Refining Copper

"Looks like the choice back then was the right one. You truly would make a better Shushan Sect leader than I ever could."

After Chu Liang and the others carried off the unconscious little iron-eating beast, only High Person Wenyuan and Lu Cang remained in the mountain cave. After facing each other in silence for a long while, Lu Cang was the first to speak.

At last, a trace of emotion entered his voice, tinged with faint wistfulness.

"I want to know what you went through over these past hundred-odd years," Wenyuan asked.

The Lu Cang he remembered had been proud and unrestrained, sharp with ambition, brimming with the lofty spirit of an immortal sect's chosen prodigy. He had been determined to revive the Shushan Sect with his own hands.

But the Lu Cang before him now was like a cold river stone, without the slightest ripple to be seen.

What kind of experiences could change even a person's very nature?

"I cannot say." Lu Cang shook his head decisively.

"Then why did Master have you leave back then?" High Person Wenyuan asked again.

Lu Cang seemed to weigh his words before slowly replying, "Every few hundred years, the Divine Ruins Temple asks certain immortal sects of the mortal world for gifted disciples to become temple guardians. Every guardian may exchange one request with the Divine Ruins Temple. It is essentially a transaction."

"What did you obtain for the Shushan Sect?" Wenyuan asked. "Do I have the right to know?"

"You do." Lu Cang paused before continuing, "The Divine Ruins Temple cannot directly interfere with everything in the world, so it can only tell you one path toward achieving your request. It cannot guarantee success, only grant a glimmer of hope."

"What Father asked the Divine Ruins Temple for back