The Magma World had no day or night.
After Zi Yan fell asleep, time seemed to melt away bit by bit in the crimson magma.
The violet-gold cocoon hung above the stone platform. Rings of dragon-scale patterns flowed across its outer layer, while dark-gold phoenix-feather patterns hid among them, occasionally lighting up as though a little phoenix, not yet fully tamed, were flapping its wings within.
Whenever the phoenix patterns stirred, Zi Yan's little brows would furrow slightly.
Sometimes, she would even unconsciously stretch out her small hand and grab at the inner wall of the cocoon, as though she feared someone would steal her fruit even in her dreams.
Every time, Xiao Fan would raise his hand.
Colorless Fire swept across the cocoon's surface, shaving away the sharpest part of the phoenix energy. Bone Chilling Flame followed, stabilizing her meridians, while Nine Dragon Lightning Flame transformed into extremely fine lightning patterns and slowly forced that unyielding phoenix energy back into the Dragon-Phoenix Origin Fruit.
Zhu Kun watched the entire time.
At first, he hardly dared take his eyes off her for even a moment.
Whenever Zi Yan frowned, his dragon claw would rise instinctively. Whenever she moved, the dragon aura around him would tremble with her. Only after seeing that Xiao Fan's every move was perfectly steady did he gradually shed that grave, battle-ready posture.
But once he relaxed, the way he looked at Xiao Fan became a little more critical.
"Your control over those flames is decent enough."
Xiao Fan was guiding a strand of phoenix energy through Zi Yan's body. Hearing that, he raised his eyes.
"Is that supposed to be praise, Senior?"
"It is."
"Doesn't sound like it."
Zhu Kun said flatly, "If I truly wanted to scold you, 'decent enough' would not be the words