The Art of the Fire Barbarians

After a moment of hesitation, Su Ming looked at the leather tent from which a faint firelight emanated. In the end, he did not head toward it, but instead returned to his own tent amidst the moonlight and falling snow.

Perhaps because he had not been back for several days, the tent was bone-chillingly cold. His breath formed a white mist, a sight that made the coldness of the place palpable even to the eye.

The lonely tent held not a shred of warmth, a stark contrast to the feeling Su Ming had experienced earlier at Lei Chen's home.

Su Ming fell silent. He gathered some firewood and retrieved a fire starter, silently lighting a fire in this solitary dwelling all by himself. Although he could resist the night's chill with the blood energy of the third level of the Blood Condensation Realm, he did not know why, but he felt that this home was missing something he could not name.

With a soft sigh, Su Ming ignited the firewood. The firelight gradually spread, bringing a touch of warmth that pushed the cold air within the tent toward the edges.

Sitting beside the fire, Su Ming stared at the dancing flames and couldn't help but drift into a daze. Since he was young, he had envied Lei Chen, Bei Ling, and Chen Xin, for they had homes, fathers, and mothers.

Although Grandpa was very good to Su Ming, as the Barbarian Duke of the tribe, he had to devote a vast amount of time to protecting and helping the clansmen. From a very young age, Su Ming had learned to be independent, learned to be alone, and even more so, learned loneliness.

Outside, the snow was falling heavily, accompanied by the sound of wailing winds that swirled around, causing the tent to creak and groan. Occasionally, a few wisps of wind would slip inside, making the flames flicker violently.

Illuminated by the firelight, Su Ming hugged his knees and watched the flames. After a long, long time, he let out a sigh.

"Grandpa says I am a child he picked up... then, are my mother and father still alive..." A look of desolation appeared on Su Ming's face. Such sentiments had been buried deep, very deep within him over the years. He did not want others to see his loneliness, always using a smile to mask everything.

Yet, on this snowy night, after visiting Lei Chen's home and feeling the warmth there, returning to his own cold tent made it impossible to hide it any longer.

"Bai Ling's father and mother are not by her side either. I wonder if she is resting now, or if she is like me, sitting by a fire and thinking..." Su Ming murmured, the image of Bai Ling and her silver-bell-like laughter surfacing in his mind.

He suddenly shuddered, faintly guessing why he felt such an unusual sensation toward Bai Ling. It might have had something to do with her beauty, but that was definitely not the point.

The point was that in her, Su Ming felt the same loneliness he had, deeply hidden beneath smiles and cunning.

As time passed, the warmth of the fire in the tent grew stronger, as if it had driven away all the cold, causing it to condense on the tent walls into droplets of water.

The warmth of the tent seemed to seep into Su Ming's heart, making his sense of loneliness seem to fade. But just then, as if the heavens were unwilling, a sudden gust of wind howled, sweeping in from the distant sky outside the tribe, carrying a massive amount of snow. The wind was fierce, and as it blew through the tribe, it felt like an invisible giant hand wiping across it.

The creaking of Su Ming's tent grew louder instantly, and even the door flap was violently ripped open. The cold wind, carrying a wailing sound, immediately flooded the tent, and the snow mixed within it landed on the fire, causing the flames to let out a struggling hiss before quickly extinguishing.

Su Ming looked up at the door flapping in the wind, watching the warmth that had been so hard to come by vanish in an instant. He stood up silently, walked out of the tent, and stood in the wind and snow, looking up at the sky.

In the world swept by the wind and snow, there was a blurred moon, obscured by the clouds.

Gazing at the moon, Su Ming thought of the Moon Wing, and of the skeleton he had seen within the Fire Barbarian tribe, along with the words carved before that skeleton had died.

"The Way of the Barbarian desires, reaching the edges of the eight directions. Remaining fire melts into blood; a thought released burns the firmament, a thought exhausted ignites the heavens... If the Fire Moon emerges from the clouds, amidst the vast world... at that moment, meditate in silence, Blood Fire Stacking. Nine is the limit, one is the law. Burn the Barbarian fire nine times, and achieve the Fire Worship Technique!"

Su Ming murmured. These words had surfaced in his mind many times. He had been pondering them constantly, yet he always felt something was missing.

"The Way of the Barbarian desires—the 'desires' here can be understood; it is nothing more than the lusts of the Barbarian, expressing some negative things. But that 'Way'... who is it referring to? Is it the skeleton referring to itself? It doesn't seem so." Out in the wind and snow, Su Ming simply sat down outside the tent. To him, inside or outside the tent felt the same; there was no warmth.

At least outside, he had the wailing wind for company, and the moon to watch.

"The 'Way', who is it... I don't understand. And then 'reaching the edges of the eight directions, remaining fire melts into blood, a thought released burns the firmament, a thought exhausted ignites the heavens'... this sentence seems to describe a scene, as if saying that if one can melt fire into blood, then with a single thought, one could burn the firmament..." Su Ming's eyes were bright. In the snow, he looked at the moon in the sky and pondered.

"If the Fire Moon emerges from the clouds, amidst the vast world... Grandpa once said that the sun is Yang and the moon is Yin. This makes a lot of sense. During the day, most people feel warmth, while under the moonlight, there is often a chill.

But what is a Fire Moon... The color of fire is red. Could it be that this refers to a red moon, a Blood Moon?" Su Ming frowned, unable to find the answer.

"At that moment, meditate in silence, Blood Fire Stacking. Nine is the limit, one is the law. Burn the Barbarian fire nine times, and achieve the Fire Worship Technique... This sentence seems to describe a certain action... Fire Worship Technique..." Su Ming looked at the moon in the sky, and suddenly, a flash of lightning seemed to streak through his mind, causing his eyes to brighten intensely.

"Could it be... that these words describe a Barbarian Art!" Su Ming's breathing grew slightly rapid. He took a deep breath, and after carefully analyzing it in his mind for a moment, he felt more and more that these words contained a Barbarian Art!

"Reaching the edges of the eight directions, remaining fire melts into blood, a thought released burns the firmament, a thought exhausted ignites the heavens—this sentence speaks of the effect and power of this Barbarian Art!

At that moment, meditate in silence, Blood Fire Stacking. Nine is the limit, one is the law. Burn the Barbarian fire nine times, and achieve the Fire Worship Technique—this sentence speaks of how to cultivate this Barbarian Art!

Yes, that must be it. As for the sentence 'If the Fire Moon emerges from the clouds, amidst the vast world', it expresses the prerequisite for cultivating this Barbarian Art!"

Su Ming's spirits lifted. These words, which he had pondered for days, now seemed clear after such an analysis. Yet, a moment later, his brows furrowed again.

"Still not quite right. The prerequisite for cultivating this Barbarian Art requires the Fire Moon to emerge from the clouds, but now is not the time... Could it be that I need to wait several years until the Blood Moon appears again before I can practice it?" Su Ming's eyes were filled with contemplation until the moon in the sky was gradually replaced by the light of dawn. As morning approached, Su Ming still had not thought of a way to practice it.

With a soft sigh, Su Ming stood up and stretched his body. As the clansmen began to emerge from their tents in the morning to start a new day of labor, Su Ming walked out of the tribe.

"The requirement for the fourth level of the Blood Condensation Realm is twenty-five blood lines. I only have eleven now. I need to hurry up and cultivate. And that Mountain Spirit Powder—I wonder what the effect will be once it's refined. I hope this powder will be of help to my cultivation." Su Ming's body sped through the mountain forest. With his cultivation at the third level of Blood Condensation, his speed was much faster than before.

By noon, he arrived at Black Flame Peak. With a few leaps, he climbed toward the cave. Just halfway up, a smile appeared on Su Ming's face. He faintly heard Xiao Hong's voice. Looking up, he saw a fiery red figure lying leisurely at the cave entrance, grabbing wild fruits and eating them quickly, its eyes darting around while it chewed.

When Su Ming looked at it, Xiao Hong also saw Su Ming. Its eyes lit up, and it threw away the half-eaten wild fruit, stood up, and leaped toward Su Ming, even climbing onto his back and letting out an excited hiss.

A happy smile appeared on Su Ming's face. He continued to climb, and before long, he reached the outside of the cave. Taking a deep breath of the mountain air, he and the Little Monkey slipped inside through the entrance.

Time passed in this tranquility, day by day. Su Ming returned to the life he had lived for the past few months, immersed in powder refining and cultivation. At night, he would watch the moon in the sky, pondering the words about the Fire Moon emerging from the clouds.

To make it easier to observe the bright moon, he even went to the trouble of carving a few small, hollow holes into the rock wall of his refining cave, allowing him to see the moon outside clearly even while sitting inside.

The muffled sounds that often came from the cave gradually decreased after a few days. Seven days after Su Ming returned to the cave, the Mountain Spirit Powder was finally refined.

It was a dark blue Medicine Stone. The medicinal fragrance was not strong, but taking a sniff near one's nose gave the illusion of breathing in mountain air, and an indescribable feeling flowed throughout his entire body.

"Mountain Spirit Powder." Su Ming squatted on the cliff outside the cave, facing the sunset, looking at the Medicine Stone in his hand. In his view, refining this medicine was much more difficult than the Dust-Clearing Powder, and the failure rate was extremely high.

Of the Luoyun Leaves Su Ming had bought, most had been used up, and he had only refined two pills. As such, Su Ming really could not bear to use one of them to test its medicinal properties.

"It shouldn't be a poisonous stone..." Su Ming smelled the fragrance of the Medicine Stone and observed it carefully for a long time, judging it based on his experience. Gradually, as the sky darkened and turned pitch black, Su Ming's eyes showed determination. He took the Medicine Stone and placed it in his mouth.

Unlike the Dust-Clearing Powder, the Medicine Stone did not dissolve upon entering his mouth. Su Ming frowned, bit down hard a few times, and only then did he crush the stone and swallow it.

He waited for a moment, but there was no sensation in his body. Su Ming rubbed his stomach and waited a while longer. He even stood up and returned to the cave to circulate the blood vessels in his body, but it remained the same as usual, with no difference.

"Strange..." Su Ming's eyes showed contemplation. After a long while, his gaze flashed, and he took out a small bottle containing Dust-Clearing Powder from his robes, took out a pill, and swallowed it.

The Dust-Clearing Powder quickly melted in his mouth, and waves of warmth immediately permeated his body. But just then, a shocking heat suddenly erupted from within his body!