Glossary / Heavenly Treasures
Heavenly Treasures in Chinese: 59 Terms and Their English Renderings
Objects of power from myth, most of them with a specific trick rather than a general bonus.
59 terms
| Chinese | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 人参果 | Ginseng Fruit | The fruit that looks like a newborn and tastes like everything. Falling off the tree means it becomes worthless, which is the joke. |
| 仙丹 | Immortal Pill | The general term for a pill that extends life. What it costs varies; who it works on varies more. |
| 九转金丹 | Nine-Turn Golden Elixir | The highest grade of alchemical pill, refined through nine cycles. Everything in the body is repaired, including things the taker did not know were broken. |
| 不死药 | Elixir of Immortality | The single-use exemption from death. Acquiring it is never the end of a story, because someone always takes it away. |
| 太乙玉 | Taiyi Jade | A refined jade used to store qi without loss. Containers for dangerous energy are usually made from it. |
| 先天灵宝 | Innate Spirit Treasure | A treasure that existed before anything made it. In power terms, one tier above everything crafted. |
| 后天灵宝 | Acquired Spirit Treasure | A treasure made later, by someone, on purpose. Slightly less impressive, far more numerous. |
| 混沌珠 | Chaos Pearl | A pearl holding a scrap of the undivided world. Inside it, the rules of the local universe stop applying. |
| 鸿蒙紫气 | Primal Purple Qi | The breath of the world before it split, caught in a strand. Acquiring one makes a character into a mythic being by definition. |
| 功德金莲 | Golden Lotus of Merit | A lotus that blooms with accumulated good deeds. Defencive, and infuriating to fight against. |
| 造化玉牒 | Jade Disc of Creation | The record of how the world was made. Reading it is not allowed; every plot involving it is somebody trying. |
| 龙涎香 | Ambergris | Whale product in the real world, dragon saliva in fiction. Used in pills that need to smell expensive. |
| 凤凰羽 | Phoenix Feather | Regrowth material. Properly used, it turns a mortal wound into a scar. |
| 玄黄之气 | Primal Yellow Qi | The qi of earth before it separated from heaven. Stabilises anything, including worlds. |
| 太初之气 | The Qi of the First Beginning | The first breath after the split. Too strong to breathe; it has to be stored and siphoned. |
| 紫气东来 | Purple Qi from the East | The sign that a sage is arriving. Novels use it as a special effect whenever a big character shows up. |
| 山河鼎 | Cauldron of Mountains and Rivers | A cauldron that contains a landscape, used to refine things too large for a normal furnace. |
| 造化鼎 | Cauldron of Creation | A refining vessel that can produce things rather than merely improve them. Rare, and always guarded. |
| 九鼎 | The Nine Cauldrons | The ritual vessels of the ancient kings, whose possession meant the mandate to rule. Fiction uses them as keys to authority. |
| 轩辕剑 | Xuanyuan Sword | The Yellow Emperor's sword, a symbol of legitimate rule rather than a weapon. Whoever holds it is arguing about government. |
| 赤霄剑 | Red Sky Sword | A sword associated with the founding of the Han, used in fiction as proof of destiny. |
| 龙泉剑 | Longquan Sword | The famous forging site, and the blades made there. Any well-made sword in a novel is from here or claims to be. |
| 传国玉玺 | Imperial Jade Seal | The seal of the realm. Its possession is the political version of a magic artifact, and every dynasty fakes one. |
| 七星灯 | Seven-Star Lamp | The lamp that keeps a dying life going if the flame holds. Wind is the enemy in every such scene. |
| 续命灯 | Life-Extending Lamp | A lamp tied to a person's lifespan. Extinguish it and the question of whether you killed someone becomes technical. |
| 定魂珠 | Soul-Anchoring Pearl | Holds a soul inside its body after death. The standard method for keeping a dead character available for conversation. |
| 聚魂幡 | Soul-Gathering Banner | A banner that collects the souls of the dying. Demon-path factions carry these; so do some very orthodox armies. |
| 轮回盘 | Wheel of Reincarnation | The mechanism that sorts souls. Tampering with it is the genre's highest crime. |
| 判官笔 | Judge's Brush | The brush used to amend the book. A character with one can rewrite a death, which is never a small act. |
| 照胆镜 | Mirror of Courage | A mirror that shows what a person is actually afraid of. Used in trials, not fights. |
| 太岁 | Tai Sui | The yearly deity you must not offend, and also a fungus sold as medicine. Both readings show up in fiction, sometimes in the same chapter. |
| 蟠桃园仙桃 | Peach from the Immortal Orchard | Graded by age. Three thousand years for one effect, six for another, nine for the one nobody has eaten. |
| 交梨火枣 | Pear and Jujube of Immortality | The fruit course at a heavenly banquet. Delicious, and the reason guests queue. |
| 玉液琼浆 | Jade Liquid | The drink served with the peaches. Restores the body faster than most pills. |
| 龙涎 | Dragon Saliva | Ingredient that fixes whatever the pill got wrong. Collected without asking, which is the problem. |
| 凤髓 | Phoenix Marrow | Rebirth material in liquid form. Required for the highest grade of body repair. |
| 玄武龟甲 | Black Tortoise Shell | Divination tool and shield. The two uses are more similar than they look. |
| 凤凰涅槃火 | Phoenix Rebirth Flame | A flame that reconstructs what it burns. The only reliable way back from total destruction. |
| 太初石 | Stone of the First Beginning | Material that predates matter. Exists in one arc and defines it. |
| 混沌青莲 | Chaos Green Lotus | A plant that grew before the world settled. Every part of it is a treasure, including the root. |
| 先天灵根 | Innate Spirit Root | A plant older than cultivation. Its fruit is the top prize in any sky-realm heist. |
| 人参果树 | Ginseng Fruit Tree | The tree whose fruit looks like a baby. Knock one off and it becomes worthless, which is the whole joke. |
| 菩提子 | Bodhi Seed | Enlightenment in a bead. Worn by monks and by anyone who wants to look like one. |
| 舍利子 | Relic | What remains after a holy death. In fiction, the only thing that reliably hurts demonic beings. |
| 九幽玄铁 | Dark Iron of the Nine Darknesses | Metal mined below the underworld. Absorbs energy, which makes it ideal for demonic weapons. |
| 星辰铁 | Starfall Iron | Metal from a fallen star. Space-attribute, and always in short supply. |
| 龙筋 | Dragon Sinew | Bowstring material. Pulling one is a statement about the archer. |
| 无根之水 | Rootless Water | Water that has not touched the ground. Rain, only collected at night, only usable before dawn. |
| 甘露 | Sweet Dew | Purified water used in healing. Ordinary name, extraordinary effect. |
| 三光神水 | Water of Three Lights | Sun, moon and star water combined. The highest tier of healing liquid, and it comes in three separate containers. |
| 造化之力 | Power of Creation | The ability to make rather than mend. The rarest thing in the setting and the least used. |
| 鸿蒙灵石 | Primal Spirit Stone | A stone holding a fragment of the first world. In games it is the currency of the endgame shop. |
| 天河水 | Water of the Celestial River | Used to wash away corruption. Requires a trip that nobody has time for. |
| 月华 | Moon Essence | Collected light. Ingredient for yin pills and the reason beasts camp on mountains at night. |
| 日精 | Sun Essence | The opposite. Ingredient for yang pills, and always in short supply because collecting it hurts. |
| 五色神光 | Five-Coloured Light | A power rather than an object. Stops anything of a given element, which makes it a puzzle. |
| 六魂幡 | Six-Soul Banner | A banner that targets souls directly. One of the few items that bypasses defence entirely. |
| 定海珠 | Sea-Settling Pearl | Twenty-four pearls that hold the sea in place. Also used as a throwing weapon, absurdly. |
| 九龙岛香炉 | Incense Burner of the Nine Dragon Isle | Continuously produces medicinal smoke. A support item that defines a healer's kit. |
These objects appear in games and adaptations constantly, so a familiar rendering helps readers recognise them. Terms follow the free cultivation novels at cultivationnovel.com.
Source: cultivationnovel.com · Cultivation Glossary