Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower

The next morning,

Before dawn had fully broken, Xiao Qing woke from his cultivation.

After leaving the pavilion and using a Third-Grade Qi-Replenishing Pill to learn the location of the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower from an older student, he headed in the direction the student had indicated.

Having entered the Inner Academy, what would be the point if he did not cultivate in the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower?

With a cultivation cheat at hand, who would foolishly sit cross-legged cultivating in their room?

The Inner Academy was far larger than Xiao Qing had expected.

After walking for nearly half an hour, Xiao Qing finally arrived at a place where a large crowd of students had gathered in a dark mass.

Seeing the surging crowd ahead, Xiao Qing immediately understood that the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower was up ahead.

With no intention of squeezing his way forward, Xiao Qing glanced around, casually walked beneath a patch of shade, and sat cross-legged with his eyes closed to rest.

As time ticked by, more and more figures gathered toward the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower.

"Dong!"

An ancient bell toll resounded mightily through the area, and the surrounding clamor abruptly ceased.

"Open the tower!"

An aged voice came from within the tower.

Immediately afterward, the pitch-black doors sealing the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower slowly opened amid a series of creaks.

As the doors opened, a scorching aura spread from within the tower, raising the temperature of the surrounding air by several degrees.

"Enter the tower!"

As the aged voice fell, the figures gathered before the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower shot into the tower like an overwhelming tide.

As the figures around the tower gradually dwindled, Xiao Qing, who had been sitting cross-legged beneath the shade, slowly opened his eyes and walked toward the tower gates.

Looking at the massive black tower before him, Xiao Qing did not hesitate and stepped inside.

His vision darkened. As Xiao Qing's feet entered the tower, an invisible Heart Flame suddenly appeared within his body.

Having prepared for this long ago, Xiao Qing instantly controlled the Dou Qi within his body, sending strand after strand through the invisible Heart Flame that had appeared inside him.

When the fifth strand of Dou Qi passed through the invisible flame, the flame began to tremble slightly, gradually fading before slowly dispersing.

Feeling the strands of Dou Qi within his body grow more solid, Xiao Qing smacked his lips with lingering satisfaction.

From the appearance of the invisible flame to its disappearance, it seemed to have taken a long time, but in reality, only an instant had passed outside.

Xiao Qing paused briefly before continuing deeper into the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower.

The tower's interior was extremely spacious, arranged in a circular layout and filled with cultivation rooms of varying sizes.

After wandering around the first floor for a while, Xiao Qing casually found an intermediate cultivation room with a vacancy sign hanging outside and pushed the door open.

Several older students were already inside. When Xiao Qing approached, their gazes all turned toward him.

Xiao Qing's expression remained unchanged. Ignoring their scrutinizing looks, he walked directly to an unoccupied black stone platform and sat down cross-legged.

With a flip of his hand, he took out a Green Fire Crystal Card from his Storage Ring and casually inserted it into the card slot beside the stone platform.

The instant the Green Fire Crystal Card appeared, the older students withdrew their gazes and did not look at him again.

Throughout the entire Inner Academy, fewer than fifty students besides the instructors possessed Green Fire Crystal Cards.

Most of those qualified to possess one were experts on the Strong Ranking, with strength at the Dou Ling level.

Though the person before them was in the same Da Dou Shi realm as they were, anyone capable of producing a Green Fire Crystal Card was not someone they could afford to offend.

As the number on the Green Fire Crystal Card decreased by one unit, a cluster of invisible flames appeared without warning near Xiao Qing's heart.

Xiao Qing slowly closed his eyes and formed the cultivation seal with his hands. His consciousness sank into his body as he guided his Dou Qi to undergo the tempering of the Heart Flame.

Time flowed like water, passing silently away.

When an ancient bell toll resounded throughout the entire tower at some unknown moment, Xiao Qing slowly opened his eyes inside the cultivation room.

"Hu..."

Exhaling a breath of turbid air, Xiao Qing felt the increase and solidity of the Dou Qi within his body, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

At this rate of cultivation, it would not be long before he made another breakthrough.

"But why haven't I felt any fire poison?"

Xiao Qing rubbed his chin.

By all rights, after cultivating in the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower for so long, he should have been eroded by fire poison.

Yet why did he feel as though nothing had changed?

The vast soul power between Xiao Qing's brows surged out, carefully examining every part of his body.

Just as his soul power swept past his dantian and was about to shift elsewhere, an almost imperceptible emerald-green gleam flashed and vanished.

Having reached the Late Mortal Realm in soul power, Xiao Qing keenly caught that flicker. His soul power instantly probed deep into his dantian.

"This is... a Bodhi Seed!?"

Xiao Qing was greatly shaken. Deep within the sea of Qi in his dantian, an emerald-green bead the size of a grain of rice slowly condensed.

Although this emerald-green bead was far smaller than the legendary Bodhi Seed, Xiao Qing recognized its appearance at a glance.

"Could it be undigested sediment left behind after I consumed the Bodhi Body-Transforming Saliva?"

Xiao Qing fell into thought. He could be absolutely certain that this Bodhi Seed had not been in his dantian before.

In other words, this miniature Bodhi Seed had only appeared today.

According to the original work, Bodhi Seeds were formed when sediment within Bodhi Body-Transforming Saliva was refined by Heavenly Flames.

Thus, there was only one possibility: after he consumed the Bodhi Body-Transforming Saliva, its sediment had dissolved into the sea of Qi within his dantian.

After being tempered today by a fragment of the Fallen Heart Flame, part of that sediment had finally condensed into this miniature Bodhi Seed.

Having sorted through his thoughts, Xiao Qing took a deep breath.

That meant that as long as he continued cultivating in the Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower, he would one day be able to temper a complete Bodhi Seed.

Of course, directly absorbing and refining a Heavenly Flame would also work, but he did not yet have the means to do that.

"What an unexpected windfall!"

A smile curled Xiao Qing's lips. When he had consumed the Bodhi Body-Transforming Saliva before, he had felt a pang of regret, but now it seemed he had lost in one place only to gain in another.

The Bodhi Ancient Tree, also known as the Wisdom Reincarnation Tree, had dropped this Bodhi Seed. Resisting the erosion of fire poison for him would naturally be a trivial matter.

Looking around and seeing that the older students who had been cultivating here had long since left, Xiao Qing did not intend to stay any longer. He removed the Green Fire Crystal Card from the slot, rose to his feet, and headed outside.

After leaving the cultivation room, perhaps because he had delayed for too long, there were barely any people left in the spacious tower. The cultivation rooms that had been tightly shut when he arrived now all stood open.

Just as Xiao Qing headed outside, an elderly man dressed plainly stood some distance away, staring at him with a face full of uncertainty and surprise.

"Is this little fellow the Xiao Qing Old Su mentioned yesterday?"

A flash of astonishment crossed the old man's eyes. How had this little fellow entered the tower?