Green Lotus

Rooted on a fragment of the Immortal Ascension Cauldron, the Green Lotus Immortal Medicine swayed its crystalline emerald lotus flowers.

Sensing the arrival of a Great Emperor, the Green Lotus instinctively showed goodwill. Its petals bloomed with divine radiance, opening to their fullest, conjuring a phantom multicolored rainbow bridge.

"It hasn't developed sentience yet, only a spark of spiritual light has been born, obscure and difficult to comprehend."

Zhang Huan observed the Green Lotus's Origin Source, seeing only a few flickering points of spiritual light.

It would take much longer for this Immortal Medicine to develop an independent consciousness.

"It seems I've come too early; the Green Emperor's consciousness hasn't been born yet."

Zhang Huan deeply regretted not being able to witness the Green Emperor's true form.

He communicated with the Immortal Medicine and plucked the blooming lotus flower.

Its fragrance was intoxicating, refreshing the mind. The dozen or so crystalline lotus seeds on it were multicolored, the essence of the entire Immortal Medicine, its gestation period unknown.

A single lotus flower wouldn't harm its foundation, no different from picking fruit.

Without the pressure of the petals, the stem straightened, and the top began to condense essence anew. In a thousand years, it would form another bud and bloom brilliantly.

When the Green Emperor eventually shed his Immortal Medicine form and became a living being, the Green Lotus Immortal Medicine would cease to exist in the world.

The lotus flower in Zhang Huan's hand would be a swan song, the only one of its kind, incredibly precious.

The Green Emperor, the first Great Emperor of the desolate ancient era, was astonishingly talented. He desired to enter the Desolate Pagoda from the Immortal Domain. He did not die even by the time Ye Fan became an Emperor.

Later, he joined forces with Ye Fan to forge an immortal path, after which all news of them ceased.

The Immortal Medicine instinctively drew near to the Great Emperor, unafraid. After offering a radiant lotus flower, it swayed its roots.

It was unique among Immortal Medicines. While other Immortal Medicines were limited by the heavens and earth, they possessed the intelligence of a three or four-year-old child.

This one, however, only had instincts and no intellect, showing a clear gap compared to other Immortal Medicines.

Perhaps some anomaly in the distant past caused it to become this way.

Or perhaps it was because it wished to shed its Immortal Medicine form and truly become a living being, choosing to break and then rise, currently in the process of developing sentience.

It gestured instinctively, but its intentions were unclear. Seeing this, Zhang Huan touched it with his hand, his Spiritual Sense delving into its Origin Source.

By searching for its unforgotten memory fragments, he could piece together information and understand its needs.

Perhaps he could uncover its past origins and learn something.

His soul traversed darkness, surrounded by mirrors, all blank.

Its memories had been almost completely erased. Exploring deeper, he found scenes of the Immortal Transformation Pond. It had fallen here long ago, rooting itself on a bronze block.

The Green Lotus Immortal Medicine whispered to itself that it no longer wanted to live in a daze.

At some point, a persistent obsession drove it to do this: to become a cultivator again, to cultivate to a certain realm, and to repay a karmic debt.

These were the only scenes in its entire memory, simple and not what Zhang Huan had hoped to see.

Considering the Green Emperor's extraordinary nature and its potential past self, perhaps the obsession in the Green Emperor's memories and the unknown karma were all related to this.

After a while, Zhang Huan opened his eyes, lost in thought.

"I will bestow upon you some fortune; you must repay me in the future."

He pointed a finger, helping it condense its sentience, and wrote several targeted scriptures on the ground.

While not peerless scriptures like Emperor Scriptures, they were compatible with it and most effective.

Zhang Huan did not shy away from his intentions. He was helping it precisely to incur its favor, with the aim of receiving a more profound repayment from the Green Emperor in the future.

Otherwise, he could have simply taken the Immortal Medicine. What did the Green Emperor have to do with him?

He stepped into the Immortal Transformation Pond, searching for immortal treasures.

The water shimmered, flowing with divine light, like a pool of jade nectar, its swirling mist dazzling, exuding an aura of peace.

He waded into the pond, searching, and retrieved some passable treasures.

The immortal treasures in the pond were not sufficiently astonishing. Compared to the grand reputation of the Immortal Transformation Pond, they fell short.

There were no materials truly related to immortals, at most fragments of ancient Emperor Weapons, materials that could forge Emperor Weapons, or remnants of Immortal Medicines. Their value was incomparable to the bronze block.

"The Immortal Transformation Pond contains immortal destiny, it seems the reputation is exaggerated and undeserved."

Zhang Huan sighed. It bore the name of "immortal" but had no connection to it. It seemed to be mere exaggeration passed down by cultivators.

This place was indeed a treasure trove for most cultivators, but its value for Ancient Great Emperors was not as significant.

Zhang Huan regretfully rose and departed, without any lingering attachment, and stepped into the eternal dragon's lair.

He took out the Mysterious Bird Egg obtained from the Underworld and cleansed its foundation with the Qinling dragon qi.

He irrigated it with the Life Spring, nourishing its body and soul, thereby completing its innate deficiencies.

A single drop of an Ancient Great Emperor's Life Spring could revive the dead and regenerate flesh and bone, possessing supreme mystique.

Golden patterns gradually appeared on the Mysterious Bird's eggshell, ascending from bottom to top, evolving into innate Dao principles and interpreting the profound mysteries of its Origin Source.

With a cry, the Mysterious Bird hatched from its egg. It was palm-sized and, from birth, had feathers that spread outwards from yellow to red.

It resembled a divine bird, similar to a phoenix, with a rooster's beak. Its wings flapped, and its tail trailed a long section of yellow and red feathers in the air.

Heaven and Earth bestowed auspicious signs, as if celebrating its birth, opening paths of luck flowers that merged into its body.

Zhang Huan focused his gaze, seeing through the innate symbols the Mysterious Bird had evolved from its origin since birth, closely tied to luck, and profoundly mysterious.

"Does luck truly exist, or is it an illusion?"

Zhang Huan murmured to himself, if it truly existed, was it a substance or a rule?

If one could control it, wouldn't they be blessed by the goddess of fortune from the start?

All misfortune in the world would avoid them, and laws would become ineffective before it, overturning the rules of heaven and earth.

Zhang Huan deduced using the Mysterious Bird's innate divine ability, attempting to uncover the operational laws of luck.

If it could truly disregard even rules, truly warding off misfortune and attracting blessings, why would the Mysterious Bird, an embodiment of luck, fall into the hands of the Underworld, its fate so arduous?

"So that's how it is, 'Qi' is for change, and 'Yun' is for encounters."

When Qi gathers, accumulating to a certain amount can cause change; when encountering matters, luck determines the mitigation, whether it's fortune or disaster, allowing for preparedness in the unseen.

Substantively, it's a Dao that includes arithmetic and divination, a method of cultivation.

Luck has differences in quality and quantity, similar to a cultivator's strength; encountering irresistible disasters would leave one as helpless as duckweed in water.

Following the natural order of the Heavenly Dao, luck is merely another path of cultivation.

Zhang Huan planned to combine it with his own divination techniques in the future to create a new technique.

Placing the little Mysterious Bird on his shoulder, Zhang Huan followed the Dragon Vein out of the Qinling Mountains and found more medicinal herbs and divine materials in the Big Dipper.

When he went to the Divine City, his disguised appearance was sketched and posted on the walls of various cities in the Eastern Wasteland as a wanted poster.

He knew without a doubt that the Ji Family was behind it, so Zhang Huan went directly to the Void Mirror.

The descendants of the Ji Family were so incompetent that it felt ashamed, but it and these old relics needed to slumber, leaving it truly powerless.

The supreme aristocratic families held high positions and power, and with their vast numbers, corruption was bound to arise, which it had foreseen long ago, even issuing decrees through a certain Holy Lord to address it. However, the effect was minimal, with countermeasures arising at every level.