Chapter 1239, Artifact Spirit

In terms of Artifact Refining materials, Yang Kai had collected a ton.

Of the hundreds of stone chambers, not all were as empty as the one Yang Kai initially searched. Some of them contained large stacks of ores and materials used in Artifact Refining.  There were also some unusual materials which had been preserved all these years without suffering any damage.

And the quantity of all of them was massive.

With hundreds of stone rooms, even if only one-tenth of them contained items, that was not a sum to be underestimated.

Yang Kai was only dissatisfied because the harvest was somewhat different from his expectations, at least, the harvest did not yield anything precious.

However, after searching through these stone chambers, Yang Kai noticed an interesting pattern.  The deeper he went, the purer and more intense the fire aura gathered in each room.

This was easy to understand though, as naturally, the further down one went, the closer one would get to the source of the Earth Lung Fire Pond. When Yang Kai began refining the Profound Yin Sunflower Water, he would obviously need to pick a chamber as far down as possible.

Two days later, Yang Kai finally reached the deepest part of Earth Lung Fire Pond, where only two unexplored chambers remained.

These two artificial caves were built at an impressive depth and at first glance, were clearly meant for the Sect’s finest Artifact Refiners. The two entrances to these caves weren’t opposite of one another but instead, placed side by side. The openings both seemed empty, without significant difference to those above. But after searching through so many of these chambers, Yang Kai knew that without carefully exploring them, he wouldn’t be able to tell if there was something of value inside.

Hoping for some more gains, Yang Kai randomly chose the cave on the left and leapt inside like an arrow released from its string.

The next moment, Yang Kai appeared inside the long straight cave and after stabilizing his stance, began walking inside.

Surprisingly, this tunnel seemed to be a few thousand meters long.  Yang Kai walked for quite a while, yet still did not reach the end.  While surprised by this development, it also raised his expectations. Sure enough, this cave was built for the best Artifact Refiners in this Sect as it was clearly constructed differently. All that remained was to see if there was anything good left inside.

After walking a couple thousand meters deeper, Yang Kai suddenly saw a touch of soft white light illuminating up ahead.  This light couldn’t be described as brilliant but instead gentle. It seemed to have some soul calming effects to it. When Yang Kai saw this white light, he couldn’t help but relaxing.

Picking up his pace again, Yang Kai rushed forward and soon arrived inside a huge stone room.

This stone chamber was more than ten times larger than any of the hundreds of stone chambers he had explored over the past two days and even though he was quite deep underground at the moment, Yang Kai felt the air here was still clean and clear, without the slightest stagnant taste. All in all, it was incomparable to the other stone rooms.

All of the other stone chambers, to varying degrees, had a gloomy, depressing air about them.

Around this stone room were eight fist-sized white orbs that were emitting the soft white light.  Just basking in these lights was able to soothe one’s soul and quiet one’s mind.

Yang Kai raised his brow as he glanced around at these eight orbs before scanning the rest of the room.

However, after probing this stone chamber, Yang Kai let out a disappointed sigh.  With how grand and magnificent this stone chamber was, Yang Kai had expected there to be many treasures inside.

How could he have known though that this stone room was like most of the others, completely empty. Except for the huge Artifact Refining Furnace at the centre.

The Spirit Array engraved in this stone room was still running, extracting the purest Fire Attribute energy from the Earth Lung Fire Pond to heat this huge furnace unceasingly for tens of thousands of years.

When Yang Kai’s eyes landed on this Artifact Refining Furnace though, they immediately lit up and a grin appeared on his face.

He found that this Artifact Refining Furnace was still intact, completely undamaged!

He had previously found hundreds of Artifact Refining Furnaces in those stone rooms, but every single one of them had been transformed into scrap after being baked for tens of thousands of years.

There were even a number of Origin King Grade furnaces among them, which made Yang Kai particularly distressed.

But now, he had found an intact Artifact Refining Furnace here. No matter how it had survived all these years, what was certain was that this Artifact Refining Furnace’s grade was not low, at least Origin King Grade.

Only this grade of Artifact Refining Furnace had any chance of surviving all these years.

While Yang Kai rejoiced, he quickly began searching for the control panel for the stone room’s Spirit Array.

Unlike other stone chambers though, which only had one stone table serving as a control terminal for this Spirit Array. There were four such tables in this stone chamber.  It took Yang Kai some time to completely shut down this Spirit Array completely.

Yang Kai hadn’t cultivated an Ice or Cold Attribute Secret Art, nor did he have an artifact with such an attribute, so he could only wait for the temperature in this Artifact Refining Furnace to naturally fall.

About a day later, the crimson halo surrounding the Artifact Refining Furnace gradually dispersed, and although it still looked hot, with Yang Kai strength, he was not afraid.

Quickly walking over to the Artifact Refining Furnace, Yang Kai swept it with his Divine Sense and found that it was as exactly as he expected.  This Artifact Refining Furnace was really Origin King Grade, but the quality was so high he couldn’t judge its exact rank.  From what he could see, it shouldn’t be any lower than Origin King Grade Mid-Rank.  The Artifact Refining Furnace itself was about five meters tall and had a three leg, two handle design, but unlike all the previous Artifact Refining Furnaces Yang Kai had previously come across, instead of dragon and phoenix patterns, a strange bird was the only design emblazoned on its surface.

Yang Kai stared at this Artifact Refining Furnace for a while but couldn’t identify what this strange bird was. It looked somewhat like a phoenix, but also somewhat like a crane.  It had a long beak, powerful claws, and three long tail-feathers that seemed both elegant and beautiful. All of this bird features were exquisitely defined and incredibly lifelike, almost as if it could leap out from the surface of this Artifact Refining Furnace at any moment.

Examining it carefully, Yang Kai reviewed all the information he had read in the ancient books in Zong Ao’s library, trying to identify what strange Monster Beast it was supposed to be, but when his eyes landed on this strange bird’s eyes, his brow furrowed.

For an instant, Yang Kai felt as if this strange bird was staring back at him.

However, when he looked closer, Yang Kai found that this strange bird was exactly the same as before, without a trace of vitality, which confused him.

But having sensed something a moment ago, Yang Kai didn’t dare act sloppily.  Who knew if there was something unusual about this Artifact Refining Furnace?  Intensifying his Divine Sense output, Yang Kai carefully inspected the interior of this Artifact Refining Furnace and quickly determined that there was nothing else but a pool of burnt materials within it, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.

This Artifact Refining Furnace was an amazing find, not something to be missed. Alchemy couldn’t be performed in such a massive furnace, and since he obtained his Conflagration Knowledge Sea, he rarely used his Saint Qi to perform Alchemy. After his Saint Qi had transformed into Demonic Flame, he had completely ceased using his Qi to perform Alchemy.

However, this thing could be brought back for Yang Yan to use. Although she had the Stone Puppet and didn’t need to worry about quenching materials, the later steps in the refining process such as forging and engraving still required a good Artifact Refining Furnace.

Yang Yan had helped him a lot, going all out to arrange powerful Spirit Arrays and refine artifacts. The two of them also shared secrets like the Stone Puppet and Space Spirit Crystal lode, so even if this Artifact Refining Furnace was of Origin King Grade, Yang Kai would not be stingy with it.

Having made a decision, Yang Kai released his Divine Sense to wrap up this huge Artifact Refining Furnace in preparation to move it into his Space Ring.

At that moment though, an unexpected change occurred.  The Artifact Refining Furnace, which had almost completely cooled down by now, suddenly began shaking and a mass of astonishingly hot flames burst out from it.  These flames immediately began incinerating Yang Kai’s Divine Sense.

Yang Kai was incredibly shocked by this development and hurriedly took back his Divine Sense, but even so, he suffered a loss with almost half of the Divine Sense threads he had released being burnt to ash.

As his face paled, Yang Kai’s heart filled with astonishment!

His Divine Sense was composed of Conflagrated Spiritual Energy and was extremely hot.  Even before discovering this Earth Lung Fire Pond, when he was probing the fifth layer, his Divine Sense hadn’t been destroyed this fast. Yet, the flames coming from this furnace were able to instantly incinerate it. Didn’t this mean that the flames coming from this furnace were countless times more powerful than those in the fifth layer?

Moreover, the flames that appeared seem both nimble and agile. After repulsing Yang Kai’s Divine Sense, they instantly vanished, as if everything just now had been some kind of illusion.

Yang Kai naturally knew this wasn’t some kind of hallucination though. With the splitting headache he currently felt, how could everything have simply been an illusion?

Before Yang Kai could even begin trying to figure out what had just happened, the strange bird carved onto the surface of the Artifact Refining Furnace came to life, its elegant body flew out from the Artifact Refining Furnace and transformed into a beautiful Scarlet Firebird.  An astonishing heat fiercely radiated from this strange bird and after flying a small circle around the furnace, it dove straight towards Yang Kai.

With an expression that was a mix of shock and pain, Yang Kai exclaimed, “Artifact Spirit!”

Yang Kai immediately understood why the flames just now had seemed so nimble.  He also realized that it wasn’t just his imagination that the bird was spying on him a moment ago, it actually was! Yang Kai hadn’t been able to detect it because this Firebird didn’t have a physical form.

It was an Artifact Spirit, an Artifact Spirit born from this Artifact Refining Furnace. Yang Kai didn’t know if it had originally existed together with this furnace or if it had slowly formed after being exposed to the burning heat of the Earth Lung Fire Pond for tens of thousands of years.

But remember that this was an Artifact Spirit of an Origin King Grade artifact, Yang Kai’s heart sank.

Yang Kai had fought many people and had seen various high-end and low-end artifacts, but never had he encountered an artifact with such a powerful Artifact Spirit.

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Artifact Spirits were extremely rare existences to begin with.

Firstly, the conditions for them to be born were very harsh and it required a great amount of luck. Secondly, it took a long time for them to form. Any artifact with an Artifact Spirit was at least a thousand years old.