Chapter 254: Chapter 250: Unintentionally Fishing Up the Cyan Wood Eye
Deep into the night, Song Ciwan was cultivating at home.
First, she performed a routine divination. The hexagrams showed that the night would be peaceful. As for Chi Hua Fairy’s whereabouts, the Great Derivation Birth Skill was unable to divine it.
It wasn’t that the skill wasn’t powerful enough, but that Song Ciwan’s cultivation of it wasn’t yet profound enough. At her current stage, she could mainly divine her own safety and, conversely, prevent others from scrying her.
After finishing the divination, Song Ciwan took out the array flags she had purchased that day and began to refine them one by one.
Of course, during the refinement process, she didn’t forget to carefully inspect each array flag with her divination skill. It wasn’t for any particular reason; she was just habitually cautious.
’Who knew what kind of tricks merchants might play on items they sold? For safety’s sake, it was best to scan everything.’
"Huh, that’s not right..."
As she scanned them, Song Ciwan was suddenly startled.
Her scan had just been a casual one, little more than a routine procedure. After all, common sense dictated that these generic, mass-produced array flags shouldn’t have any issues.
But with that one simple scan, that one quick calculation, Song Ciwan’s Spiritual Sense suddenly detected that one of the one hundred and twenty-eight array flags seemed to contain something unusual.
The divinity within Song Ciwan’s Sea of Consciousness stirred again, eager to leap out and pierce through the array flag to investigate.
This time, however, Song Ciwan suppressed the urge. She was, after all, still in the Qi Refining Stage. Although she had prematurely formed the divinity that should only appear in the Divinity Transformation Stage, its power was still insufficient, making it susceptible to backlash.
’Her previous experiences had taught her a lesson: while she was not yet strong enough, it was best to avoid this kind of remote prying.’
Song Ciwan took out the array flag and, without any ceremony, placed it on the Heaven and Earth Scale to sell.
[You have sold one array flag with a backdoor left by an Artifact Refiner and obtained the Magical Artifact: Cyan Wood Eye.]
Cyan Wood Eye: A Lower Grade Magical Artifact. After Refining and Recognizing the Master, it can be worn in the left eye, granting the user the abilities of Invisibility, scrying, seeing the spectral, and discerning auras. Because it possesses a special spirituality, it has the potential for growth.
When Song Ciwan received the Cyan Wood Eye, she was genuinely stunned.
’This Cyan Wood Eye might only be a Lower Grade Magical Artifact, but its fundamental properties seemed extraordinary!’
She noted two key pieces of information. First was the Heaven and Earth Scale’s description of the array flag: "an array flag with a backdoor left by an Artifact Refiner"!
During her time on Sanpo Street recently, Song Ciwan had heard rumors that some unscrupulous Artifact Refiners would secretly leave a unique backdoor in the various artifacts they forged.
After such an artifact was sold, regardless of who ultimately refined it, the original Artifact Refiner could exploit this backdoor at a critical moment to seize control of it.
In this way, a Magical Artifact that had already acknowledged a master could turn on them at a crucial moment. The Artifact Refiner, in turn, would win it all!
This was an undeniably terrifying prospect. The issue of backdoors had once even incited an "anti-Artifact-Refining" storm across the lands. During that time, cultivators everywhere rose up against Artifact Refiners. Many would rather go without Magical Artifacts than risk using one with a potential backdoor.
This continued until the Great Zhou Court established the Demon Refining Platform, which housed various departments like the Righteous Artifact Department, the Ming Pill Department, and the Qingfu Department. The Righteous Artifact Department, in addition to being responsible for Artifact Refining for the Court, was also tasked with overseeing the Artifact Refining trade throughout the world.
With the Court’s supervision, the crisis of trust between cultivators and Artifact Refiners was finally alleviated.
Gradually, people began to treat the matter of "Artifact Refiners leaving backdoors in Magical Artifacts" as an old legend. When it was occasionally brought up, they no longer paled at the thought. Only then could the traditional Cultivation art of Artifact Refining continue to be preserved and developed throughout the Great Zhou World.
As for the Artifact Refiners who still dared to flout the law and secretly leave backdoors in their creations, the Court’s punishments were horrific.
Severe offenders would be suppressed in the Soul Refining Prison to suffer for a hundred years before being executed by lightning. Lighter offenses resulted in the destruction of one’s Tao Foundation, demotion to a mortal, and being forever barred from the path of Cultivation.
Song Ciwan hadn’t expected that even with such severe punishments, there were still Artifact Refiners who dared to commit this great taboo.
But this taboo-breaking Artifact Refiner had, in an interesting twist, allowed her to obtain a Cyan Wood Eye with growth potential.
Song Ciwan immediately began the refinement process for the Cyan Wood Eye, preparing to wear it in her left eye.
Once refined, the Cyan Wood Eye transformed into what looked like a puff of transparent smoke. When Song Ciwan "wore" it, the Magical Artifact instantly merged into her pupil.
Song Ciwan took out a mirror to have a look. Her left eye appeared completely normal, as if nothing had changed. The Cyan Wood Eye’s Invisibility was clearly no empty boast.
But Song Ciwan knew with absolute certainty that her vision was now vastly different.
The most significant difference was that when she extended her Spiritual Sense again to the right side of her courtyard, the well there now emitted a distinct, ethereal blue glow in her eyes!
It was a Spiritual Light invisible to the naked eye. Song Ciwan knew this glow had to be coming from the Marvel at the bottom of the well.
Unfortunately, the aura emanating from that Marvel was so terrifying that even though Song Ciwan knew a treasure lay at the bottom of the well, she had been unable to retrieve it.
Song Ciwan was still testing her Cyan Wood Eye, unaware that a moment ago, at the exact instant she had placed the backdoored array flag onto the Heaven and Earth Scale and sold it, someone in Pinglan City had suddenly felt their mind tremble violently.
In Pinglan City, not far from Wangjiang Mountain, stood a mysterious, sprawling estate. Though it was called a residence, it had the scale of a palace.
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