Chapter 1260: Elder Yao’s Portrait
In a certain sense, this was only to be expected. The progression from the Ancient Wuist Sect’s three generations of Longevity Stone to the Daoist Longevity Stone Heart could not have been achieved in a single step. Countless experiments must have been conducted along the way, repeatedly identifying flaws and refining solutions until success was finally reached.
What Qi Xuansu witnessed throughout the Lingshan Paradise essentially recreated this developmental process to a certain degree, with experimental Longevity Stones from different eras and with different functions.
Within this series, the early works bore a strong and unmistakable imprint of the Eight Tribes’ projects. Centered on the Three Refinements, the Three Yin Beings represented the pinnacle results corresponding to each refinement. Combining the Three Refinements with divine abilities produced the Sakka. Among them, corpse refinement was paramount, which was why the undamaged Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses stood as the foremost of the Three Yin Beings.
Early Longevity Stone prototypes displayed clear corpse-refinement characteristics. Though normally dormant, they would allow a corpse to rise when disturbed or touched, as evident in the Taiyin Corpse and the remains of these female Daoists.
Another defining feature was controllability.
According to Daoist records, the predecessor of the creation project was divided into two different periods.
The first period was led by the Gezao Sect. The Three Yin Beings were the pinnacle creations of this era. Semi-finished versions could be controlled artificially, but the fully completed Three Yin Beings possessed intelligence and were independent entities to a certain degree. They followed orders like sentient beings rather than being puppets controlled by strings.
The second period was led by Elder Xu, producing the true Eight Tribes. The Sakka was the ultimate masterpiece of that era. Unlike the Three Yin Beings, the Sakka lacked intelligence and functioned more like a puppet under direct control, though the latter was more powerful.
This was, of course, intentional on Elder Xu’s part. Overconfident and trusting only himself, he intended to personally control the Sakka. Unfortunately, not long after its completion, Elder Xu entered the Kunlun Paradise, which had not yet descended at the time, and ascended after a series of upheavals. He never managed to wield the Sakka, which fell into the hands of the Holy Xuan.
The true inheritor of Elder Xu’s expertise in creation was not Earthly Preceptor Shangguan, but Elder Yao. Building upon the Eight Tribes Project, she initiated a broader engineering initiative called the Creation Project.
The Creation Project inherited not only the Eight Tribes Project but also the Ancient Wuist’s alchemical techniques, Mohist mechanisms, Daoist internal alchemy, and more. The Longevity Stone Heart was merely one branch among many.
Qi Xuansu had long harbored a suspicion—or rather, a concern—that the Longevity Stone Heart contained some hidden backdoor switch. At a crucial moment, would it allow someone to manipulate its host, just as the Sakka had once been controlled?