Within the Xiao Clan's small courtyard, Yao Chen held a medicinal herb and carefully explained to Xiao Yixian how to balance its medicinal properties, while Xiao Yan focused on his cultivation nearby.
Lin Hai appeared without a sound or the slightest ripple of energy.
"Uncle / Sir." Xiao Yan and Xiao Yixian noticed him at the same time. They stopped what they were doing and greeted him respectfully.
Yao Chen turned around as well.
Lin Hai gave a slight nod. His gaze settled on Xiao Yixian, then he flipped his hand, and a black crystal bottle sealed around a dark green flame appeared in his palm.
Inside the bottle, the Nether Poison Dragon Fire burned quietly, giving off scorching heat and faint wisps of poisonous mist. Its shape was strange, yet it held a peculiar charm.
"Yixian, take a look at this." Lin Hai handed her the crystal bottle.
Xiao Yixian took it curiously. The moment her gaze touched the dark green flame within, the Calamity Poison Qi lying dormant inside her stirred faintly, sending a strange feeling of longing and affinity through her!
Her beautiful eyes flew wide open, and she looked at Lin Hai in astonishment. "This is..."
Yao Chen's soul power swept over it. A delighted gleam immediately burst into his eyes. "The Nether Poison Dragon Fire?! Sir, you actually found such a rare treasure!"
He drifted closer, carefully examining the flame in the bottle as he nodded repeatedly. "Wonderful! Simply wonderful! The scorching poison power within this flame shares the same source as the Woeful Poison Body and even the Nether Poison Fire, though their strengths are worlds apart! It's just right as a substitute for Yixian at her current stage!"
He looked at Xiao Yixian, his voice brimming with excitement. "Yixian, if you can successfully refine this flame, you'll gain an initial grasp of poison-fire power. Not only will it let you bypass the restrictions of your attributes and experience controlling flame ahead of time, it'll also deepen your understanding of your own poisoned body. It'll be of immeasurable benefit when you refine the true Nether Poison Fire in the future!"
At his words, Xiao Yixian's hands trembled around the crystal bottle with excitement. Her eyes filled with incredulous delight and gratitude.
She hadn't expected Lin Hai to return with a flame so perfectly suited to her after being gone for such a short while!
"Th-thank you!" Her voice caught, and her eyes reddened. She felt that this kindness weighed as heavily as a mountain.
Lin Hai smiled warmly. "It was nothing." Then he turned to Yao Chen. "What should she watch out for when refining this flame? Is there any danger?"
Yao Chen stroked his beard and pondered. "There shouldn't be much danger. After all, it's only a Sixth-Rank Beast Flame. The poison within it is like a stream compared to the ocean of Yixian's Woeful Poison Body. Instead, her poisoned body will suppress and assimilate it. The key is that the flame's scorching properties might clash slightly with her poisoned body during refinement and burn her meridians."
"So she'll need two kinds of pills to help," Yao Chen continued. "First, a second-grade Ice Spirit Pill, which can greatly increase her resistance to flame for a short time. Second, a second-grade Pulse-Protecting Pill to protect her meridians. With these two pills guarding her, she should be able to refine the flame without a hitch. She might even temper her meridians in the process and gain even greater benefits."
He paused, a note of yearning entering his voice. "If only we had the legendary Ice-Ridge Cold Spring to help—even a small bottle would do. Its extreme cold could balance and guide the flame's power, doubling the effect with half the effort. It would almost guarantee success, and she'd feel no pain at all."
"The Ice-Ridge Cold Spring?" Lin Hai's eyes flickered. The name sounded familiar.
Yao Chen nodded. "Yes, a spiritual spring of heaven and earth born in a place of extreme cold. It holds an intensely yin and frigid energy, making it remarkably effective at balancing the violent energy of flames and protecting meridians. It doesn't just help with refining beast flames. If that boy Xiao Yan has the Ice Spirit Cold Spring to help when he devours Heavenly Flames in the future, his chances of success will rise by several tenths! Unfortunately, it's incredibly rare, something one could encounter only by chance..."
Lin Hai barely heard the rest of what Yao Chen said.
His thoughts had already drifted to the depths of the great desert, where the Snake-Person Tribe held sway.
If he remembered correctly, Queen Medusa of the Snake-Person Tribe had an entire pool of Ice-Ridge Cold Spring deep within her palace!
In the original story, Xiao Yan had relied on the Ice-Ridge Cold Spring there to successfully devour the Green Lotus Core Flame.
Since the spring would be so useful to Xiao Yixian when refining a beast flame and to Xiao Yan when devouring Heavenly Flames in the future, leaving a whole pool sitting there would be a waste. He might as well... go over now and take the whole pool.
While he was at it, he could also meet Queen Medusa, whose beauty and fearsome reputation had spread throughout the Jia Ma Empire.
Lin Hai had already made up his mind.
He looked at Xiao Yixian and Yao Chen, both brimming with delight and anticipation, and said, "I know where there's a whole pool of Ice-Ridge Cold Spring. Prepare the herbs needed for the Ice Spirit Pill and Pulse-Protecting Pill. I'll be right back."
"A... a whole pool?!" Yao Chen nearly yanked his beard out. His eyes bulged.
Finding even a few drops of such a spiritual treasure was a stroke of incredible luck, and this sir was talking about a whole pool?!
Xiao Yixian covered her little mouth in shock as well.
Lin Hai offered no further explanation. He simply said to Yao Chen, "The herbs for the pills should all be among the ones I left behind. Refine them as quickly as you can."
Then he told Xiao Yan and Xiao Yixian, "Keep up your cultivation and studies."
Before the three of them could recover from the shock of hearing "a whole pool of Ice-Ridge Cold Spring," his figure quietly faded and vanished from the room once more.
The Tagor Desert stretched beneath a sky of drifting yellow sand, with waves of scorching heat rolling over the dunes.
Deep within the Snake-Person Sacred City, in the temple.
At the center of a secret chamber built entirely from Ice Jade Stone lay a frigid pool, barely a square zhang across.
The water glowed a dreamlike icy blue, radiating a chill cold enough to freeze the soul. Thin wisps of white mist curled above it, making the chamber's temperature utterly unlike the scorching heat outside—cold enough to pierce the bones.
This was the Snake-Person Tribe's treasured Ice-Ridge Cold Spring!
At that moment, a figure of breathtakingly seductive beauty was soaking in the spring.
Her face was so stunningly enchanting that all creation paled beside her. Her purple snake tail swayed gently in the icy blue water, tracing a curve that could steal anyone's breath.
It was Queen Medusa.
She was using the spring's power to suppress the bloodline within her, which had grown somewhat restless as she cultivated. Frost clung to her long eyelashes, and her expression was cold and focused.
Then, without warning—
Her tightly shut eyes flew open. Her icy, slit-pupiled eyes blazed with fierce killing intent and shock!
She sensed a terrifying power enveloping the entire secret chamber in an instant!
The next moment, her vision blurred.
A young man in an ordinary blue-green robe had appeared without warning beside her pool, like a ghost. He was looking down at the pool of Ice Spirit Cold Spring with a calm gaze, as if admiring an ordinary object.
And she—the fearsome Peak Dou Emperor, Queen Medusa, whom no one in the Jia Ma Empire dared provoke lightly—had been infiltrated without a sound, with someone drawing so close to her while she bathed!
A disgrace beyond measure! A murderous fury that blotted out the sky!
"Human! You're asking for death!"
Queen Medusa erupted in fury. She didn't even care about her state of undress. Her delicate hand slammed down on the pool, and purple Dou Qi mixed with the extreme cold surged up like a monstrous wave. It formed a gigantic, hideous purple serpent of energy that roared toward the brazen intruder with the force to destroy everything!
This strike, fueled by her fury, was powerful enough to gravely wound or even kill any Spirit Emperor!
Yet faced with this terrifying attack, the blue-robed man didn't even raise his head.
He merely lifted one hand and gave a gentle squeeze toward the roaring serpent of energy.
Pop!
Like a bubble bursting.
The purple serpent, powerful enough to topple a mountain, hit an invisible barrier three feet from his palm and instantly crumbled. It vanished into the most primal energy of heaven and earth without stirring so much as a ripple.
Queen Medusa's pupils contracted to the dangerous points of needles. For the first time, her exquisite face showed naked horror and disbelief!
Her full-power strike had been crushed so casually by the other man... with a mere squeeze?!
What level of power was this?! Spirit Sect? Or even... Spirit Venerable?!
Terror instantly overwhelmed her anger, sweeping through her entire body!
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