Tempering the Cauldron, Awakening Spirits

Ancient trees reached for the sky beyond ridge upon ridge.

With Dugu Bo leading him, Jiang Baiyu finally arrived at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well—the most blessed place on all of Douluo Continent, a wondrous land of fortune no protagonist would ever pass up.

The moment they entered, two utterly opposed forces of ice and fire flowed together as one. Rich life energy swept over them both. Extreme heat and extreme cold, powers that should have torn all things apart and annihilated each other, had instead held a perfect balance in this narrow valley for millions of years. Yin and yang turned without end, nurturing a marvel of nature found nowhere else in the world.

Dugu Bo stood at the cliff's edge with his hands behind his back, emerald Soul Power naturally circling him. He sensed the frigid and blazing energies around him, drew out a fine thread, and slowly absorbed it.

"Xiao Baiyu, don't blame me for not warning you earlier. The spiritual energy here is abundant, but it contains both extreme heat and extreme cold. Absorbing it recklessly won't help your Soul Power advance—it could even damage your meridians. When I cultivate here, I only borrow those energies to suppress my poison," he said evenly. "The most valuable things here are probably the spirit herbs in my Medicine Garden." As he spoke, he felt a pull beside him, steadily drawing in the energy of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

He whipped around. "You little brat! Didn't you hear me? Absorb it directly and you'll ruin every meridian you have!"

But Jiang Baiyu was looking at him awkwardly. Ever since they arrived, his long-dormant martial soul, the Shennong Cauldron, had been trembling deep within his dantian. At last, it had manifested on its own and begun devouring the energy accumulated here over millions of years.

Since meeting his ancestor the Flame Emperor and receiving a projection of the Shennong Cauldron, it had always been steady and gentle, radiating the unending vitality of the Hundred Herbs. Even when Jiang Baiyu realized he would follow the Shennong Farming Dao, it had only trembled slightly, never showing any other reaction. But the instant it sensed the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, the massive, ancient cauldron rose into the air. Light flowed across its jade-green body, and its mouth drew in spiritual energy like a bottomless pit. The entire cauldron hummed and trembled beyond his control.

The trembling was faint, but it carried the instinctive hunger of someone who had gone too long without food and finally seen a feast. Before long, the Shennong Cauldron stopped shaking and gave a deep hum.

Jiang Baiyu stared at it. Was it full?

He gently reached toward the Shennong Cauldron with his Soul Power. Hummm!

A peal several times louder than before rang through his sea of consciousness. Pure yang power washed over the cauldron first. True fire seeped into the patterns on its once jade-green walls, spreading streaks of crimson light. Those ancient markings carried the domineering force of burning away filth and purging impurities, and they rapidly covered the whole vessel. Extreme cold followed, wrapping the cauldron in clear blue light. It subdued the restless energy left by the yang power, locking the fire in place and bringing it into balance. Frost flowers traced the divine patterns as the heated walls cooled. Cold and heat clashed inside the cauldron, but its power to harmonize all things kept them cycling within it, two opposing forces that nurtured and restrained each other.

At a certain threshold, the crimson and icy blue vanished. In their place shone a green vitality brighter than ever before. Deep, lingering peals sounded across Jiang Baiyu's heart. The cauldron changed within as well. Already rich with the life-giving power of the Hundred Herbs and Myriad Green Qi, it had been tempered by the energy here and imprinted with the Two-Yi Great Dao, where yin and yang coexisted and water and fire sustained each other. The beginnings of a tiny world quietly took shape.

"This is..." Jiang Baiyu sensed it carefully. "A small world!" Shocking as it was, it made sense. Yang governed life, yin governed destruction, and together they held the power of creation. With the Shennong Cauldron's path of nurturing all life stirred awake, the birth of this Inner World was only natural. At the same time, Soul Power infused with Yin-Yang Energy flowed into his meridians—the cauldron's gift to him as it evolved. His Soul Power surged through level 32 and level 33, stopping just short of level 35 only because he kept consolidating his foundation.

He closed his eyes and slowly adjusted to the profound changes in his Soul Power. When he opened them again, his aura had settled, but his eyes shone brighter. A trace of the Yin-Yang Dao flickered through them.

"Your Eminence." Jiang Baiyu turned to Dugu Bo, who had watched the whole thing in astonishment.

Dugu Bo slowly came back to himself and regarded him with a complicated expression. "You..." The words died on his lips. What could he possibly say? Soul Power cultivation was the only thing that still let him retain a senior's dignity before this boy. But looking at that young face, he wondered how long it would take Jiang Baiyu to become a Title Douluo. Twenty years? Ten? He hardly dared imagine it. After a long pause, he said, "I think I placed my trust in the right person."

"Rest assured, Your Eminence. I promise your poison will become a weapon for the Dugu family from now on, not its curse." Jiang Baiyu looked at him earnestly.

Had anyone else said that, Dugu Bo would have dismissed it as a joke. But this was Jiang Baiyu. He burst out laughing. "Good! That's all I needed to hear. My moods may be unpredictable, but once I trust someone, I don't second-guess him. Boy, every spirit herb in this valley is yours." He gestured at the rare plants filling the valley with their rich spiritual energy.

"This place is blessed with abundant spiritual energy. Undisturbed for millions of years, it has nurtured countless Immortal Herbs and medicinal plants lost to the rest of the world. I found it by chance back then, claimed it, and made it my Medicine Garden."

"But even after guarding it for decades and searching through countless volumes of poison lore and ancient herbals, I recognize only half the plants here. The rest are strange, mysterious species with no records to consult. Even I can't make out their properties."

His expression suddenly turned grave, and he warned Jiang Baiyu in earnest:

"Baiyu, remember this: don't touch anything carelessly. These spirit herbs conceal endless dangers. When I first claimed this Secret Realm, I was young and proud of my poison arts. I thought no poison in the world could harm me, so I picked an unfamiliar herb to try. One wisp from that poisonous plant was enough to amplify the poison inside me. My own arts turned against me. Pain stabbed through every inch of my meridians, and my Soul Power fell into chaos. If I hadn't found a rare Snow Lotus here, I would have died on the spot. Even then, it took me three full years to recover enough to stabilize my injuries."

"Since then, I haven't dared touch a single plant in this Secret Realm that I don't recognize. I'd rather miss countless opportunities than take the slightest risk."

As Dugu Bo spoke, he pointed toward an inconspicuous spot by the Ice and Fire Spirit Spring. A delicate flower bloomed there, pure white and crystalline. Its slender, curved stem resembled a swan's neck, while its thin, faintly curled petals looked like a swan leaning in for a kiss.

Jiang Baiyu looked over and jolted. "Snow-Colored Swan Kiss."

Dugu Bo brightened. "You know it?"

Jiang Baiyu nodded. "The Snow-Colored Swan Kiss isn't poisonous in itself, but its ability is terrifying. Any poison that comes into contact with it can grow hundreds or thousands of times more potent. Even the faintest toxin can become an incurable poison under its influence. It's one of the strangest treasures in the art of poison—deadlier than poison without being poisonous itself. It's exceedingly rare. I don't know whether you were lucky or unlucky: unlucky to encounter it, lucky that you only went near it. If you'd touched it, I might never have met you."

He gave Dugu Bo a pitying look.

The look made Dugu Bo flush. Anyone who worked with poison would be embarrassed to admit he had nearly been poisoned to death. "Enough. Use whatever herbs you need. I'll wait for you to cure me," he said.

Jiang Baiyu surveyed the lush valley and its spiritually potent Immortal Herbs, then glanced at Dugu Bo with a faint smile. "You're really giving me all of them? No taking it back?"

Dugu Bo flared up at once. "What kind of man do you take me for? Once I give my word, I never take it back."

"All right. Then try to stay calm." A point of light gathered at Jiang Baiyu's fingertip. The Shennong Cauldron appeared, and the pure life energy of the Hundred Herbs swept across the valley. The light scattered into the surrounding spiritual energy. The ice-and-fire energy drifting through the air abruptly stilled, then rushed together into gentle streams of red and blue that wrapped around every plant in the valley.

Specks of light flowed through every leaf and branch. Countless spirit herbs trembled, their roots and stems glowing and their petals releasing their essence. The dormant life within them awakened into living awareness. Then countless faint but unmistakable pulses of thought appeared. From some plants, light surged skyward as the power of the Dao swirled around them. Full intelligence took root where their essence had once lain dormant.

This was Spirit Awakening, the martial soul ability Jiang Baiyu had comprehended while absorbing the Blue Silver Emperor's Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone!

One thought of creation awakened a spirit; a faint light rose with a mysterious glow.

The Hundred Herbs woke to clarity, and from that moment, they knew the world around them.