With the Xiao Household members gone, Xiao Lin's life settled back into peace.
Though that wasn't quite right. Xiao Lin had been fairly free to begin with.
He had written to Wutan City this time mainly because Yao Lao wanted to see Xiao Yan.
Now that Xiao Lin had achieved his goal and Yao Lao had gone to Xiao Yan's side, he naturally began devoting more energy to strengthening himself.
And the Three Thousand Burning Flame had truly brought Xiao Lin an enormous boost!
For over a year, Xiao Lin had been consolidating his gains rather than deliberately cultivating, yet the Three Thousand Burning Flame had continued to slowly increase his reserves of Dou Qi.
The Three Thousand Burning Flame was an embodiment of Astral Power, while Xiao Lin's own cultivation centered on Astral Dou Qi.
That created a peculiar situation.
As Xiao Lin grew stronger, he strengthened the source of the Three Thousand Burning Flame.
And as the flame's source grew stronger, it made Xiao Lin stronger in turn.
Between the two of them, it was like stepping on one foot with the other to climb into the sky!
For Xiao Lin, the Three Thousand Burning Flame was that much of a cheat!
Still, Xiao Lin had already reached Nine-Transformation Peak Dou Venerable. An increase in his Dou Qi reserves did little to improve his actual strength.
Truthfully, there was only one way for Xiao Lin's strength to change substantially now: break through to Dou Sheng!
At the very least, he had to reach Half-Saint.
After all, beyond Nine-Transformation Dou Venerable lay an enormous bottleneck!
No one knew how many Nine-Transformation Dou Venerables it had trapped.
Xuan Kongzi, Xuan Yi, and Tian Leizi of the Pill Tower's Three Giants, for instance, were all stuck at Nine-Transformation Peak Dou Venerable.