Elder Huo was stunned, too!
"Wasn't she just here?"
Su Qian's face had gone pale.
"Search everywhere! Whatever you do, don't let anything happen to that young lady! Otherwise, Jia Nan Academy might be in for a disaster!"
"Right, right! Split up and look!"
Just then,
a scolding voice rang out from the medicinal herb storeroom!
"Hey! Who are you? Why are you stealing from our storeroom?"
Oh no!
Their hearts tightened.
They rushed inside at once.
A student from the medicinal herb storeroom was glaring angrily at Zi Yan in front of the shelves!
Zi Yan gazed at the student with her innocent, wide eyes.
In her left hand, she held a seven-colored medicinal herb. In her right, she held a Diamond Bodhi Fruit!
Then she picked up the Diamond Bodhi Fruit and began munching on it with a loud crunch!
The sight left Elder Huo dumbfounded!
The Diamond Bodhi Fruit was hard as iron; ordinary flames couldn't do a thing to it.
Yet this girl could bite through it!
Were her teeth made of iron?
"Elder Huo, look! We've got a little thief here!"
Seeing Elder Huo arrive, the student immediately reported her.
Elder Huo saw that Zi Yan was fine.
He immediately scolded the student. "What nonsense are you talking? She was hungry, so what's wrong with her eating a little? There's so much here, and it'd be a waste to leave it sitting around. Let her eat!"
"?" The student looked completely baffled!
Was this really the Elder Huo he knew?
In the past, getting a single precious medicinal herb from him had been harder than climbing to the heavens.
Why was he being so generous today?
So the student decided to seize the chance and try taking one himself.
Elder Huo beat him up instead!
In the end, he was even thrown out of the storeroom and forbidden from ever setting foot inside again!
Meanwhile,
beneath the Heavenly Burning Qi Refining Tower,
in the boundless sea of magma,
an invisible layer of flame shrouded Xiao Xuan.
His figure flickered through the Magma World.
The magma, something ordinary people would flee from, seemed to have encountered some terrifying presence.
It parted on its own!
Two minutes later,
Xiao Xuan spotted a place in the magma that gave off a faint, transparent halo!
Through it, he could just make out a skeleton that had long since turned to bone.
A faint glow radiated from the bones, and a translucent, formless flame drifted above them!
Xiao Xuan darted into the light barrier.
There, he saw the juvenile Fallen Heart Flame floating above the skeleton.
Xiao Xuan beckoned with his hand!
The Fallen Heart Flame floated toward him!
"Come out."
Xiao Xuan put away the Fallen Heart Flame and spoke in a nonchalant tone.
With his Emperor Realm Soul,
trying to evade his detection was... nothing short of wishful thinking!
Seeing that the other party still didn't appear,
Xiao Xuan raised his voice.
"Do I have to invite you out?!"
As his words fell,
a streak of white light spread out from the skeleton and transformed into the illusory figure of an old man.
The old man looked at Xiao Xuan.
"I hid myself so well, yet you still found me."
A trace of helplessness colored his voice.
The moment Xiao Xuan had appeared, he'd sensed how terrifying the man was!
So when Xiao Xuan took the Fallen Heart Flame, he hadn't dared make a single move.
He'd simply pretended he was already completely dead!
But he hadn't expected Xiao Xuan's perception to be so terrifying.
Xiao Xuan had originally planned to have Sky Fire Venerable devour him.
But Sky Fire Venerable was in far too poor a state right now!
Devouring him probably wouldn't even increase his physical recovery by 0.1 percent.
After thinking it over,
he gave up.
Since Sky Fire Venerable had a decent character in the original story,
Xiao Xuan decided to recruit him.
Yao Chen could make him a body. He could serve as a guard for the Xiao Family, which seemed like a good arrangement.
"Would you be willing to join my family and serve as a guard?"
"I... can I?"
"You're qualified."
Qualified?
Sky Fire Venerable's mouth twitched!
Back in his day, he'd been a bona fide Dou Zun expert. Now he was being invited to serve as a guard!
"Why? Are you unwilling?"
"This one is willing."
"Don't worry. As long as you devote yourself to protecting them, I'll have someone make you a body and help you come back to life!"
Hearing that he still had a chance to be resurrected, Sky Fire Venerable beamed like a chrysanthemum!
Just then, he suddenly realized Xiao Xuan had swallowed the juvenile Fallen Heart Flame!
"Swallowing a Heavenly Flame raw! Even at the juvenile stage, I wouldn't dare do that—not even at the height of my power!"
Sky Fire Venerable was secretly shocked.
He was also curious about just how terrifying Xiao Xuan's strength was!
And just as Xiao Xuan had expected,
the juvenile Fallen Heart Flame hadn't given him much progress in restoring his body.
Xiao Xuan left the light barrier and continued downward!
Sky Fire Venerable was startled.
"Senior, you mustn't! There are strange creatures below, and they're terrifying. They surrounded me and killed me back then!"
As he recalled that scene, fear once again crept across Sky Fire Venerable's face.
"Perfect. They're exactly who I'm looking for."
Xiao Xuan replied calmly.
For some reason, Xiao Xuan had dived for quite a while without encountering a single one of those bizarre lizardmen.
It puzzled him!
At last,
after diving for another two and a half hours,
dense red figures appeared ahead!
"Good heavens! They're... they're lizardmen at the Dou Zun level! Senior, be careful!"
Sky Fire Venerable's face turned green.
He'd finally seen a glimmer of hope for resurrection!
He couldn't die here now!
"Chirp! Chirp!"
The lizardmen stared at Xiao Xuan with sinister eyes!
Their mouths, lined with sharp teeth, let out a series of chirping sounds.
Their broad hands waved wildly in front of them!
The other lizardmen shrieked viciously as well!
"Quiet!"
Xiao Xuan swept his sleeve!
Boom!
A wave of soul power rippled outward in every direction!
"Chirp! Chirp!"
The lizardmen roared and rushed at Xiao Xuan!
But
the moment they touched the rippling soul power,
bang, bang, bang...
the lizardmen instantly turned into countless crimson beads!
"Th-this..."
Sky Fire Venerable's eyes nearly popped out of his head!
Such a casual attack!
And it had so effortlessly killed the monsters he'd once been desperate to avoid...
He realized that Xiao Xuan's true strength was even more terrifying than he'd imagined!
Xiao Xuan continued downward, killing every lizardman he encountered!
Along the way, he collected over a thousand red beads brimming with immense energy.
Once he got out of here, he'd swallow every last one of them!
Before long, lizardmen at the Half-Saint and Dou Sheng levels began appearing. Sky Fire Venerable's mouth gaped so wide he could've fit several red beads inside at once!
Shocking!
Utterly shocking!
He no longer dared guess at Xiao Xuan's true strength!
Nor did he know how far Xiao Xuan would dive before stopping!
Just then,
he saw Xiao Xuan stop!
Were they going back?
But Xiao Xuan reached out and probed ahead!
Whoosh!
A force of suction pulled Xiao Xuan inside!
The boundless crimson magma around them vanished. In its place was a pitch-black space!
Sky Fire Venerable's nerves went taut. He had a feeling something mysterious in this place was watching him!
Meanwhile, Xiao Xuan looked around as casually as if he were strolling through his own backyard!
At that moment, a voice wrapped in an immensely terrifying aura rang through the dark space!
"Who goes there? Do you possess an Ancient Jade?"
Before you continue