Chapter 6 : Scarlet flame mantra

She sat alone, cold pressing in from all sides like a quiet punishment. The cuffs around her wrists buzzed faintly—constant reminders of her helpless state. Each breath came shallow. The mana suppressors didn't just dampen her power—they suffocated her.

No food. No soft bed. Just steel walls and silence.

Then, a voice echoed in her mind.

"Well, well. Thought you were doing fine. But looks like you love trouble."

Light, mischievous. A mocking tone only one person ever dared to use with her.

Knight 33.

She didn't even flinch.

After completing the first trial of the Tower of Eternal Doomsday and Sacrifice—a name as dramatic as the pain it delivered—Yun Ting had gained more than just scars. She'd inherited a presence even she did not know

Knight 33.

It wasn't a name, but a title. His actual identity remained a mystery, and she still didn't know how many trials the tower held. But if Knight 33 was the weakest guardian, as she suspected, then his strength barely scraped the peak of Affinity Level. Yet his presence in her mind was unshakable. Before falling dormant, he gave her two gifts—a bizarre technique called Devil's Palm, and a spirit flame she nicknamed Scarlet Flame. Whether that was its true name didn't matter. It obeyed her.

That was enough.

In Taixu, he'd gone silent. Sleeping, mostly. Until now.

She glanced around the dim interrogation room. "If only I knew how life without power or money works," she muttered, swinging her legs onto the steel table and leaning back.

Knight 33 snorted in her mind.

"Stop being dramatic. This isn't a dungeon. It's a suppression chamber. Fourth-rank energy crystals, dense with containment energy. Lucky you—if you stop sulking, you can actually turn this into an opportunity."

She narrowed her eyes, studying the faint pulsing glow in the walls. So that's where the suppressors were hidden. The energy was real—massive, in fact—but way too dense. Hard to gather, hard to convert.

With a flick of her wrist, the cuffs snapped and clattered to the floor.

She stood on the table and sat cross-legged. Her breathing steadied.

Inside this room, energy didn't flow like water. It was thick, like syrup. Energy crystals were known to be poor sources for cultivation. She'd learned that the hard way. Even with her talent, she only managed one level-up after six full months of meditation using high-grade crystals.

Still, it brought her to the edge—290,000 units of spiritual energy. That was the peak of Affinity Level. Just a little more… and she could evolve.

The cultivation system in this world was divided as follows:

Affinity Levels: F, E, D, C, B, A

Elite Tiers: S , SSS

Black Ranked Levels:

Primordial Adept

Heaven Adept (Tian Shi)

Heavenly Lord (Tian Zun)

Saint Lord (Sheng Zun)

Sovereign Lord .

Basically affinity level wasn't even supposed to be a level, people at this level were just strong men whose wounds healed faster and could demolish a building with one punch,at this stage their spiritual cavities are just developing to apprehend the true spiritual strength at it was at least up to 300,000 spiritual energy units before becoming a S -rank and finally starting to evolve and undergo spiritual refinement,for every spiritual refinement,one could gain a domain and the number of domains was the number of skills one human could use with in a battle,so this meant that those ranking from F to A possessed no spiritual skills at all ,the only power was martial arts and all other techniques

Her teeth clenched. She remembered the Widow Spider Hornet, it could've helped her evolve instantly—if only she'd eaten it instead of dragging it into this cursed city to sell but once again she needed money

She laughed bitterly.

"bright moon. The city of bad luck. Coming back was a mistake just like last time."

Everything had gone wrong once again.

This wasn't just frustration. It was regret deep enough to poison her bones.

"Damn it " she muttered, mocking herself.

Her gaze fell on the flickering Scarlet Flame hovering near her palm. It wasn't ordinary fire. It looked like liquid light, glowing with life. This was spirit flame—a mythical treasure so rare most cultivators had only heard of them in stories. A flame that could devour other energy sources, speed up cultivation, even develop a will of its own.

But here's the catch—only those above SS Rank could control them.

For anyone else? It'd burn you alive. Or worse, rupture your spiritual cavities from the inside.

So why could she hold it?

Her mother had reached Black Rank, far above the common cultivator. Perhaps Yun Ting had inherited the bloodline of a super human being, no wonder she could withstand all restrictions of the flame

With a thought, she released the flame. It glided through the air like a ribbon of fire, circling the room. The suppressor energy that clung to the walls instantly began to shimmer… then burn.

The pressure vanished as if it had never been there.

She breathed deeply then got to work.

The Scarlet Flame burned the suppressors' energy into a usable form, and Yun Ting began absorbing it slowly. Very slowly—around 625 units per hour. Not much, but considering how resistant this energy was, it was a miracle. A normal human, even after hours of intense training, might gather 20 units in one hour. This was already far beyond what most would dream of.

Sweat poured down her back. Her clothes clung to her skin. There wasn't even a fan in here as expected. Whoever designed this room was a monster,or just lazy.

Hours passed.

Her breathing grew heavier. Her body trembled as the energy flowed in. 3,000 units gathered,then 4,000.

She clenched her fists.

She could feel her strength rise.

Even if it wasn't enough to push her past the peak of Affinity Level, this energy would allow her to have a soul skill. Affinity cultivators didn't normally have them. Their spiritual cavities were still too immature. But she was different.

Even if one gathered thousands of strands of spiritual energy into their body, without stepping into the legendary S-Rank—known also as Soul Saint level—it was all in vain. Like a fool trying to collect water with a sieve, the result would be the same: wasted effort.

Spiritual energy wasn't just ordinary energy. It was the very breath between heaven and earth, a dense flow of life that tethered the soul to the celestial path. Only through continuous growth and enlightenment could one climb the rungs of that ladder—a path known to the world as cultivation.

But not all could walk it.

Those born without spiritual cavities were denied this destiny hence becoming ordinary people . Even affinity-level warriors, gifted with extraordinary strength, could not harness true spiritual energy unless their soul created its own storage point: a complex spiritual matrix that let their body and soul act in unison. Without it, the energy that flowed through the universe could never be seized, never be wielded.

To those with closed spiritual cavities, spiritual strength was more like a borrowed tool—useful, perhaps, but never truly theirs.

I this moment ... Yun ting felt her body had become light. Lighter than ever before, as if she had been unshackled from the invisible weight she had carried her whole life. It wasn't freedom but it was something more abstract,

Like her soul had learned how to breathe.

Yun Ting exhaled slowly, then raised her palms before her chest. The scarlet flame around the chamber flickered wildly, forming a vortex that spiraled between her hands. It obeyed her call, coalescing into a burning sphere of red , pulsing like a heartbeat.

Her gaze narrowed. This was spiritual energy condensed into a physical form. She had done it. Somehow, without reaching the Soul Saint level, she had managed to draw in the dense spiritual energy that existed between heaven and earth.

She couldn't use the spiritual energy, but couldn't let it go to waste.

She changed her stance—raised her right palm slightly above the orb, then lowered her left beneath it. The fireball hovered gently in the air, like a planet suspended between gravity. Her fingers trembled, forming a prayer position around the orb. Not touching it. Not yet.

A surge of heat coiled around her spine.

Her fingers shifted. She interlocked the pinky of one hand with the index of the other—then pulled.

The orb responded.

A glowing thread of blue seeped from its core, laced with trails of red light. It entered her body through her fingertips. She gasped as the chill of the spiritual energy clashed with the heat of her flame. Her body rocked, but she grounded herself, sitting cross-legged and resting her palms atop her thighs.

The orb shot forward—smashing directly into her forehead, leaving a forming red flower glowing on the skin of her forehead.

She raised her hand and touched it, feeling its intensity, the scarlet flame was finally resting in a secure part of her body, just above the skull of her head. It didn't seem to affect her brain but it was as if she could easily connect with soul fire.

With the help of the scarlet flame, developing a spiritual cavity would take that long even th chances were small, as she wasn't born with them just like other people. Being able to cultivate affinity level was a miracle as she was the heir to a God's legacy.

"finally", Yun ting exhaled, stretching her limbs up into the air.

But then, agony.

It started with her blood. Her cells began to twist inside out. First slowly,then violently. A burning sensation crawled under her skin as if her very flesh was rejecting her soul. Her limbs spasmed.

Cracks appeared on her hands—thin lines at first. But they deepened, widening into jagged fissures. She bit her lip hard, drawing blood, desperate to keep silent. But the pain was beyond anything she had ever imagined.

Her fingers dug into her thighs, nails biting skin, seeking control. But the pressure only made it worse.

She didn't understand.