Immortal Gold

Night fell. The bright moon hung high in the sky like a round platter, while countless stars shone deep in the heavens, spilling silver starlight over the Palace Complex shrouded in immortal mist and making it seem even more vast and mysterious.

"I'll try again." Lu Chen took out his mineral water bottle and drank a great mouthful of Divine Spring Water. Instantly reinvigorated, he began climbing the mountain beneath the starlight.

At last, when the bright moon hung directly above the Palace Complex, the mountain that had always barred his way actually vanished. Somehow, he found himself at the foot of the mountain where the ethereal Palace Complex stood.

"Hahaha..." Lu Chen froze for a moment, then burst into delighted laughter. "I knew it! I was destined to find the Immortal Palace!"

The mountain that had stood like an impassable chasm disappeared, and a corner of the Heavenly Court Ruins from the Mythological Era opened itself to him.

Sure enough, it did not take him long to reach the summit and enter the Palace Complex shrouded in immortal mist, becoming the recipient of a heaven-bestowed opportunity unseen for tens of thousands of years.

Once he entered the Heavenly Court Ruins outside the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land, everything that unfolded before Lu Chen's eyes overwhelmed him.

Before him lay an immense plaza paved entirely with flawless, translucent jade. Hundreds upon thousands of palaces towered in the distance, stretching beyond the limits of his sight.

Each stood hundreds of zhang tall, built from enormous blocks of some unknown, mysterious stone. Vast and imposing, majestic and grand, they exuded a sacred, ancient aura, like the dwellings of primordial gods.

Even after tens of millions of years, these Heavenly Court Ruins, which had fallen into the mortal world during the Mythological Era, still showed not the slightest hint of decay.

Only after a long while did Lu Chen recover from his astonishment and slowly approach one of the enormous palaces.

Looking at the bronze doors, twenty or thirty zhang wide and nearly fifty zhang tall, he seriously doubted whether he could push them open.

Rumble...

Fortunately, he easily pushed open the palace doors, sealed for endless ages, with a deep, rolling rumble.

As Lu Chen walked through the empty hall, his footsteps echoed with a steady tap, tap. Inside stood only a jade platform two meters square, its purpose unknown. There was nothing else.

"Looks like this palace has no treasures left!"

Having found nothing in the first palace, Lu Chen opened the doors of a second hall farther away and saw a row of jade shelves inside.

There were many spaces on the shelves, but at a glance, he saw only a single cube-shaped box. Roughly the size of a human head, it was pale gold, with profound, mysterious patterns engraved on all four sides. He could not identify its material.

"This Palace Complex was once the Ancient Heavenly Court's artifact-forging and pill-refining district. Whatever's inside should be either a magical artifact or medicinal pills."

Somewhat excited, Lu Chen reached out with slightly trembling hands and slowly stroked the golden box, as though his fingers were gliding over a lover's skin.

With his heart racing and his hands trembling, he gently lifted the pale-gold lid.

Whoosh!

Brilliant purple radiance instantly burst from within the box, leaving him unable to open his eyes. Only after several breaths did the dazzling purple light subside.

Inside lay a palm-sized piece of purple metal. Its lustrous surface gleamed as though droplets might drip from it, and purple vapor coiled around it in rising wisps, making it seem like a supreme treasure of heaven and earth.

Naturally formed, it contained not even the slightest impurity. Flawless and radiant, it was faintly covered in profound patterns that held divine marks of the opening of heaven and earth-a scripture born of nature.

"This... could this be Divine Mark Purple Gold, one of the nine great types of immortal gold?"

Lu Chen's eyes widened so far they seemed about to pop out. He was utterly stunned.

Such supreme immortal material was rarely seen even across hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. It was the exclusive material of Ancient Great Emperors, capable of bearing a Great Emperor's Dao laws and being forged into an Extreme Dao Weapon. Its value was beyond compare.

"Several emperors coexisted in Emperor Zun's Heavenly Court, ruling over the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands. It's hardly surprising that there would be immortal gold in the artifact-forging district." Only after a long while did Lu Chen calm his excitement.

He reached into the box, intending to take out the Divine Mark Purple Gold for a closer look. Yet the immortal gold wreathed in purple vapor did not budge, as heavy as a mountain.

Within the Ninety-Nine Dragon Mountains of Kunlun on Earth stood a Divine Mark Purple Gold Pagoda left behind by a Quasi-Emperor. Half a meter tall, it weighed a million jin.

Although this piece of immortal gold in the Heavenly Palace ruins was far smaller than that pagoda, it still weighed tens of thousands of jin, perhaps even more than a hundred thousand. How could Lu Chen possibly lift it as he was now?

Although consuming Divine Spring Water and Sacred Fruit had remade him from flesh to bone, allowing him to lift several thousand jin with all his strength, that was still nowhere near enough.

His expression darkened. If he could not lift it, would he really have to abandon this immortal material lying right within his reach?

Unwilling to give up, he wrapped both hands around the golden box and tried again. To his surprise, he lifted it easily this time.

"The immortal gold is heavy, and I can't lift it with my bare hands right now. But this box is a magical artifact. With the immortal gold inside, it can weigh almost nothing."

Lu Chen now understood how it worked. It was like those spatial Magic Treasures: even if an entire Mount Tai were stored inside one, the Magic Treasure itself would not gain any weight.

He carefully inspected the hall and, finding no other treasures, placed the golden box in his travel bag and left the palace with the immortal gold.

Next, he opened six more great halls in succession, yet found no further treasures. They were all completely empty.

Only when he opened the seventh palace did he finally discover another treasure. In the center of the great hall stood a Bronze Furnace, roughly two meters in diameter and about a meter and a half tall. It had a lid, and he did not know whether anything lay inside.