For a long while.
Lei Zhan lowered the book he had been holding.
"Master."
"Senior Big Bear."
Lei Zhan rose to his feet and looked toward his master, Immortal Juhua, and Yellow-Haired Great Bear beside him.
"Mm. Not bad!" Immortal Juhua nodded with satisfaction. "You've now even made a start on the Dao of Kan Water. If you incorporate it into your spear art as well, your strength will grow further."
Lei Zhan nodded. The spear art created by Red Snow Celestial God could guide cultivators to gradually comprehend multiple Great Daos, but profound techniques and secret arts were mysterious by nature; there was no need to follow them step by step forever.
In the end, he would have to forge his own path and comprehend a "Red Snow" spear art of his own. Incorporating a Dao like the Dao of Kan Water was only natural.
"Lei Zhan." Immortal Juhua looked at his sole disciple. "During your adventures in the North Dark Sea, did you come across anything special?"
"Hmm?" Lei Zhan froze, as if something had occurred to him.
"After returning to the Water Mansion, I kept sensing something unusual about a strange object I came across by chance. I was just about to take it out and ask you and Senior Big Bear to examine it."
As he spoke, Lei Zhan turned his hand over, and a token riddled with cracks appeared in his palm. It was broken, only a third the size of an ordinary token, and seemed to be made of bronze, yet it gave off a faint, ancient aura.
The token in Lei Zhan's hand trembled continuously, glowing with a faint light.
"So it really was this thing!" Immortal Juhua smiled faintly. With a thought, another broken bronze token appeared out of thin air.
This piece was slightly larger than the one in Lei Zhan's hand. It looked as if two fragments of different sizes had somehow pieced themselves together.
"When I was still at the Primordial Spirit Daoist level, I happened upon a small fragment of this token in a minor world."
Immortal Juhua spoke unhurriedly. "If not for its aura, which resembled that of a cave-mansion token, I might have tossed it away without a second thought."
"Later, after becoming a Loose Immortal, I followed the fragment's guidance and found another piece in the North Dark Sea. That made it look the way it does now."
"But..." Lei Zhan looked at his master, Immortal Juhua. "Since the token can sense the others on its own, why didn't you keep searching? Anything that resembles a cave-mansion token and gives off such an ancient aura must be tied to a great opportunity."
Immortal Juhua shook his head.
"Opportunities aren't so easy to come by. Luck, fortune, and all sorts of other things determine whether you can obtain one."
"Your master searched for millions of years and found only two pieces. The one you found must also be somewhere in the North Dark Sea, but during all my years here, I never sensed it in the slightest."
Fortune was difficult to explain.
You couldn't see it or touch it, but it certainly existed.
Those with great fortune were favored by Heaven and Earth. Even a mortal being might stumble upon a heaven-defying treasure through sheer luck! They might even happen to offer a bowl of water to an old man who turned out to be some mighty figure of the Three Realms.
Lei Zhan could only shake his head helplessly. Fortune really was an unreasonable thing.
Immortal Juhua waved his hand, and the fragment hovering in the air flew into Lei Zhan's hand.
Crack—
Crack—
The two ancient tokens, originally from the same source, seemed suddenly impatient. They trembled before the three of them, then slowly fused together.
"Judging by this, at least one more fragment is still out there." Immortal Juhua watched. He had seen this scene once before, so the token's strange properties no longer surprised him.
Click—
The token seemed to have a life of its own. It pieced itself together at incredible speed, becoming whole in the blink of an eye.
"This is..." Yellow-Haired Great Bear had been watching with little interest, but the moment he saw the God-Devil Script on the token, his expression turned grave.
"Wu... Golden Crow?" Immortal Juhua examined the characters closely.
Two characters in God-Devil Script were carved on the token. The character "Wu" had become clear and complete. The other was still somewhat blurry, but upon closer inspection, they could make out another ancient character: "Jin"!
"Golden Crow?" Lei Zhan was also taken aback. Could this be a cave-mansion token left behind by someone from the Golden Crow clan?
But from ancient times to the present, only eleven Golden Crows had ever openly appeared.
In the ancient Pangu World, the Ten Golden Crows had wreaked havoc. Hou Yi shot down nine of them, while the last was protected by Goddess Nuwa and escaped with his life. He had since become a Dao Ancestor.
Later, after the Three Realms came into being, another Golden Crow was born on the Solar Star, one of the Supreme Stars, and Patriarch Bodhi took him on as a disciple.
Lei Zhan recalled what he knew, his thoughts racing. "Could this be... the cave-mansion ruins that Golden Crow Immortal encountered in later generations?"
"Juhua. Lei Zhan." Yellow-Haired Great Bear grew serious. "Anything connected to the Golden Crow clan is no ordinary matter! Judging by the token's aura, it most likely dates back to the ancient era. But back then, Great God Hou Yi made a name for himself by shooting down the Ten Golden Crows. The youngest one was protected by Goddess Nuwa and managed to escape with his life. He has now become a Dao Ancestor..."
"Though I don't know how this token came to be lost... for you master and disciple, it's both a great opportunity and a great complication."
"Mm." Lei Zhan nodded. If this really was the cave-mansion he remembered... then at the very least, the Fisherman Youth who had taken over the Golden Crow Egg had grown safely to the Void Return level.
There might not be any trouble.
But the opportunity was certainly immense.
"Lei Zhan, keep the token for now. I have no use for it anymore, but you still have many possibilities ahead of you!" Immortal Juhua smiled faintly.
A great complication?
In Immortal Juhua's eyes, cultivators encountered opportunities by reaching into a fire to snatch a chestnut. Why fear a little trouble?
At worst, fate would turn against them, and they would fall on the path of cultivation!
"Still, the token is incomplete. We don't know whether it'll be enough to find the cave-mansion." Immortal Juhua smiled. "Since you managed to bring this fragment to me, it must be fate's design. When the time comes to act, you'll need the resolve to burn your boats!"
"Yes." Lei Zhan nodded.
"Mm." Yellow-Haired Great Bear looked at the master and disciple, then nodded as well. "If the opportunity comes, then even if there's some trouble, you shouldn't let it pass you by."
"Lei Zhan, you became the cave-mansion's fourth master. That alone proves you're a man of great fortune."
Lei Zhan nodded, then waved his hand and put away the token before him.
North Sea Commandery City.
A great hall was filled with maids, each carrying or holding musical instruments. Every one of them was stunningly beautiful. They played and sang, their music lingering beneath the rafters and refusing to fade.
Baili Changfeng sat before a huge table, but his thoughts were nowhere near the splendid music and dance.
"Young Master." A servant in green robes passed through the crowd of maids, not daring to let his gaze linger on any of them for even an instant. He walked straight to Baili Changfeng.
"Mm." Baili Changfeng nodded faintly.
"The information you asked me to look into has arrived from Tianbao Mountain." As he spoke, the servant in green robes took a bamboo scroll from his storage treasure.
"Put it on the table," Baili Changfeng said.
"Yes." The servant respectfully placed the scroll on the table, quickly unrolled it, then withdrew.
"Hmm?" Baili Changfeng glanced over the bamboo scroll and froze.
"Brother Lei Zhan's strength keeps growing!" Baili Changfeng exclaimed in admiration. "In less than half an hour, he killed a Water-Splitting White Shark Great Demon at the Myriad Phenomena perfection level, along with six other Great Demons at the Myriad Phenomena level."
Over the past three years, Lei Zhan had returned to North Sea Commandery City along the way to trade the treasures he had obtained for Essence Liquid.
Baili Changfeng had invited him to one banquet after another, and Lei Zhan remembered the favor of the information he had provided. They had grown fairly familiar through their dealings. At the very least, they were friends of similar temperaments.
"Tsk! He exchanged his gains at Tianbao Mountain for nearly ten thousand jin of Essence Liquid, then returned to Qianqiu Island?" Baili Changfeng wondered aloud. "The three families can naturally get the same information I can. But apart from that one time with Shenrong Chong, all three families have stayed put... Brother Lei Zhan may be in some trouble."
Baili Changfeng and Lei Zhan had become good friends, so he couldn't help worrying about him.
After all, a dog that bites doesn't bark. If the other side had remained silent for so long, they might be plotting some enormous scheme.
"Though Brother Lei Zhan is the disciple of Immortal Juhua, a Loose Immortal of a million years, if they really set their sights on him... even a Celestial Immortal patriarch might not be able to intervene in time!" Baili Changfeng shook his head. "I'll have to talk to Brother Lei Zhan about it sometime soon!"
"Even if I have to ask Father for help..."
Three chapters a day for three or four days straight! Please follow! Please follow! Please follow!