Spirit Flame Anomaly
Translator: Cinder Translations
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"Elder Wu, please!"
Wei Ding raised his hand and gestured toward the entrance of the forbidden area, indicating for Song Wen to proceed first.
Seeing that Wei Ding had lifted the restrictions on the forbidden area, Song Wen felt a surge of joy in his heart, though his face remained humble.
"There are still other restrictions in the underground passage, and I'm not familiar with the situation inside. I'll need to trouble Elder Wei and Senior Sister Zuo to guide me."
Wei Ding nodded and stepped into the passage.
Zuo Shuiyun considered for a moment, then gritted her teeth and followed him into the passage.
Song Wen quickly kept pace behind them.
The passage spiraled downward.
In front of them, Wei Ding held the access token, unlocking layer upon layer of restrictions.
After a little over a quarter of an hour, the three descended to about ten miles deep underground.
A cave of several acres appeared before them.
In the center of the cave stood a square cauldron about ten feet high.
Inside the cauldron, blue flames burned fiercely.
The flames surged skyward, reaching several meters high.
At the top of the cave, there was a vertical shaft about ten feet wide, leading to the peak of the Dan Peak.
In each alchemy chamber and cultivator's residence on the Dan Peak, there was a small deep hole.
These deep holes connected with the larger vertical shaft, allowing cultivators to draw upon the residual heat of the Earth Core Refining Flame for alchemy.
The surface of the square cauldron was engraved with countless inscriptions, sealing the Earth Core Refining Flame to prevent the spiritual fire from leaking out and incinerating the Dan Peak.
Without the cauldron's seal, the Earth Core Refining Flame would have long turned this underground cave into a world of lava.
As soon as they entered the cave, Song Wen felt a torrent of heat wash over him.
Looking at the square cauldron and the burning blue flames within, he couldn't help but be shaken. The spiritual flame nurtured by the sect's power was indeed extraordinary.
"Elder Wu, please wait here for a moment while I go retrieve a strand of the heart fire," Wei Ding said.
Since he had decided to serve under Song Wen, he would do so thoroughly.
As he spoke, Wei Ding began to perform the fire control technique.
Seeing this, a hint of derision flashed in Zuo Shuiyun's eyes.
In the past, Wei Ding had treated Song Wen coldly, showing indifference.
Now, as if needing something from Song Wen, he was being even more solicitous than she was.
She felt a pang of regret, silently cursing herself for not seizing the opportunity to curry favor with Song Wen first.
"Then I'll trouble Elder Wei," Song Wen said, standing behind Wei Ding with a smile as he watched him cast his spell.
Wei Ding's fire control technique wasn't particularly advanced, but he was extremely skilled, clearly having practiced diligently.
He took out a small furnace, holding it in front of him.
With his hand, he continually formed the fire control seals.
The Earth Core Refining Flame within the cauldron was drawn toward him by the seals, and a thumb-sized blue flame gradually detached from the cauldron, floating toward the small furnace.
The flame appeared somewhat ethereal, as if it would dissipate at any moment.
Just as Wei Ding was concentrating and preparing to collect the heart fire,
Song Wen, standing behind him, suddenly raised his hand.
Lightning crackled around his palm.
He slashed down like a knife, striking at Wei Ding's back with a speed so swift it was almost imperceptible.
Wei Ding's cultivation was inferior to Song Wen's, and he was completely unprepared.
By the time he reacted, Song Wen had already launched a surprise attack.
The violent lightning surged along Song Wen's palm, invading Wei Ding's body.
The lightning poured into Wei Ding's dantian.
Immediately, the spiritual power within his dantian went out of control, rampaging violently inside him.
"Boom!"
The lightning erupted within his dantian.
Wei Ding's abdomen exploded, leaving a fist-sized hole in his body.
At the same time, he was struck by Song Wen's palm and sent flying.
After flying several feet, Wei Ding finally landed.
With his dantian shattered, his spiritual power rapidly drained away.
In the blink of an eye, Wei Ding lost all his cultivation, his breath weak and without any resistance.
The sudden turn of events startled Zuo Shuiyun, causing her to retreat in alarm.
In a flash of thought, she summoned a blood-red creature, the blood demon she had previously subdued from the Cheng Family.
The blood demon bared its fangs, its gaze fierce, and lunged at Song Wen.
A flash of cold light swept past.
Zuo Shuiyun had gone to great lengths to obtain the blood demon, yet it couldn't withstand even a single attack from Song Wen and was immediately split in half, blood spraying everywhere.
At that moment, Zuo Shuiyun retreated two feet.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her lower back.
Using her spiritual sense to probe, she discovered that, unbeknownst to her, a tiny insect had burrowed into her body from behind, invading her dantian.
Zuo Shuiyun had only reached the initial stage of foundation building, and against the Sacred Gu that was close to breaking through to the later stage, she had no power to resist.
Soon, the Sacred Gu bit through her dantian.
Her spiritual power dissipated, her cultivation was crippled, and she collapsed to the ground.
The Soul-Cleaving Blade flickered and disappeared, severing the right hands of Wei Ding and Zuo Shuiyun.
Both of them wore their storage rings on their right hands, and without their storage rings, they couldn't retrieve anything from them to send messages to others.
"Wu Sheng, what do you want to do?" Wei Ding lay on the ground, his voice harsh with questioning.
"Ah… my dantian, my cultivation…" Zuo Shuiyun cried out in pain.
Song Wen ignored both of them, his mind shifting as a three-foot-high bronze furnace suddenly appeared in front of him.
Song Wen sat cross-legged in front of the bronze furnace.
This bronze furnace was a high-quality spiritual tool he had just purchased from the Artifact Refining Peak, used for storing the Earth Core Refining Flame.
He adjusted his spiritual power and activated the "The Supreme Fire Control True Secret."
In these nine days, he had grasped the general concept of the "The Supreme Fire Control True Secret."
Though he was not yet proficient, it was enough for his current needs.
He aimed to extract a strand of the Earth Core Refining Flame from the square cauldron.
The difficulty of extracting this flame was hundreds of times greater than obtaining a heart fire.
With flying hand seals, Song Wen's immense spiritual power and rich spiritual sense continuously surged into the core of the Earth Core Refining Flame, attempting to tear the spiritual fire apart.
The Earth Core Refining Flame seemed to possess a kind of sentience, as if aware of Song Wen's injected spiritual power and spiritual sense, responding with ill intent.
It emitted intense heat, trying to burn away and extinguish Song Wen's spiritual sense and power.
The sealing of the Earth Core Refining Flame by the square cauldron made things considerably easier for Song Wen; otherwise, his intrusion of spiritual power and sense would definitely provoke a violent reaction from the Earth Core Refining Flame, increasing the difficulty of extracting the flame tenfold or more.
After two hours, beads of sweat dotted Song Wen's forehead.
Under his full-force fire control, a blue flame the size of a basin was extracted.
The flame was dense and thick, radiating intense heat.
Song Wen's expression became serious, as the next step was the most crucial.
He needed to draw the extracted Earth Core Refining Flame from the square cauldron and collect it in the bronze furnace.
As Song Wen cast his fire control spell, the flame soared from the square cauldron, darting toward him.
Suddenly, an unexpected scene unfolded.
The Earth Core Refining Flame in the square cauldron erupted violently, the flames surging to several feet high as if it wanted to break free from the cauldron's seal.
The square cauldron had been specially crafted by the Beastmaster Sect to seal the Earth Core Refining Flame, so it wasn't something that could be easily breached.
The rapidly swelling Earth Core Refining Flame was quickly subdued.
However, the sudden increase in flames caused the temperature inside the cave to rise sharply.
The temperature within the large vertical shaft at the cave's top also spiked.
(End of the Chapter)
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