, the excitement he had only just managed to suppress surged up again.

A massive black cauldron stood at the center of the hall. Even with Luo Chen's knowledge of artifact creation, he could not determine its tier at all. All he could sense was the colossal pressure radiating from it, a pressure greater than anything he had encountered before! Whether it was Han Zhan and Defiant Howl, the Three Hermits, or even Nether Spring and Azure Frost, all of them seemed utterly insignificant before this. This was certainly no ordinary enchanted treasure, but something far beyond even the level of a True Artifact—was it a legendary spirit treasure?

"Could this be the actual, actual inheritance Heaven Refiner left behind for the alchemy lineage?"

A look of joy spread through his face as he walked toward the cauldron and slowly raised his right hand. Just as his fingers were about to touch its dark surface, a weak voice drifted out from within.

"You're here."

1. In Chinese tradition, this is the highest form of ceremonial respect reserved for emperors, deities, or ancestors. ☜