Green Phosphorus Fire Seed

Ya Fei's efficiency had exceeded Su Chen's expectations.

In just one day.

When Su Chen stepped into the familiar top-floor chamber again, he was greeted not by wafting fragrance and a languid beauty, but by something else entirely.

A broad rosewood table had replaced the soft sofa that had once occupied the room.

Nearly a hundred scrolls of various materials were neatly arranged across its surface.

Some were made of rough beast hide, giving off a faint scent of blood and a savage aura.

Others were delicate silk, their elegant handwriting clearly the work of a clerk from some prominent family.

Still others were recorded on a special metallic-looking paper, each bearing the unique wax seal of the Miteer Chamber of Commerce.

This was the first glimpse Su Chen had been given of the Miteer Family's intelligence network, built up over decades across the northeastern region of the Jia Ma Empire.

Today, Ya Fei had changed into a practical, close-fitting purple outfit. She seemed less alluring than usual, but more brisk and decisive, like a woman in command.

She stood beside the table, her jade-like hand gently brushing across the scrolls.

"These are the ninety-seven reports we initially selected according to your request."

"They're all related to flames, exotic beasts, or ancient ruins."

"Of these, our people have conducted preliminary verification on seventy-two, and their reliability is above fifty percent. The remaining twenty-five are old and difficult to authenticate, but they may still be useful."

Her voice was crisp and efficient, without the slightest hesitation.

Su Chen walked up to the table and looked over the scrolls one by one.

He didn't rush to read them.

He simply took them in, quietly sensing the "weight" contained in each report.

It was an information barrier built by a vast commercial empire with countless gold coins and human lives.

And now, its gates had opened a crack for him.

"Thank you for the trouble."

Su Chen's voice was as steady as ever.

Ya Fei watched him, curiosity flickering in her beautiful peach-blossom eyes.

She wanted to know which target this man would choose first from this vast sea of information.

Would it be the cave dwelling of some legendary powerhouse?

Or an ancient medicinal garden lost to time?

Su Chen reached out and precisely pulled one scroll from the pile with his long fingers.

It was a report recorded on the most ordinary sheepskin. At first glance, it looked thoroughly unremarkable.

He unrolled it.

The information on it was simple to the point of being crude.

Three hundred li west of Wutan City, in the Black Wind Swamp.

Mercenaries had reportedly spotted a Tier 2 Magical Beast known as the "Green Phosphorus Poison Python." Its fire was green and would rot anything it touched; it was suspected to be a rare poisonous flame.

The Green Phosphorus Poison Python.

A Tier 2 Magical Beast that wasn't particularly powerful—in fact, it was even weaker than the Two-Headed Fire Spirit Snake he had encountered before.

When Ya Fei saw his choice, her willow brows furrowed slightly.

"Sir, although the Green Phosphorus Poison Python isn't very strong, its venom is potent, and the Black Wind Swamp is a dangerous place, full of miasma."

She paused, then added,

"If you need manpower, the Miteer Auction House can arrange its most elite escort team for you."

"No need."

Su Chen rolled up the scroll and tucked it into his clothes.

"I'll go myself."

With that, he didn't linger. He turned and headed for the chamber's exit.

Ya Fei watched his thin, solitary figure. She parted her lips, but in the end, said nothing more.

She knew that no one could change this man's mind once he had made a decision.

Yet her curiosity only grew stronger.

She didn't believe Su Chen would act without reason.

What secret could this little Green Phosphorus Poison Python possibly hold, for him to choose it at first glance from among nearly a hundred reports?

The Black Wind Swamp.

It was shrouded year-round in a layer of gray-black miasma.

The air was permeated with a revolting stench of decay.

Beneath the viscous mud, who knew how many deadly poisonous insects and traps lay hidden?

A figure darted through the swamp like a ghost, racing over the tangled roots of dead trees.

It was Su Chen.

He was no longer the boy who had needed to cautiously evade Magical Beasts.

After advancing to Dou Zhe, his speed, strength, and reflexes had all undergone a qualitative leap.

More importantly, his ability to sense flames had become sharper than ever.

He closed his eyes.

In his perception, the entire swamp transformed into a three-dimensional map made up of countless points of energy.

The decaying plants gave off faint, dim halos of energy.

The poisonous insects lurking in the mud were cold, dark-purple specks.

Like a precision radar, he swiftly filtered out all useless information in this complex field of energy and searched for his target.

There it was.

Deep in the swamp, at the entrance to a vast underground burrow.

A cold, damp energy fluctuation, tinged with a peculiar scorching heat, slowly seeped out from within.

That energy was a sickly shade of green.

Su Chen stopped atop a massive dead tree.

He didn't rush inside.

Instead, he took a Rock Fire Seed from his clothes.

With a flick of his finger, the tiny Kindling seemed to spring to life. It landed silently in a patch of dead grass not far from the burrow entrance.

Once he had done this, Su Chen vanished completely into the thick miasma, as if he had never been there.

He was a patient hunter, waiting for his prey to walk into the trap of its own accord.

Time passed, second by second.

About the time it takes an incense stick to burn.

A grating hiss came from within the burrow.

A huge triangular snake head, covered in dark green scales, slowly emerged from the darkness.

Its cold, vertical pupils gleamed with cruelty and wariness.

It had caught the scent.

A flame's aura that displeased it intensely, yet was also irresistibly tempting.

The Green Phosphorus Poison Python's gaze soon fixed on the patch of dead grass burning with orange-red flames.

As a Magical Beast born with poisonous fire, it instinctively rejected other flames—and hungered to devour them.

Once it was certain there was no danger nearby,

greed overcame caution.

Its enormous body, more than ten meters long, poured from the burrow like slick black water, swiftly slithering toward the tiny flame.

Just as its head was about to touch the fire,

everything changed!

Boom!

The seemingly harmless Rock Fire Seed exploded with a thunderous blast!

A violent wave of fire, mixed with flying mud and shattered stones, slammed into the Green Phosphorus Poison Python's head!

Hiss!

A shrill cry rang across the swamp!

The python's sturdy scales were blown black, its flesh mangled and bloody.

The agony drove it into a frenzy.

But before it could retaliate,

a black figure shot down from the miasma above its head like an arrow loosed from a bow!

At some point, a sharp short blade condensed from Dou Qi had appeared in Su Chen's hand.

His body traced an incredible arc through the air and landed precisely on the Green Phosphorus Poison Python's exposed vital point, raised by the pain!

Pfft!

The Dou Qi blade plunged deep inside without the slightest resistance!

The python's enormous body stiffened.

All the ferocity and savagery vanished from its cold, vertical pupils in an instant, leaving only the ashen stillness of death.

Its massive body crashed down, splashing filth across the mud.

One strike. A killing blow!

Clean and decisive.

Su Chen landed atop the snake's corpse, his expression unchanged.

He reached out and placed his hand on the dead python.

A moment later, a ball of light about the size of a fist, burning with green flames, was slowly drawn out from the snake's corpse.

This was the Green Phosphorus Poison Python's innate Beast Flame.

Green Phosphorus Fire.

The dilapidated courtyard remained quiet.

Su Chen sat cross-legged on the cold ground.

His consciousness had already sunk into the realm that belonged solely to him, where he held absolute control.

Amid the vast, dark void, the ancient Stone Platform floated silently.

The green Beast Flame danced uneasily atop it, giving off a chilly, faintly sweet scent of poison.

Su Chen's will became an invisible hand, enveloping the flame.

Analyze.

The command came down with force.

Hum—!

The entire Stone Platform blazed with light.

The Green Phosphorus Fire trembled violently.

Countless chains of runes, tens of millions of times finer than a strand of hair, were forcibly stripped from the flame's source, analyzed, and reassembled.

In Su Chen's perceptual world,

the flame's true nature was laid bare.

Seventy percent of it was pure fire element, with the property of intense heat.

The remaining thirty percent was an exceptionally unique energy, combining wood and poison attributes. It was the source of the flame's corrosive and numbing effects.

Separate.

Su Chen's will issued another command.

The invisible hand began an incredibly delicate operation, one that rivaled the work of a god.

Like the most skilled surgeon, he used an invisible "scalpel" made of spiritual power to precisely and completely separate the two distinct attributes in the flame, down to the tiniest trace.

The process consumed a terrifying amount of spiritual power.

Upon the Stone Platform,

the green flame was forcibly split in two.

One half was a ball of pure white flame, blazing with heat and free of impurities.

The other half was a mass of writhing, dark green viscous mist, radiating a poisonous, corrosive aura that made one's heart tremble.

Once he had finished, Su Chen's will did not stop.

If he merely wanted to make a simple copy, there would have been no need for all this effort.

What he wanted to do was create!

Reassemble.

Reconstruct the structure.

Embed the core.

A series of silent commands echoed through the void.

The pure white flame began changing shape under his will.

It stretched and compressed until it finally formed a hollow spherical shell, made up of countless intricate flame runes.

Then, in an ingenious manner, he injected the dark green poisonous mist into the center of the flame shell.

Under his will, the two utterly opposing energies were forcibly twisted together and fused into an unprecedented, stable symbiotic structure.

The flame became the shell, providing heat and the properties of combustion.

The poison became the core, providing a controllable additional effect of numbness and corrosion.

When the final rune structure had stabilized completely,

a brand-new flame was born in silence atop the Stone Platform.

It was only as large as a thumb, its entire body a translucent emerald green, like the finest jade.

It burned quietly, without a trace of smoke or flame, beautiful and harmless in appearance.

But Su Chen knew.

This tiny flame held value far more terrifying than the "Rock Fire Seed."

Su Chen's consciousness slowly withdrew.

He opened his eyes and spread his palm.

A green flame appeared out of thin air in the center of his hand.

He gazed at this "masterpiece" he had created with his own hands, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

"I'll call you..."

"The Green Phosphorus Fire Seed."

The market in Wutan City was too small.

It was time to use a brand-new, higher-grade product to knock on the doors of the alchemy chambers belonging to those truly powerful figures.