Yin-Yang Creation Fire!

[Ding!]

[Special location detected: Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well in Sunset Forest]

[Check-in conditions met]

[Check-in successful!]

[Congratulations, Host, you have obtained the Alchemy Canon!]

The instant the system notification rang in his mind, a vast torrent of information, as boundless as a sea of stars, forcibly flooded into Zhang Qingxuan's consciousness.

In that instant, he seemed to see an alchemical scroll spanning countless ages unfold before his eyes:

It began with illustrations of myriad medicinal herbs, from the most common blood-activating grass to legendary immortal herbs. The appearance, properties, growing environment, harvesting time, and storage methods of every herb... every detail was laid out before him.

Many of those herbs were things Zhang Qingxuan had never even heard of, and their described effects were nothing short of heaven-defying.

Next came the section on pill formulas. Tens of thousands of formulas cascaded past like a waterfall, from the most basic hemostatic powder and qi-restoring pills to immortal elixirs capable of instant recovery... Every formula meticulously recorded the required ingredients, refining steps, heat control, signs of pill formation, and even the experiences and insights of countless alchemists.

Then came the techniques section. All manner of fire-control arts, pill-condensing arts, pill-collection arts, and pill-nurturing arts... each one was profoundly mysterious. Among them was a Heart Refining Method, which used the soul as the furnace, heartfire as the fuel, and intent as the craftsman. It allowed one to refine pills without a physical pill furnace, truly the pinnacle of alchemy.

Finally came the flames section. It recorded the forms, characteristics, and methods of obtaining all manner of strange flames in heaven and earth, as well as... several secret arts for personally condensing one's own source pill fire! One of them, the Yin-Yang Creation Fire, required gathering energies of the utmost yin and utmost yang, then fusing them through a special method. Once mastered, it could burn mountains and boil seas, while greatly increasing both pill-refining success rates and pill quality.

The torrent of information continued for the time it took an incense stick to burn.

When Zhang Qingxuan opened his eyes again, pill fire seemed to flicker within them, while medicinal qi flowed through his gaze.

He stood still, carefully sorting through the vast, smoky alchemical inheritance in his mind. Every detail was incomparably clear, as though he had been born knowing it.

After a long while, he gently exhaled a breath of turbid air, faint medicinal fragrance lingering within it.

"What an Alchemy Canon..." Zhang Qingxuan murmured in admiration, unprecedented brilliance flashing in his eyes.

"With this inheritance, all the pills in the world shall rest in my palm."

He glanced around at the exotic flowers and strange herbs, then looked toward the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, a smile curling across his lips.

Several days quietly passed in the valley where ice and fire intertwined.

Above the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, Zhang Qingxuan had already sat in meditation through who knew how many days and nights.

Around him, frost and flame energies surged and ebbed like tides, yet they were drawn by an invisible force and continuously poured into the space between his outstretched palms.

Within his palms, the energy core that kept collapsing and expanding emitted heart-pounding fluctuations.

"The thirty-sixth time..."

Zhang Qingxuan's eyes remained shut. Fine beads of sweat rolled down from his temples, but his mind was as calm as an ancient well.

Condensing the Yin-Yang Creation Fire was far more difficult than described in the Alchemy Canon—because what he used were not the true Solar True Fire and Lunar True Fire.

Those divine flames of heaven and earth could only be encountered by chance, never sought.

But within the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well lay energies of Ultimate Ice and Ultimate Fire, whose quality was high enough to replace those two divine flames!

"Use ice in place of lunar, fire in place of solar... Let ice and fire aid one another, and yin and yang shall arise naturally..."

He silently recited the method he had deduced over the past few days, carefully controlling the violent energy within his palms.

On the left, Ultimate Ice emitted icy-blue energy that nearly froze space itself; on the right, Ultimate Fire's crimson streams of flame warped the air.

The two forces, which should have repelled and annihilated each other, were forcibly kneaded together under the mediation of the Yin-Yang Taiji Diagram.

The previous thirty-five attempts had all failed at this very step—"fusion."

Either ice and fire lost balance and the energy exploded, or yin and yang fell out of harmony and creation failed to arise.

Even with the Yin-Yang Taiji Diagram regulating them at the center, the two energies remained wild and unruly.

But this time, things seemed different.

The energy core in his palm no longer trembled violently as it had before. Instead, it gradually stabilized.

The icy blue and crimson red were no longer sharply divided. They began to slowly blend together, giving rise at their point of convergence to a wisp of murky gray chaotic air.

At first, that current was faint, like mist, like gauze.

But when Zhang Qingxuan injected the last thread of his spiritual sense into it—

Bzzz!

The mass of energy in his palm suddenly collapsed!

At that moment, icy blue and crimson red completely fused, becoming a gray vortex the size of a fist.

At the center of the vortex, a faint two-colored glow silently lit up, like the first ray of light born from chaos.

The left half of that light was icy blue, like ten-thousand-year mystic ice—cold and aloof; the right half was crimson, like heavenly wildfire—blazing and unrestrained.

The two colors slowly revolved within the light, outlining a miniature taiji pattern.

It had succeeded!

Zhang Qingxuan abruptly opened his eyes, wild joy flashing through them.

"Hahaha, I finally did it!"

He threw back his head and laughed, his voice echoing through the valley and shaking icicles loose from the rock walls.

That laughter carried the sheer exhilaration of restraint finally released after days of suppression.

The White Flood Dragon, dozing by the spring, jolted at the sudden laughter. It snapped its head up, its vertical pupils sweeping the surroundings warily.

When it saw the two-colored flame quietly floating above Zhang Qingxuan's palm, no larger than a thumb, every scale on its body involuntarily bristled.

It was a tremor born from the depths of its bloodline.

Though the flame was small, it exuded an aura that terrified the White Flood Dragon.

Zhang Qingxuan carefully raised before his eyes this Yin-Yang Creation Fire, born only after thirty-five failures, using Ice and Fire Origin in place of Yin-Yang Divine Fire.

The flame quietly burned in his palm. Icy blue and crimson red slowly flowed around each other, merging at the center into a touch of chaotic gray.

It had no temperature—or rather, its temperature had been restrained to the absolute extreme. When one's gaze fell upon its icy-blue half, even the soul felt frozen; when one stared at its crimson half, the soul seemed on the verge of being scorched.

"Though ice and fire replaced yin and yang, its essence is complete, and creation has already arisen..." Zhang Qingxuan nodded in satisfaction.

With a thought, he guided the newly born Creation Fire down through his meridians and slowly into his dantian.

However, at the instant the flame entered his body—

Rumble!

Deep within his dantian, a brilliant bolt of lightning erupted without warning!

It was the Nine Profound Divine Thunder within Zhang Qingxuan's body—the name he had recently given it.

This divine thunder was ordinarily exceedingly docile, lurking in the corner of his dantian and obeying his every command.

Yet today, the moment the Yin-Yang Creation Fire entered his dantian, it was like a ferocious beast whose territory had been violated, suddenly lashing out!

Crackle—!

Purple lightning surged like a furious dragon's roar, carrying vast heavenly might as it crashed viciously toward the two-colored flame that had just entered his dantian. Wherever the lightning passed, even his meridians faintly ached.

"Don't start!"

Zhang Qingxuan's heart tightened, and he hurriedly tried to suppress it by force.

One was the Nine Profound Divine Thunder, condensed from the origin of Heavenly Tribulation, supremely yang and unyielding; the other was a source flame containing both ice and fire, capable of nurturing creation. Their attributes differed from the start, and both stood at an extremely high level.

If they started fighting inside his dantian, things would get very interesting.