Black Flame Transformation

Black Flame Transformation

Ten days later, Qin Mo saw his own armor in the rear courtyard of the Dayuan Merchant Association. At first glance, the gray-black armor looked utterly unremarkable, yet the longer one looked at it, the less tiresome it became. Like an alluring young woman, it firmly captured every man's gaze.

Qin Mo reached out and picked up a vambrace. It was extremely heavy in his hand, utterly mismatched with its light appearance. It had clearly undergone long hours of forging, compressing large chunks of iron into small pieces of armor.

Qin Mo grew interested and simply put on the full set. He examined himself from every angle in the blurry bronze mirror, deeply satisfied. At last, he had a bit of an iron-blooded man's bearing, no longer that pretty-faced pseudo-woman.

"Grey Mori, your craftsmanship is good. It's a waste for you to stay cooped up in a place like Fusang. Are you interested in seeing bigger and farther places?" Qin Mo casually extended an olive branch.

"Your Highness is right. Grey Mori was just wondering how to ask Your Highness whether you could take my family and me to Great Xia. I want to go somewhere free." Grey Mori, who had been worrying over how to broach the matter with Qin Mo, hurriedly seized the opening. He looked at Qin Mo with hopeful eyes, like a dog staring at a meat bone, an amusing sight.

"A free place? What is freedom?"

"Well... freedom means being able to do what you like, and be with the people you like. I have two wives and two children. We want to live together." After thinking for a long while, Grey Mori finally spoke of his understanding and longing for freedom.

"I have a fief in Great Xia. There, you can have the freedom you want. If you find it unsuitable, you can leave whenever you wish." Qin Mo had long suspected that both plump women had something going on with Grey Mori. Hearing that Grey Mori had two wives, he could not help admiring the man's stamina, while also holding deep respect for his particular tastes.

"Do I need to fight for Your Highness?"

"No. You can open a blacksmith shop in my fief. As long as you trade fairly, no one can disturb you."

A sincere smile appeared on Grey Mori's face, like chrysanthemums blooming in autumn. Family and forging were everything in his life. Since both had been fulfilled, what more could he ask for?

Edo Port in September was beautiful and bustling. Typhoon season had passed, and the skies were clear. Merchant ships from nearby Great Xia and Goryeo flocked into port. Whether dock laborers or local Fusang merchants, all could gain the wealth they had long dreamed of.

But today, every merchant had stopped loading and unloading cargo, yielding the entire dock to the Fusang Mercenaries and the families seeing them off.

An old woman trembled as she tied a Fusang protective charm, an omamori, onto her son. A wife fought back tears as she painstakingly smoothed the wrinkles at her husband's hem. Unattached bachelors knelt before their aged fathers, listening to their final instructions. Perhaps... this would be the last time they heard their families' nagging.

Qin Mo watched everything before him, his eyes stinging. Others had family members seeing them off to battle, but what about him? He was all alone. Allen, Lin Bo, and the others had always treated him as family, allowing him to temporarily forget his loneliness. Yet now, seeing the familial affection filling the docks, that sense of solitude surged up within him once more.

"Let's go!" Qin Mo turned and entered the cabin. The Galleon was the first to leave the dock, heading straight into the open sea. The fully laden fleet followed in succession, carrying the Fusang people's dreams of wealth toward an unknown distance.

From Edo to Jinmen in Great Xia, one generally traveled west from Nagasaki to Goryeo, then wound westward along Goryeo's southern coast, passed the Liaodong Peninsula, and entered the Bohai Sea. This route stayed close to land and had many ports along the way, making resupply easy.

Qin Mo's fleet carried people, most of whom had never been to sea. Thus, after reaching Hirado, Qin Mo stopped for two days to let them rest and acclimate before crossing the Tsushima Strait for Goryeo.

The fleet crossed the Tsushima Strait without incident, but after entering the waters off Goryeo's southern coast, the weather worsened by the moment. Dark clouds covered the sky without the slightest gap. Before long, the wind and waves became despair-inducing. Day turned into night, and waves rose higher than the masts, making Qin Mo think of Maxim Gorky's The Petrel.

Yet Qin Mo had no wish at all for the storm to rage more fiercely. He cursed the heavens furiously. He had come to this world because he encountered rough seas, and now, on his first voyage leading a fleet, he had to face an even more savage sea storm. If the ships sank and nature's might came crashing down, it would not matter whether one was a Mysterious Realm expert or an Earth Realm cultivator. All would be buried beneath the sea.

Qin Mo tied himself to the mast, clutching a cork lifebuoy as the storm ravaged his body. At a time like this, it was better to suffer outside than stay in the cabin. If the ship capsized and he suffocated inside, that would be a fine spectacle indeed.

The storm lashed his body, leaving him wet and cold, yet Qin Mo's body began to heat up strangely. If anyone had approached him, they would have found his face completely twisted, clearly enduring enormous pain.

When Qin Mo arrived in this world, the Black Flame in his body had been acting up. It flared again later, but the Phoenix Mark on his chest swiftly absorbed it. It had not acted up since then, and Qin Mo had nearly forgotten about it. But today, like a cunning hunter finally finding an opening, the Black Flame burst forth from every limb and bone once again, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws as it ran rampant within Qin Mo's body.

The mark on Qin Mo's chest reacted swiftly. This was the Black Flame's contemptuous provocation. The Phoenix Mark formed a red vortex upon his chest, like the blood-filled maw of an ancient ferocious beast, endlessly devouring the black flames.

But the Black Flame had gone all out this time as well, refusing to retreat in the slightest. More and more Black Flame Fire emanated from Qin Mo's flesh, charging toward the vortex on his chest. The black flames and red vortex were like enemies meeting by chance, tearing and biting at each other without mercy.

As the vessel for their battle, Qin Mo suffered terribly. The Black Flame scorched his internal organs, while indescribable agony tore through his nerves. He felt like a large fish endlessly thrashing in a boiling wok, mouth wide open yet powerless to breathe, able only to await death.

Qin Mo gathered all his focus and began circulating Vital Essence to resist. After Qin Mo came to this world, the Black Flame had no longer devoured his life force, while the Vital Essence cultivated through the Bright Heart Manual had ceased constantly repairing his damaged internal organs. More and more Vital Essence accumulated in his Dantian. Qin Mo had thought that he would soon fill his Dantian and raise his realm. But now he had to use it again to resist the Black Flame's scorching, leaving him deeply frustrated.

Qin Mo mobilized his Vital Essence into a protective film that shone with bright yellow light, shielding his internal organs. As for the muscles and bones throughout his body, he let the Black Flame burn them as it pleased. He could no longer attend to them. He could only grit his teeth and desperately endure the pain of flesh-burning and bone-eroding agony.

Qin Mo did not know how many hours had passed. He only knew that his Vital Essence barrier was already on the verge of collapse. This Black Flame eruption had been thorough, like a gambler about to lose everything, throwing all his chips onto the table in one go. Endless black flames crazily poured into the red vortex on Qin Mo's chest, seemingly intent on bursting it apart.

The red vortex formed by the Phoenix Mark seemed finally unable to bear the Black Flame's desperate and shameless assault. Its rotation suddenly accelerated, and then a wisp of flame, black tinged with crimson, seeped from the vortex. This flame was clearly unlike the violent Black Flame. It was darker, purer. Swaying its head and tail as though alive, it slowly swam into the raging Black Flame.

This crimson-black flame was thin, yet extraordinarily nimble. Intricate patterns covered its body. It wove back and forth through the black flames, and wherever it passed, all the Black Flame immediately became sluggish. Before long, every trace of Black Flame in Qin Mo's body ceased its mad assault. Like fierce beasts encountering their king, they all chose to submit.

The crimson-black flame slowly drifted along Qin Mo's meridians. It seemed somewhat lazy, somewhat adorably dazed, yet every bit of Black Flame willingly allowed itself to be devoured, like commoners encountering an emperor. The immense suppression of rank made them willingly become food for the crimson-black flame.

For every ten portions of Nirvana Flame the crimson-black flame devoured, its body grew by one portion, and its patterns became one portion clearer. After it consumed all the Black Flame, its color had become nearly pure black, as deep as a sky without stars or moon. Only occasional threads of crimson light appeared, declaring who was the true master of this evolved Black Flame containing immense energy.

The newborn Black Flame slowly patrolled Qin Mo's body, continually releasing specks of black radiance. Carrying faint heat, the black radiance seeped into Qin Mo's flesh, bones, and internal organs, making him feel waves of numb itchiness. Countless cells died, while even more new cells formed, recombined, and rearranged. Qin Mo's body was undergoing earth-shaking changes, becoming stronger and tougher.

Qin Mo poured all his attention into the intricate patterns on this newborn Black Flame. He had a premonition that these patterns held the origin and secrets of the Black Flame and Phoenix Mark.

Sure enough, the moment his spiritual power touched those mysterious patterns, he immediately received endless information, all of it runes upon runes, profound and difficult to comprehend. Even exerting all his strength, Qin Mo only vaguely understood the meaning of one rune—Fire of Nirvana—Nirvana Flame.