Ten Thousand Beasts

Xiao Family residence.

After bidding Xun Er farewell, Xiao Yan headed toward the middle of the Back Mountain.

On the mountainside of the Xiao Family Back Mountain was an extremely well-hidden cave, with a hot spring inside.

Unfortunately, there was no mysterious stone talisman.

This place counted as Xiao Yan's secret base. He had discovered it while running around the Back Mountain and tempering his Dou Qi.

Even Xun Er had never come here with Xiao Yan.

However, because of Ling Ying, Xun Er actually knew about this place. Still, although it was called a secret base, it was more often Xiao Yan's bathhouse, so Xun Er had never particularly wanted to come here.

After taking off his clothes, Xiao Yan jumped into the water and scrubbed himself thoroughly. Only after the smell of blood was gone from his body did he climb out, take a clean set of clothes from his Storage Ring, and put them on.

Too weak. Those guards were far too pathetic!

After reviewing the battle from not long ago in his mind, Xiao Yan frowned and sighed inwardly in dissatisfaction.

Fighting vermin like that simply could not improve his strength.

After Yun Yun left, his cultivation returned to its orderly routine.

During the day, he tempered his combat techniques; at night, he cultivated Dou Qi. Aside from shopping with Xun Er and handling a few other necessary matters, Xiao Yan spent practically all his time cultivating.

He was practically the Xiao Family's number one cultivation fanatic.

He did not even forget to circulate his cultivation method while eating.

Besides that, he also pondered Old Yao's situation.

However, there had been no news of medicinal herbs or spiritual fluids capable of repairing the soul. They were expensive and exceedingly rare. Forget about not finding any—even if they did exist, they were far beyond what a young master of the Xiao Family like him could afford.

But he could not really let Old Yao absorb three years of his Dou Qi, could he?

Lowering his head to glance at his ring, Xiao Yan frowned, suppressed the faint agitation in his heart, and prepared to leave the cave.

By then, the bloodstains in the hot spring had already vanished, and Xiao Yan had long since grown accustomed to it.

Although he did not know what kind of structure this hot spring had, he knew that within three minutes of him leaving it, the spring would miraculously clean itself and become spotless again.

That was also why he liked bathing here.

A fully self-cleaning bath was simply wonderful!

"Hmm?"

However, in the next instant, the spring water suddenly began to boil.

Hmm?

Xiao Yan froze.

When he had first discovered this place, he had inspected it carefully. He had found no treasures or heavenly materials, and had even been somewhat disappointed.

But judging from the current situation, there was clearly something inside this pool.

Still, could something that appeared because of all that blood really be a treasure?

Xiao Yan instinctively took out a longsword from his Storage Ring and watched the center of the pool vigilantly.

Bubbles the size of Xiao Yan's palm continuously surged up through the boiling water and burst apart.

"What is going on?"

Xiao Yan frowned.

The pool water boiled more and more violently. The originally clear spring water actually took on a strange dark-red hue. Xiao Yan tightened his grip on his sword as Dou Qi quietly flowed into his palm.

This abnormal phenomenon gave him an extremely ominous feeling.

"Gurgle!"

A black shadow suddenly burst from the water, sending spray flying everywhere. Xiao Yan retreated half a step and raised his sword to block, only to see the object hovering three meters above the pool. It was a scarlet bone fragment covered in spiderweb-like cracks, slowly rotating amid the rising mist.

"What is that?"

Xiao Yan was somewhat puzzled. He dearly wished he could ask some learned elder, but the old man in his ring clearly had not awakened yet and could not possibly answer him.

"It feels like something from the Magical Beast Clan."

Xiao Yan carefully sensed the aura within it and found that it bore some resemblance to the aura emitted by a Magical Core.

As the bone fragment flew out, the pool water instantly calmed. It stopped boiling, and its color returned to clear transparency.

"Whatever. I'll put it away first!"

After thinking it over, Xiao Yan decided to store it first and ask Xun Er about it later. She loved reading ancient books, so she might know something.

However, the instant the bone fragment touched his hand, waves of fiery pain suddenly shot through Xiao Yan's palm.

The scarlet patterns squirmed like living creatures, turning into a wisp of blood-red flame that raced into his body along his meridians. The Dou Qi within his vortex instantly began to boil.

"His—"

Xiao Yan sucked in a sharp breath and tried to fling it away, but the bone fragment seemed glued to his palm and did not move in the slightest.

This is... fire?

Xiao Yan's heart lurched.

Then, the Dou Qi within his Dou Qi Vortex poured out in full force, wrapping around that wisp of flame and instinctively guiding it along the circulation route of the Fire Origin Art.

Even such a tiny flame contained scorching energy far beyond Xiao Yan's imagination. The meridians in his body were instantly scorched and twisted, and an intense heat filled every part of him. Xiao Yan instinctively leaped into the pool.

The pool water instantly began to boil!

Yet Xiao Yan felt slightly more comfortable.

The tiny flame in his meridians continuously transformed into different beastly forms, carrying a trace of ancient pressure that made even Xiao Yan's soul tremble faintly.

His Dou Qi was being consumed at a terrifying rate. Xiao Yan had no choice but to take several Dou Qi-restoring pills from his Storage Ring and shove them into his mouth, rapidly refining them into Dou Qi to sustain its circulation within his body.

Even so, that seemingly feeble flame still possessed extremely terrifying destructive power. How could Xiao Yan not realize that, even if this thing was not a Heavenly Flame, it was definitely an exceptionally powerful flame?

But now that it had entered his body, it seemed to have no intention of leaving. Either he refined the flame and increased his cultivation, or the flame refined him and turned him into its vessel.

Just as Xiao Yan was at his wits' end and the water in the pool evaporated into a hazy mist, the ancient black Storage Ring on his finger suddenly flickered.

A wisp of bone-white flame abruptly emerged!

With the appearance of that bone-white flame, an icy chill swept through the entire cave. The wisp of flame inside Xiao Yan instantly restrained its heat and docilely allowed Xiao Yan to refine it.

At the same time, a powerful soul force suddenly surged from the Storage Ring, carrying a wisp of gray light into Xiao Yan's Dou Qi Vortex.

"Reckless brat! Though it is merely a newly born Origin Flame Seed, it is still a Heavenly Flame. You actually dared to touch it without making any preparations! Had this old man not awakened after sensing the aura of a Heavenly Flame, you would have surely died today!"

An aged voice, filled with stern rebuke, rang beside Xiao Yan's ear.

And upon hearing that aged voice, unfamiliar to his ears yet somehow familiar to his mind, overwhelming joy welled up in Xiao Yan's heart:

"Wonderful! It's Old Yao—I'm saved!"