The Fire Barbarian Art

After hesitating for a moment, Su Ming looked at the leather tent, where a faint firelight seeped through. In the end, he did not go over. Instead, beneath the moonlight and falling snow, he returned to his own tent.

It was very cold inside, perhaps because he had been gone for several days. His breath emerged in a plume of white mist, and even the sight of it made the chill sink in.

The lonely tent held not the slightest warmth. It was completely unlike how Su Ming had felt at Lei Chen's home.

Su Ming fell silent. He found some kindling and took out a firestarter, then quietly lit a fire alone in the lonely shelter. Though he could resist the cold of the night with the blood qi of the third layer of the Blood Condensation Realm, he did not know why, but he always felt that this home was missing something he could not put into words.

With a quiet sigh, Su Ming lit the wood. The firelight gradually spread, bringing warmth and driving the chill toward the edges of the tent.

Sitting beside the fire, Su Ming watched the dancing flames and drifted into a daze. Since childhood, he had envied Lei Chen, Bei Ling, and Chen Xin, because they had homes, fathers, and mothers.

Although Grandpa treated Su Ming very well, he was the tribe's Barbarian Duke and had to spend much of his time protecting and helping the tribe. From a very young age, Su Ming had learned to be independent, to be alone, and, more than anything, to endure loneliness.

Outside, the snow fell heavily, and the wind howled as it swept around, making the leather tent creak. Every so often, a few strands of wind slipped inside, causing the flames to sway violently.

Bathed in the firelight, Su Ming hugged his knees and gazed at the flames. After a long, long while, he sighed.

"Grandpa said I was a child he found... So are my father and mother still alive..." Desolation showed on Su Ming's face. Over the years, he had hidden these feelings very deeply. He did not want anyone to see how lonely he was, and always used a smile to cover everything.

But on this snowy night, after visiting Lei Chen's home and feeling the warmth there, then returning to his own cold tent, he could no longer hide it.

"Bai Ling's father and mother aren't by her side either. I wonder if she's already gone to sleep, or if she's like me, sitting by a fire and thinking..." Su Ming murmured. Bai Ling's figure appeared in his mind, along with her laughter, clear as silver bells.

His body suddenly shuddered. He had a vague idea why he felt something unusual toward Bai Ling. Her beauty might have had something to do with it, but that was not the main reason.

The truth was that in her, Su Ming had sensed the same loneliness he carried, buried deep beneath her smile and cunning.

As time passed, the warmth of the fire in the tent grew stronger, driving away what seemed to be all the cold. It gathered on the hide walls, forming droplets of water.

The warmth of the tent seemed to seep into Su Ming's heart, and his loneliness seemed to fade. But at that moment, as if Heaven itself were unwilling to let it be, a fierce gale suddenly howled in from the distant lands beyond the tribe, sweeping in great volumes of snow. The wind roared through the tribe like an invisible hand wiping across it.

The creaking of Su Ming's tent grew louder. Even its door was suddenly flung open. The howling wind immediately filled the tent, carrying snowflakes that fell onto the fire. The flames seemed to struggle, then quickly went out.

Su Ming raised his head and watched the door sway in the wind. The warmth that had barely taken hold in the tent vanished in an instant. He quietly stood up, stepped outside, and looked up at the sky through the snowstorm.

Across the world swept by wind and snow hung a hazy moon, veiled from sight.

Looking at the moon, Su Ming thought of Moon Wing, of the skeleton he had seen in the Fire Barbarian tribe, and of the words carved by the skeleton before it died.

"Thus, the desire of the Barbarians reaches the edges of the eight directions. The remnant fire melts into blood; a thought ignites the heavens, and the end of a thought sets the firmament ablaze... If the fire moon emerges from the clouds, across the vast and boundless world... Then, in silent contemplation, blood and fire stack and burn. Nine is the utmost, one is the method. Ignite the Barbarian fire and bow nine times, and the Fire Worship Technique shall be achieved!"

Su Ming murmured. These lines had surfaced in his mind many times. He had kept pondering them, yet always felt that something was missing.

"'Thus, the desire of the Barbarians'... The desire of the Barbarians can be understood as their carnal urges and the like, expressing something unsavory. But who does 'thus' refer to... Is the skeleton describing itself? That doesn't seem right." In the snowstorm, Su Ming simply sat down outside the tent. To him, inside and outside were the same; neither held any warmth.

At least outside, the howling wind kept him company, and he could look at the moon.

"Who is 'thus'...? I don't understand. Then there's 'reaches the edges of the eight directions. The remnant fire melts into blood; a thought ignites the heavens, and the end of a thought sets the firmament ablaze'... These lines seem to paint a scene. Perhaps they mean that if fire can be melted into the blood, then a single thought can burn the heavens..." Su Ming's eyes shone as he studied the moon in the snowy night, pondering.

"'If the fire moon emerges from the clouds, across the vast and boundless world...' Grandpa once said that the sun is yang and the moon is yin. That makes sense. During the day, people usually feel warm, while beneath the moon, there is often a chill.

"But what is a fire moon...? Fire is red. Could this mean a red moon, the Blood Moon?" Su Ming furrowed his brow, unable to figure it out.

"'Then, in silent contemplation, blood and fire stack and burn. Nine is the utmost, one is the method. Ignite the Barbarian fire and bow nine times, and the Fire Worship Technique shall be achieved!' This line seems to describe a certain movement... the Fire Worship Technique..." As Su Ming gazed at the moon, a flash of lightning suddenly seemed to streak through his mind, and his eyes lit up.

"Could it be... that these lines describe a Barbarian Art?" Su Ming's breathing quickened slightly. He took a deep breath and carefully analyzed the lines for a moment. The more he thought about them, the more certain he became that they contained a Barbarian Art!

"'Reaches the edges of the eight directions. The remnant fire melts into blood; a thought ignites the heavens, and the end of a thought sets the firmament ablaze' describes the art's effects and power!

"'Then, in silent contemplation, blood and fire stack and burn. Nine is the utmost, one is the method. Ignite the Barbarian fire and bow nine times, and the Fire Worship Technique shall be achieved' describes how to cultivate it!

"That must be it. As for 'If the fire moon emerges from the clouds, across the vast and boundless world,' it describes the prerequisite for cultivating this art!"

Su Ming's spirits lifted. After days of brooding, the lines suddenly seemed clear once he analyzed them this way. Yet a moment later, his brow furrowed again.

"Still, that can't be right. The prerequisite for cultivating this art is for the fire moon to emerge from the clouds, but that isn't happening now... Could it be that I have to wait several years, until the Blood Moon appears again, before I can practice it?" Su Ming pondered, his eyes deep in thought. He never found a way to cultivate the art, even as the moon gradually vanished beneath the brightening sky and dawn approached.

With a sigh, Su Ming stood and stretched. As the tribespeople began emerging from their tents in the early morning to start another day's work, Su Ming left the tribe.

"To reach the fourth layer of the Blood Condensation Realm, I need twenty-five blood lines. I only have eleven, so I have to hurry with my cultivation. And I don't know how effective the Mountain Spirit Powder will be once I've made it. I hope it helps with my cultivation." Su Ming raced through the forest. After reaching the third layer of the Blood Condensation Realm, he had become much faster than before.

By noon, he had arrived at Black Flame Peak. After a few leaps, he climbed toward the cave. Halfway up, a smile appeared on his face. He faintly heard Little Red's voice. Looking up, he saw a fiery-red figure lounging at the cave entrance, leisurely devouring wild fruit with both hands while its eyes darted around.

When Su Ming looked at it, Little Red spotted him too. Its eyes lit up. It tossed aside the half-eaten fruit, sprang to its feet, and ran toward Su Ming. Then it climbed onto his back, letting out excited cries.

A happy smile appeared on Su Ming's face. He kept climbing, and before long he reached the cave. After taking in a deep breath of mountain air, he and the little monkey slipped inside.

The peaceful days passed one after another. Su Ming returned to the life he had led in the previous months, absorbed in Powder Refining and cultivation. At night, he would gaze at the moon and ponder the words about the fire moon emerging from the clouds.

To make it easier to observe the bright moon, he even spent some effort carving several small, hollow openings into the rock walls of the Powder Refining Cave. That way, even while sitting inside, he could look up and see the moon through them.

The muffled sounds that often came from inside the cave gradually grew less frequent after several days. At last, seven days after Su Ming returned to the cave, he successfully made the Mountain Spirit Powder.

It was a deep-blue Medicine Stone. Its medicinal scent was faint, but when held beneath his nose, it gave the illusion of breathing in mountain air. There was also an indescribable sensation that seemed to flow through his whole body, inside and out.

"Mountain Spirit Powder." Crouching on the cliff outside the cave, Su Ming faced the sunset and looked at the Medicine Stone in his hand. In his eyes, making this medicine was much harder than making Dust-Clearing Powder, and the failure rate was extremely high.

Of the Luoyun Leaves Su Ming had bought, he had now used up more than half, producing only two pills. As a result, he could not bring himself to use one of them to test its effects.

"It shouldn't be poisonous..." Su Ming smelled the Medicine Stone and examined it carefully for a long time, judging it by his experience. Gradually, night fell and the sky turned pitch-black. At last, determination showed in Su Ming's eyes. He put the Medicine Stone into his mouth.

Unlike Dust-Clearing Powder, the Medicine Stone did not dissolve as soon as it entered his mouth. Su Ming frowned and bit down hard several times before he finally crushed it and swallowed.

After waiting for a while, he felt nothing in his body. Su Ming rubbed his stomach and waited a little longer. He even got up and returned to the cave to circulate the blood in his body, but everything was as usual. Nothing had changed.

"Strange..." Su Ming pondered. A moment later, his eyes flashed. He took a small bottle of Dust-Clearing Powder from his robes and swallowed one pill.

The Dust-Clearing Powder quickly dissolved in his mouth, and waves of warmth spread through his body. But just then, an astonishing heat suddenly erupted from within him!