Beyond Spring Return Valley's mountain-protecting grand formation, rain poured down in torrents. Bolts of violent lightning fell straight from the sky. Every so often, a towering tree was struck; winding electric serpents raced and leaped across its trunk, bursting into blinding flames and splitting the tree to pieces. Great chunks of burning wood flew from the trunk with a crash, like a giant firework blooming in the void. Countless sparks streaked through the downpour in dazzling trails, shooting in every direction.
Lightning was heaven's command: pure yang, utterly hard, containing boundless firepower.
Lin Xiao stood atop a several-zhang-high reclining ox stone on the summit of a bare, treeless hill, quietly watching bolt after bolt crash down and freely display heaven and earth's majesty and vast, surging power. Whenever a thunderbolt roared through the sky, carrying endless heat and immeasurable force, the Pure Fire True Essence within him swelled and pulsed. It was as if his true essence had been drawn by the lightning outside, changing in one stroke from a dormant insect into something alive and restless. With every enormous peal of thunder, his dantian surged like the tide, stretching it until it ached faintly.
A night of thunder was a great taboo in cultivation for ordinary Daoists. The disorderly power of heaven and earth's lightning would draw their true qi into wild, chaotic currents; nine out of ten would suffer qi deviation.
Yet for Lin Xiao, whose nature was pure fire, a day filled with thunder was instead the perfect opportunity to break through. Blazing fire and lightning had always shared common traits. The lightning outside stirred the true essence within Lin Xiao, making it increasingly lively and vigorous, like a blazing flame overflowing with vitality as it swept through his body. More importantly, by observing the might of heaven and earth's lightning, he could comprehend certain marvelous transformations—for instance, how to unleash a more powerful Palm Lightning.
Drawing in a long breath, Lin Xiao suddenly sat cross-legged atop the reclining ox stone. He held a fist-sized, polished, gleaming high-grade fire Spirit Stone in his arms, one of the rewards he had received after winning the sect's grand competition. The high-grade fire Spirit Stone contained immense fire Spiritual Energy. Using a secret method to draw out the energy within, Lin Xiao immediately felt a continuous, profound current of heat pour from the Spirit Stone and merge into his body. Firepower surged through him, threads of heat spreading outward without pause. Before the rain could approach his body, it was evaporated by the heat. A ring of steam wrapped around him, and within several zhang, the air was hazy with vapor.
A circle of lustrous red light shone from the Spirit Stone. Like a living creature, the red light twisted around and covered Lin Xiao's body, enveloping him completely.
Several dozen zhang away, figures flashed. Daoist Danling, Daoist Danyu, and several other elders of the Great Luo Pill Dao emerged from the curtain of rain. Daoist Danling gazed at Lin Xiao approvingly and nodded with praise. "Good child. To actually comprehend the transformations of true fire from lightning filling the skies—truly a good child. But how did Junior Brother Dan Fu and Junior Sister Danxia teach him? He is cultivating outside the mountain-protecting formation, yet they did not even set up any protective restrictions?" His tone shifted, and Daoist Danling suddenly smiled. "How about I take Lin Xiao as my disciple? What do you junior brothers think?"
Daoist Danyu and the other elders all raised their heads and gazed at the lightning streaking across the sky. Daoist Danyu let out a long sigh. "What a wondrous sight! It has been many years since we last saw lightning within Spring Return Valley!"
Daoist Danling's expression changed as he coldly said, "I said I wanted to take Lin Xiao as my disciple. What do you think?"
The old Daoists cast sidelong glances at Daoist Danling. Daoist Danyu lowered his head and said unhurriedly, "That depends on how many treasures Senior Brother can offer to make Junior Sister Danxia happy."
Daoist Danling froze, then slapped his forehead hard and cursed under his breath, "She cheated and got the Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe this time. What other treasure could she possibly want? Didn't you see that all you brothers were too embarrassed to compete with her, and deliberately ordered your disciples not to refine overly good pills? Otherwise, there are quite a few capable disciples among the blue-robed disciples. How could they have refined only a few mediocre pills?"
Daoist Danyu snorted coldly and glared at Daoist Danling. "The Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe is clearly a ceremonial robe for women! Senior Brother used it as the prize. How could we have the face to contend for it?"
"Er? Is that so? It is a woman's robe?" Daoist Danling fell silent for a while, then coughed softly. "That was an accident. Well, we cannot let Lin Xiao cultivate alone out here in the wilderness, can we? Junior Brother Danyu, take out that set of Wind Fire Banner Gate Formation you acquired last time and set it up for Lin Xiao."
Daoist Danyu abruptly took a step back. He looked at Daoist Danling indignantly. "Senior Brother, don't you also treasure a Mustard Seed Horizon Map? Why not take that out?"
Daoist Danling's eyes bulged as he said viciously, "I am the senior brother! You are the junior brother! I am the sect master, and you are an elder beneath the sect master! Are you taking out the Wind Fire Banner Gate Formation or not? If you refuse, then the thousand-year Dragon Saliva Fruit atop the far northern Icefire Mountain will mature in one year and seven months. Take your disciples and guard it!"
Daoist Danyu swiftly pulled out one hundred and eight palm-sized blue-and-red banner gates from his sleeve. He glared furiously at Daoist Danling and muttered, "You are the sect master. I will not bicker with you!"
The other Great Luo Pill Dao elders stood at the side with their hands behind their backs, leisurely and at ease. They pointed at a large tree that had just been smashed apart by heavenly lightning, clicking their tongues in endless admiration. "What a wondrous sight, truly wondrous! Our mountain-protecting grand formation keeps out even heavenly lightning, rain, and snow. It has been a long time since we saw such a marvelous sight, hasn't it?"
Daoist Danyu gave his fellow disciples an exceedingly resentful glare, but everyone pretended not to see the gloom-filled look in his eyes.
Daoist Danling grabbed the Wind Fire Banner Gate Formation and breathed a mouthful of true qi onto it. The tiny banner gates immediately transformed into blue and red qi and flew from his hand, arranging themselves into a strange formation around Lin Xiao. The formation seized the momentum of heaven and earth. Its southern side took the form of a Vermilion Bird, while an azure dragon condensed from Spiritual Energy occupied the other three directions. The azure dragon belonged to wood, and wood gave birth to wind; the Vermilion Bird drew in fire, and the fire's force rippled. Wind and fire converged, and a blue-red wave of wind and flame surged more than ten zhang high. The zhang-long azure dragon and Vermilion Bird phantoms formed from gathered Spiritual Energy circled for a while before slowly withdrawing into the formation.
The formation's light faded. The one hundred and eight banner gates vanished into thin air, but a great formation had already protected Lin Xiao as securely as an iron wall.
Daoist Danling looked at Lin Xiao in satisfaction and nodded. "Excellent. With this formation protecting him, there is no need to fear harm from wild beasts or spirit monsters. Junior Brother Dan Fu and Junior Sister Danxia are truly muddleheaded. It seems they did not even explain basic cultivation knowledge to this child. And yet the three disciples of our sect with the finest aptitudes were all handed over to them." Several elders simultaneously gave Daoist Danling strange, faintly contemptuous looks. Who exactly was muddleheaded? Who had handed Hua Feng'er, Yao'er, and Lin Xiao over to Dan Fusheng and Danxia?
"Heh!" Daoist Danling sighed emotionally. "Two years, and the eighth level of the True Fire Art! During the sect competition, he even refined Universe Grade Pill Poison! This little fellow!"
The elders also looked at Lin Xiao for a while. Like Daoist Danling, they all shook their heads, turned, and prepared to leave.
Then the sudden change occurred. A colossal thunderbolt spanning the void for tens of thousands of li abruptly swept across the sky. At the distant place where heaven met earth, a blinding orb of light suddenly appeared. With their profound cultivation, Daoist Danling and the others vaguely sensed a thread of violent aura churning in that far-off place. Daoist Danling cried out, "Heavenly lightning slaying demons? What kind of demon monster could trigger such a transformation of heaven and earth? This, this..." The enormous heavenly lightning swept through the void, and huge fragments of thunderfire fell with crackling pops. Blinding purple lightning and thunderfire filled the skies.
That incomparably fierce pure-yang heavenly lightning nearly tore apart all the Spiritual Energy between heaven and earth. Even Spring Return Valley's mountain-protecting grand formation could not isolate the immense disturbance it caused in the Spiritual Energy. Countless disciples in Spring Return Valley who were doing their cultivation exercises suddenly felt the Spiritual Energy around them turn chaotic. All kinds of mixed, impure Spiritual Energy surged wildly in and out of their bodies. Several hundred disciples who could not control their internal breath vomited blood and collapsed on the spot, all suffering serious internal injuries.
Lin Xiao suffered even greater interference. That heavenly lightning had nearly passed over his head. The thunderous blast made his heart tremble wildly, and he nearly took a wrong turn with his breath. Fortunately, the miraculous Lotus Seeds had replenished his foundation, making his mind incomparably stable. He forcibly controlled the flow of true essence within his body. Yet as the lightning crossed the sky, the Spiritual Energy around him became as chaotic as if hundreds of tornadoes had swept through it, dragging his Pure Fire True Essence into uncontrolled, turbulent surges through all his meridians.
"Puh!" Lin Xiao spat blood far into the distance, and wisps of crimson flame flickered in the blood. He opened his eyes in horror just in time to see the tail of that giant heavenly lightning sweep overhead. A thunderfire fragment the size of a water vat was shrieking as it plummeted straight toward his head. Staring at the fragment, which was drawing ever closer while wrapped in purple lightning and heavenly fire, Lin Xiao screamed in terror, "My life is over!"
A violent gust suddenly rose from the flat ground. A zhang-long azure dragon, wrapped in wind force more than ten zhang thick, shot into the sky. A clear cry rang out as an eight-foot Vermilion Bird soared up as well, trailing dozens of zhang of crimson true fire. The wind dragon and fire bird circled through the air, gathering into a blue-red column of force more than a zhang thick, hurtling toward the thunderfire fragment with a terrifying roar of wind and fire.
Daoist Danling and the others spun around. Seeing the thunderfire fragment tangled in purple lightning and heavenly fire crashing down upon Lin Xiao, they were so frightened that their souls nearly flew from their bodies. They all shouted, "Not good!" The old Daoists simultaneously flung up their sleeves. With no time to chant spells or perform incantations, they relied solely on their pure true essence, whirling their sleeves like windmills and raising an iron-plate-like gale toward the thunderfire fragment. With a hum, the combined invisible, colorless gale of the Great Luo Pill Dao elders swept out, shaving three inches from the ground and surging into the sky with countless clouds of dust.
The azure dragon and Vermilion Bird formed by the Wind Fire Banner Gate Formation met the thunderfire fragment first. With an enormous explosion, the already violent and unstable fragment burst into sparks that filled the heavens. Every spark shot toward the ground like an arrow fired from a powerful crossbow, only to meet the sleeve winds unleashed by Daoist Danling and the others head-on.
With a crashing boom, hundreds of purple sparks flew chaotically into the sky like fireflies scattering and gathering. Yet one tiny spark, no larger than a mung bean, slipped through a gap in Daoist Danling's sleeve wind by the narrowest of margins and stuck directly to Lin Xiao's palm. With a sizzle, like pork skin dropped into boiling oil, Lin Xiao's left hand immediately turned purple-red. A stream of purple firepower so terrifying that it made even his soul tremble rushed into his body with a roar.
Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire was the most pure-yang, fierce, and overbearing flame between heaven and earth. Only when a colossal demon or devil that heaven and earth could not tolerate appeared in the mortal world would heaven and earth naturally produce Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire to subdue demons and exterminate devils. That mung-bean-sized cluster of heavenly fire stuck to Lin Xiao's palm contained enough firepower to burn an entire mountain to ash.
A roar like blazing flames sounded from within Lin Xiao's body. The moment his Pure Fire True Essence touched that tiny spark of heavenly fire, it was like a pond full of oil meeting a spark, igniting out of thin air. Purple-red flames rose from Lin Xiao's body. His clothes burned away completely, and every hair on his body turned into a wisp of smoke. Lin Xiao felt as though his body were about to drift away. It seemed that in no more than an instant, once his Pure Fire True Essence had been burned away, his body too would become a wisp of smoke and scatter on the wind.
"Ahhh!" Lin Xiao erupted with an unwilling roar! Two foot-long beams of light shot from his eyes as every bit of potential within him erupted in that instant.
Thick as grease and rolling forth like an endless river, seven-colored Spiritual Energy surged from every part of Lin Xiao's body, happily rushing toward the oncoming purple heavenly fire. The strange Spiritual Energy contained within those miraculous Lotus Seeds nourished Lin Xiao's body. Wherever heavenly fire destroyed, it repaired; when heavenly fire destroyed his body again, it repaired once more. Destruction and rebirth attained a perfect balance within Lin Xiao.
Boundless pain and endless comfort, two utterly opposed sensations, flooded into Lin Xiao's mind. The agonizing pain nearly made him faint, but the incomparable comfort and pleasure almost made him moan. The two completely different feelings stimulated his mind at once, causing it to grow without cease.
Dimly, a wondrous pattern appeared before Lin Xiao's eyes. A black fish and a white fish joined head to tail, slowly rotating in the void. Profound beyond profundity, wondrous beyond words—the subtle path of their movement gave Lin Xiao an urge to weep with melancholy. That agony and pleasure seemed to let him comprehend many things in a single instant, yet also seemed to leave him comprehending nothing at all.
Amid the repeated destruction and rebirth, his fleshly body constantly grew stronger. Lin Xiao's dantian, meridians, and major acupoints gradually became tougher and broader. His bones, muscles, and meridians faintly shone with a lustrous glow. Heavenly fire tempering the body was an opportunity that mighty cultivators on the verge of ascension had dreamed of since ancient times. Yet without immensely powerful cultivation, one could not possibly withstand heavenly fire's assault. Even a golden man would be melted into a puddle of slurry. Only Lin Xiao, who had fortuitously received half of Yao'er's strange Lotus Seeds, could rely on that endlessly wondrous Spiritual Energy to endure this great opportunity and great calamity of heavenly fire body tempering.
However, while immersed in that unprecedented and wondrous pattern, vaguely sensing that it possessed an extraordinary origin and seemed to encompass every mystery of heaven and earth, Lin Xiao suddenly felt extreme hunger—the kind that made him want to grab stones and stuff them into his stomach. His slowly growing mind stirred abruptly. Lin Xiao awoke from that indescribably wondrous state, and the hazy pattern that seemed both present and absent vanished. Lin Xiao cried out in alarm, "I'm so hungry!"
Heavenly fire tempering the body consumed a vast amount of energy, while the thin Spiritual Energy in heaven and earth today was simply not enough to support Lin Xiao through it.
Lin Xiao felt his body shrinking bit by bit, as though he were transforming from a young man into an infant. Terrified, inspiration suddenly struck him. He pulled out every Spirit Stone he had received as a reward from his bracelet, opened his mouth, and drew in a fierce breath according to the Great Luo Pill Dao's secret method.
A mass of purple fire force burst from Lin Xiao's mouth, like a giant hand seizing those Spirit Stones. In only three to five breaths, every trace of fire Spiritual Energy within the stones had been drained into Lin Xiao's body. This predatory method of absorption left Daoist Danling and the elders beside him dumbstruck, nearly screaming aloud.
The enormous quantity of fire Spiritual Energy entered his body and was immediately transformed by the purple-red heavenly fire. Currents of thick purple-red true essence filled Lin Xiao's dantian, rapidly spinning along a trajectory as profound as the black-and-white twin fish he had seen earlier. Wisps of purple thunderfire flickered faintly within the vortex of true essence. The vortex spun faster and faster. Gradually, both the purple heavenly fire and the seven-colored Spiritual Energy were slowly drawn into it.
Lin Xiao suddenly opened his eyes and shrieked, "Help! I'm so hungry—I'm going to starve to death!"
Daoist Danling, Daoist Danyu, and the other elders exchanged looks. A sharp gleam suddenly flashed in Daoist Danling's eyes, and he threw back his head with a cry of anguish. "Fine! This poor Daoist will ruin his household wealth once today. Let us see what kind of monster this child can become if heavenly fire tempers his body without killing him!"
Touching the storage bracelet on his wrist, Daoist Danling pulled out a full one hundred high-grade Spirit Stones of various attributes, five hundred mid-grade Spirit Stones, and one thousand low-grade Spirit Stones. He snorted through gritted teeth. "Hungry? Let us see just how big your stomach is, child! Hungry, are you? Your martial uncle will satisfy you! Hmph!"
With a flick of his hand, the one thousand six hundred Spirit Stones flew toward Lin Xiao like a tidal wave. Daoist Danyu shouted, "Senior Brother, these are the Spirit Stones prepared for the new disciples when we open the mountain gates to recruit!"
Daoist Danling roared viciously, "Cut the quota for new recruits by half! I will personally explain the matter to Granduncle Zeng and the others."
The one thousand six hundred Spirit Stones flew around Lin Xiao, wrapping him tightly inside. Lin Xiao instinctively opened his mouth. Purple fire qi burst forth, enveloping all one thousand six hundred Spirit Stones. Streams of many-colored light flew out from the stones and poured into Lin Xiao's body in a rolling flood.
Lin Xiao's body jerked. Every muscle on him suddenly caved inward, instantly turning him into a skin-wrapped skeleton. Then his flesh and skin bulged outward again, restoring his original appearance.
After his outward form changed nine times in this way, Lin Xiao suddenly threw back his head and roared, "I'm swelling—I'm swelling to death! Sect Master Martial Uncle, my dantian is going to explode!"
"Roar!" Lin Xiao's howl shattered the nearby rocks into powder. A ring of white astral qi swept outward, and Daoist Danyu and the other Great Luo Pill Dao elders all turned deathly pale. They cried out together, "Heavens, Nine Transformations of True Form—he is about to form a Golden Core!"
Daoist Danling jumped and howled, "Dan Fu! Danxia! Did you teach your child how to form a pill?"
Smack! Daoist Danling slapped himself hard across the face and cursed in agony, "How muddled I am! Lin Xiao has cultivated for only two years. How could he have learned the incantation for forming a pill? Junior brothers, quickly! Lin Xiao's mental cultivation is insufficient. Once he forms the pill, inner demons will surely arise. Hurry and prepare large quantities of Spirit Cleansing Pills, Spirit Calming Pills, Spirit Gathering Pills, Spirit Nurturing Pills, Spirit Transformation Pills, and Spirit Returning Pills! Even if we have to stuff him full of pills, this poor Daoist—this old man will make an eighteen-year-old Golden Core expert today!"
"Hoho! When the time comes, this poor Daoist will take an eighteen-year-old Golden Core expert with him when he goes out. The face of our Great Luo Pill Dao... hehehehe!" Daoist Danling suddenly burst into a sinister laugh whose meaning was impossible to decipher!
The fluctuations in heaven and earth's Spiritual Energy triggered by Lin Xiao were simply too intense. Swishing sounds rang out from every direction as Great Luo Pill Dao elders in pale purple or violet Daoist robes continuously arrived on sword light. These elders had also heard Daoist Danling's command. Without a word, they pulled great numbers of medicine bottles from their storage bracelets and rings.
The Great Luo Pill Dao was abysmal at offensive Daoist arts, abysmal at sword-flying cultivation methods, and abysmal at formulas for refining magical treasures, but they had plenty of pills!
Within only a few breaths, all kinds of pills immensely useful for resisting inner demons, restoring the mind, nourishing the primordial spirit, and strengthening mental cultivation were piled into a small mountain before Daoist Danling. With so many pills, even if Lin Xiao had possessed only a little cultivation foundation, he would be able to resist the inner demons that struck when forming a Golden Core. Even an ordinary person who knew nothing of cultivation at all could successfully withstand those inner demons after swallowing these several thousand pills.
Seeing more and more helpers arrive, Daoist Danling became so excited that he leaped about and shouted, "This child absorbed a thread of Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire and is suddenly about to form a Golden Core. His vital energy must have been greatly damaged. Prepare every kind of pill that nourishes the body and cultivates the foundation! Hmph! Origin Sect produced a disciple who formed a Golden Core at fifty-seven twenty years ago, and they have been flaunting it for twenty years. Now that our Great Luo Pill Dao has a disciple who forms a Golden Core at eighteen, won't we be able to boast about it for two thousand years?"
Daoist Danling laughed so hard that his eyelashes nearly burst apart. He repeatedly cried, "Remember this! When speaking outside, keep your stories consistent. Say that the pills of our Great Luo Pill Dao are incomparably miraculous, and that we forcibly stuffed Lin Xiao from an ordinary person into the Golden Core Stage with pills. Understand? This will greatly benefit the future business of our Great Luo Pill Dao! We cannot say that he became like this because he absorbed Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire!"
With a keen awareness of advertising, Daoist Danling solemnly cautioned his fellow disciples. The Great Luo Pill Dao elders nodded desperately, naturally understanding the key to it all.
Just as a brilliant golden glow suddenly flashed across Lin Xiao's face, Daoist Danling hurriedly cried out and used his divine sense to forcibly imprint a pill-forming formula into Lin Xiao's sea of consciousness.
Yet Lin Xiao did not need that pill-forming formula at all. The vortex of purple true essence in his dantian had already naturally begun following the path of the yin-yang fish pair he had seen, automatically entering the process of forming a pill.
A tiny thread of purple lightning appeared at the very center of the true essence vortex. A massive quantity of purple true essence was absorbed by that thread of lightning, gradually condensing there into an extremely tiny Golden Core, purple-gold in color and the size of a mung bean. The Golden Core continuously drew in the purple true essence around it, steadily expanding in size. Lin Xiao pressed both hands against his dantian, his facial muscles twitching again and again. A foot-thick layer of purple fire surrounded his entire body. He continuously drew the Spiritual Energy around him into his body, gradually rising from the ground until he floated three feet in the air.
Another flash of sword light appeared. Danxia, dressed in a five-colored cloud robe that billowed like misty clouds and gleamed like rainbows, looked like an immortal consort or celestial maiden as she flew over on a sword with Hua Feng'er, her face full of smiles. From far away, Danxia smiled and said, "Senior Brother Sect Master, what are you all doing here today?"
Lightly landing on the ground, Danxia was about to greet the fellow disciples around her when she suddenly caught sight of Lin Xiao floating in the air. Her eyes widened instantly, and a heart-rending shriek burst from her throat. "Heavens! This little fellow, he, he, he has formed a pill? Wuwu, how am I supposed to be his shiniang now?"
The corners of Hua Feng'er's eyes twitched as well. Her ten fingers trembled, and she suddenly muttered in bitter indignation, "Heaven is unfair! Little Junior Brother is only in his teens, and his skin is as tender and smooth as a young maiden's! Yet he has actually formed a pill! Doesn't that mean this face of his can remain unchanged for several centuries? Heavens! If anyone should have formed a pill, it should have been me, Hua Feng'er! Look, I have wrinkles at the corners of my eyes!"
Rather sorrowfully rubbing the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes with her fingertips, Hua Feng'er trembled as she muttered, "The Heavenly Dao is unfair. I, Hua Feng'er, have cultivated bitterly for a full sixty years, and yet... wuwu, Shiniang, I don't want to live anymore..." She grabbed Danxia's arm and began to sob in grievance.
Whoosh! The purple flames around Lin Xiao suddenly surged more than a zhang high. The violent heat forced even Daoist Danling to retreat three steps. Had this been ordinary fire, the Great Luo Pill Dao elders would not have cared. Which of them had not dealt with pill furnaces and pill fire for centuries? They had ample experience with flame. Yet the purple fire outside Lin Xiao's body was the incomparably overbearing Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire. How could they dare touch it lightly?
Although the vast majority of Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire's might had been used to temper Lin Xiao's body, leaving only a faint trace of heavenly fire aura in his Golden Core, heavenly fire was still heavenly fire. A tiger was still a tiger—though it might be newly born, it was still a tiger!
With all his essence and qi drawn inward, standing another inch taller, and looking several degrees more resolute, Lin Xiao slowly stretched his body and drifted down to the ground.
Opening his eyes blankly, Lin Xiao looked around, then gently shook his body. He felt completely clear and transparent, as though not a trace of impurity remained within him. He was as perfect as a flawless crystal. With a slight lift of qi, he felt a surge of true force flow freely through his limbs and bones, reaching everywhere without obstruction. That smooth, spiritual sensation moved Lin Xiao so deeply that he wanted to cry.
Daoist Danling stared blankly at the hundreds of medicine bottles of all sizes before him, then suddenly screamed, "Lin Xiao, why were you not disturbed by inner demons?"
Lin Xiao looked blankly at Daoist Danling and asked in surprise, "Sect Master Martial Uncle, what are inner demons?"
The eyes of the Great Luo Pill Dao elders all widened. They too stared blankly at Lin Xiao, unable to understand what had happened. To form a Golden Core without inner demons causing trouble was simply against all common sense in the cultivation world!
Danxia snorted unhappily. "A pack of muddleheaded old fools. What came out of Xiao'er's body, if I am not mistaken, was Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire, was it not? Under Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire, even extraterritorial heavenly demons are refined away, much less one's own inner demons. But Xiao'er, how did Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire emerge from your body?"
Smack! Daoist Danling slapped his forehead again and said as though suddenly enlightened, "Ah! I was so anxious that I became muddled. Purple Thunder Heavenly Fire is best at subduing devils. A mere inner demon naturally poses no challenge."
Having said that, Daoist Danling finally looked with some concern toward the far-off direction where the heavenly lightning had struck. Frowning, he said, "What extraordinary devil appeared over there to trigger a transformation of heaven and earth? Junior Brother Danyu, immediately notify Origin Sect and all the major righteous sects. Ask them to send experts to investigate thoroughly."
Daoist Danyu answered and hurried back toward Spring Return Valley.
Within thirty thousand li around Spring Return Valley lay the Great Luo Pill Dao's traditional sphere of influence. The place struck by heavenly lightning just now seemed to be more than ten thousand li away. A powerful demon monster had suddenly appeared on their own territory. Whether it had been killed by the heavenly lightning or not, the mere fact that it had appeared on Great Luo Pill Dao land was enough to make Daoist Danling exercise caution upon caution.
Suddenly, Hua Feng'er said to Lin Xiao in a sinister tone, "Little Junior Brother, please put some clothes on. Even if your figure has improved now, standing naked before all these elders of our sect is hardly appropriate, is it?" After speaking, Hua Feng'er cast two cryptic, lingering glances over Lin Xiao's body.
Only then did Lin Xiao suddenly realize his situation. With a cry, he hurriedly tried to take spare clothes from his bracelet, but even the bracelet on his left wrist had been refined away by the heavenly fire. Only a bit of residue remained stuck to his skin.
Danxia smiled maliciously. She looked at Lin Xiao, utterly bedraggled and embarrassed, and said with a smile, "Xiao'er, Shiniang still has a woman's Daoist robe here. You may wear it for now... Ah, how remarkable! Danxia has gained such an excellent disciple this time. Only two years of cultivation, and you have formed a Golden Core, reaching the same cultivation as Shiniang! Tsk, tsk. Does this mean Shiniang is very stupid? I spent more than seventy years forming a Golden Core back then. How terribly foolish that was!"
A set of pale purple women's Daoist robes appeared in Danxia's hand, hanging from her finger as she gently swung it back and forth.
Lin Xiao pitifully crouched on the ground with his hands covering his lower body, looking toward Daoist Danling and the other martial uncles like a little dog begging for food. He did not dare look at Danxia or Hua Feng'er again. Those two women were now full of resentment; if they did not torment him mercilessly, it would be strange indeed.
Yet Daoist Danling displayed no sense of loyalty at all. Pretending not to see Lin Xiao's pleading gaze, he dusted off his backside, rose onto a cloud, and floated away.
The other Great Luo Pill Dao elders also laughed and chatted as they mounted sword lights and departed, not one willing to give Lin Xiao a spare Daoist robe.
Lin Xiao looked at Danxia with deep resentment.
Danxia gave Lin Xiao a strange smile, her eyes rolling about as she wondered what wicked scheme to concoct.
Before you continue