Previously, the inheritance remained unsealed because she could sense a faint, lingering surveillance.
Monks who reach a certain stage of Cultivation become extremely sensitive to fluctuations in the surrounding aura. Jian Xi knew that some members of the Wu Family still refused to give up; finding nothing unusual about the Treasure Artifact, they shifted their target directly to her.
After all, a Treasure Artifact left behind by a Mahayana True Venerable before ascension could hardly be ordinary. Yet despite their repeated probings—even having Wu Dao coax a drop of her vital blood from her—they had only succeeded in strengthening the defensive power of the Treasure Artifact, gaining nothing else.
When Jian Xi emerged from seclusion and met with her son and daughter, she learned indirectly that they, too, had each successively bound the Treasure Artifact to themselves, yet it had merely triggered its defensive properties and nothing more.
At that point, the Wu Family finally gave up, though it was utterly impossible for the artifact to ever return to her hands. Knowing this full well, she had continued to bide her time.
Through the inherited memories of the Jian Family Ancestor, Jian Xi had acquired all of the Ancestor's artifact-forging legacy, contained in a manual whose name was strikingly blunt and crude: *Artifact Forging*.
Only later did she learn that the legacy passed down to her by the Ancestor was actually an Immortal Artifact. Because of the heavenly tribulation she had undergone, its rank had dropped, requiring spiritual energy to recover, and the conditions for blood-binding it had been specifically tailored to her.
The requirements dictated that it must be the vital blood of a female possessing the Jian Family bloodline and a Chaos Spiritual Root. These drops had to be introduced sequentially into the set of defensive spiritual treasures while simultaneously executing the secret hand seals of the Jian Family in order to successfully reassemble the Immortal Artifact and achieve soul-binding. Otherwise, it would function merely as a standard defensive magic tool.
The Wu Family, imagining themselves clever, had assumed the secret must lie within just one of these defensive magic tools, never suspecting it was a complete set. Even had they guessed it was a set, lacking the Jian Family bloodline and the Chaos Spiritual Root, and ignorant of the secret hand seals, it would have done them no good.
The spiritual root of the daughter borne by Jian Xi followed her father Wu Dao, belonging to the dual wind-fire spiritual root category, thus failing to meet the binding conditions. Using her blood for the binding merely served to enhance the defensive power of the Treasure Artifact.
Jian Xi knew that even upon her ascension, it would be impractical to take the Immortal Artifact with her. Doing so would leave behind endless trouble for her son and daughter. Consequently, she had insisted that the artifact belong exclusively to her own lineage, thereby leaving a fallback option for her descendants.
Over the next ten-thousand-odd years, Jian Xi set everything else aside and concentrated solely on Cultivation, eventually facing the ascension heavenly tribulation and ascending to the upper realm a step earlier than Wu Dao.
Right on the verge of ascension, Jian Xi feigned extreme reluctance to part with Wu Dao, promising him that she would certainly wait for him in the upper realm to continue their bond, leaving Wu Dao deeply moved. She never once mentioned the Treasure Artifact.
In truth, Jian Xi had spent those millennia walking on thin ice, forced not only to handle the descendants of the Jian Family but also to deal with the Wu Family's endless probings. This had laid bare the true faces of these people and hardened her resolve never to reveal the secret of the white magnolia Immortal Artifact to either side.
Had they known that the item resting in their own treasury was a growing Immortal Artifact, she shuddered to think how they might have treated her. Therefore, she had never leaked even the slightest hint, leaving the Wu Family without a breakthrough and too wary to make a move. After all, a fish dying and the net breaking would benefit no one, and since the Treasure Artifact was in their own hands, pressing too hard would only invite criticism.
When Jian Xi ascended, three Mahayana Ancestors of the Wu Family were present by her side; had she made any suspicious move, they would have joined forces to disrupt her ascension tribulation. Yet their blows hit empty air.
Jian Xi acted entirely as usual. After successfully enduring the tribulation, she exchanged brief farewells with her dao companion and children, then ascended directly to the upper realm.
Following her ascension to the upper realm, Jian Xi quickly reunited with her father and truthfully recounted all she had suffered in the lower realm.
For the sake of the secret surrounding the Treasure Artifact, the Wu Family had actually planted a spiritual seed in Jian Xi's sea of consciousness by exploiting the concentric knot forged when she and Wu Dao became dao companions.
This sort of spiritual seed resembled a puppet seed; it could only be planted if the victim was fully aware and offered no resistance. Only Wu Dao was in a position to plant such a spiritual seed within her sea of consciousness without her knowledge.
Regrettably, Wu Dao was burdened by too many distracting thoughts, and his Cultivation level had never surpassed Jian Xi's. Furthermore, having fathered a son and daughter with her, Wu Dao remained convinced that Jian Xi was utterly devoted to him, granting her breathing room and failing to suppress her Cultivation.
Once they reached the upper realm, the separation imposed by the realms caused this control to weaken significantly.
Learning that the Immortal Artifact left behind had nearly brought her daughter under the control of others, the Jian Family Ancestor was naturally filled with righteous fury, vowing to secure justice for his daughter! Moreover, Jian Xi had not been entirely powerless; she had already made arrangements concerning her daughter, Jian Ya.
Subsequently, the Jian Family Ancestor, a Golden Immortal, personally took action to uproot the spiritual seed in Jian Xi's sea of consciousness, completely severing her ties with the Wu Family.
The two of them then joined forces to strike down Wu Dao right within the Ascension Pool the moment he ascended to the upper realm, slaughtering every single ascending member of the Wu Family who knew of the matter. This created a generational void for the Wu Family in the upper realm, which could be considered venting the pent-up frustration of their daughter's ten-thousand-year struggle of walking on thin ice in the lower realm.
Meanwhile, the contingency plan Jian Xi had arranged for her daughter also bore fruit. Obeying her mother's dying instructions, Jian Ya practiced Cultivation diligently, perpetuated her bloodline, and ensured her branch was never extinguished. Thirty thousand years later, they gradually broke away from the Wu Family, achieving independent development, and managed by various means to retrieve the Ancestor's heirloom.
Thus the white magnolia Immortal Artifact was passed down from generation to generation. However, because no girl meeting the criteria had appeared to enable the reassembly of the Immortal Artifact, it had descended all the way to the lineage of Jian Dan's mother.
Jian Dan had been able to bind it because her spiritual roots met the requirements. Furthermore, the act of binding had stimulated the inherited secret techniques within her own bloodline, ultimately leading to a successful soul-binding that linked the artifact to her soul for lifetimes to come.
Since Jian Dan had not yet begun her Cultivation, she was unable to enter the Space within the Immortal Artifact. However, possessing memories of her past life and a formidable divine soul, her spiritual sense was barely usable.
As Jian Dan's spiritual sense entered the Space of the Immortal Artifact, she absorbed the memory inheritance inherent to the artifact itself.