Half a month flew by.
Xiao Yan was bare-chested, revealing lean, fair muscles. A closer look would reveal a tiger's back, a wasp's waist, and mantis legs-a physique remarkably similar to Yone's in his previous life.
Lean and powerful, but not bulky.
Dark red flames swelled and shrank around him, as though bound deeply to his breathing. Firelight played across the young man's handsome face. With each breath he drew and released, Dou Qi circulated through his meridians, growing visibly stronger with every cycle.
Viewed from within.
His body resembled a furnace blazing at full power, generating a terrifying suction that drew in countless wisps of heartfire. Others suffered under its tempering, but the heartfire around Xiao Yan seemed to develop human reactions... fear, flight...
Don't look back. This place is... hell.
The moment the heartfire surged around Xiao Yan, the Qi Fire and Essence Fire coiled about him like predators waiting beside a stump for rabbits to come along, devouring every last wisp. Once swallowed, it was refined in an instant, without even a chance to escape.
In just a month, the threshold of his original One-Star Dou Wang realm had gradually come into clear focus.
"Humm..."
Feeling the increasingly dense Dou Qi surging and crashing through his body like a tsunami-the sign of an impending breakthrough-he gently exhaled a breath of stale air. Riding the momentum of the Fallen Heart Flame's heartfire he had devoured and refined, he charged straight toward Two-Star Dou Wang in one sustained push.
Under the wave-like battering of his Dou Qi, that barrier finally loosened. Then came a crack, like a chain snapping, and the Dou Qi within him climbed madly. Xiao Yan opened his eyes at the same time, the corners of his lips lifting.
"Two-Star... Dou Wang."
He stood and stretched,