Martial Peak
chapter-1246

Soon, everything was in order, and Yang Kai retrieved the Artifact Spirit’s Soul Brand and sealed it inside his own Knowledge Sea.

This way, he could control the Artifact Spirit’s life or death, and once it revealed any sign of treachery, Yang Kai could immediately terminate it.

After losing its Soul Brand, the Artifact Spirit wore an unhappy look, flapping its wings and crying out constantly towards Yang Kai. Yang Kai knew it was in a bad mood but he didn’t care. Waving his hand, he melted the layer of ice surrounding the Artifact Refining Furnace. Now that he had subdued the Artifact Spirit, there was naturally no reason to continue freezing this furnace. Although freezing this Artifact Refining Furnace wouldn’t deal any significant damage to the Artifact Spirit, it still had some impact.

Seeing that its vessel was no longer under threat, the Artifact Spirit’s annoyance and anger dulled significantly, but it was still behaving a bit unruly.

Yang Kai thought about it for a moment before stretching out his finger and forcing out a drop of Golden Blood, turning to the Artifact Spirit and asking, “Do you want this?”

Last time, the Divine Tree had swallowed two drops of his Golden Blood and immediately fell into a deep slumber to evolve which it had yet to awaken from. His Golden Blood being helpful to the Divine Tree Yang Kai could understand; after all, each drop of Golden Blood contained a massive amount of vitality.

Whether it would be of interest to the Artifact Spirit though was uncertain. If it did though, it would definitely make things easier in the future.

To Yang Kai’s surprise, the Golden Blood’s rich vitality, which he thought wouldn’t be of much use to the Artifact Spirit was apparently quite attractive to it. After seeing this drop of Golden Blood, the Artifact Spirit’s eyes lit up and it transformed into a streak of red light that immediately rushed over towards Yang Kai.

Yang Kai instinctively condensed his Saint Qi, but after realizing that the Artifact Spirit wasn’t emitting any malicious intent, he relaxed his vigilance.

The stream of red light flew past Yang Kai’s hands, taking the drop of Golden Blood along with it. A moment later, the Artifact Spirit reappeared nearby and its dim body which had clearly suffered much damage began restoring itself at a speed visible to the naked eye, soon after seemingly recovering quite significantly.

Yang Kai was stunned!

He had taken out a drop of Golden Blood because it was the most precious treasure he had on him that he was willing to part with. He had only done so as an experiment and hadn’t expected it to really be of great help to the Artifact Spirit.

But thinking about it again, Yang Kai quickly understood. Although this Artifact Spirit didn’t have a physical form and its vessel was an inanimate artifact, since it had obtained sentience, it couldn’t be considered an ordinary Artifact Spirit. As long as the relationship between itself and its vessel could be severed and it could find a suitable body, it could become a true living being.

Since it could obtain true physical existence, of course the Golden Blood would have some effect on it.

However, after swallowing the drop of Golden Blood, the Artifact Spirit didn’t experience much change and showed no signs of becoming stronger, only its foundation and essence recovering somewhat. At this point it tilted its head slightly to Yang Kai, putting on a flattering and begging expression, seemingly wanting to obtain another drop of Golden Blood from Yang Kai.

Yang Kai couldn’t help laughing as he realized that the Artifact Spirit he had subdued this time had indeed achieved a high level of intelligence. However, this wasn’t that surprising as this Artifact Spirit had existed for tens of thousands of years. If it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have struggled with it so much.

“I don’t have any more Golden Blood, but I do have this,” Yang Kai said as he took out a bean-sized Fire Crystal Stone and tossed it over.

His Golden Blood was too precious, so naturally, it was impossible for Yang Kai to satisfy the appetite of this Artifact Spirit, instead deciding to give it a Fire Crystal Stone he obtained from a Sixth-Order Fire Spirit Beast. Currently, Yang Kai’s Space Ring contained many of these things so parting with one or two wasn’t an issue.

When the Artifact Spirit saw the Fire Crystal Stone, it turned into a flare and wrapped up the crimson stone. When it re-materialized, the Fire Crystal Stone was gone.

Smacking its beak a few times, the Artifact Spirit seemed a little dissatisfied.

Anyone who had eaten a great delicacy and then ate some ordinary tea snacks would behave like this.

“Alright. That’s enough for now. Go back to your container, I need to leave this place.” Yang Kai wasn’t going to give it any more benefits right now. He had yet to completely conquer this Artifact Spirit, and it was only because he had control of its Soul Brand that it was obeying him, unlike the Divine Tree which Yang Kai wouldn’t hesitate to help.

Listening to Yang Kai’s instructions, the Artifact Spirit didn’t immediately obey but instead let out a loud cry before turning into a ball of flame and circling around the four stone control tables inside the stone room.

Yang Kai frowned for a moment but quickly understood its meaning through his special connection with the Artifact Spirit, hesitantly asking, “You want me to activate the Spirit Array?”

The Artifact Spirit circled once more before floating down in front of him, seemingly indicating Yang Kai was right.

“Alright,” Yang Kai didn’t hesitate, reaching out and injecting his Saint Qi into the four stone tables and opening up the stone chamber’s aura channelling Spirit Array to its maximum. In the next instant, a steady stream of pure Fire Attribute Energy from the Earth Lung Fire Pond was extracted and poured into the Artifact Refining Furnace.

The Artifact Spirit’s figure flashed and it swiftly dove down into the ground, not explaining what it was trying to do.

Yang Kai wasn’t worried it would run away though. Forget about the fact that he had its Soul Brand, its vessel was still here.

A moment later, Yang Kai’s face changed and he stared intently towards the Artifact Refining Furnace. He didn’t know what the Artifact Spirit had done but the pure Fire Attribute energy suddenly became several times fiercer, causing the various protective Spirit Arrays around the stone room to creak under the pressure.

All of the Fire Attribute energy was drawn into the Artifact Refining Furnace, causing it to shake unsteadily, as if it might explode at any time.

At the same time, ancient runes and energy chains began appearing on the surface of the furnace.

Yang Kai stared fixedly.

He had seen these energy chains once before, they were the shackles which had appeared a month ago when the Artifact Spirit had chased him out of the stone chamber. At that time, these energy chains had shattered and retrieved the Artifact Spirit’s body, which had allowed Yang Kai to escape safely.

Now that they had appeared before his eyes again, Yang Kai immediately understood what was happening.

It turned out that this Artifact Refining Furnace had been locked in place in this stone room with a kind of powerful Spirit Array.

[Does this mean that this Artifact Spirit was born tens of thousands of years ago?] The original owner of this Artifact Refining Furnace locking it in place here must have been so that the Artifact Spirit didn’t try to carry it out from this stone chamber. If this hadn’t been done, with the Artifact Spirit’s ability, it would certainly be able to bring the Artifact Refining Furnace out of this Earth Lung Fire Pond and not been trapped here all alone for tens of thousands of years.

After thinking about it, Yang Kai laughed bitterly. It seemed that if he wanted to take this Artifact Refining Furnace with him, he first had to destroy this Spirit Array.

The Artifact Spirit must not have the ability to unlock these chains, otherwise, it would have escaped from here long ago.

Yang Kai silently grumbled that he hadn’t gotten any help from this Artifact Spirit yet and was instead being put to work for it.

A red light flashed from the ground and the Artifact Spirit appeared again, screeching at the chains binding the Artifact Refining Furnace. Yang Kai knew what it wanted to say and didn’t hesitate to use his cold flames to bombard these energy chains.

Although this Spirit Array was exquisitely arranged and was also quite solid, in the end, it was just an inanimate formation.

Half a day later, the energy chains finally broke apart under the constant hammering of Yang Kai’s black flames.

Seeing this, the Artifact Spirit, who had been standing beside him, let out a cry filled with infinite joy before plunging into the Artifact Refining Furnace.

The vessel and the Artifact Spirit merged into one at this time and the intense fire aura it radiated made Yang Kai pale.

Only now did he understand that because of these energy chains, the Artifact Spirit had been unable to display its full strength. If it had, who won and who lost in their last fight might have been different.

Fortunately, this restriction had given him an opportunity to subdue the Artifact Spirit. At this point, Yang Kai said a silent thanks to the original owner of this Artifact Refining Furnace.

Just as he was getting over his initial surprise, Yang Kai watched the massive Artifact Refining Furnace slowly lift up into the air before rapidly revolving and shrinking down.

Soon, the huge Artifact Refining Furnace became small enough to fit in the palm of Yang Kai’s hand.

A light flashed and the Artifact Refining Furnace flew to Yang Kai. Then, from the furnace, a crimson-red figure shot out.

Yang Kai took a soft breath before taking the small furnace in front of him and putting it into his Space Ring.

He did not put the Artifact Refining Furnace into his Black Book Space because there were too many precious things inside it. This Artifact Spirit didn’t look like an obedient fellow so if Yang Kai admitted it into his Black Book Space, he couldn’t be sure if it would stay away from his valuables.

After receiving the Artifact Refining Furnace, Yang Kai also took down the eight light orbs embedded in the stone wall and threw them into his Space Ring before leaving the stone room.

There was no need to remain here anymore. Every stone room in this Earth Lung Fire Pond had been cleaned out by Yang Kai and everything of value now belonged to him.

It would be a waste of time to stay any longer.

Soon, Yang Kai came to the entrance of the cave and looked up, barely able to see the top of the pit.

He was a few thousand metres down from the surface and the molten lava in the Earth Lung Fire Pond would erupt from time to time, so it would be a bit troublesome and possibly dangerous to climb all the way back up.

After thinking about it though, Yang Kai’s eyes lit up and he took out the Artifact Refining Furnace again.

He remembered that the Artifact Spirit was able to fly just now, and although it had only been flying around the stone room, that should mean it wasn’t bound by the unique World Principles of this place.

After some communication, Yang Kai was overjoyed to learn the Artifact Spirit could fly out directly, so he no longer hesitated and had it carry him out.

A moment later, somewhere amidst the fifth layer of the Flowing Flame Sand Field, a red light burst from the ground, and below this red light was Yang Kai with his hand covered in ice-cold black flame, grasping the Artifact Spirit’s claws.

As soon as it rushed out of the Earth Lung Fire Pond, the Artifact Spirit let out a loud, piercing cry, as if it had just gained a new life, spreading its wings and soaring up into the sky.

But a moment later, after reaching a height of ten metres or so, the Artifact Spirit came to an abrupt halt, staggered, fell to the ground, and face-planted.

Yang Kai saw this and immediately understood that the Artifact Spirit wasn’t free from this place’s World Principle restrictions, but was only less affected by them, allowing it to fly, just not very high.