Accumulated Strength, Explosive Growth in Power

No alchemist could guarantee one hundred percent success. Exploding a cauldron during pill refinement was simply far too commonplace for alchemists.

Benefiting from years of cultivating Dou Qi to expand his meridians and temper his veins, Xiao Yan possessed terrifying experience in foundational cultivation.

His heaven-defying comprehension, far surpassing that of a Dou Emperor, and his many years of cultivating Dou Qi had long given Xiao Yan an extraordinary grasp of foundational cultivation in its beginning stages.

It simply had never been displayed too clearly, since Xiao Yan had never cultivated a technique.

Today, however, that experience finally produced some of its effects.

It allowed Xiao Yan to condense an exceptionally dense and pure Heavenly Flame—Mystic Yellow Flame!

Though it was not a Heavenly Flame born naturally from heaven and earth, its effects were not inferior in the slightest.

Moreover, even Heavenly Flames of the same kind had differences in strength.

The Fallen Heart Flame currently sealed within Canaan Academy was terrifyingly powerful;

yet the Heart Flame seed in the magma world beneath the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower was exceedingly weak.

Absorbing the pure Dou Qi, the Mystic Yellow Flame danced within Xiao Yan's Dou Qi vortex, growing ever stronger.

As the Mystic Yellow Flame grew, it slowly spread throughout Xiao Yan's entire Dou Qi vortex. Carried along by the vortex's circulation, it flowed into Xiao Yan's meridians.

Had it been a wild Mystic Yellow Flame, even merely a Heavenly Flame seed, entering his meridians so directly would inevitably have burned Xiao Yan's meridians and severely injured him.

However, this Mystic Yellow Flame had been condensed through Xiao Yan's own enlightenment. It was like a part of his body.

To Xiao Yan, this Mystic Yellow Flame brought nothing but pure benefits.

The Mystic Yellow Flame flowed through him like a warm ribbon, gently brushing against his skin.

His meridians felt the nourishment of that warmth like spring rain soaking cracked earth, leaving them comfortable and delighted.

A warm current surged out from the Mystic Yellow Flame, circulating through his meridians and nourishing every scrap of flesh, bone, and cell.

Under the nourishment of the Mystic Yellow Flame, Xiao Yan's body was further strengthened and enhanced.

After the Mystic Yellow Flame made a circuit through his meridians, its aura abruptly surged onto the surface of Xiao Yan's body. Pale yellow flames completely enveloped him.

After appearing, the flames slowly writhed. In the end, the pale yellow fire gradually transformed into a dense Mystic Yellow Flame.

The Mystic Yellow Flame shrouded Xiao Yan's body like a garment of fire. The vast energy from heaven and earth that had been madly pouring into his body from all around abruptly slowed in the face of that scorching heat.

Under the Mystic Yellow Flame's protection, the somewhat impure energy of heaven and earth was tempered once by this Heavenly Flame whenever it passed through the layer of fire. As a result, Xiao Yan's absorption of heavenly and earthly energy became several degrees faster.

And once Xiao Yan refined that energy of heaven and earth into Dou Qi and it entered his Dou Qi vortex, it would be burned by the Mystic Yellow Flame once more, further purifying the already highly refined Dou Qi.

"This flame..." Yao Lao's eyes suddenly narrowed. "It isn't an ordinary Dou Qi flame."

"Its color is mystic yellow, deep and profound; its fire scorches the heart of heaven and earth. It tempers the body, transforms essence, and returns to the origin; Mystic Yellow Flame lights the edge of the sky."

"This is the twenty-third-ranked Mystic Yellow Flame on the Heavenly Flame Ranking!"

Yao Lao was completely dumbfounded.

He had been by Xiao Yan's side since the day he was born. No one knew Xiao Yan's opportunities better than he did.

Yet now, Yao Lao was utterly confused...

Where had this Mystic Yellow Flame come from?

Could it be that heaven-defying physique?

Compared with ordinary people, Yao Lao had always known that Xiao Yan's physique was an absolutely heaven-defying existence.

Even cultivating within his mother's womb was something whose effects he had never heard of before.

And now it was actually beginning to produce Heavenly Flames on its own!

What kind of physique could be so terrifying?!

The Mystic Yellow Flame's power was naturally not something the Dou Qi within Xiao Yan could compare to.

With the Mystic Yellow Flame's enhancement, the energy of heaven and earth seeping into Xiao Yan's body from every direction had no power to resist. It was driven about like homeless dogs, fleeing continuously.

As the Mystic Yellow Flame hunted down the energy of heaven and earth, threads of mystic yellow fire continuously fused into Xiao Yan's flesh and bones.

Whenever a wisp of yellow flame fused into his flesh, that spot would take on a faint yellow tint, like one mark after another.

With the surrounding pursuit and encirclement, after only a short while, all the Dou Qi within Xiao Yan's body had been forced into having nowhere left to remain. It could only huddle together into a fist-sized ball of pure white energy, trembling as it looked at the Mystic Yellow Flame closing in from all sides.

Sensing danger, the ball of energy suddenly shook violently and rushed headlong into the Dou Qi vortex.

However, it had entered the Mystic Yellow Flame's headquarters.

The immense energy caused a tremendous commotion the instant it entered the vortex.

Not only did the vortex's rotation speed suddenly increase greatly, but the vortex, which had originally been less than palm-sized, was rapidly expanding.

Within the mystic yellow vortex, it spun and spun without end. As it revolved, strand after strand of energy transformed into the most primordial energy and fused into the Mystic Yellow Flame at the center of the vortex.

Bathed in pure energy, the Mystic Yellow Flame continued to strengthen.

During this process, Xiao Yan's Dou Qi vortex also continued expanding. Only after its volume had doubled did it gradually come to a stop.

As the vortex stopped expanding, streams of fire-attributed Dou Qi, far denser than before, flowed from Xiao Yan's vortex and began circulating through the meridians of his entire body in an orderly manner.

Just as Xiao Yan finished cultivating, everything outside returned to normal as well.

Yao Lao stared in stunned disbelief. "He jumped three stars at once and reached a five-star Dou Practitioner!"

One had to know that Xiao Yan had cultivated a technique for less than three days. Since when had the low-level Yellow Rank Flame Mantra possessed such heaven-defying cultivation speed?

Even a high-level Mystic Rank technique, supplemented by countless heavenly treasures, would find it difficult to achieve such terrifying cultivation speed with a foundation as solid as Xiao Yan's!

However, when he considered the enormous amount of energy from heaven and earth Xiao Yan had absorbed, Yao Lao was relieved.

For Xiao Yan, advancing three stars at once almost seemed a little too little.

This was also one drawback after the technique's advancement.

The advantage of Flame Mantra 2.0 was that it could condense Heavenly Flames on its own, sparing its user the difficulty of searching for Heavenly Flames in the future.

Its drawback was also quite obvious, just as Xiao Yan had experienced.

Although he had absorbed a massive amount of energy from heaven and earth, it would not cause his strength to rise in a heaven-defying fashion.

Heavenly Flames did not arise from nothing.

They required terrifying quantities of heavenly and earthly energy to condense into form.

And this was only the beginning.

For a Heavenly Flame to display sufficient power, it still needed to be continuously infused with energy and strengthened as it grew.

Otherwise, even if one condensed a Heavenly Flame, without careful nurturing, it would be much like the Fallen Heart Flame seed beside Venerable Tian Huo's soul in the magma world—extremely weak.

Only through meticulous nurturing could it possess the terrifying power of the great Fallen Heart Flame sealed within the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower.