Crow's Nest and Sky Light, a Perfect Match

The instant the Blood Flame slipped into his brow.

Liu Dongqing's gaze shifted in an instant from the bedroom to the circulation of meridians throughout his body under inner vision.

At this moment, it was as though heavenly fire had descended upon the world.

The Blood Flame emanated a faint yet vividly vital power, enough to make Liu Dongqing's heart tremble. The moment it entered his Niwan Palace, it coursed straight through the Ren and Du Meridians.

A surging heat instantly flooded Liu Dongqing's limbs and bones.

It brought threads upon threads of vital Blood and qi, along with a vigorous life force like a spreading wildfire.

All of it whirled with the heavenly circulation, merging into Liu Dongqing's body and soul.

Yet amid that Blood and qi and vitality lurked an eerie Sha Qi. In an instant, it brought Liu Dongqing an intensely unpleasant numbness and stabbing pain.

Had it been an ordinary person, the instant they felt such "torture," they would likely have jolted awake from meditation.

That would have meant failure in circulating the technique, with a wisp of Blood Flame running wild through the body's heavenly circulation.

But for Liu Dongqing, the repeated regressions in cultivation over the past three-odd years had likely granted him an extraordinary resistance to the pain in his meridians.

He actually endured the full eruption of that torturous sensation.

Fortunately, the numbness and stabbing pain came quickly and left quickly. As the heavenly circulation completed its course, they soon vanished like smoke.

Liu Dongqing's body also relaxed.

Holding his breath and focusing his mind, he watched the Blood Flame, having completed a circuit through the Ren and Du heavenly circulation, "fall" back down from the crown of his head.

At that moment, Liu Dongqing's divine sense became an invisible tether. The destination toward which the Blood Flame pointed was his dantian—the Natal Candle Flame he had cultivated with the <Bright Candle Sun-Scene Lesser Azure Light Incantation>.

Whoosh—

The Blood Flame descended through his body and soul in but an instant.

Yet Liu Dongqing was unusually tense, as though his heart had skipped a beat.

But in the next instant.

The Blood Flame passed through the three rings of azure radiance without the slightest obstruction and, as though they had sprung from the same source, smoothly melded into the Natal Candle Flame.

The instant the Blood Flame and Candle Flame became one.

Liu Dongqing seemed to hear a crow's cry bloom within his body.

Looking closely, the Natal Candle Flame, which had suddenly expanded, began to change from its original narrow, elongated form into a rounder fireball.

Within the spherical Candle Flame, blood-colored light continuously condensed, finally becoming the phantom form of a Fire Crow. The Fire Crow phantom wheeled and soared within that tiny space of Candle Flame. As spiritual light shifted, a damaged sigil could be seen flickering in and out within the phantom.

As the Natal Candle Flame grew stronger, the three rings of radiance surrounding it also changed. The third ring, which had become somewhat illusory due to his regression in cultivation, abruptly solidified considerably at that moment.

Only upon seeing the Candle Flame and Sky Light stabilize one after another did Liu Dongqing finally let out a heavy breath.

Though the manual says that apart from a handful of cultivation arts whose methods differ vastly, techniques of the same attribute can generally coexist in perfect harmony.

Still, only after witnessing the actual results of their circulation with my own eyes can I truly set my mind at ease.

The Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation is indeed perfectly compatible with the Little Azure Light Incantation, which likewise belongs to the Yang Fire Path.

Moreover, the Natal Candle Flame is round like a miniature True Yang Great Sun. The sunfire conceals a Golden Crow, while outside it shines upon layer after layer of Sky Light. Only when these two techniques complement one another do they truly possess the essence of Yang Fire in the heavens!

And looking at the cultivation effects brought by the Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation itself, it truly deserves to be called a supreme mystic art inherited from a sacred land's great sect!

First, vitality and Blood and qi strengthen the origin of the physical form. Such improvement may not show itself all at once, but through persistent effort over time, it will make the body-and-soul Dao vessel increasingly compatible with the path one cultivates.

Then, the moment the Blood Flame merges into the Natal Candle Flame and strengthens the flame's origin, it directly feeds back into and enhances the cultivation realm of the Little Azure Light Incantation, making up for the losses from my previous regression.

As for the form of the Fire Crow appearing within the Natal Candle Flame, and that damaged sigil...

According to the inherited teachings of the technique, the purpose of cultivating the entire <Scarlet Crow Secret Seal Fire-Devouring Flame-Rising Spirit Incantation> is to extract from all manner of fire-attributed crow demon beasts the bloodline-origin power belonging to their common ancestor, the Crimson Fire Divine Crow.

The Inheritance Manual contains virtually a complete catalogue of fire-attributed crow demon beasts. The Ash-Feathered Crow is already among the lowest grades, but it is also the cultivation resource easiest for me to obtain.

As for the damaged sigil displayed within that Fire Crow form.

It is precisely the manifestation of that faint, weak strand of Crimson Fire Divine Crow bloodline-origin power contained within an Ash-Feathered Crow.

It is said that when cultivating this technique, the humbler the crow demon's bloodline, the better. What is needed is a damaged bloodline demon script at the outset, for that makes it easier for the technique itself to control.

After all, the central tenet of this sacred land's great sect is to refine demons, not become one.

Cultivating this technique means refining a complete Fire Crow Dao Sigil from the originally damaged bloodline demon script!

One hundred Fire Crow Dao Sigils count as entry; one thousand constitute Lesser Accomplishment; only three thousand count as Great Accomplishment!

Only then can one be said to have fully and methodically mastered and commanded the bloodline-origin power of the Crimson Fire Divine Crow.

According to the Inheritance Manual, among the generations of cultivators of this technique, there were no shortage of those who rushed greedily for success. They were careless while refining Fire Crow Dao Sigils and mixed in far too much original bloodline demon script.

In the end, these greedy rushers first became highly prone to cultivation deviation and suffered injuries of varying severity. Eventually, as the Original Demon Script increased, their path of cultivation was completely cut off.

I must take this as a warning!

As Liu Dongqing recalled the contents of the supreme mystic art's inheritance, he also compared them against his own successful first attempt at cultivating the mystic art.

Once his thoughts had gradually been sorted out.

Only then did Liu Dongqing slowly open his eyes. With another flick of his hand, before he even formed a Daoist hand seal, two clusters of illusory flame had already condensed above his palm in succession.

Whoosh—whoosh—

The phantom fire fled through the air. In an instant, it enveloped the remaining two Ash-Feathered Crows as well.

As their flesh and blood corroded, the Crimson Fire Divine Crow bloodline power within the Ash-Feathered Crows was drawn out by the flames.

Drawing the two Blood Flames back into his body and refining them into the Natal Candle Flame, Liu Dongqing now performed the process with practiced ease.

Only, this time.

As the two Blood Flames successively merged into the Natal Candle Flame.

Within the tiny space of the spherical Natal Candle Flame, the forms of three Fire Crows first emerged. As they circled and wheeled about, waves of crow cries rang out from within Liu Dongqing's body.

The three Fire Crows revealed savage, vicious visages at the same time, then in the next instant brazenly began slaughtering one another within the Natal Candle Flame.

Very soon, amid the most brutal fighting, two Fire Crow forms were successively torn apart and forcibly swallowed by the remaining Fire Crow form.

When he looked again.

Within the Natal Candle Flame, only a more solid form of Fire Crow spiritual light remained. Inside its more robust body, a pattern more complete than before, and possessing more of a Dao Sigil's rhythm, flickered in and out amid the firelight.

And along with this change.

The cultivation realm that had, following the successive merging of three Blood Flames, seen ring after ring of azure light surge wildly—where not only had the third ring solidified, but the arc of a fourth ring had reappeared—once more returned to the state of only three overlapping rings of radiance.

But this time.

Liu Dongqing felt none of the pain of regressing in cultivation. He felt only the solidity and free-flowing ease of his rapidly surging cultivation gradually becoming condensed and purified.

Liu's Great Dao begins here!

But before a broad smile could bloom across Liu Dongqing's face.

The next instant.

His brows suddenly knitted tightly.

A dense Demon Blood Baleful Qi erupted from his dantian, surging back through his limbs and bones and even shooting straight to the crown of his head.

For an instant, Liu Dongqing seemed to lose control of his physical Dao vessel. By the time he came back to himself, an expression of fury and savagery had already appeared on his face.