Before unsealing the inheritance, Jian Xi had sensed a faint but persistent surveillance.
Cultivators who reached a certain realm were highly sensitive to the fluctuations of energy around them. Jian Xi knew that some members of the Wu family still hadn't given up—after failing to uncover anything from the treasure, they had turned their attention to her.
After all, an artifact left behind by a Mahayana Supreme Ancestor before ascension couldn't possibly be ordinary. Yet despite their repeated attempts—even tricking Wu Dao into extracting a drop of her essence blood—all they achieved was strengthening the artifact's defensive capabilities. Nothing more.
After leaving seclusion, Jian Xi reunited with her children and learned that they, too, had attempted to bond with the treasure. But like the others, they only activated its defensive properties. At this point, the Wu family finally gave up. However, there was no chance the artifact would ever return to her hands. Knowing this, she remained patient and bided her time.
Through the inheritance memories left by the Jian ancestor, she obtained his complete artifact-forging legacy—simply titled "Artifact Refining."
Only then did she realize that what her ancestor had passed down was not just a treasure, but an immortal artifact. However, due to the tribulation, its rank had fallen, requiring spiritual energy to restore it. The conditions for binding it had been tailor-made for her:
—Jian bloodline (must be a female descendant).
—Chaos spiritual roots (a rare and powerful affinity).
—Essence blood dripped onto each piece of the magnolia set in sequence.
—Secret hand seals of the Jian family.
Without all four, the artifact would remain nothing more than a defensive tool.
The Wu family, in their arrogance, had assumed the secret lay in a single piece of the set—never considering that the entire set was required. Even if they had guessed, without Jian blood, Chaos spiritual roots, or the hand seals, their efforts were futile.
Jian Xi's daughter had inherited her father's wind-fire dual spiritual roots, making her ineligible. When her blood was tested, it only enhanced the artifact's defense.
Jian Xi knew that even if she ascended, she couldn't take the artifact with her—doing so would leave her children with endless trouble. Instead, she ensured it remained within her lineage, leaving a path for her descendants.
For the next ten thousand years, Jian Xi focused solely on cultivation, eventually undergoing her ascension tribulation before Wu Dao. On the eve of her ascension, she feigned reluctance, tearfully promising to reunite with Wu Dao in the upper realm. Moved, he never suspected a thing—she never mentioned the artifact.
In truth, those millennia had been a tightrope walk. She had navigated the schemes of both the Jian and Wu families, their relentless probing hardening her resolve to never reveal the magnolia artifact's true nature.
If they had discovered that their defensive treasure was actually a growth-type immortal artifact, she would have faced unimaginable consequences. So she gave them no openings, forcing the Wu family to tread carefully—after all, destroying her meant losing the treasure forever.
When she finally ascended, three Mahayana elders of the Wu family stood guard, ready to disrupt her tribulation if she made a move. But Jian Xi played her part flawlessly. After a smooth ascension, she bid a brief farewell to her family and vanished into the upper realm.
There, she reunited with her father and revealed everything:
The Wu family, desperate for the artifact's secrets, had used the soul-bond from her marriage to Wu Dao to plant a control seed in her consciousness. This seed—similar to a puppet curse—could only take root if the victim was unaware and unresisting.
Fortunately, Wu Dao's cultivation had never surpassed hers, and after having children, he grew complacent, believing her loyalty absolute. This gave her the breathing room to resist.
Upon ascension, the barrier between realms weakened the seed's influence.
Enraged that his gift had nearly enslaved his daughter, the Jian ancestor—now a Golden Immortal—personally extracted the seed, severing all ties to the Wu family.
Together, they ambushed Wu Dao at the Ascension Pool, slaughtering him and every Wu clansman who knew the truth. Their purge created a generational gap in the Wu family's upper-realm forces, avenging Jian Xi's millennia of suffering.
Meanwhile, the contingency she had left for her daughter, Jian Ya, bore fruit. Jian Ya diligently cultivated, preserving her bloodline until, 300,000 years later, her descendants broke free from the Wu family, reclaiming their ancestor's legacy.
And so, the Magnolia Immortal Artifact was passed down through the ages—waiting for a girl who met its exacting criteria.
That girl was Jian Dan.
Her Chaos spiritual roots and bloodline resonance triggered the artifact's inheritance, binding it to her soul—this time, forever.
Though she couldn't yet enter the artifact's space (having not yet begun cultivation), her powerful divine sense, honed by past-life memories, allowed her to glimpse its depths.
There, she received the artifact's own memories—and the truth of her lineage.