Chapter 46: Chapter 46: The Submerged Secret Realm
Lu Yu had already left the volcanic area, and all the Spirit Fruits he collected were stored in his backpack, no longer pursued by swarms of Fire Infants. He also tied a grass skirt made of vines around his waist to prevent exposure.
However, he couldn’t feel happy at all.
The fire meteors raining from the sky were fiery red fire crystals filled with Spiritual Qi, vibrant and alluring.
The entire secret realm was experiencing a fire crystal shower, appearing magnificent. Yet, those fire crystals weren’t as beautiful once they hit the ground.
The fire meteors struck the ground, causing explosions and shattering the land. The whole secret realm quaked, large sections of the ground crumbled, revealing the scorching, hot lava beneath.
The entire secret realm was being engulfed by molten magma.
That wasn’t the worst part. Even worse was that the fire meteors falling into the magma, the fire crystals, would soon transform into flame-formed Fire Spirits.
Although Flame-formed Fire Spirits could be dealt with by Martial Cultivators at the Body Refinement stage, the large concentration of Fire Spirits gathered would lead to a qualitative change through quantitative accumulation.
When a hundred Fire Spirits launched an attack simultaneously, the area of effect was vast, and its power was such that regular Qi Cultivation stage Martial Cultivators dared not directly confront it.
In no time, the entire secret realm would transform into a sea of magma.
Lu Yu now somewhat understood what Ouyang Lie meant by troublesome.
The situation indeed turned out quite disastrous.
Lu Yu was now caught in a dilemma; moving forward meant facing shattered ground smashed by fire meteors, lava everywhere, and broken pieces of ground floating on a sea of magma, with Fire Spirits occasionally emerging from the molten sea.
Retreating meant confronting the lava spurting from the volcano’s mouth, submerging the entire volcano, with a torrent of searing heat surging forward, alongside matured Fire Spirits following the lava’s path.
Whoosh~ A fire meteor fell toward the place where Lu Yu stood.
Lu Yu moved swiftly, dodging the falling fire meteor, which shattered a piece of ground, revealing the fire crystal within that floated in the crater.
A flame ignited on the fire crystal’s surface. Before it could grow larger, Lu Yu snuffed out the emerging flame with a slap.
Gripping the fire crystal, he felt a relatively gentle warm current flow from his arm into his body. The Spiritual Qi within the fire crystal was slightly more violent than that of the Spirit Fruit, impossible for those not at the Qi Cultivation stage to absorb.
Lu Yu, having practiced the "Seven Heavens of Ice and Fire," could absorb the Spiritual Qi within the fire crystal, and having previously consumed even more violent Spiritual Qi, he found absorbing the fire crystal’s Qi not difficult.
[Gained some experience from practicing the Seven Heavens of Ice and Fire, Qi Blood +2]
Ordinary fire crystals could no longer enhance Lu Yu’s cultivation technique progress, but they could still increase Qi Blood, giving Lu Yu hope.
Now, fire crystals were everywhere, much easier to obtain than before, provided he didn’t encounter large groups of Fire Spirits.
Lu Yu actively searched for fire crystals, running towards the nearest fire meteor’s impact point, retrieving the fire crystal obtained from a Fire Infant during his journey.
The fire crystal from within the Fire Infant was slightly different from those that had just fallen. It was darker, contained more Spiritual Qi, and Lu Yu could feel a wave of heat just by holding it in his hand.
[Gained some experience from practicing the Seven Heavens of Ice and Fire, Cultivation Progress +2%, Qi Blood +5]
As he had suspected, the fire crystal from the Fire Infant’s body could enhance cultivation progress, though not as much as a Spirit Fruit.
After several chases and kills of Fire Spirits, Lu Yu realized that this method was too inefficient. Sometimes, when sensing danger, the Fire Spirits would dive into the magma to escape, wasting time on the journey.
In fact, Lu Yu had a method to attract Fire Spirits to come to him willingly, but it was somewhat risky.
With a glance at the ever-diminishing land and the expanding lava sea, Lu Yu made up his mind and took a Spirit Fruit from his backpack.
As soon as the Spirit Fruit was taken out, Lu Yu felt the surrounding temperature slightly increase, indicating a large number of Fire Spirits were approaching him.
Bang~ The ground exploded, with masses of fire emerging from the gaps, flying towards Lu Yu. These Fire Spirits, not yet even Fire Infants, craved the Spirit Fruit even more.
After consuming a Spirit Fruit, a Fire Infant has a chance of advancement, while a Flame-formed Fire Spirit has a one hundred percent chance of advancing into a Fire Infant.
Whoosh~ Large swathes of flame, like a giant red fabric, began to cover Lu Yu from above.
Lu Yu consumed a Spirit Fruit, causing a layer of faint crimson spiritual light to appear on his body. Though the flames were isolated, their heat still transmitted unreservedly to Lu Yu.
In an instant, Lu Yu’s clothes were reduced to ashes, yet his skin bore not a trace of burn damage.
The fire ejected by the Flame-formed Fire Spirits was lower in temperature than their bodies’ flames, and having been able to endure their body’s flame temperature, Lu Yu feared not their sprayed flames.
The Spirit Fruit was consumed to prevent excessive influx of violent Fire Spiritual Qi, leading to self-detonation.
Within the flames, Lu Yu performed the Fierce Tiger Fist technique—Black Tiger Digs the Heart—each strike extracting a fire crystal from the flames.
The fire spirit in flame form kept fluttering around Lu Yu, knowing their attacks couldn’t harm Lu Yu, yet unwilling to leave because of the spirit fruit in Lu Yu’s hand.
The longer they stayed, the happier Lu Yu became; it felt as if he was getting fire crystals for free.
He even felt that one hand wasn’t enough, so he stuffed the spirit fruit into his grass skirt and simultaneously used Fierce Tiger Fist with both hands to grab fire crystals from the surrounding flames.
The fire spirits caught by Lu Yu almost had no hope of escape. As soon as the cultivation technique was slightly activated, the flame on the fire crystals could be extinguished, erasing the consciousness of the fire spirits.
Suddenly, Lu Yu felt a burning sensation in his right hand, having grabbed a fire infant’s head, and the fire infant spewed a flame at Lu Yu.
Fire washed his face; Lu Yu was sprayed by the fire infant at close range, and the spiritual light on Lu Yu flickered incessantly, seemingly about to be exhausted.
Lu Yu’s skin was burned charred, emitting the unpleasant smell of burning protein and fat; this was considered a severe burn.
Crack~ The fire infant’s head was crushed. Losing its head, the flame spewing from the fire infant was interrupted midway, and Lu Yu felt his eyes sting, as though they were burned by the fire.
As Ice Fire Seven Heavens operated, Qi Blood was constantly consumed to heal Lu Yu’s injuries. As Qi Blood merged into the flesh to heal the wounds, traces of fire spiritual qi mixed in, which raised Lu Yu’s fire resistance.
The injured eyes were healed by Qi Blood, and a small amount of fire spiritual qi merged into Lu Yu’s eyes. Although his eyes stung and his vision was blurry, he could barely see the headless fire infant’s body.
In Lu Yu’s vision, the surrounding flames in spirit form transformed into clusters of dull red light, while the headless fire infant trying to escape on the ground appeared as a bright orange-red light cluster.
Further away, several crimson light clusters were flying toward him, with one particularly dazzling and large, more than ten times the size of the adjacent crimson light clusters.
Seeing the headless fire infant about to escape, Lu Yu hurriedly chased after it; the light clusters flickering in view were very distracting, and Lu Yu had to exert considerable effort to kill the headless fire infant and obtain its core.
As soon as he looked up, Lu Yu instinctively used his hand to shield his eyes, as a piercing gold light shot through the gaps between his fingers.
In Lu Yu’s eyes appeared multiple afterimages, and a buzzing sound rang in his ears. By the time he regained his composure, he could see clearly again, surrounded by a scene of red flames, with no fire spirits fluttering in the flames.
"That gold light just now, could it be the sacred artifact the flame giant mentioned?" Lu Yu pondered briefly and understood what nearly blinded him.
The energy intensity of the gold light was unknowably higher than the energy intensity of the Fire Spirit King. Lu Yu only inadvertently saw a strand within the visual field where he could see energy intensity, and was forced out of that mystic vision by the gold light.
He packed the spirit fruit into his backpack, hurriedly leaving the spot, as he had seen the Fire Spirit King flying toward him earlier, likely targeting the sacred artifact.
Lu Yu didn’t want to be easily slain by the strong ones of the fire spirit clan.
Once the spirit fruit was stored in the backpack, all the fire spirits around Lu Yu dispersed; their attacks were futile, and without the spirit fruit’s presence, they naturally wouldn’t stay around Lu Yu.
After all, every creature instinctively seeks benefit and avoids harm.
Lu Yu actively accelerated the operation of the cultivation technique, absorbing the residual spiritual qi from the spirit fruit within his body. The qi blood converted from spiritual qi quickly healed Lu Yu’s burned skin.
He felt an itch on his face; reaching out, he touched his face, and his hand was covered in blackened skin fragments, beneath which lay tender new skin.
The new skin was tougher, capable of resisting higher temperatures of flames.
Though Lu Yu’s face was scorched by the fire infant’s flame, the skin renewal was happening all over his body. As he moved swiftly, dry skin flakes fell off, turning to ash in the molten lava.
"Luckily, I’m wearing a grass skirt, otherwise it would be alarming to drop fragments of skin all over my clothes."
Standing on a larger piece of ground debris, Lu Yu watched several streams of light flying in the distance, which were the strong ones of the fire spirit clan.
"The big fireball seen before is likely the Fire Spirit King." Thinking of the Fire Spirit King’s energy intensity being over ten times that of a mature fire spirit, Lu Yu couldn’t gauge the Fire Spirit King’s realm.
"If I could see the energy intensity of human martial cultivators, perhaps I’d understand the realm of the Fire Spirit King," Lu Yu mused.
He speculated that entering the visual field where he could see energy intensity was possibly due to unintentionally activating the Demon Fire Eyes.
The Demon Fire Eyes are an ability emerging when Ice Fire Seven Heavens is cultivated to its peak. If chance allows further improvement, it can transform into a true divine technique — Fire-Eyed Golden Gaze.
But it’s too early to think about this; the Demon Fire Eyes can only be activated at the third level of Ice Fire Seven Heavens, let alone cultivated to its peak and evolving into a divine technique.
Lu Yu glanced at the fire crystals in the backpack, his strength can improve significantly, lifting his mood considerably.
Still, Lu Yu hasn’t broken through to the body refinement stage, unable to absorb Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi or cultivate Spiritual Power, so the intensity of Qi Blood symbolizes the strength of Lu Yu.
"Lu Yu, wait for me." A dark figure approached Lu Yu, leaping from tens of meters away to land on the stone floating in the sea of lava, almost flipping the boat.
Ouyang Lie’s eyes lit up seeing Lu Yu’s vine leaf skirt on his waist, "Give me a few..."
"No way!" Lu Yu decisively refused before he could finish speaking.