Ancestral item

Ancestral items (祖器) or Ancestral artifacts are a class of items. An Ancestral item's power far surpassed a King item. Normally, only a Soul Transformation expert could use it.
But because Ancestral items had spiritual seals binding them and had been nourished by one bloodline, descendants of that bloodline could use their bloodline power to order the Ancestral item to attack, even if they were too weak to use it normally.
However, although an Ancestral item was powerful, it had a drawback. If the spiritual seal was too forcible, it would be like slavery and the item-spirit would have a natural resistance toward it. It wouldn't be very loyal.
== Examples ==
*Blazing Dragon Cauldron, generations of experts had used their bloodline to nourish it.
*Heaven Fermenting Divine Jar
=== Table ===
== Properties ==
An Ancestral item could not easily dissolve a contractual rune. That would cause huge harm to it. In living memory, there were few cases of Ancestral items dissolving their contractual runes on their own.
As for the elephant tusk, although it was left behind by the elephant race's ancestor, the item-spirit was not their ancestor. It didn't care about them.
An Ancestral item's spirituality was extremely high, and its intelligence was comparable to a child. It had its own emotions, and it knew how to feel fear.
They were different from King items. King items were only able to vaguely express their emotions. But an Ancestral item could actually communicate with people.
== Requirements ==
Ancestral items were normally things that could only be controlled by Life Star experts. A Soul Transformation expert would only be able to use thirty percent of their power. Ancestral items had their own pride, and they wouldn't submit to people weaker than them.
=== Life Star, Empyrean ===
Ancestral items were normally only usable by Life Star experts. Below the Life Star realm, an Ancestral item's item-spirit would not be fully convinced of their master's power and would only use a small portion of their own power to help their master.
Even Life Star experts, as long as they don't have the Heavenly Dao energy of Empyreans, can only release a limited amount of power from an Ancestral item. In the Spirit World, when he had fought against Peng Wansheng, the latter had managed to unleash the full power of his Ancestral item, causing the pot to crack. It had taken quite some time for it to recover.
As for the enemies he was currently fighting, although they were Life Star experts and powerful Celestials, they were not Empyreans. There was a large difference in the power that they could unleash from their Ancestral items when compared to Peng Wansheng.
Now Long Chen realized that the greater a person's Heavenly Dao energy, the more power they could unleash from an Ancestral item. As for cultivation base, it was a basic requirement for using an Ancestral item. But Heavenly Dao energy could cause a fundamental change in the Ancestral item.
== Slave marks ==
Most importantly, Ancestral items were normally constricted by slave runes, and due to that, they didn't feel much sense of loyalty.
There was no way around it. As long as Ancestral items were being nourished by someone, their lifespan was unlimited. But human lifespans were limited. Normally, the powerful experts in control of an Ancestral item would place a slave mark on their weapon before dying and leave it to their descendants to nourish and use it. This was also where the name of an Ancestral item came from.
But while an Ancestral item was loyal to the first generation expert, it didn't have too many feelings for that expert's descendants. They were simply enslaved. Many people treated them as simply tools, and they placed the slave marks so they wouldn't rebel or run.
Ancestral items needed to be enslaved in order to be used by those weaker than them. That was to avoid a backlash against their master. So although the slave mark was safe, it inhibited the Ancestral items' power. The Ancestral item would only use its power in accordance with the power of its master. With a slave mark, a Foundation Forging cultivator wouldn't even be able to use a hundredth of its true power.
== True Ancestral Items ==
Although Qu Dajiang's sword was also an Ancestral item, its age did not surpass a few centuries. The time it had been nourished for was very short. Although it could unleash some of an Ancestral item's power, there was still quite a distance between it and true Ancestral items.
An Ancestral item. It was a weapon transmitted down through generations and nourished for many, many years.
As for the Blazing Dragon Cauldron, it was a true Ancestral item that had been passed down for tens of thousands of years and had been nourished by generation after generation of Tower Masters. Its item-spirit had already gained intelligence, and it was incredibly powerful. Compared to it, his sword was like a newborn baby.
== Item spirit ==
"Forging Ancestral items isn't a problem now, but there is one major problem. That's the item-spirit. Without an item-spirit, an Ancestral item can't possibly unleash the power an Ancestral item should possess. It will just be like a King item with a bit more energy," said Guo Ran.
Ancestral items were nourished by generations of experts. That resulted in a powerful item-spirit that could assist the master in unleashing the item's full power.
An Ancestral item needed an item-spirit. That wasn't difficult. Even Forging Masters who could only refine King items were more than capable of adding an item-spirit to a weapon.
However, the problem was nourishing that item-spirit. That process required centuries.
For an Ancestral item to reach its peak would require millennia. That was what made them so precious, and it was simply impossible for Guo Ran to do the same in a short period.
"You just forge them. I'll handle adding the item-spirits," said Long Chen. As long as Guo Ran was capable of forging them, it wasn't a problem.
== Trivia ==
*Ancestral items were immensely powerful. Only first-rate sects could possess them, and they would belong to the sect masters.
==References==
Category:Items