Dissipating the Evil Fire

Ma Xiaotao waved her small pink fists in delight.

"Yay!"

She was truly overjoyed; the problem that had plagued her for so long could finally be alleviated.

"Uh... about that..."

Ma Xiaotao asked hesitantly, "Could we try it now? My Evil Fire just erupted, so it's in a stable period. There won't be any accidents, and it's a good time to get familiar with the process."

"Of course."

Lu Ran replied.

Ma Xiaotao sat down quickly, her long, straight legs dazzlingly fair and tender.

She patted the floor, beckoning to Lu Ran impatiently, "Come here, come here."

Lu Ran sat down opposite her, and the two interlaced their fingers.

Ma Xiaotao said, "I will release the Evil Fire slowly, and you can neutralize it by channeling your water-attribute soul power into my body."

Lu Ran nodded, and the two simultaneously released their Evil Fire and soul power.

With a sharp hiss, water and fire merged, and invisible steam began to permeate the room.

The entire chamber transformed into a realm of ice and fire;

while Ma Xiaotao felt the heat, Lu Ran was surrounded by a humid warmth carrying the vapor.

The two forces clashed, neutralized, and cycled back and forth.

A breeze blew in from the window, and Lu Ran had never realized that wind could feel so refreshing.

He lit up his Soul Ring, releasing the Gentle Water Domain, and a faint blue hue began to swirl around them.

The Gentle Water Domain could significantly increase the recovery speed of soul power, and combined with the dense soul power around the Golden Ancient Tree and his own soul power reserves—which far exceeded those of his peers—he could achieve almost infinite endurance.

Furthermore, it could lower the temperature, killing two birds with one stone.

The steam continued to dissipate and rise, and Ma Xiaotao carefully controlled the release of her Evil Fire. As time passed, the Evil Fire within her body gradually faded, replaced by a sense of coolness.

A clear, refreshing sensation.

It was very comfortable, but the process was also agonizing, like the suppression and patience felt just before reaching ecstasy, making her heart itch, wishing she could release all the Evil Fire at once.

But she was afraid of hurting Lu Ran, so she could only endure, carefully controlling the Evil Fire, looking forward to the day when Lu Ran would become strong enough to suppress the Evil Fire without holding anything back.

Ma Xiaotao narrowed her beautiful eyes into slits, stealing a glance at Lu Ran.

She hadn't looked closely before, but now she realized that Lu Ran was actually quite handsome, with a fair complexion and a high-bridged nose.

His focused expression was incredibly attractive...

Lu Ran spoke suddenly, his tone calm:

"Focus, we're almost at the end."

Ma Xiaotao immediately closed her eyes: Oh no, my peeking was discovered!

But she was also secretly happy; so Lu Ran had been observing her too. Hmph, she still had plenty of charm after all...

"That's not it,"

Lu Ran spoke again:

"There was a slight fluctuation in the release of the Evil Fire; you definitely weren't focusing."

Ma Xiaotao opened her beautiful eyes in a panic, staring at him brightly.

You can't hear my inner thoughts, can you? If so, hasn't everything I thought earlier been exposed?

I'm doomed!

Lu Ran remained with his eyes closed, his tone calm:

"No."

"It's just that you are too easy to read; you can't hide your thoughts."

Ma Xiaotao immediately took a deep breath, straightened her back, emptied her mind, and silently chanted: I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to...

She was preventing her thoughts from being seen through again.

Half an hour later, the last trace of Evil Fire within Ma Xiaotao's body was cleared away, and it was finally over.

Lu Ran 'thumped' and collapsed directly onto the floor, staring at the intricately carved ceiling with not a single distracting thought in his mind, he just wanted to lie there, to lie there forever, because: he was tired.

The entire process required continuous control of his soul power; it was too exhausting.

Ma Xiaotao was satisfied, stretching her body and letting out a comfortable moan, her beautiful, graceful curves displayed to the fullest, but Lu Ran continued to stare at the ceiling, his eyes vacant.

Ma Xiaotao leaned in close, bringing with her a faint, delicate fragrance, "..What do you think of this?"

She cautiously pushed over an exquisite black wooden box.

Lu Ran turned his head to look, inside was a small, handmade... phoenix, with its head held high and wings spread wide.

The fiery red color was not painted on; it was the natural color of the wood.

One could tell she had tried her best to make it well, but her technique was simply lacking.

Ma Xiaotao scratched her hair, feeling a bit embarrassed:

"It's my first time giving a gift... I didn't know what would be good, and after thinking it over, I thought this might be appropriate..."

She also knew it didn't look very good, but she had truly spent a long time carving it.

Lu Ran carefully examined the wooden phoenix, its fiery red eyes appearing incredibly sincere, its posture proud.

He sat up: "Good, then I will accept it."

"Yay! Yay!!"

Ma Xiaotao cheered again, waving her fists in joy.

The days that followed remained the same.

Lu Ran spent his days cultivating, occasionally helping Ma Xiaotao neutralize her Evil Fire, and his soul power grew at a rapid pace.

Meanwhile, the area of his Small World was constantly expanding.

By the time he reached level twenty-five, the area of the Small World had doubled compared to when he was level twenty.

The plains available for farming were already vast enough that one couldn't see the end, so it was time to prepare for cultivation.

Without an elder village chief to provide wind-resistant grass, Lu Ran didn't need it either—or rather, he didn't need to plant ordinary crops now. After all, working oneself to the bone to farm an acre of land might not even sell for half a Gold Soul Coin, whereas a Rock Crystal Dragon could earn ten Gold Soul Coins a day working in the Beast Fighting Zone.

Currently, he wasn't suited for large-scale farming due to his limited abilities; he could wait until the future to utilize soul technology for large-scale production.

If he were to plant anything now, it had to be valuable.

That meant nothing other than high-soul-power crops, medicinal herbs, and fruits.

In this world, plants could possess soul power. Aside from those that were naturally plant-type Soul Beasts, the rest relied on the accumulation of time, growing for ten, twenty, or even a hundred years to become Soul Beasts. Some crops were harvested after one, two, or three years, so they couldn't become Soul Beasts, but they still carried certain elemental powers, such as water or fire attributes.

Soul masters with matching attributes would benefit their bodies by consuming them over the long term.

Medicinal herbs went without saying; everyone knew what they could be used for.

Finally, there were fruits.

In truth, the Douluo Continent had fruit-type Soul Beasts as well as ordinary fruits.

It was perfectly normal for them to grow over the years, absorbing the essence of the sun and moon to become plant-type Soul Beasts, and the fruits they bore were naturally more valuable—the higher the age, the more precious they were.

There is also a type called Spirit Fruit, which has an extremely slow growth cycle and is generally guarded by specific Soul Beasts. However, in Lu Ran's taxonomy of plant-type Soul Beasts, it should be classified as a medicinal herb, so it is mentioned separately here.

Lu Ran personally went to the outer edge of the Star Dou Great Forest to test this out.

He found a fruit-tree Soul Beast called an Explosive Pomegranate.

As the name suggests, the pomegranates it bears can explode.

As soon as anyone tries to pick a pomegranate, the tree Soul Beast will detonate it; the seeds inside can instantly pierce any creature with ill intent. Its lethality and blast radius depend on its age, and the seed shells are highly likely to crack open due to the explosion.

Once they embed into the soil, they can sprout and take root.

Some Spirit Masters also choose them for their Soul Rings, as their attack power is not weak.

But when Lu Ran tried to approach the pomegranate Soul Beast, it didn't make a single move. He cautiously and tentatively plucked a pomegranate.

As it turned out, nothing happened at all.

He plucked another.

No reaction.

He plucked a third... still no reaction.

It wasn't until he had nearly finished picking them all that the pomegranate tree expressed its protest with a slight tremor.

Only then did he stop.

The reason was the Soul Beast Affinity Lu Ran possessed. With it, as long as the harvesting was done in moderation, fruit-type Soul Beasts would not attack. Even low-tier bee-type Soul Beasts were the same; if he took just a little bit of honey, the swarm would not mind.

It was truly too convenient.

In the end, that pomegranate Soul Beast was transplanted into the Small World, as was the Brown-Striped Bee Swarm. The vast Small World was more than enough to sustain a colony, and after all, they could produce honey that accelerated the recovery of soul power.

It would be of great use in the future.