The First Immortal of Destiny

Vacuous Zone, Guanyun Mansion.

Shen Mo had just finished cultivating "The Sutra of Cloudy and Rainy from Wushan" with Zhao Lingyin. He rose, threw on a loose robe, took out some spiritual wine from the Sword Zone and gulped it down with loud "gurgling" sounds to relieve the parched dryness in his mouth and throat after cultivation!

Zhao Lingyin, however, did not immediately join him in drinking. Her beautiful eyes were tightly shut as she sat cross-legged upon the jade bed, beginning to circulate her energy and comb through the True Yuan in her body, stabilizing her newly increased cultivation.

After finishing the wine, Shen Mo suddenly seemed to recall something and flicked his hand lightly.

The underwear and magic robe on the bed fluttered up into the air and automatically fell onto Zhao Lingyin’s body, covering up that breathtaking spring scenery!

Right after, Sword Light flickered at his fingertips, and another wine gourd appeared in his hand. Sun, moon, Stars, mountains and rivers were engraved upon its surface; unlike the magic artifact wine gourd he had just used, this object was full of immortal charm—this was precisely the lower-grade Spiritual Treasure, the Drunken Immortal Pot.

Over a dozen years ago, when Shen Mo, together with the Silver-haired Child, Qin Zhen, Kang Haoxiu and the others, ventured into a True Immortal’s cave mansion, they encountered the Evil Spirit "Thirteen Immortal Preaching." Later, he braved the tiger’s den and snatched two lower-grade Spiritual Treasures from the hands of two "Disciple of the Immortal." One was the Ice Soul hairpin, which had already recognized Chen Mengze as its master, and the other was this wine pot in his hand.

At that time—

Kang Haoxiu unfortunately fell at the hands of the Longevity Demon Lord. Only Shen Mo, together with Lady Scarlet, with whom he had reunited, and the Silver-haired Child, Qin Zhen and a few others, escaped by casting the Skill [Reverse Yin and Yang].

As for Lady Scarlet, there was no need to say more; all these years she had remained within the Green Cloud Cave Fairyland cultivating.

Qin Zhen, after returning to the Mechanic Sect, also often exchanged Talisman messages with Shen Mo, so he still had a rough grasp of her movements...

Not long after she returned, she handed the "Longevity Pill" obtained from the Celestial Palace to her Master. Her Master ultimately could not resist the temptation of extending her Lifespan by a thousand years and swallowed this Pill; it is estimated that a thousand years from now she will turn into a piece of "longevity flesh." Qin Zhen, however, took it lightly, saying bluntly that when that time came she would personally burn her Master’s remain.

After that, the Jade Spring Fairy launched a campaign of conquest against the Corpse Mountain Range. Qin Zhen also led the Mechanic Sect to participate in this war. Relying on one powerful Class V puppet after another in her hands, she earned quite a few merits and used the Taihua Mirror to exchange for many top-tier spiritual materials to refine Class VI puppets.

According to her, she had already completed more than half the progress of a Class VI puppet and would likely be able to finish refining it completely within a hundred years.

The Silver-haired Child made a trip back to the Dragon-suppressing Sect, then rushed nonstop to Canluan Lake where the Kang Family resided, wanting to search for the remnant soul of Immortal Master Cizi and demand the return of his Storage Bracelet.

In the first few years, the Silver-haired Child often sent Talisman messages, cursing the Formless Realm cultivators of the Kang Family as utterly shameless, but in recent years, for some unknown reason, he suddenly stopped sending any news;

Shen Mo’s messages received no reply, and even True Master Bian of the Dragon-suppressing Sect could not get in contact with him!

Because the Silver-haired Child was not in the sect, the Dragon-suppressing Sect felt their own strength insufficient and had never participated in this campaign of conquest, thus they likewise failed to gain any benefit. Even now they still looked like a declining, dilapidated immortal sect; now that they had lost all news of the Silver-haired Child, the faint hope of revival they had finally obtained suddenly vanished, which only made True Master Bian and the other high-ranking figures of the immortal sect even more anxious.

For this, True Master Bian had come more than once to the Red Flame Sect to pay respects to Shen Mo, begging him to make a trip to Canluan Lake, to the Kang’s ancestral land, to help inquire about the whereabouts of the Silver-haired Child, but he was refused every time by Shen Mo!

Even if Immortal Master Cizi had only a single remnant soul left and no longer posed much of a threat, the Kang Family, as a cultivation family with a legacy of ten thousand years, still had a Formless Master sitting in town... The Silver-haired Child had most likely offended this person and been suppressed by that Kang Family patriarch.

Shen Mo would have to be stuffed full and bored to go all the way to Canluan Lake to inquire about the Silver-haired Child’s whereabouts. For all he knew, he might end up with the same fate of "no news at all"!

...

Retracting his wandering thoughts, Shen Mo’s gaze returned once more to the Drunken Immortal Pot.

"Spirit of the Drunken Immortal Pot, it’s been nearly twenty years since you fell into my hands, hasn’t it? All these years I’ve treated you as a Lifebound Magical Artifact. Whenever I had free time, I used Skills to help you enhance your spirituality, allowing you to recover quite a bit of immortal charm..."

"Now my patience is nearly exhausted. Do you truly still refuse to recognize me as your master?"

Facing Shen Mo’s questioning, the Drunken Immortal Pot did not make the slightest movement, like an ordinary magic treasure that had never birthed an Artifact Spirit!

"Very well then!"

"Since you are so unwilling, I won’t force you. A pity for the spiritual pulp brewed in this pot for three thousand years."

Shen Mo let out a sigh. Samadhi True Fire emerged out of thin air in his hand, exuding a terrifying scorching aura, and began to lick at the body of the pot.

In order to preserve the grade of the Drunken Immortal Pot and the spiritual wine that had been brewing within it for three thousand years, Shen Mo had never scattered the pot’s Artifact Spirit or forcibly refined this lower-grade Spiritual Treasure; but no matter how high the grade of a magic treasure, no matter how wondrous its effects, if it ultimately could not be used by him, it was not as good as an ordinary profound artifact! After forcibly refining it, at worst he needed to repair it a bit, then supplement it with the Skill [Spiritual Wisdom] to nurture it. After many years, there was a great chance it would advance to become a Spiritual Artifact!

The flames of Samadhi True Fire roared fiercely, burning until spirit light splashed chaotically from the Drunken Immortal Pot.

This fire was not as violent as Pure Yang Fire, but it could burn the soul, forcibly refining away the remaining soul marks of the previous owner within a magic treasure.

Under the scorching of the flames, the pot’s Artifact Spirit let out a wail of agony;

It continuously sent out Divine Sense, pleading miserably with Shen Mo for mercy, yet on the matter of recognizing a master it still refused to yield!

Shen Mo drank the spiritual wine on his own, his expression unchanged, without the slightest fluctuation... As long as the Artifact Spirit abandoned its protection of the previous owner’s soul mark and allowed him to refine it, it would not suffer the slightest harm.

No one knew how long had passed when even the pot’s body had been burned bright red, like a piece of glowing charcoal;

Just as the Artifact Spirit was about to dissipate, the entire body of the pot gave a slight tremor. The soul mark left behind by that short, plump rich merchant, the previous owner of the Drunken Immortal Pot, instantly collapsed. At the same time, Samadhi True Fire branded Shen Mo’s mark into the core of the Drunken Immortal Pot!

Then, with a single thought, Shen Mo withdrew the Samadhi True Fire, reached out to grab the Drunken Immortal Pot, and began to nourish it with his own power of chaotic Yuan and the Skill [Spiritual Wisdom].

"That is the wise choice!"

"Your previous owner already fell three thousand years ago. Even if you painstakingly brewed this pot of fine wine, he can no longer taste it..."

"Now that you have recognized me as your master, I will naturally seek out Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and elixir and herb for you, allowing you to display the value you ought to possess, so that you can ceaselessly advance toward a celestial treasure!"

The Artifact Spirit of the pot slowly recovered, letting out a few weak groans.

Shen Mo did not care about its unwilling attitude; at this point the Drunken Immortal Pot was already his Lifebound Magical Artifact. He had never heard of any Artifact Spirit that could feign obedience while actually defying the will of its artifact owner.

Next, he tilted the pot slightly and poured the spiritual wine that had been brewing in the Drunken Immortal Pot for more than three thousand years into a wine cup.

"Gurgle, gurgle!"

The nectar, like Gold amber, fell like a celestial spring, exuding an incomparably rich fragrance of wine. Even Zhao Lingyin, who was still circulating her energy, wrinkled her delicate nose slightly, attracted over by this aroma of wine.

"Husband, this is..."

Zhao Lingyin was not someone greedy for drink. She would occasionally have a small drink with Shen Mo, but at this moment, smelling the fragrance of the spiritual wine, she couldn’t help swallowing a mouthful of saliva.