"What's wrong with you?!"
Xiao Xun'er was frantic. She hurriedly crouched down and reached out to support Xiao Qian, her eyes filled with panic.
She watched helplessly as his muscles began to spasm from the pain. His agony pierced her heart like a sharp blade, making her feel as though she were suffering alongside him. Tears welled in her eyes before she knew it.
"That chain just now... you... none of you saw it...?"
Xiao Qian raised his head with difficulty. His voice was as feeble as a candle guttering in the wind, each word seeming to exhaust every ounce of strength he possessed.
Yet Xiao Xun'er and Ling Ying only shook their heads in bewilderment.
Their eyes held nothing but confusion. Clearly, neither had seen the mysterious chain.
What on earth was going on?
Questions filled Xiao Qian's mind. Pain and bewilderment wound tightly around his heart like two thick ropes.
He felt his bones creaking all over. In the silence, the sound was chillingly clear, as though his skeleton might shatter into countless fragments at any moment.
Countless invisible hands seemed to be ruthlessly tearing at his muscles. Every inch of flesh sent heart-piercing pain through him, and his entire body seemed to shrink slowly amid the agony.
Stranger still, he could distinctly feel his magic core trying to break free of his body's restraints, as though his soul were being forcibly stripped from its shell.
The nine dantians that had suddenly appeared inside him, cycling endlessly, were even more bizarre than he could have imagined.
As the nine dantians circulated, a Nine Palaces Array Diagram appeared on the ground, a different elemental aura hovering above each focal point.
"Urgh..."
Xiao Qian fell to his knees. The Nine Palaces Array Diagram that appeared as his dantians circulated was identical to the description in his cultivation technique.
The scene of him devouring the Dragon Phoenix suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Amid dragon roars and phoenix cries that pierced the starry heavens, nine beams of golden light had stabbed into his bloodline like blades, transforming into indistinct runes.
Now those runes resonated with the Nine Palaces Array Diagram, finally coalescing into the guiding principle.
"When the Nine Palaces awaken, the Heavenly Dao appears; when love's chains break, reincarnation changes."
This was the guiding principle of the Great Dao Devouring Love Scripture!
He furrowed his brows through the pain, gleaning more information about the technique.
The Great Dao's first sword strike must sever the one I love...? Xiao Qian sneered inwardly.
"Y-you, you..."
Xiao Xun'er and Ling Ying stared wide-eyed, their faces filled with shock.
They watched Xiao Qian undergo an astonishing transformation right before their eyes.
His body grew smaller and smaller, only stopping when he was the same height as Xiao Xun'er. Even his appearance changed into that of an adorable four- or five-year-old boy, his tender features a stark contrast to his former self.
Xiao Qian let out a long breath. Only then did the excruciating pain that had assaulted his body in relentless waves finally end.
He looked down at his now-oversized clothes, then walked helplessly to the river and peered at his reflection. His face immediately twitched, and he said in utter frustration, "I... I've shrunk again. Damn it..."
Hum!
Before Xiao Qian could examine the changes in his body, pitch-black light suddenly flickered all over him. A black crystalline magic core resembling a vortex slowly emerged from his forehead and spun above his head, radiating a mysterious, powerful aura.
"A magic core!"
Ling Ying cried out despite himself, his eyes filled with shock.
Xiao Xun'er also widened her bright eyes, staring unblinkingly at the black crystalline Ancient Void Dragon magic core.
The instant the magic core settled in midair, every plant within a hundred feet withered. Even the sunlight seemed to twist into spirals and be drawn inside.
The moment the hem of Ling Ying's robe touched that dark domain, it crumbled into dust and scattered.
The protective Dou Qi of a Dou Huang expert was as fragile as thin paper before it.
Inside the magic core, Xiao Xun'er could actually see a dragon and a phoenix swimming about. Their noble aura engulfed her like a tide, exerting a suffocating pressure.
"My magic core..."
Xiao Qian knitted his brows and concentrated, trying hard to sense it.
Yet no matter what he tried, the magic core that should have obeyed him as readily as his own limbs merely darted back and forth above his head, refusing to merge into his body again.
A darkness-attribute, devouring-type magic core? Ling Ying muttered inwardly.
Magic cores of this attribute were exceedingly rare on the continent, and this one even contained the shadows of a Dragon Phoenix. Storm-tossed waves surged through his heart.
Could that rumor the clan leader mentioned actually be true?
Had he really taken the Dragon Phoenix ancestor and...
No wonder both clans were hunting him!
Ling Ying's gaze grew complicated, and a measure of awe entered his eyes as he looked at Xiao Qian.
Xiao Qian tried several times to return the magic core to his body, all without success.
In the end, he helplessly reached out and caught his magic core, then carefully placed it in the Storage Ring on his finger.
"Don't magic cores normally only appear after a magical beast dies?" Ling Ying could not help asking. "How did yours leave your body on its own?"
"How should I know?" Xiao Qian glanced at him and answered offhandedly. "Maybe because I've developed human dantians?"
"Dantians?!" Horror crossed Ling Ying's face as he extended his perception toward him. "How could a magical beast have dantians?!"
He had personally seen a Transformation Pill cause a seventh-rank magical beast to develop humanlike meridians, but those had only been imitations.
Yet the dantians now forming inside Xiao Qian were unmistakably identical to those of humans!
Xiao Xun'er could not help rolling her pretty eyes. "Elder Ling, just because other magical beasts can't do it doesn't mean the very best of the Ancient Void Dragons' younger generation can't," she chided. "Could you stop jumping at every little thing?"
"Not only do I have dantians, I have nine of them," Xiao Qian said calmly.
"Huh?"
As though she had heard the most unbelievable thing in the world, Xiao Xun'er reeled backward and nearly fell.
Seeing this, Xiao Qian seized her collar and hauled her back with a sharp tug.
"L-let go!" The collar tightened painfully around Xiao Xun'er's neck. She flailed at his chest, her little face flushed crimson as she nearly choked. "Who catches a girl like that?"
Xiao Qian released her, utterly unmoved, and continued asking, "Does the Gu Clan have any records of this? A magic core leaving the body on its own, every meridian becoming identical to a human's, and nine dantians forming?"
Xiao Xun'er covered her slender neck and coughed twice. Then she exchanged a glance with Ling Ying, and they both shook their heads.
"The Ancient Void Dragon Clan doesn't either." Xiao Qian frowned.
More than the issue of his nine dantians, what he wanted to understand now was the meaning of the technique's guiding principle.
From the meaning it conveyed, the Great Dao was heartless. Only by experiencing falling in love, loving deeply, severing love, and forsaking love could one truly glimpse its mysteries.
Utter nonsense! Xiao Qian grumbled inwardly.
"Still, having nine dantians has to be a good thing. Maybe it means I'll have nine times as much Dou Qi as anyone else at the same cultivation level!" Xiao Qian clenched his fists in excitement, his eyes gleaming.
"But it'll also take nine times as long to cultivate, especially those initial stages leading up to ninth stage Dou Qi..."
Xiao Xun'er nibbled her little finger as she counted, imitating an adult's voice with an air of elderly solemnity. "What takes someone else ten years might take you ninety..."
She suddenly burst into a giggle. "Xun'er will be an old granny by then!"
"Cultivate?" Xiao Qian glanced at her and said nonchalantly, "Isn't having a mouth all it takes?"
"H-having a mouth is all it takes?" Xiao Xun'er stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
But she quickly caught on. This fellow was an Ancient Void Dragon, blessed with the heaven-defying ability to convert any energy into his own strength!
Before taking human form, Ancient Void Dragons were limited by their bodies when cultivating. No matter how much they ate, they still needed more than a thousand years to reach adulthood.
Once they took human form, however, they became like humans. Their growth was no longer subject to so many restrictions, and their cultivation speed increased dramatically.
"I suddenly want to strangle him," Xiao Xun'er said, turning to Ling Ying.
Ling Ying nodded in emphatic agreement.
He knew perfectly well what this meant. Those were nine dantians!
Just imagine: if someone else was a Nine-Star Dou Emperor, Xiao Qian would effectively have nine times nine-eighty-one stars!
What was more, if Xiao Qian successfully reached the Dou Sheng rank, then in this era without a Dou Di, he would undoubtedly reign supreme over the Dou Qi Continent!
"Interesting. I'll start cultivating right now!"
Xiao Qian struck his right fist against his left palm, his eyes full of anticipation. He could hardly wait to explore the marvelous changes brought about by his nine dantians.
The nine dantians' ravenous urge to devour suddenly made his stomach rumble like thunder.
Xiao Xun'er saw him turn and leave, striding away with firm, powerful steps.
"Wait for me!" Xiao Xun'er hurriedly called, then rushed after him and caught the hem of his clothes with her little hand, her lips jutting into a pout. "Where are you going to cultivate?"
Without stopping or looking back, Xiao Qian delivered his answer with ringing conviction. "A restaurant!"
Ling Ying was just about to conceal himself and vanish when that earth-shattering declaration made him stumble, nearly sending him sprawling.
"I'm coming too. Carry me!" Xiao Xun'er sprang lightly up and draped herself over Xiao Qian's back without the slightest hesitation.
Her soft, fresh girlish scent immediately drifted around Xiao Qian's ears, making him pause slightly.
"What are you doing?!" Xiao Qian frowned deeply and made to throw her off his back.
"You scared me so badly my legs went weak!"
His cold sweat from the earlier spasms still lingered on Xiao Xun'er's fingertips. Now her palms rested against his warm neck, and her heart raced so fast it hurt.
She suddenly bit hard on her lower lip, turning the lingering fear that nearly spilled out into a petulant demand. "Carry Xun'er ten steps, big brother, and I'll share a pine nut candy with you!"
"Did you forget you weren't going to force me to do anything?" Xiao Qian said helplessly.
"I'm not forcing you." Xiao Xun'er giggled. "A big brother is supposed to look after his little sister!"
Was a big brother really supposed to look after his little sister...?
Xiao Qian's jet-black eyes darkened slightly.
He slowly reached behind him and held the girl's two little calves, smooth and flawless as jade. Her skin was so soft and supple it seemed boneless, the sensation beyond words.
The weight on his back carried him, dazed, back to his days on Dragon Island, when Zi Yan had always loved lying on his back and counting clouds...
Before you continue