(Extra chapter planned for the fifteenth...)
But if the Merit-Bestowing Azure Lotus had protected them, how had the sect been destroyed before the lotus itself had turned to ash?
Tang Changsheng soon spotted a clue. A thin layer of sand lay at the bottom of the pool, seemingly formed from a heap of ashes.
"Could the Merit-Bestowing Azure Lotus have been reborn? Could the original have been destroyed and reduced to ash...?"
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Then his sharp eyes caught something beneath the water.
At a thought, he extended the Jade Ruyi and lifted the object from the bottom. It was a lotus seed, dark as iron and surprisingly heavy in his hand—far heavier than a steel ball of the same size. It had long since taken solid form and was no longer neither real nor illusory!
Delight spread across Tang Changsheng's face. Such a lotus seed had countless uses. Most importantly, now that it had become solid, it would not turn to ash upon leaving the spirit water.
But when Tang Changsheng looked more closely at the seed, his heart sank.
Scars left by lightning and fire marked its surface, darkening it to the color of iron. Its vitality had probably been extinguished long ago...
Tang Changsheng sighed softly. Had the seed been alive, its immense life force would have rivaled a Seventh- or Eighth-Turn Golden Elixir. He dared not say it could bring back the dead and grow flesh on bare bones, but a single seed could at least fill a dying person with vigor.
More importantly, he could have planted it. Once he had a Cave Abode of his own, he could have raised a lotus himself. Its other uses were too numerous to count...
But now that the