Heavenly flames were still very important to Xiao Xuan.
After all, his signature technique, the Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations, was his own creation and closely connected to heavenly flames.
The Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations, the signature Dou Technique Xiao Xuan had created, was based on his own three heavenly flames. Each additional flame's power layered into the technique increased his cultivation to a certain degree.
Xiao Xuan was quite proud of the Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations.
However, he also understood that, powerful as his technique was, it had one major flaw: heavenly flames were far too violent. Even he sometimes faced the danger of them slipping out of control.
Had he not been strong enough, anyone else attempting this would probably have been burned until not even bone fragments remained.
Ever since creating the Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations, Xiao Xuan had wanted to devise a method that could completely tame heavenly flames. Unfortunately, he had never managed it.
And wasn't this Flame Mantra precisely what Xiao Xuan had always dreamed of?
If he could completely tame his heavenly flames, his Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations would become extremely stable. The damage it inflicted on him would also diminish greatly, allowing him to use the technique for longer.
If the Flame Mantra proved effective enough at controlling heavenly flames, the Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations might even become a boosting Dou Technique with no cost at all. That would be terrifying.
Moreover, as its creator, Xiao Xuan naturally understood what truly made the Heavenly Fire Three Mysterious Transformations frightening: the more heavenly flames its user possessed, and the higher their quality, the greater the boost it could provide.
Yao Chen had said that the Flame Mantra could tame and devour every heavenly flame under heaven. If Xiao Xuan really could use it to subdue multiple heavenly flames, it would bring an immense, terrifying increase in his strength.
Besides, this upgraded Flame Mantra no longer had any side effects. Xiao Xuan could switch to cultivating it directly.
With an extraordinary cultivation method that had no side effects and could bring hundredfold or thousandfold benefits once mastered, what reason did Xiao Xuan have not to cultivate it?
The Flame Mantra... I have to cultivate it! I absolutely have to!
Moreover, once he succeeded, it could become an inherited auxiliary cultivation method for the Xiao Clan's direct descendants. In the future, the Xiao Clan might become the only clan on the Dou Qi Continent capable of freely taming the heavenly flames born of heaven and earth.
Naturally, Xiao Xuan would not take Yao Chen's Flame Mantra without giving him anything in return.
Besides, Yao Chen had already joined the Xiao Clan as a guest elder. He was one of their own now, and he had voluntarily contributed something as valuable as the Flame Mantra.
Of course Xiao Xuan would not treat him poorly.
A moment later, Xiao Xuan took out a large collection of secret scrolls and placed them before Yao Chen.
Looking at all the scrolls Xiao Xuan had produced, Yao Chen asked, "Lord Xiao Xuan, what are these?"
Xiao Xuan said, "In my younger days, I studied alchemy. I even visited your Yao Clan and exchanged knowledge of alchemy with your finest alchemists and your clan chief.
"I paid a certain price to enter the Yao Clan's Medicine Canon Pavilion and study your clan's alchemy. These scrolls record what I learned there.
"Every word is precious. They contain the supreme secrets of the most advanced alchemy techniques. With your talent for alchemy, studying them should be a great help to you. Perhaps this opportunity will even allow you to break through to become a ninth-tier alchemist."
Hearing Xiao Xuan's words, Yao Chen's breathing quickened.
The Yao Clan's Medicine Canon Pavilion!
An outsider unfamiliar with the Yao Clan would never understand just how important the Medicine Canon Pavilion was to them.
Yao Chen was a member of the Yao Clan, so he naturally knew what sort of place it was.
The Medicine Canon Pavilion housed vast numbers of cultivation methods, Dou Techniques, pill formulas, and secret manuals. It held records of the finest alchemy techniques the Yao Clan had passed down through countless ages.
According to the rules, only the clan's core elders of each generation could enter to study. Ordinary Yao Clan disciples were not even qualified to step inside.
Yao Chen was curious about what price Xiao Xuan had paid to make the Yao Clan willing to let him study there. Though it was difficult to imagine, the price he had paid back then must have been enormous.
But there was another question: how had Xiao Xuan gotten so many of the Yao Clan's secret alchemy manuals out of the Medicine Hall Pavilion?
Surely the Yao Clan would never have allowed Xiao Xuan to take these things away.
Yao Chen voiced the question on his mind.
Xiao Xuan smiled and said, "The Yao Clan's chief stipulated that I could only study in their Medicine Canon Pavilion for six hours. He even assigned a clan elder to accompany me. During that time, I was forbidden to copy anything down or use Dou Qi to engrave a record.
"But he didn't know that I had possessed an astonishing memory since childhood. I could remember anything after seeing it once. During those six hours, I memorized the contents of a third of the books in the Medicine Canon Pavilion. After returning to the Xiao Clan, I wrote them all down from memory."
"Still, I kept my agreement with the Yao Clan. Apart from myself, I've never let any outsider see these books. You're the second person to know about them, but strictly speaking, you're also a member of the Yao Clan, so you don't count as an outsider, do you? That means I haven't broken my promise."
Xiao Xuan's talent was simply too terrifying. With his photographic memory alone, he had memorized a third of the Medicine Canon Pavilion's alchemy collection within three hours.
The Yao Clan had thought they had come out ahead, when in truth, their losses had already left them numb.
Had Xiao Xuan not been a man of his word, the Xiao Clan's alchemy would probably have advanced by leaps and bounds long ago, making it another great alchemy clan comparable to the Yao Clan.
As Yao Chen listened to Xiao Xuan explain the origins of these secret books, he was once again so astonished that he could have prostrated himself in admiration.
So this is Lord Xiao Xuan, hailed as the Dou Qi Continent's greatest genius a thousand years ago? His talent truly is monstrous. No wonder trying to catch up to him drove even Gu Yuan and Hun Tiandi to despair.
Yao Chen's hands trembled as he looked at the Yao Clan's secret scrolls Xiao Xuan had given him.
All these manuals came from the Yao Clan's Medicine Canon Pavilion. Being able to enter that pavilion and study had been Yao Chen's dream since childhood.
He had never expected that the dream he had failed to fulfill in the Yao Clan would actually come true in the Xiao Clan.
At that moment, Yao Chen wanted nothing more than to plunge straight into that sea of books and ravenously absorb their knowledge.
He bowed to Xiao Xuan in thanks, then put away the Yao Clan scrolls and withdrew.
After Yao Chen left, Xiao Xuan eagerly began studying the Flame Mantra upgraded by the system.
He read the advanced version of the Flame Mantra the system had upgraded, learning and digesting a supreme cultivation method that could be said to transcend the fundamental theories behind the Dou Qi Continent's existing cultivation methods.
After thoroughly grasping all the reasoning behind its cultivation, Xiao Xuan quickly understood why this method could devour heavenly flames.
Xiao Xuan could not help saying, "I wonder which esteemed Dou Di predecessor created this Flame Mantra. Everyone says my talent outshines both antiquity and the present, but in my eyes, the predecessor who created this cultivation method is the one who truly outshines the ages. It leaves one awestruck."
Even someone as powerful as Xiao Xuan could not help marveling after reading the Flame Mantra.
Indeed, each generation brought forth new talents, each leading the way for centuries.
Still, now that the Flame Mantra had fallen into his hands, obtaining it was a tremendous stroke of fortune for him.
Having thoroughly studied the principles behind its cultivation, Xiao Xuan cultivated the Flame Mantra as effortlessly as moving his own arm and fingers.
Within just a few hours, Xiao Xuan completed his cultivation of the Flame Mantra.
Xiao Xuan did not completely replace the Xiao Clan's inherited cultivation method, the Emperor Silence Heart Sutra, which he had originally practiced. Instead, he cultivated the Flame Mantra as his second, auxiliary cultivation method-and succeeded.
As his second cultivation method, the Flame Mantra, began to circulate, the heavenly flames within his body also began undergoing earth-shaking changes.
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