Xiao Yan followed Huo Yi's gaze into the distance. At the end of their line of sight stood a towering mountain with distinct red and white coloring, its peak piercing the clouds. Xiao Yan frowned slightly.
In that fleeting glance, he had distinctly sensed something familiar there drawing him toward it. But the feeling had vanished in a flash, and after that glance, he could no longer detect anything.
"You sensed something too, didn't you?"
Huo Yi stared at the enormous mountain in the distance, a look of puzzlement on Huo Yi's face, and asked.
"Yes, I did sense something, but what exactly was it? It felt very familiar, but the feeling was so faint that I have no idea where to start looking."
Xiao Yan frowned slightly as he replied, his face full of confusion and curiosity. Then he withdrew his gaze, looked up at the sky hanging high overhead, and continued:
"But precisely because of that, I've become a little interested in this world."
Xiao Yan spoke half-jokingly and half-seriously, then turned to Huo Yi and said:
"Let's go. Let's see just what it is that can feel familiar to people like us who have never been here before."
As soon as he finished speaking, he made to step through the air, but in the next instant, Xiao Yan abruptly stopped.
For the instant he had circulated the Dou Qi in his body, fierce winds had erupted across the entire region for thousands of miles around him. Wind and clouds suddenly surged, dark clouds blanketed the sky, and towering trees toppled in the wind. Only Xiao Yan and Huo Yi remained standing, completely unaffected by the hurricane.
At first, Xiao Yan had also jumped in shock at the sudden commotion. Then, as if he had thought of something, he watched it all with delight, unmoved by the falling trees.
It was not that he had lost his humanity and felt no reverence for heaven and earth. It was simply that the surging Dou Qi in his body had him too excited to contain himself, so how could he spare the trees any attention?
"This is what happens when Dou Qi overflows and a breakthrough is imminent! It seems that Emperor's Origin wasn't useless after all. Judging by what's happening to me now, it's most likely closely related to the Emperor's Origin. It seems my plan to go there will have to wait for now."
Without another word, Xiao Yan immediately sat cross-legged on the ground. He had long since used his soul perception to investigate and found that Huo Yi had already cleared out all the people and magical beasts within a thousand miles. Nothing would disturb the area where they were, so Xiao Yan sat down cross-legged without worry and began making thorough preparations for his upcoming breakthrough.
The Dou Qi in Xiao Yan's body circulated continuously through his meridians, then underwent repeated refinement by the Heavenly Flames before finally returning to the flame vortex at the center of his cyclone.
Ever since Xiao Yan's strength had reached the Dou Di level, the cyclone in his body had undergone a tremendous change as well.
Before reaching the Dou Di level, everyone's cyclone relied on absorbing energy from the surrounding world, sealing it within their bodies, and incorporating it into themselves for use.
But once a person's strength reached the Dou Di level, the cyclone in their body would form a new space at its center, specifically for storing and refining the energy of heaven and earth absorbed from outside.
This space would also continue to expand as its owner grew stronger. The greater their strength, the more Dou Qi it could store, greatly reducing a cultivator's expenditure of Dou Qi in battle. Moreover, this space had a certain ability to isolate itself. Unless an opponent's strength far surpassed one's own, or they possessed some heaven-defying Cultivation Methods and Combat Skills, they could forget about restraining the circulation of Dou Qi within one's body. This also greatly reduced the unnecessary harm caused by underhanded acts in battle.
Half an hour later, Xiao Yan, who had been sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them. A sharp beam of flame shot from his eyes and vanished into the void.
"Phew! Finally, it's done. I haven't dared truly use my Dou Qi for ten years. Now that I've circulated it, I really do feel much better. Huo Yi, I'm about to break through. Go stand guard for me."
For ten years, Xiao Yan had suppressed the Dou Qi in his body every moment of every day. Otherwise, he would probably have arrived at his current location long ago.
Xiao Yan let out a long breath of turbid air and forcibly suppressed the excitement in his heart as he spoke to Huo Yi. Hearing the slight tremor in Xiao Yan's voice, Huo Yi nodded emphatically without hesitation, then leaped up and flew a thousand miles away to stand guard for him.
Xiao Yan sat and calmed his mind, forming a cultivation hand seal with both hands. The Dou Qi in his body began circulating continuously along the meridian route of the Flame Mantra.
As the Dou Qi circulated within Xiao Yan, the energy of heaven and earth continuously gathered toward him. As the circulation of his Dou Qi grew faster and faster, his body rose uncontrollably into the air, while the energy of heaven and earth formed a massive vortex around him. The energy gathered frantically toward his body along the vortex, entering his meridians, where his Heavenly Flames continuously refined and absorbed it. It then traveled through his meridians into the flame vortex at the center of his cyclone.
At that moment, the space within the flame vortex was filled with dense, pure, milky-white Dou Qi. The space continuously swelled and contracted, as if waiting to fill with energy before completing the breakthrough in one stroke and evolving into a much vaster space.
Crack!
Just then, however, a crisp bursting sound came from Xiao Yan's finger in the outside world, startling him awake. It nearly caused the mixed Dou Qi in his body to run wild and turn against him.
That tyrannical energy had actually forced Xiao Yan's Nether Sea Storage Ring to crack open, spilling its contents into a pile like a small mountain.
Under normal circumstances, Xiao Yan naturally would not have paid it any attention. But part of Xiao Xuan's Soul Origin was still inside a jade bottle in his Storage Ring. If the bottle were accidentally crushed by that tyrannical energy, Xiao Xuan would truly and completely vanish from the world.
If things really turned out that way, Xiao Yan would surely feel guilty toward Xiao Xuan for the rest of his life. He would become dispirited and develop an inner demon, causing his cultivation to regress rather than advance, until he ultimately became a cripple in the truest sense.
Xiao Yan therefore hurriedly suppressed the Dou Qi in his body that was on the verge of running wild. He sent out a portion of it to wrap the jade bottle in a protective energy shield, then focused his mind once more on breaking through.
Yet Xiao Yan, who was eager to break through, failed to notice that inside the jade bottle he was protecting, Xiao Xuan's wisp of Soul Origin was continuously drawing in the Emperor's Origin from the world that Xiao Yan's breakthrough had gathered. Wisps of life force were also being released from it, as though a sleeping dragon had stirred.
Xiao Yan, however, had no way of knowing any of this had happened, while Huo Yi was standing guard for him far away. Naturally, no one could know what was happening inside that little jade bottle.
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