Lu Wu!!
Luo Long placed all his hopes on Lu Wu, looking at him with some anxiety. "Lu Wu, do you still have any mana?"
He had thought Lu Wu would be the first of the three to run out of mana. After all, Lu Wu was maintaining a tremendous amount of flame.
That was an extremely severe test of both mana and mental strength.
Yet the reality was that Zu Yanzhi and Nangong Pei had both exhausted their mana, while Lu Wu was still holding on. Though he looked somewhat tired, he seemed to have no intention of stopping.
Now all their hopes rested on Lu Wu!!
"I'll give it a try." Lu Wu nodded. He still had some mana left, but controlling a greater volume of flame to cover the entire trench was no simple task.
Aside from the mana expenditure, this was not merely casting a spell. It required mental control, which naturally made it more tiring.
Watching the flames spread across the entire trench under his mental control, Lu Wu immediately felt his mana draining at a tremendous rate.
Not only that, his head was starting to feel heavy!
Knowing this was a sign of severe mental exhaustion, Lu Wu gritted his teeth and forced himself to hold on longer.
This could work!! Luo Long's heart leaped with joy when he saw Lu Wu cover the entire trench with flames.
But seeing the sweat already beading on Lu Wu's forehead, his tightly clenched teeth, and his deeply furrowed brows, Luo Long's heart rose into his throat again.
Lu Wu would have to maintain this state for quite a while longer.
Otherwise, all their previous efforts would still go down the drain.
Before the refinement, Luo Long and Old Man Shen had made some preparations. Apart from the rare materials, which they could not stock up on, they had considered everything else.
After that stubborn fellow left, the refinement had been interrupted. Now that they had found three children to take his place, they discovered that the unexpected situation consumed more Mystic Ice Water than they had imagined.
This feeling...
Lu Wu gritted his teeth, spreading his flames through the enormous trench.
He needed to keep the flames just right. Too little, and they would not melt the Mystic Ice; too much, and he would waste mana.
He also had to wrap the flames around the Mystic Ice to refine it. This feeling was somewhat like the heaviness he had felt when controlling the Thought Stone back then.
It was a little easier now, but he had to maintain it much longer!
After all, back then, he had only needed to sense the Thought Stone's existence and try to control it. Now, he had to watch constantly and control the extent of the flames.
Crimson flames blazed over the trench of hard brown earth, while Mystic Ice Water flowed continuously toward its lower end.
Zu Yanzhi and Nangong Pei seized every moment to recover. They knew very well just how incredible what Lu Wu was doing now was to them.
After only a few minutes, Lu Wu discovered that his mana was already bottoming out. Within his red galaxy, the Fire Element Stars had grown extremely dim.
The crimson flames covered only half the trench.
"Just a little more!" Shen Shitian's voice rang out. The purple-black flames had vanished, and the giant white-bone sword radiated an eerie, bloody glow.
Hearing this, Lu Wu steeled his heart and squeezed those Stars directly for mana.
Huff!!
Huff!!
His breathing grew extremely labored. It felt as though a boulder rested on his head. As the Stars were squeezed, they resisted fiercely, as if telling Lu Wu they did not have a single drop left.
Lu Wu paid no heed. He reached out with his left hand and picked up a piece of Mystic Ice. A freezing, stabbing pain shot through his left hand. He gritted his teeth, and the flames expanded.
Sweat had already blurred his vision, but Lu Wu paid it no mind.
"That's enough!!" Sensing that Lu Wu's aura had grown extremely weak, Shen Shitian shouted after taking away all the Mystic Ice Water.
Luo Long immediately went over to support Lu Wu upon hearing this, asking with concern, "Lu Wu, how do you feel?"
All Lu Wu felt now was as though he had fallen into an endless abyss. He could not muster the slightest strength.
The giant white-bone sword had now turned into eerie, blood-colored bone.
The densely packed patterns on its surface flickered continuously with light, then concealed themselves within the blood-colored bone as Shen Shitian poured Mystic Ice Water over it.
The energy of heaven and earth around them was constantly drawn inside. Upon reaching a certain threshold, its aura abruptly withdrew, and it gradually shrank into a tiny Blood Bone Sword.
Seeing the refinement completed, Luo Long was incredibly excited. He looked again at Lu Wu, whose consciousness was somewhat hazy. "Good lad. Without you this time, I'm afraid it would have been very difficult to fulfill my long-cherished wish."
Only then did he realize that Lu Wu had overdrawn himself so severely that he could no longer hear him.
"Old Man Luo, take it." Shen Shitian had returned. The previously boiling magma around them had settled again, though its color had dimmed considerably because its fire elemental energy had been drawn away.
Shen Shitian casually tossed over the Blood Bone Sword. His face was also somewhat pale now; it seemed this refinement had taken quite a toll on him.
Luo Long caught the Blood Bone Sword, his eyes welling with tears for a moment.
Shen Shitian looked at his old friend without disturbing him. After all, he had been looking forward to this for who knew how many years.
"I'm sorry, Master Shen. If we'd melted more Mystic Ice Water, Lu Wu wouldn't have fallen unconscious," Nangong Pei said apologetically to Shen Shitian.
Zu Yanzhi and Nangong Pei had already spent some time regulating their breathing, but it had been too brief. The mana they had recovered was scarcely better than recovering none at all.
"You did your best. You did quite well." Shen Shitian knew very well that these children's Fire Elements were all only at the Basic Level. The amount of mana they could store certainly would not be particularly great.
This refinement had stirred the demonic blood within the blood-colored bone itself. That had indeed been unexpected, since they had not discovered it before.
Whether in spell power or mana reserves, Lu Wu possessed truly top-tier talent, so naturally he was somewhat stronger than Zu Yanzhi and Nangong Pei.
"You should leave this place first. Lu Wu needs rest, and that fellow seems to have arrived," Luo Long said to Shen Shitian.
Luo Long now radiated an intense killing intent.
Shen Shitian did not linger and brought everyone outside.
"Screee!!!"
A piercing, fierce eagle cry rang out. Nangong Pei discovered in horror that a black dot was steadily growing larger in the direction of Mount Wuyi's depths.
"Be careful," Shen Shitian said softly to Luo Long.
Looking at the Blood Bone Sword in his hand, Luo Long nodded, as though answering his old friend, as though telling himself something.
Zu Yanzhi and Nangong Pei noticed the change in the two old men and exchanged a glance.
"Go. I'll kill that beast, the Azure Crow Overlord!!" Luo Long raised his head and looked at the black shadow flying out from the depths of Mount Wuyi, his killing intent intense beyond measure.
Shen Shitian wasted no more words and left the camp with the unconscious Lu Wu, Zu Yanzhi, and Nangong Pei.
Traveling through space, Shen Shitian only stopped after putting several kilometers between them and the camp.
They landed somewhere thick with aquatic plants. Shen Shitian looked in a certain direction, where an old woman stood.
"You came after all."
"I had to come eventually," the old woman said softly. Azure Wind Wings appeared behind her, and she flew over to them. "You succeeded in refining it after all."
"Old Man Luo would never give up on this," Shen Shitian sighed. "You should understand him."
As he spoke, he gently laid Lu Wu on the aquatic plants.
"He's simply courting death."
"Didn't you come here precisely because you don't want him to die?" Shen Shitian said. "Heal us. If he's no match for it, there's still me."
The old woman said nothing in response.
A magical aura emerged from her body, and a pale green Healing Light shone from her hands, enveloping them all.