Within the secret realm, Zhou Yang sat cross-legged on the ground. A Golden Bead floated silently above his head, radiating golden firelight that illuminated the surroundings.
After more than a thousand years of nurturing by him, this damaged Seventh-tier Immortal Artifact had finally been restored to its utmost limit after his cultivation reached the Nascent Soul Ninth Layer, the realm of a "Half-step True Immortal."
The Qianyang Treasure Bead now possessed roughly fifty percent of its power at its peak. This was also nearly the limit of what it could restore on its own.
After all, its former master had long since perished.
In truth, as the Natal Artifact of a Tribulation Crossing True Immortal, the fact that it could still recover to such a degree countless years after its master's death was already something beyond the common sense of ordinary cultivators.
Zhou Yang had once found this highly puzzling as well, but he had never been able to discover the answer.
It was only after his cultivation broke through to the Nascent Soul Ninth Layer and he nurtured this Seventh-tier Immortal Artifact to its limit that he found some clues within it.
If Zhou Yang's guess was correct, some kind of Fire Element Innate Spiritual Item had likely been incorporated into this Seventh-tier Immortal Artifact during its forging.
It might even have been the Natal Artifact that True Immortal Qianyang had forged after ascending through tribulation, using some Fire Element Innate Spiritual Item as its material.
With True Immortal Qianyang's Tribulation Crossing Stage cultivation at the time, combined with certain information Zhou Yang had heard from his master, Donglai True Monarch, about True Immortal Qianyang's sect, it was entirely possible that he had possessed the opportunity to acquire an Innate Spiritual Item.
Innate Spiritual Items contained the innate origin