novelkee Chapter 2346
Chapter 2346
Chapter 2346
With Gale's shout, the Black Death Sword, which had been twitching slightly like a dead fish, suddenly leaped up as if it had eaten Mr. Mighty, and all its fragments began to fly towards Gale!
Thor panicked!
Damn it, stop messing around!
I'm almost crying!!!
"Mjørnir!!!! Help me!!!"
Thor has now exhausted every last bit of his strength and is completely powerless, unable to move at all. So he has decided to return to his old ways... the Hammer God!!!
As the son of Odin, king of the Nine Realms, Thor inherited the power of thunder. As Odin's son and heir to Asgard, he received the symbol of Asgard's succession—Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor!
Thor loves his hammer. He spent a long time as a child learning to lift it, so there's no doubt that Thor is the god of hammers. He even gets up every morning to stare at the hammer, fearing that one day he might not be able to lift Mjolnir.
(In the comics, this has become Thor's obsession: "I'm afraid of this hammer because every day I wake up not knowing if I can still lift it until I do!" Thor's fear isn't without reason; in the comics, Thor's obsession with the hammer reaches its peak. During the Sin event, Thor learned certain things and lost the right to lift Mjolnir. He lost his confidence in fighting, and this obsession with the hammer even controlled him, leading the crazed Thor to steal other people's hammers. It was at this time that Beta Ray Bill confronted Thor... well, there are too many comic book versions, and Beta Ray Bill is a classic enemy in the Thor series, always inexplicably clashing with Thor.)
Odin once asked Thor, "Are you the god of hammers?" and told Thor that his power did not come from his hammer.
That's because Thor often likes to rely on his hammer.
However, these symptoms improved considerably after his hammer shattered, and he also awakened his true nature, becoming the true Thor.
But isn't he starting to feel the strain now?
Therefore, we can only call upon Thor's hammer once again.
To be honest, although Mjolnir has had several masters, if we're talking about who's the most special one, it's definitely Thor.
Thor's hammer was created before the birth of Asgard.
At the beginning of Asgard's creation.
To celebrate the birth of the nation of Asgard, Boul united all the wizards of the tribe at the time to enchant the dwarves with a divine spear, which became known as the Spear of Eternity!
After Asgard stabilized, Boul declared his eldest son, Boul, as his successor!
At that time, Asgard was in its infancy and basically lacked everything.
There wasn't even a basic system of inheritance.
Everything started from nothing!
This is not something that can be explained in just a few simple sentences!
I can only give examples, such as the evolution of the inheritance system in our country from the tribal era to the feudal era.
Due to the environmental challenges faced by early humans, our ancient ancestors chose to live collectively, gradually developing into settled settlements. With the mastery of food cultivation and livestock raising techniques, as well as improvements in house construction skills, they gradually moved towards a settled lifestyle. This group, engaged in production and life in a specific area, along with its surrounding space, is collectively referred to as a "settlement," or simply a place where people gather to live. As production progressed, the number of early inhabitants gradually increased. In the late Dawenkou period tombs in Shandong, we can observe significant differences in burial goods, clearly reflecting a clear gap between rich and poor in society at that time. From this phenomenon, we further speculate that tribal leaders may have already possessed privileged status beyond that of ordinary residents. The Liangzhu ancient city site in Zhejiang, contemporaneous with the late Dawenkou period in Shandong, showcases an exquisite layout of a palace area and inner and outer cities. This discovery reveals that an early form of state had already emerged in China at that time. Therefore, the assertion of "five thousand years of civilization" has solid archaeological support.
During the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, tribes, as organizations composed of several closely related clans, gradually emerged. Tribal leaders possessed corresponding power and prestige due to their significant responsibilities in warfare and flood control, but the society as a whole still retained vestiges of primitive democracy. Internal councils existed within tribes, and for important matters, everyone needed to discuss and make collective decisions. The succession of leadership in the alliance during the Yao, Shun, and Yu periods retained remnants of democratic systems; the succession was decided by the older generation through discussion. Shun inherited Yao's position due to his talent and virtue. Although Shun was not Yao's biological son, he inherited the throne because of their close relationship. The abdication system was similar to an election, a process fraught with complexity. Yu's outstanding achievements in flood control demonstrated Shun's wisdom and ability to appoint talented individuals, thus enabling him to smoothly inherit the position of alliance leader. Although Yu established the Xia Dynasty and served as its king, as the leader of the tribal alliance, he still needed to follow tradition in public, recommending Boyi as his successor. However, Yu secretly supported his son Qi's power, paving the way for Qi's future succession. After Yu's death, in the power struggle between Qi and Boyi, Qi ultimately prevailed and successfully inherited the throne. This process marked the transition from the abdication system to a hereditary system. Furthermore, the *Records of the Grand Historian* also records that the Xia Dynasty had established a relatively complete government bureaucracy, formulated criminal laws, and set up prisons.
In the era of abdication, the land belonged to the public, and power circulated within tribal alliances. However, with the gradual establishment of hereditary systems, the land gradually became the private property of a single family or clan. This did not refer to a state of wandering and nomadic life, but rather clearly expressed the concept of possessing the land for oneself. Therefore, the Book of Songs contains the saying, "Under the whole heaven, all land belongs to the king." Although the land ultimately belonged to the king, its foundation lay with the people. The people were the true masters of the land. During the Warring States period, the valuable idea of "the people are more important than the ruler" was already proposed, fully demonstrating the profound truth that the support of the people determines the rise and fall of a nation. We can clearly see this in the succession of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties.
Boul wants to hand over the throne of Asgard to his son in one fell swoop... This is difficult.
For the tribes of Asgard at that time, they didn't really have a concrete concept of a king. In their view, a kingdom was just a group of tribes uniting and electing a chieftain!
However, each tribe still maintains its own independence.
Boole certainly didn't want that.
It's just a tribal alliance, he's crazy to expend so much effort.
Therefore, he needs to strengthen Bauer's power and influence.
So after completing the Spear of Eternity, he began to devise a divine artifact for his successor that held the same symbolic significance as the Spear of Eternity.
To put it bluntly, the Eternal Spear is the Imperial Seal of the State!
The Imperial Seal of the State is just a seal, so why did it hold such an important position in ancient times?
Since Qin Shi Huang established the unified central dynasty of China, the Imperial Seal of the State, carved from the He Shi Bi jade, has become a symbol of imperial power and has been highly valued by rulers of all dynasties.
At its core, this is just a jade seal. Why then did it become a symbol of imperial power throughout history, and why was it so coveted by rulers of successive dynasties? In other words, very few people have actually seen the Imperial Seal of the State. Why didn't later rulers simply forge one? Functionally speaking, the Imperial Seal of the State is indeed just a jade seal; its sole purpose is to represent the emperor's signature on various edicts. Because human handwriting is easily imitated and constantly changing, it's inconvenient to use it as a universally accepted mark. That's why the imperial seal came into being. From this perspective, before the Qin Dynasty, any private seal used by feudal lords that represented their agreement with the text of an edict could be called an imperial seal. However, after the Qin Dynasty established a unified empire, it redefined many new national systems, including the definition of the Imperial Seal of the State. According to Qin law, the ruler possessed many seals, but the most formal and authoritative was this Imperial Seal of the State. Any edict bearing this jade seal could be considered the highest law, system, and policy of the state. Because of the Qin Dynasty's prominent position of the Imperial Seal, it possessed characteristics not found in other imperial seals, gradually evolving into a symbol of imperial power in a unified nation. After the Qin Dynasty, rulers of subsequent dynasties, as long as they sought to establish a unified central dynasty, were essentially inheriting the Qin Dynasty's legal lineage. Before the Qin Dynasty, since there was no unified system, later dynasties could not trace their lineage back, because claiming to inherit the legal lineage of the pre-Qin period would not allow for unification, as the pre-Qin system was based on feudalism. Therefore, from this perspective, the Imperial Seal became like the Xuanyuan Sword of the Yellow Emperor in mythology, representing the highest legal authority of the emperor on the land of China, thus possessing a unique historical status.
So, given the immense power of the Imperial Seal of the State, why didn't later monarchs replicate it and claim to have inherited the Mandate of Heaven? There are two main reasons. First, the Imperial Seal of the State, passed down from the Qin Dynasty, was made of a unique material—carved from a single piece of the He Shi Bi jade. The He Shi Bi was a priceless treasure; there was only one such piece in the entire history of ancient China. Even if later emperors wanted to deceive their subjects, they couldn't. Ordinary people might not know what it was like, but scholars did. Historical records repeatedly documented the origin and characteristics of the Imperial Seal, even mentioning that after the Han Dynasty, a corner was missing—this was recorded in official histories. This meant that even if an emperor wanted to deceive, he couldn't. Scholars already knew what it was like, and there were records of it in books. Not only could you not find the material, but even if you replicated it using other materials, it would be easily detected.
Secondly, besides the fact that the Imperial Seal of the State was difficult to counterfeit due to its material, its importance to a feudal dynasty meant that historians and scholars were always very interested in its whereabouts. In other words, even if the Imperial Seal of the State was taken out of the palace at the end of the dynasty, the details of who took it, where it went, and what twists and turns it went through were crucial.
The scholar-officials were well aware of the whereabouts of the Imperial Seal, but later emperors might not have known its path to destruction. If, at this point, a mere "Imperial Seal of the State" were produced from nowhere, and its provenance didn't align with the scholar-officials' understanding of its origins, the emperor would be exposed. Not only would he fail to secure his legitimacy, but he would also be ridiculed. Therefore, it wasn't that ancient emperors didn't want to forge the Imperial Seal; they simply couldn't. The ancients were no less intelligent than modern people. What we can think of today, our ancestors certainly could have thought of hundreds or thousands of years ago. Aside from some technological differences, the ancients were likely more adept at political maneuvering than modern people. We now know the Imperial Seal of the State is important because of its symbolic significance; the ancients understood this as well. Moreover, they clearly knew that without the strength to govern and conquer the world, even possessing the Imperial Seal wouldn't make them recognized as legitimate rulers.
In other words, for emperors, aside from those utterly unambitious rulers who only wanted to coast through life, any emperor with even a modicum of responsibility and a sense of mission understood that the Imperial Seal of the State's function was secondary. Its effect only became apparent after they had secured the throne; it didn't automatically grant them national power. From this perspective, while it might be important to Bai Guanmen, symbolizing the legitimacy of imperial authority, for emperors, especially capable ones, it was merely an embellishment—better to have, but not essential. This explains why, despite its importance, the Imperial Seal of the State wasn't highly valued by accomplished emperors. As for those utterly incompetent rulers, since they were already incompetent, what did they care about the Imperial Seal of the State? It couldn't be eaten or drunk, so they wouldn't pay it any mind. This created a phenomenon where the Imperial Seal of the State became increasingly mystical among the common people, but in reality, it didn't have that much influence on the actual rulers of a dynasty.
But this wouldn't work in Asgard.
Their credentials must be powerful!
Weakness is not enough!
Therefore, the Eternal Spear is unbelievably powerful! This thing could easily shatter an asteroid with a single shot.
The same applies to Thor's hammer!
Unfortunately... all the previous wielders of Thor's hammer were powerful individuals!
Let's not talk about Bull and Bauer; they were ancient figures, and apart from a few people, no one knows how powerful they were.
But next up are Odin and Hela.
Whether these two have hammers or not doesn't really matter.
Odin could kill Thor with his bare hands without his hammer, let alone Hela; neither of them needs a hammer at all!
Only Thor was truly shameful.
But it was also this dependence that made Thor's hammer treat Thor with an extraordinary... how to say it? Doting affection?
So when Thor shouted, Mjolnir moved!