[Short Story] Exploring The Ancient Phoenix Emperor's Realm

A group of adventure archeologist cultivators just made an amazing discovery. Their home realm has an uncountable number of minor realms attached to it over the realms long history and they managed to stumble into one from the First Earthly Empire of the Blazing Phoenix Dominion.

A truly historic find as it represented a view into one of the middle ages of their world. So defined by the period during which there were at least three cultivators at the peak of power without interruption. A step up from the first age when it was even possible for the world to be bereft of someone at the peak. Let alone having multiple such powerhouses.

The archaeologists’ own time period, The Golden Age, was defined by the point at which there were so many peak powers, it was no longer possible for each such person to have their own kingdom. And it is with this background that the group enters this historical site.

The entrance hall is boring enough. A large rendition of the Phoenix Emperor doing battle across the skies is recorded on the ceiling. Normal enough affair and everyone on the excavation team was familiar with the emperor’s story.

Silent Mountain Thunder was the first to discover something, though everyone else agreed that he was basically cheating. His family had an innate ability to feel out stone. Not that others couldn’t easily replicate it with the right techniques. The innate ability simply was passive and so always up.

He flipped up a seven ton tile, power snapping along the edges as his spell convinces the formations that the tile hasn’t moved.

Silent points with his free hand, “Would you look at that! A classical piercing water needles trap. And the crispness of those runic lines! Accurate down to the molecular level. The Phoenix Emperor himself must have carved this one.

“Though the piece de resistance has to be the authentic Seven Color Viper Venom! The guy must have been really paranoid about his own family. Shame that none of this was molecularly hardened. At least the preservation field over the entire place kept things mostly in place.”

Flies Against Fires whistles, “That’s some spicy venom! Though it is actually seven-colored instead of just using the name. My favorite martial aunt raises seven colored vipers as a hobby and we aren’t even sure how many ‘colors’ they are. Each molecule has been unique so far! Though those truly serious about poison long ago moved onto sub-atomic or energy-based.”

Silent shrugs, “What else can you expect? Though this stuff would still do gangbusters against those with an avian bloodline. Well, if they weren’t prepared for it.”

Fires laughs, “To think! This was considered the premier poison to use against any avians, even up to the peak!”

The group all have a good laugh over this as Silent gently puts the tile back and they continue on.

Death Comes Hence stops the group after passing through a few hallways. “Would you look at that trap!”

The others are like, yeah, duh we see it.

Hence shakes their head, “No, look closer! The trigger sensor is actually reversed. As it is, the trap should already be going off. It’s using the preservation field’s natural flaws to keep it in place.

“If we had stepped over it and disrupted the field in passing? That would have caused the trap to go off, or more properly, finish going off.”

Silent taps the ground to get a better sense of things. “Huh, that is clever. Rose, what do you think of it?”

Heart’s Blood Rose shrugs, “Yeah, it is clever, but it depends on a flawed preservation field. Oh, sure, for the time this was good. Now though? Preservation fields can handle a person’s innate chaotic nature down to the skin.

“We were only almost caught because it is expected for the field to be so sloppy. Any modern place with a field that forms a bubble around people would have us looking extra close for why.”

Hence shrugs, “Oh sure, the trick only works in a place like this. Even so, it’s pretty cool to see them working with their limitations. Plus, such a clever trap means there must be something worthwhile down this way!”

And he isn’t wrong. The current hallway leads to a quaint little library.

Paper Like Silk pushes her way to the front of the group. “Now, this is my specialty! Let me sort out the stuff we need to care about.” And she goes at the collection, her soul sense deciphering the entire text, including any hidden or encrypted information. She even digs out a couple books and sections where something got erased and written over.

In the end, Silk highlights three books. “This first one isn’t special, per se, but it is written on horned serpent leather. Or rather, it would be more proper to say pseudo-dragon leather because the Dragon conclave would protect them right now.

“Next we have a manual for body forging. Common enough, except if that first trap was carved by the Emperor, then this was penned by him. Even better, the encryption is delightfully unique. I even think the original text itself is a particular high-quality rendition of the classic, ‘Stellar Avian Foundation’. As for the actual text?

“Well, we hit the jackpot! It seems like the rumors are at least close to true. This might be the earliest sample of the ‘Foundations for Immortality and Beyond’. I don’t know why they bothered gathering so many different methods into one text, but each page is like, five to nine books.”

Gentle Paper Lantern frowns, “Eugh, I hate books from this era. They’re always so wordy. If you want to write so much, use a jade slip.”

Silk rolls her eyes, “At the time they sucked at making them. Not only was the knowledge rare, but each slip only held about a hundred of their books of content. Decent, but you only put the really good stuff on them.

“While the ‘foundations’ classic is good, it isn’t jade slip good. After all, it isn’t one text specific to the reader. It is a collection of many different foundations, of which only one will fit each reader, if that.”

Silent, “Fair, but we’re getting off track. If that is ‘foundations’, then what is the third book?”

Silk shrugs, “The pages only contain poetry, but the Phoenix Emperor personally penned it and seems to be about his harem.”

Silent, “Yeah, sure, the pages contained that. What did the rest of the book contain?”

Silk breaks out in a wide grin, “Well, funny that Lantern would bring up jade slips. Because the spine of this bawdy tale has one hidden away. We found the Phoenix Emperor’s personal cultivation technique! That is worth so much to collectors!”

Lantern shrugs, “Whatever, we already knew what he practiced. It got out ten thousand years after his empire fell. Seems he left an inheritance behind to pass it on. Besides, I’ve seen it since my family technically has some Phoenix blood. That is one of the crudest works I’ve ever had the misfortune to learn!”

Fires raises an eyebrow, “Well, duh. That is probably the first comprehensive mortal to peak cultivation manual for those with Phoenix blood. Besides, the importance it has is to show the progression. That way we can compare it to the newest versions and see how the repeated cycle of simple to complex and back again. I know you’ve read the modern versions as well, Lantern.”

Lantern, “Whatever, let’s keep moving. There has to be a pill repository.”

Rock Breaking Water, “But we’ve passed, like, five of them already.”

Lantern waves him off, “No, not those trash pits. A place with good pills! This preservation field isn’t enough to keep the pills fresh. There has to be a place with a better field set up!”

Mighty Mountain Thunder laughs, “Babe, that’s all you’ll find here! This preservation field? Not only would it be top of the field for when this place was made. I’d even say it was thousands of years ahead of its time, even when the Empire fell!”

Lantern, “But Mighty! This can’t be it. The pills, they were empty shells! There wasn’t even a proper jade bottle to hold them.”

Mighty sighed, “Lantern, those were celestial redwood boxes in the last room. That’s the best they had back then. You know that.”

Lantern, “But, but there won’t be anything for me here! All this other stuff? Simple enough to preserve so we get at least some information from. The pills? I don’t think a peak alchemist could decipher what ingredients were used in any of them.”

Silent shrugs, “There wasn’t a peak alchemist until near the end of the middle ages. That was when people finally realized they needed better methods to preserve pills. They hadn’t even realized the medicinal energies were slowly fading. After all, if you simply break a pill, they vanish right away.”

Lantern keeps quiet and doesn’t respond. Which makes the group feel a bit awkward, but luckily, they had searched most of the place already by this point and only had a few rooms left to search. Though they had left the best for last.

Celestial Metal Sparking can hardly restrain herself from throwing the last room open. Because unlike Lantern’s focus on pills. Sparking’s speciality was weapons, which even without a preservation field, can last quite a long time.

With care, she opens the giant metal doors, their multi-ton weight causing quite the cacophony as they slam into the ground after she lightly slid them apart. Inside are five pedestals with a shield, cloak, staff, axe, and sword.

Sparking lets out a hiss of breath, “Oh my! Why did he leave his sword behind?”

Fires shrugs, “To recognizable. His empire fell while he was still around. While you can take stuff with you when you ascend, you can’t take it with you when you die.

“Err, well, at the very least you can’t take a lot and back then you couldn’t take anything. So my point still stands.”

Sparking ignores the four other items. Sure, they were true masterpieces which a peak power would still be willing to wield until they got a personalized set of equipment, but they were nothing compared to the sword! She reaches through the many defensive barriers and alarms to clasp onto the hilt.

From there it takes almost twice as long to extract it, but to be fair, defenses against a specific thing are a lot easier and even these old formations could do a decent job at it. And with a final smooth motion, the sword is out of its case.

Sparking gives the sword a once over. It seems fine, no traps or anything. So she grabs the hilt and draws the blade. Despite all the years, it shines like liquid gold, though it certainly isn’t made of such a weak material. No, this sword has been forged from a secret mixture of mithril, adamant, and fire fat jade.

As the tip of the blade leaves the sheath, a nearly silent ‘ting’ rings out. Then a voice projects from the blade, “Took people bloody long enough to find me! The heavens only know how many years I’ve been waiting!”

Sparking chuckles, “The Phoenix’s Talon. A true relic! The Emperor actually wasted soul fragments from a Phoenix to empower you. I can’t blame him too much, that was all they had at the time to forge a truly powerful weapon.”

Talon shrieks, “Waste am I! I’ll have you know, despite countless smiths having been taught the method, none could replicate the miraculous outcome that resulted in my creation.”

Sparking pats the blade, “There, there. I’m not saying you’re a bad blade. In fact, for your time you are shockingly powerful. We just have better ways to develop living weapons now. Don’t worry, we have a place for you back home. Now, back to sleep.” And she re-sheaths the sword.

Silent saunters over, “So, are they stark raving mad or does the sheath actually put them to sleep?”

Sparking laughs, “Oh, the Phoenix Emperor wasn’t an idiot. There’s another reason we no longer use soul shards to make weapons besides how much of a waste it is. Talking swords and their fellows are so annoying.

“Even back then, this was known. So yes, the sheath puts them to sleep. Likely because that was the easiest way the Emperor knew to shut them up. After all, if you just shut the sword up, they’ll be even worse when you have to use them.”

Silent, “So, I never really thought about it, but what do you do when you find a talking sword? Can’t exactly throw a person into a museum.”

Lantern, “Eh, we have places for them. Even to this day, we sometimes find living pills from before known history.”

Sparking nods, “Thankfully most talking weapons can move themselves so we have, well, it’s kind of rude, but we call them retirement homes. They get to hang out with others like them and they get provided various beasts to play with and or attack as they desire.

“Not that they aren’t useful. Even someone at the peak still has imperfect memories over the span of millennia. A talking sword? They remember things better than any mortal race can. Much of our knowledge about the eras before known history come from surviving artifacts like Talon here.”

Fires laughs, “Well then! Guess they’re our best find then. Who want to head out and turn things over to the Uni? Our department head should be able to fold up this space for preservation by tomorrow. I can’t wait to get a milkshake with Song after this!”

Lantern sputters, “Song? As in Resonant Crystal Song? How are you hanging out with Her! She’s so far above us!”

Fires shrugs, “Eh, we grew up together and still hang out on occasion.”

Lantern, “Dang it! I would have hidden my disdain for you better if I’d known that!”

Fires laughs, “As if! You’re my rival. Even the University recognizes it and do you not realize how hard it is to get them to do so? They don’t let just anyone become rivals! Can’t exactly set up tournaments so we end up facing each other at just the right time to bring the most out of each other.”

Lantern, “Bah, let’s get out of here.”

And with that, the group broke up and went their individual ways. Though more than a few were laughing over Lantern’s revelation about Fires knowing Song.