When he came to, Yang Fan stood before the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. To his left stretched a world of ice and snow, bitterly cold to the bone; to his right lay a sea of molten lava, scorching enough to burn him alive.
"Phew..."
Yang Fan drew a deep breath. The alternating extremes of cold and heat in the air made his lungs ache.
He took off his shirt, revealing a lean but well-defined body. At the very center of his chest was a rainbow-colored dragon tattoo that seemed to breathe, rising and falling ever so slightly with each breath.
"I've already handed the plans for the faction's development over the next while to Ye Rou. With Qian Renxue backing her, she won't let things go wrong. As for my breakthrough, I can only succeed. I must not fail!"
Yang Fan's gaze sharpened. Without the slightest hesitation, he swallowed the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and the Infernal Delicate Apricot at the same time.
A wave of bitterly cold energy exploded from his stomach first, surging along his meridians and rushing through every limb and bone.
Yang Fan felt as if his blood had frozen solid. Every inch of bone, every cell, seemed to be pierced by ten-thousand-year-old ice.
But almost at the same moment, a searing heat surged from the other side, as if he had plunged into the flames of hell, scorching his flesh and meridians.
"Ugh—!"
Yang Fan groaned, clenching his teeth until the corner of his mouth split and a thin line of blood appeared.
The forces of extreme cold and heat crashed wildly against each other inside him, as if they meant to tear his body apart. Sweat had barely seeped from his pores before freezing into beads of ice, only to evaporate instantly in the heat.
"Jump!"
Using the last shred of his reason, Yang Fan drove off hard with both legs. He shot forward like a meteorite, plunging straight toward the very heart of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, where red and white met.
He would follow God King Tang's example and temper his body in ice and fire!
Splash!
Water flew in every direction as Yang Fan plunged beneath the spring's surface.
Sss—
The moment he entered the water, Yang Fan felt as if he had stepped into both hell and a glacier at once.
His body twisted violently in the spring. Red and blue light flashed across his skin in frantic alternation. The icy spring water froze his flesh and blood, while the scorching water melted it again.
Amid this unbearable agony, worse than death, Yang Fan clung fiercely to a sliver of clarity in his mind and circulated all his Soul Power, guiding the opposing forces of ice and fire into an endless cycle within his body.
"Ah!"
But the searing pain wrenched a low roar from Yang Fan. He gritted his teeth, the veins bulging across his forehead.
Time lost all meaning within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
Who knew how long it took? The red-and-blue glow enveloping Yang Fan's body gradually faded inward.
The two rampant energies, one freezing and one scorching, no longer repelled each other. Instead, they merged into his limbs and bones in a wondrous harmony, seeping deep into his marrow.
Just as he thought this transformation, a rebirth of his body, was about to end, a sudden change occurred!
The Dragon God Reverse Scale in the center of his chest suddenly burst into dazzling rainbow light!
"Hum—"
A deep hum rang out, and an ancient, boundless, supreme pressure swept outward from Yang Fan, engulfing the entire Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
Under this pressure, the forces of ice and fire that had been raging moments before abruptly halted. Even the spring water stopped flowing.
Then, two deep, sonorous dragon roars rose from the bottom of the spring. Their voices seemed to cross the ages, carrying endless sorrow and awe as they struck the depths of Yang Fan's soul.
"This is... the Dragon God's aura?!"
An old, astonished telepathic voice boomed in Yang Fan's mind.
Yang Fan's vision blurred. In an instant, his consciousness was pulled into his Sea of Consciousness. To his surprise, two uninvited guests had appeared there.
Above his Sea of Consciousness, two illusory dragon forms circled.
On the left was a massive dragon, its entire body ice-blue and radiating bone-chilling cold. On the right was a flame dragon, its body scarlet as if engulfed in fire.
Now, the two enormous dragons lowered their noble heads. Their great eyes held confusion at the sight of the young man before them—and, deeper still, awe born of their very bloodline.
"This really is the Dragon God Reverse Scale's aura! I remember that before Lord Dragon God fell into madness, he entrusted this object to the Black Dragon Clan for safekeeping. How did it end up with you?" The Ice Dragon King's telepathic voice brimmed with disbelief.
Yang Fan steadied himself and replied respectfully within his Sea of Consciousness, "This junior once made a deal with the last surviving descendant of the Black Dragon Clan. This Dragon God Reverse Scale was the token of our pact."
"Looks like our Dragon Clan truly has fallen into decline..." The Fire Dragon King's telepathic voice held deep desolation and sorrow.
"Rest assured, seniors. Since I've received the Dragon God's boon, I'm naturally willing to do what little I can to help the Dragon Clan rise again." Yang Fan's voice was firm and sincere.
"Good! Good lad!"
The Dragon Clan had a strict hierarchy, and with the Dragon God Reverse Scale in his possession, the two Dragon Kings trusted Yang Fan.
A trace of relief entered the Ice Dragon King's voice. "Judging by the fluctuations in your Soul Power, you're not far from level forty. In that case, we'll use the last traces of our divine souls to give you a helping hand!"
Before the words had fully faded, the immense dragon forms circling in Yang Fan's Sea of Consciousness vanished with a thunderous crash. Within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, two currents of source energy—pure to the utmost, so concentrated they seemed almost solid—swiftly intertwined and gathered before Yang Fan.
Then, two Soul Bones radiating terrifying pressure appeared from nowhere. They transformed into a blue and a red streak of light, shooting toward Yang Fan's arms like a pair of meteors.
The Ice Dragon King Right Arm Bone! The Fire Dragon King Left Arm Bone!
"Ugh—!!!"
The instant the two Divine Level Soul Bones fused with his arms, Yang Fan threw his head back and let loose a shriek so agonized it sounded inhuman.
This pain was ten, a hundred times more intense than the body tempering in ice and fire!
If the Ice and Fire Body Tempering had been a tug-of-war between two opposing forces, this was like grinding the bones in his arms to powder, then reforging them with ice and fire!
Yang Fan's arms went numb in an instant. Then a rush of freezing cold flooded backward through the meridians of his right arm. Everywhere it passed, his blood congealed, and his bones cracked under the strain.
His left arm, meanwhile, felt as if it had been shoved into an erupting volcano. Scorching dragon flames turned his blood vessels red-hot, and a nauseating smell of charred flesh filled the air.
"Sss—!"
A thick layer of frost instantly formed across the skin of Yang Fan's right arm. Even its shape warped slightly in the extreme cold.
His left arm, on the other hand, turned so red it seemed ready to drip blood. Dense phantom scales, bright scarlet, appeared across its surface, as if it might burst apart at any moment.
Ice and fire, life and death, pulled against each other across his arms.
Yang Fan's body convulsed violently in the spring. His eyes instantly filled with blood, and bloody tears seeped from their corners. His consciousness teetered wildly at the brink of collapse.
"Hold on to your mind!"
The remnant souls of the Ice and Fire Dragon Kings roared.
Just as the agony threatened to shatter his reason completely, the Dragon God Reverse Scale in Yang Fan's chest seemed to sense something. It suddenly burst into dazzling rainbow light.
The radiance formed a warm shield that instantly enveloped Yang Fan's heart and vital meridians, fiercely protecting his consciousness as it threatened to scatter.
What was more, the supreme draconic pressure radiating from the Dragon God Reverse Scale forcefully suppressed the violent resistance of the two Soul Bones.
The rainbow light flowed down through the meridians of his arms, transforming into an invisible "flame." It did nothing to ease the pain. Instead, with overwhelming force, it ground the opposing sources of cold and heat together and fused them, driving them deep into Yang Fan's bones.
"Crack... crack..."
Amid the teeth-grinding sounds of bones shifting, the bones in Yang Fan's arms repeatedly broke apart and regenerated.
He could clearly feel the bones in his right arm turning crystal clear, like ten-thousand-year-old black ice, while those in his left arm became scarlet dragon bones, red as blood.
Who knew how long it took? At last, the final traces of pain receded like the tide. Yang Fan felt an unprecedented, terrifying power filling his arms.
He slowly opened his eyes. His pupils had been pitch-black, but now his right eye had turned ice-blue, while a scarlet flame burned in his left.
As he clenched both fists, a vast surge of Soul Power erupted from within him and soared into the sky.