Fire, Come

The little courtyard was quiet and serene, its walls keeping all wind and rain at bay.

"I wonder what the chief was thinking."

As usual, after taking away the meal box, Stone looked at the tightly shut door and the utterly silent courtyard, unable to keep a trace of doubt and curiosity from rising in his heart.

Ever since returning from Rooster-Cry Mountain, the chief had plunged headfirst into the little courtyard, living in seclusion and rarely showing himself. He had even refused visits from confidants like Skinny Monkey and Xiong Li. Only Stone, the attendant responsible for his daily needs, occasionally got to see him.

"Whatever the chief does is not something I should speculate about."

As soon as the thought surfaced, Stone hurriedly withdrew his thoughts.

No longer dwelling on it, Stone packed everything away and immediately left the little courtyard.

Meanwhile, inside the secret chamber beneath the courtyard, Jiang Chen's cultivation had reached a critical moment. Bare to the waist, he sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, his eyes half-closed as he communed with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, continuously drawing in the surrounding spiritual energy.

At a certain moment, he opened his eyes, and white light flashed through the void.

"It's time!"

The time had come. Taking out the White Deer heart's blood he had prepared long ago, Jiang Chen used blood as ink and his finger as a brush. Guided by the surging spiritual energy of heaven and earth, he began drawing runes across his chest.

His movements were not fast. His mind was utterly focused, striving to make every stroke resonate with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. At that moment, the entire secret chamber brimmed with a strange scent of blood.

Time passed, though no one knew how long. When Jiang Chen placed the final stroke, boundless Blood Qi surged wildly and poured into his chest. In the end, the rune settled, forming a lifelike scarlet flame upon his chest.

"The Bloodflame Art is complete."

His chest burned as though flames were raging within it. A faint smile appeared on Jiang Chen's face. After several days of effort, he had finally achieved the initial mastery of this talisman art.

"Fire, Come!"

Activating the technique, Jiang Chen casually beckoned, and a bloom of bloody flame appeared in his hand.

Feeling the power within the flame, surprise appeared on Jiang Chen's face. Though it looked scorching, it was actually only warm. It had no effect on inanimate objects and worked solely on flesh and blood. Once a living creature was tainted by this fire, all the Blood Qi in its body would ignite. Its blood would eventually boil and evaporate, leaving behind nothing but a dried corpse.

"Although Jiang Wang was a Rogue Cultivator, he still had an inheritance. This Bloodflame Art appears fierce and vicious, but it is actually an auxiliary talisman art, mainly used to refine Blood Qi. Its specific uses will have to wait until I obtain the inheritance inside the storage pouch."

Recalling the records in the Dao book, Jiang Chen fell into thought. After a moment, he curled his five fingers together and extinguished the bloodflame in his hand.

"All the laws and arts of this world depend upon that mysterious and unfathomable Dao. They are manifestations of one aspect of the Great Dao. The Bloodflame Art's power is indeed wondrous; its nature is very similar to an ability user I encountered before."

"By this world's understanding, perhaps my ability—and even the abilities possessed by all ability users of Xuan Star—are also manifestations of the Dao. Their essence may be a naturally awakened art. After all, similar existences exist in this world. Take demonic beasts, for example; their bloodlines may contain innate inheritances."

His thoughts spread outward. From the Bloodflame Art, Jiang Chen thought of his soul ability, and from there, of how this world and Xuan Star defined extraordinary power.

In terms of extraordinary foundations alone, this world undoubtedly far surpassed Xuan Star. If he used this world's theories as a basis, then Soul Illumination, Soul Bewitchment, Eye Killing, and Spirit Infusion—the abilities he had developed with his soul ability as their foundation—might also be called arts, manifestations of some aspect of the Dao.

Of course, this was merely an association. The two worlds were different, and the truth might be worlds apart. Whether this speculation was true or false was not something Jiang Chen could confirm at present.

"With the Bloodflame Art mastered, I have truly gained a foothold among the River-Sweeping Bandits. But this is only the beginning."

Gathering his thoughts, Jiang Chen rose and walked to a corner of the secret chamber, where he opened a hidden compartment. Inside lay two things: a Dao book and a storage pouch.

After glancing at the storage pouch, Jiang Chen took out the Dao book. Its pages had yellowed slightly, bearing the traces left behind by time.

A moment later, Jiang Chen left the secret chamber with the Dao book in hand.

Beneath the peach tree, beside the stone table, Jiang Chen slowly brewed himself a cup of clear tea over a small red-clay stove. Perhaps life in the apocalypse had been too tense, but Jiang Chen now cherished this stolen leisure all the more.

Lowering his head, he inhaled the fragrance of the tea and took a sip before gently setting the cup down. The tea was very ordinary, merely wild mountain tea. Its fragrance was faint, with bitterness making up the greater part of its flavor. Yet it possessed its own toughness and weight. Paired with Spirit Spring water, it had a distinctive flavor of its own.

After leaving Rooster-Cry Mountain, Jiang Chen had placed the Spirit Spring Stone in the courtyard well. After several days of transformation, the well water had already taken on a faint spiritual charm.

"Arts are methods of self-defense, while the Dao is the ladder to heaven."

Drinking tea and reading, Jiang Chen enjoyed this rare moment of ease.

Perhaps because his state of mind had changed, Jiang Chen gained a different understanding of the Dao book in his hands. This was not his first time studying it, nor did it record any profound technique. It contained only the most basic Qi Induction Technique, including the still Lingsong Breathing Method and the moving Willow-Floss Body-Nourishing Method.

Yet this time, Jiang Chen saw something different within it. As he became increasingly immersed, the Lingsong Breathing Method began circulating through his body of its own accord, ceaselessly drawing in the spiritual energy around him.

Under normal circumstances, cultivating a stillness technique required a cultivator to focus their mind in meditation and gather in their stray thoughts. Those lacking sufficient concentration even needed aids such as burning incense. Yet as Jiang Chen studied the Dao book, he naturally aligned with this method. Or perhaps the method had broken free of its former shackles and naturally drawn close to him, as though it had been tailor-made for him.

Time passed. Jiang Chen became completely immersed in the profundity of Dao methods, while more and more spiritual energy gathered around him. Under the morning sunlight, it gradually took on a hazy radiance, lending his formerly sallow face a touch of ethereal air. At that moment, he truly bore some of the bearing of one who cultivated the Dao.

"So that's how it is."

With the technique now aligned with him, Jiang Chen gained his own understanding when he looked again at many matters.

Throughout this process, spiritual energy continuously washed over his body, beginning to refine anew the limbs that had already been tempered. Though Jiang Wang's former body had used the Qi Induction Technique to complete the tempering of its limbs, that tempering had not truly been perfect. Many minute flaws remained, and they were now being repaired.

These minor flaws actually had little effect on the vast majority of cultivators. Rather than exhausting themselves in pursuit of this small measure of perfection, it was better to take another step forward as soon as possible. After all, a cultivator's time was precious and could not be squandered.