After packing away the bronze tripod, which is also a magical artifact capable of gathering and suppressing energy.
Lu Wen and the others visited the murals of the Shangzhen Palace and learned about the life of King Xian.
Then they continued forward and arrived at the Huixian Palace.
King Xian believed he could ascend to immortality through a ritual with the Kunchen Pearl. This Lingyun Palace was his training ground after he became an immortal, and the palace style leaned towards use by living people, not for the burial of the dead.
The Huixian Palace stored some supplies, including many bronze figures, bronze five livestock, and chariots, as well as some weapons and furniture.
Lu Wen sensed that there were no magical artifacts among them, only ordinary objects.
They were useless to him, but Chen Yulou's eyes lit up at the sight of the bronze statues—they were all money!
But without Lu Wen's help, he wouldn't even be able to enter the outer perimeter of the tomb. This time, he was paying a price to gain knowledge and wouldn't dare make demands of Lu Wen.
After a tour, Lu Wen gained some new knowledge.
Some of the weapons in the Huixian Palace remained sharp even today. Lu Wen chose a few intact ones as keepsakes.
They arrived at the edge of a protruding cliff, with a massive pool below. Lu Wen had already dispatched his ghostly warriors to explore it.
Descending to the shore of the pool on the flying centipede, Lu Wen communicated with the ghostly warriors and soon discovered two underwater passages.
One passage was close to the surface and not very large, filled with various bronze statues and weapons. This was the workshop for making various bronze objects.
There was another passage deeper in the pool. After passing through a long and narrow water tomb passage, they climbed a gentle slope and arrived at a stone gate.
"This is King Xian's true tomb, located underwater and within the mountain. I'll have the ghostly warriors bring the Kunchen Pearl out, there's no need to take risks and enter it myself," Lu Wen thought.
In the original plot, the main characters entered King Xian's tomb and escaped unscathed, eventually fleeing when the tomb collapsed.
Lu Wen's strength wasn't yet powerful enough. In a collapse in an underwater mountain tomb, millions of tons of rock would fall, and he could only hide in his personal space and wait for the return after completing the first mission.
Although there was a high probability of survival, he had ghostly warriors at his command, so there was no need to risk himself for a little curiosity.
The flying centipede landed on the shore of the pool, and Lu Wen controlled the ghostly warriors to enter King Xian's real tomb.
The ghostly warriors floated forward, encountering no traps along the way.
They entered the stone gate, crossed the Three Lives Bridge, and arrived at the square tomb chamber.
There were bronze statues and tripods around, and three coffins in the middle. Lu Wen remembered that these were the coffins of King Xian's three past lives used in the ascension ceremony.
Sensing that they were made of ordinary materials, Lu Wen ignored them and continued forward.
After entering the tomb, Lu Wen could clearly sense King Xian's main body's presence.
King Xian had the most extraordinary energy, while the other beings possessed much weaker extraordinary energy.
The ghostly warriors reached a wall where the surrounding stone statues had a slight magical aura, but their hallucinogenic abilities had no effect on the ghostly warriors.
They gently tapped the wall, and an opening appeared, revealing a female corpse facing the ghostly warriors.
But there was no human aura present, and the traps and spells set on the corpse didn't activate.
Ignoring the female corpse, they entered the tomb formed by the longevity fungus and the divine herb, and the ghostly warriors, with clear objectives, arrived at a pit.
The paper doll body shrank and slid into the pit, quickly and efficiently grabbing King Xian's body.
Lu Wen was even more curious about the Kunchen Pearl and controlled the ghostly warriors to carry King Xian's body outside, the immortal longevity fungus and the divine herb hadn't even reacted.
Over the millennium, King Xian hadn't been able to achieve immortality with the Kunchen Pearl, but his corpse and the longevity fungus and the divine herb had formed a strange symbiotic relationship.
King Xian's corpse was carried away, and the longevity fungus and the divine herb hadn't reacted, but after a moment of bewilderment, it suddenly trembled, slowly contracted into a fleshy tumor, and emitted a suction force, chasing after the corpse.
The time and celestial phenomena were wrong, and the ritual was disrupted after King Xian's corpse was carried away, bringing his ascension plans to an end.
Many people had stumbled upon King Xian's tomb over the millennium, but only a few had broken through the outer perimeter, and many hadn't even found Lingyun Palace.
In the original plot, only the main character's team had found King Xian's true tomb and the Kunchen Pearl, and King Xian's ascension plan was almost a success.
But the changes in the world were unpredictable, and the arrival of the end of the Dharma Era caused King Xian's own will to sink into oblivion, eventually merging with the longevity fungus and the divine herb into a monster.
The ghostly warriors carried King Xian's body to Lu Wen on the shore of the pool, and only then did the longevity fungus and the divine herb contract into a fleshy tumor.
Lu Wen controlled the ghostly warriors to search King Xian's body, obtaining the Kunchen Pearl and a golden silk bag. Upon opening it, he found a black jade bracelet with sixteen beads.
"Is this King Xian? Is this walnut-shaped thing the Kunchen Pearl?" Partridge Whistle asked incredulously.
"Yes," Lu Wen nodded in response, using all his effort to sense the faint energy fluctuations emanating from the Kunchen Pearl.
The black jade bracelet's energy fluctuations were much more obvious, but after being in the longevity fungus and the divine herb tomb for a thousand years, what was once a righteous artifact filled with spiritual energy was now an evil artifact filled with negative energy.
"Another synthesis material for the Emperor's Banner, I can use the energy of this bracelet to synthesize it later," Lu Wen thought.
The others were all curiously observing the Kunchen Pearl, unable to believe that the Kunchen Pearl the Zagralam clan was seeking looked like this.
"Are we going to the Ghost Cave in the Jingjue Ancient City to lift the curse next?" Partridge Whistle and the others were very excited, finally seeing hope of lifting the curse.
Lu Wen put away the Kunchen Pearl, which was also a synthesis material, and prepared to attempt to synthesize it before returning.
He didn't know whether the Kunchen Pearl was like the Infinity Stones in the Marvel universe and would lose its effects outside of its original universe.
"Something's coming out of the pool," Lu Wen said, waving his hand to send out ten teams of ghostly warriors to prepare for battle while also controlling the flying centipede to retreat.
His hands weren't idle either, as he began to accumulate energy, building an electromagnetic acceleration track, ready to fire electromagnetic cannons.
The water surface rippled, and a fleshy tumor rose up. It hesitated, unable to sense the presence of the Kunchen Pearl, and then continued towards King Xian's corpse.
Lu Wen could sense that the fleshy tumor contained a lot of negative energy and evil energy, and it was like a spring, with extraordinary energy spewing out of it.
He sighed inwardly, "This thing itself is a longevity fungus and a divine herb, but King Xian used evil magic to refine it and nurture it with the Kunchen Pearl for a thousand years. If we were to classify it according to the main world's tier system, it would likely be far beyond the blue tier and would be an excellent specimen among purple-tier items."
"It has the ability to gather, transform, and nurture energy, but it doesn't have a trace of spiritual energy, it's completely negative energy. For others, this is an object of demonic heresy, but for me, it's just another synthesis material for the Emperor's Banner."