Let's Make a Deal, Kid

"Temper my character? Do you think... I'm very arrogant?" Xiao Yan asked seriously.

"Not exactly..."

Yao Lao stroked his beard.

Xiao Yan narrowed his eyes. "Then I'm impetuous and aiming too high?"

"Not that either..." His gaze began to drift.

"Then I've had it too easy all this way and can't withstand a head-on blow?"

"Ah, well, it doesn't seem like that."

He stumbled a little, unable to continue.

"So, by that logic, you acted purely on a few guesses?"

Yao Lao fell silent.

He had indeed not handled this matter very properly, but he had his own difficulties.

The person before him, however, was excessively steady in mood and often acted beyond expectation. Even when his Dou Qi vortex was nearly drained dry, he had merely sat quietly in meditation and slowly ground it back bit by bit.

No matter how one looked at it, there was nothing wrong with Xiao Yan's character. At most, because he lacked a little tempering and a clear goal, he seemed somewhat less firmly driven forward, but that was hardly a serious flaw.

"Your temperament really is quite good..." Yao Lao sighed.

Still, there were a few things he cared about and needed to ask clearly.

"This matter was indeed due to my lack of consideration. I took too much for granted and nearly ruined your bitter cultivation, little fellow. Now, allow me to apologize. If you do not mind, accept this."

Yao Lao raised his hand. The Ring on Xiao Yan's body lit up, and a streak of light flew out, transforming into a Vermilion Scroll. "I see you still have no technique. I will give you this Profound Rank Technique."

"Senior, you jest."

Xiao Yan calmly put away the scroll. Though he could not use it himself, giving it to the Xiao Clan would be quite good. "If we truly get to the bottom of it, Senior acted with the intention of nurturing me, and I have not suffered the slightest harm. How could this be called an apology or not?"

But since you're sincerely giving it to me, then it'd be rude to refuse.

"Sharp-tongued little fellow..."

Yao Lao did not know whether to laugh or cry as he watched him put away the technique. "Why did you suddenly start calling me Senior again?"

From the moment he appeared until now, he had not managed to gain even the slightest verbal advantage. Instead, Xiao Yan seemed increasingly upright and even-tempered, with quite the capacity to tolerate others—and he had not missed out on any benefits he ought to take, either.

"In the Jia Ma Empire, I've never heard of any expert capable of existing in a Soul Body."

Xiao Yan sized up Yao Lao's Soul Body. "Senior must at least be at the Dou Zong level. What is wrong with this junior calling you Senior?"

"Good, good, good... Call me as you wish."

Yao Lao nodded repeatedly in approval, bringing the topic back on track. "The way you cultivate seems rather strange. You were clearly about to fall below Dou Zhe, yet you soared straight back up. I have never seen anything similar before.

"Your Soul Power is also far beyond the ordinary, containing a trace of Spiritual Qi, and it bears signs of cultivation as well."

After building up to it in a few words, Yao Lao smoothly led into the question. "—May I ask, little fellow, whose disciple are you...?"

"Well... cough, I just fumbled around on my own. For now, I don't really have a master."

"Oh?"

Yao Lao's eyes shone brilliantly, almost flashing with light.

One in ten thousand—no, one in a hundred million! A genius the entire continent might not even produce another of!

And he was even completely wild! Meeting that gaze, Xiao Yan subconsciously rubbed his nose. "That's also why I've never cultivated a technique. First, my situation is special, and I didn't know whether I could cultivate one. Second... the Xiao Clan's fire-type techniques are at most Yellow Rank High Level. They're too low-grade, so I didn't really want to practice them."

"Good, good! Low-grade is good!"

Yao Lao suddenly clapped his hands, then gave two dry chuckles under Xiao Yan's strange look. "Cough... I mean, you did very well not to cultivate a low-rank technique. With your talent, how could those ordinary techniques be worthy of you?"

Although forcibly dragging things out wasted time, if one rashly cultivated a technique, one might have to disperse one's power and cultivate all over again in the future.

Slowly tempering his realm like this and waiting quietly was not a bad method.

"Do you want to make a deal, little fellow?" Yao Lao's smile looked somewhat improper. "I happen to have a world-shocking technique here."

"World-shocking? How shocking?"

Xiao Yan seemed somewhat interested, playing along with this little scene with Yao Lao, whose information had already been thoroughly exposed. "It can't be a Heaven Rank Technique, can it?"

"Not quite... How could a Heaven Rank Technique be so easy to get? Even with my status and position when I was alive, I would still have had to sell everything I owned before I'd have any hope of exchanging for one."

Yao Lao narrowed his eyes slightly, who knew what brewing in his heart. "However, I do happen to have a technique far stranger than Heaven Rank."

"You're not going to say it was passed down from your ancestors, are you?"

"No~"

Yao Lao chuckled, as if he could already see Xiao Yan flying into a rage. "This one of mine was painstakingly fished out of some ruins after untold hardships. This old man even lost his life because of it~"

"And that is—?"

"Yellow Rank Low Level." The old man could no longer hold back his smile. The moment he spat out those four words, he was about to burst into laughter.

"Oh."

Xiao Yan nodded calmly.

"Ha—cough, cough... Wait, you, cough, cough..." Yao Lao was badly dazzled by him. Though he was clearly a Soul Body, he still choked for quite a while before recovering, his face full of disbelief. "Little child, aren't you shocked at all?"

"Why should I be shocked? Senior paid such a great price. If it was only for an ordinary Yellow Rank technique, wouldn't that be a huge joke?"

Xiao Yan analyzed it as if it were only natural, and in just a few words, he stripped the old man's mood for teasing clean away. "There's no need to think too hard to know this technique must have something profound about it... Earlier, Senior casually gave out a Xuan Rank technique just as an apology, yet you care so much about this scroll. That shows saying its strangeness surpasses the Tian Rank isn't empty talk."

Yao Lao, who had not teased anyone in decades: ...

He nearly tore his beard off.

Child, can't you act a little like a child? This old man finally got a chance to show off a bit. Couldn't you just obediently play along? Why are you so calm? Why so logical? "Heh, fine~ I won't keep you in suspense!" The old man, who had somehow ended up with half a bellyful of resentment, waved his hand at random. "I'll use this technique to make a deal with you. Whether it succeeds or not will be up to you."

As soon as his words fell, a chilling Pale White Flame ignited out of thin air. Following the wind vortex, it spread into a ring of fire encircling the two of them.

Extreme cold blossomed. With each breath, thin icy mist settled downward, yet his skin and hair strangely began to scorch.

Freezing and burning were thus bizarrely combined together.

"I named this technique 'Fen Jue.'"

A black technique scroll appeared in Yao Lao's hand. "Although it is only Yellow Rank Low Level, it possesses the potential to continuously evolve. According to what is recorded within, every evolution requires devouring and fusing with Heavenly Flames."

"And this..."

With a soft puff, a cluster of ghastly white flame lit up in Yao Lao's hand. The ring of fire around them instantly surged up with a roar, its peaks leaping out with streams of flame, spinning like traces of wind as they converged toward it.

"Is a Heavenly Flame!"

Yao Lao's expression was grave.

"Heavenly Flame..." Xiao Yan looked at the flame, finding even moving incredibly difficult. His body was incomparably stiff, and the Soul Power in his mind screamed with frantic warning signs.

It was as if a boundless aura of destruction rushed straight at him, leaping without cease, completely drowning and wrapping around him.

If it so much as licked him lightly, he would instantly turn to ash.

If he lost his Dou Qi and dropped in level, what came next really would be hard to say.

Judging by Xun Er's speed, she rose six stars in one year. In other words, with normal cultivation, she could reach Dou Shi in less than two years.

Da Dou Shi would be a little slower, but it would still only take two or three years...

If no obstacles were added, he could even go straight for Ten Mile Slope Sword God.