Black Stone Fragment

The Black Stone Fragment is the dark pendant-like object that accompanies Su Ming from Dark Mountain and quietly enables much of his early development. It opens a private dimension used for medicinal refinement, alters or imitates presences well enough to deceive supernatural recognition, and later fuses into Su Ming's soul. What first appears to be an unexplained refining treasure is eventually identified as a broken part of the Seed of Life Extermination and, more specifically, as a Spirit Refinement Stone. Its protection is therefore not wholly benevolent: the fragment is preserving and cultivating a host for a much older design. (Chapters 6–18, 834–835, 1032–1033, 1125, 1208)

History

Dark Mountain and the hidden refining world

Su Ming wears the fragment at his chest after receiving it through Xiao Hong. During his Berserker initiation it shines with scarlet light and changes the result, allowing the deity statue to accept him despite the deeper uncertainty around his Berserker blood. The object then draws him bodily into a fog-bound dimension containing a carved mountain, herb images, a great cauldron, and a door that responds to offerings of medicinal pills. There he learns the Quenching and Scattering methods and refines medicines such as the Enlightenment Pill. The medicines accelerate his cultivation and give him resources that change his prospects in Dark Mountain. (Chapters 6–18)

Entry is initially deliberate: Su Ming holds the stone, focuses during cultivation, and follows the sensation around the blood veins near his chest. The dimension can carry his body and stored medicines, making it both workshop and refuge. Su Ming consequently treats it as his deepest secret and considers entering it when mortal danger leaves no other escape. That safeguard is conditional, however. Powerful isolation can sever his connection to the fragment, and after it fuses with his soul he can sometimes enter only as a soul, which would require abandoning his physical body. (Chapters 17–18, 367, 697, 811)

The power to deceive

As Su Ming's experience grows, he discovers that the fragment responds to focused will by falsifying identity and presence. It makes the Dark Mountain statue acknowledge him, temporarily turns his presence into wind, hides the discrepancy when he takes the Wind inheritance, and magnifies his Lightning manifestation. It later imitates the rod snake's presence so he can enter the Candle Dragon's body and suppresses the second God of Berserkers' aura so he can cross the Five Direction Seal. These uses let the fragment deceive a test or barrier, but they do not grant permanent ownership of the legacy being imitated. The Wind Crystal still refuses him without the proper qualification, and an internal compulsion or condition that does not register as an outside threat may produce no reaction. (Chapters 354–381, 390, 460, 562–568)

The fragment eventually fuses into Su Ming's soul and follows him from the Yin Death Region to the Barren Lands of Divine Essence. During his Possession of Ecang, it creates one hundred million indistinguishable heart-presences around the one hundred thousand genuine ones, buying the critical breaths needed to complete the attempt. It can also imitate Ecang's soul closely enough to drive away the nine remaining wills. These feats establish its specialty as deception of perception and law rather than simple illusion visible only to ordinary senses. (Chapters 834–835)

Awakening as the Seed of Life Extermination

The fragment reacts to the blue spirit released by a Wave of Tears and pulls Su Ming into an ancient scene within its world. A second mountain arrives, and the vision connects the relic with an old ship, offerings, and the name Seed of Life Extermination. It absorbs the sea of blood left by the Waves of Tears and begins changing. When a Sand Earthling Antecedental Spirit senses its presence, he mistakes Su Ming for the herald of Old Man Extermination, offers a purification vase and future attacks, and receives the same black thread associated with older offerings. (Chapters 911–930)

The relic's later actions reveal that Su Xuan Yi arranged for Xiao Hong to give it to Su Ming. As the Seed, it locates structural flaws, dismantles the mask imposed on Su Ming, and manifests the image of a white-robed Old Man Extermination. Long residence and nourishment make the physical pendant inseparable from Su Ming's soul until its maturation. Su Ming later learns that its protection served a parasitic purpose, and the completed half leaves him after consuming nearly all his soul. A separate black crystal finally lets him identify the original fragment as a Spirit Refinement Stone. (Chapters 1011, 1032–1033, 1125–1141, 1208)

Abilities and properties

• Refining dimension: The fragment contains a foggy inner world with carved medicinal instructions, a mountain chamber, and doors opened through pill offerings. Su Ming can transport his body and materials inside and uses it to learn and perform early medicinal refinement. Later transformations reveal additional mountains and preserved scenes from the ancient past. (Chapters 7–18, 911–914)
• Presence deception: In response to Su Ming's focused will, the fragment can make a false identity, aura, or condition indistinguishable from the genuine one. It deceives deity statues, inheritance tests, seals, hostile wills, and Ecang's perception. The effect may be brief, cannot force every inheritance to accept him, and can fail when access to the fragment is isolated. (Chapters 354–381, 460, 568, 697, 834–835)
• Shelter: Its inner dimension offers escape from external danger, but it is not an unconditional refuge. Some spatial restraints block contact, and after soul fusion Su Ming can enter without being able to bring his body. Using it openly also risks exposing a secret on which his enemies could act. (Chapters 367, 697, 811)
• Soul integration and persistence: The fragment survives after merging into Su Ming's soul and remains even when he burns that soul. This durability belongs to the Seed's parasitic nature rather than to Su Ming's cultivation. Once awakened, it can act on its own—for example, absorbing an offered vessel and issuing a black thread without Su Ming directing either step. (Chapters 834, 929–930)
• Legacy analysis: In its awakened state, it identifies flaws in living structures and can disassemble a hostile construct through them. This property develops into the Seed of Life Extermination's more extensive life-analysis function; it requires something that can be examined and is not presented as unlimited destruction by itself. (Chapters 912–914, 1011, 1032)
• Hidden cost: The apparent aid protects a valuable host while the Seed matures. Its veins feed from Su Ming's Nascent Divinity, making the relationship parasitic and potentially fatal rather than a freely controlled treasure bond. This cost becomes explicit only after the pendant form has already fused into his soul. (Chapters 1125–1141)

Ownership and custody