The next morning.
Warm dawn light spilled through a gap in the window, tracing a thin white line across the floor. It slowly lengthened until it fell upon the face of the black-robed youth sitting cross-legged on the bed.
Feeling that warm light from outside, Xiao Yan's placid face twitched slightly. A moment later, his tightly closed eyes gradually opened.
"My soul power seems just about ready to break through," Xiao Yan murmured after a brief silence.
Then he exhaled a breath of stale air and slowly closed his eyes. His hands formed the cultivation seal, his chest gently rose and fell, and he entered a meditative state once more.
Shortly after Xiao Yan closed his eyes, the tranquil space around him began to ripple like a lake into which a stone had suddenly been thrown. Wisps of visible energy seeped out of the surrounding void, turning into countless threads that poured toward his body.
The moment this pure energy entered his body, his heavenly flames purified it completely. Countless tiny beads of energy separated out within him, then surged toward meridians throughout his body as Xiao Yan watched, dumbfounded.
Within his body, countless slender streams of energy charged forward with the unstoppable force of splitting bamboo, brutally forcing their way into narrow meridians Xiao Yan had never reached before. The energy roared through like a river before slowly returning to normal.
"Level sixty."
Inside the room, Xiao Yan's eyes snapped open, emerald light shooting from them. With a light push of his feet, he landed nimbly on the floor. As his gaze swept around, the aura he exuded was so different from yesterday's that he might have been another person entirely.
"I'll rest a little, then go find Qian Daoliu."
"Once I've devoured the Fallen Heart Flame, I can