Chapter 151: Purple Flame
Inside the isolated small valley, Xiao Yan and the Fairy Doctor peacefully lived their lives. One trained hard in Dou Qi while the other intently studied the Poison Book. The two did not disturb each other and these tranquil days were relaxing and fulfilling.
Promoting to Dou Shi was much harder than Xiao Yan had imagined. After training in the valley for close to half a month, although the Dou Qi inside the body became stronger and more cohesive, the feeling of breaking through to the next stage still didn’t appear. To this, all Yao Lao said was to calmly wait, all according to fate’s will.
To Yao Lao’s secretive and deceptive words, Xiao Yan felt helpless. However afterwards, he also gradually stopped training Dou Qi all of the time and would occasionally train his Dou Techniques or learn how to recognise the different strange medicinal plants in the valley under the guidance of Yao Lao.
Due to the temptation of being in a place flush with rare and precious medicinal plants, Xiao Yan started to desire to practice his alchemy. And so, Xiao Yan set aside a small section of time every day just for practicing alchemy.
Because he didn’t want to expose his status of being an alchemist, Xiao Yan chose a cave in the valley that left the ground about six to seven meters and every day when the sun was hot, he would jump into the cave and quietly practice crafting several kinds of beginner stage pills.
During alchemy, Xiao Yan was somewhat surprised to find out that the yellow flames he funneled into the cauldron were much hotter when compared to before. Following Xiao Yan’s careful observation, he realized that the yellow flames inside the cauldron had a faint streak of purple.
Staring blankly at the faintly appearing and disappearing purple flames, Xiao Yan’s heart moved and asked in shock, “This is...that Amethyst Winged Lion’s Purple Flame?”
“How did it get into my body?” Blinking his eyes in confusion, Xiao Yan’s brow furrowed, muttering, “Is it because of that Amethyst Lion Birth Essence?”
After arriving to that conclusion Xiao Yan gradually calmed down. The Amethyst Essence was extremely similar to the small Amethyst Winged Lion, if there were a little of the latter’s flame inside the former, it wouldn’t be too odd a thing.
Xiao Yan’s guess was pretty much correct. The Amethyst Birth Essence was the same as the small Amethyst Winged Lion in the sense that both were kept inside the mother beast’s body for many years and after such a long time, it would naturally absorb some purple flames. Under a sheer coincidence, Xiao Yan blindly consumed the Amethyst Essence and the flames which were brought about with the help of the cauldron, naturally had some purple flames.
Although these purple flames were small in quantity, they were far superior to Xiao Yan’s normal Dou Qi flames in quality. Xiao Yan having the chance to acquire it could be considered as a significant opportunity.
With his Spiritual Perception gradually extended into the cauldron. Xiao Yan slowly packaged the small purple flame and separated it from the surrounding yellow flames.
Looking at that lonely flickering purple flame inside the cauldron, Xiao Yan licked his lips with excitement and continued to increase the strength of the Spiritual Perception, intending to control the temperature of the flame.
Just as Xiao Yan tried to control the flame, the small little purple flame sent out a sentient will of resistance.
The failure to control the flame left Xiao Yan stunned and then he tightly knitted his brow while staring deadly at the small little purple flame. He slowly increased the strength of his Spiritual Perception and tried to test the baseline of the resistance of the purple flame.
Although purple flame was tyrannically strong and stubborn, Xiao Yan was not worried. No matter how one puts it, it was currently an object without an owner. Xiao Yan had confidence in slowly dominating it.
Inside the cauldron, Xiao Yan wrestled with the purple flame, both unwilling to become the first to be defeated.
This stalemate lasted for nearly ten minutes, and as Xiao Yan was about to give way to exhaustion, the purple flame surrounded by his Perception suddenly trembled, then surged inside the flame like a rolling river of water, quickly being able to control all of it.
As Xiao Yan funneled his Spirit Perception into the purple flame, Xiao Yan’s whole body lightly shook; this trembling was as if it came from deep within the soul, quickly diffusing into his entire body. At that moment, Xiao Yan felt as if his soul was promoted, the pores on his whole body, almost all opened at this moment. That feeling was very mysterious and comfortable.
This intense pleasure caused Xiao Yan to tremble once again, his eyes that had mysteriously closed slowly opened. A light purple flashed across his pitch black eyes before fading and as Xiao Yan shifted his attention to the cauldron once again, due to the Spiritual Perception strength scattering, the yellow flames inside completely vanished while the small purple flame remained, lightly flickering.
Staring at the purple flame, Xiao Yan’s gave it a quick command and it immediately flew through the mouth of the cauldron and entered Xiao Yan’s body from the center of his palm.
His palm slowly leaving the cauldron, Xiao Yan exhaled in relief. His right hand gradually curled before Xiao Yan stretched out his middle finger, lightly saying, “Appear!”
Following Xiao Yan’s voice, the middle finger lightly trembled. A moment after, a small purple flame quietly sprouted out from the fingertip and flickered lightly.
TL: Best way to flick someone off.
Real fire! An actual flame! With Xiao Yan’s current Rank One Alchemist capability, he was actually able to create real fire from his palm which required being at least a Rank Four Alchemist to do!
Alchemists under rank four were normally required to use the cauldron’s strange changes to bring out the fire natured Dou Qi inside their bodies and transform it into actual flames. Upon reaching rank four and above, the alchemists were then able to save the step of using the cauldron and immediately summon out real flames.
And many alchemists that reached this stage, when battling with another person, would basically summon out real fire to attack. Also, due to alchemist’s elemental nature, they were born to have fire with wood nature and due to that wood nature, flames which alchemists summoned were way above what similar tiered Practitioners could do, much hotter and stronger.
So, being able to summon real fire with or without aid from an external object was one of the key points in differentiating whether the person entered rank four of alchemy or not.
Of course, there are no absolutes. The information mentioned above was all built under the assumption of being a normal alchemist. If someone were able to luckily acquire a Heavenly Flame, then even without achieving rank four alchemy, one would still be able to summon out real fire. In addition, the fire that was summoned out, would be way superior to normal flames summoned by normal alchemists. After all, what they controlled, was the most destructive strength under the heavens, a Heavenly Flame!
And so, Heavenly Flames would eternally be every alchemist’s sacred divine object without a replacement. Of course, the destructive strength of Heavenly Flames has caused countless gifted alchemists, like moths to a flame, to perish.
Similarly a little shocked while looking at the slender purple flame at the fingertip, after a long while, Xiao Yan inhaled a breath of cold air, his voice trembling a little, “Teacher, quickly come out and see!”
“Mh?” From within the ring carried out Yao Lao doubtful voice and after a moment of silence, a figure of light suddenly flashed out from the ring and lastly floated in front of Xiao Yan, staring blankly at that purple flame.
“Heavenly Flame? No, it’s way weaker….this is….Oh right, Amethyst Winged Lion’s Purple Flame?” With doubt and shock in his eyes, Yao Lao strangely spoke out, “So that Amethyst Essence had such an effect, even being able to form the Amethyst Winged Lion’s fire origin in a human’s body.”
“Can this be considered a Heavenly Flame?” Staring intensely and agitatedly at that purple flame which looked as if it could snuff out any time, Xiao Yan urgently asked.
“Uh….it’s not.” First being stunned, Yao Lao then shook his head, said, “Although this is also a kind of strange unique flame, compared to Heavenly Flames, it is inferior by a huge margin. Uhh…..perhaps calling it a Beast Flame would be more appropriate.”
Wordlessly shaking his head, Xiao Yan spoke, “Ignoring whether it’s a Heavenly Flame or a Beast Flame, I would like to ask: is it stronger than the Dou Qi flame that I summoned using the cauldron?”
“Yes, that is an undisputable fact”
“Then, I can be considered its owner now right? I won’t be devoured by it?” Xiao Yan inquired again carefully.
“This purple flame is too small, not enough to attack you.”
“Then...if I were to devour it….my Flame Mantra, would it be able to evolve” Deeply sucking in a breath, Xiao Yan inquired again urgently.
“Uh…” Stumped once again, Yao lao’s brow knitted, hesitating for quite a while, before speaking out uncertainly, “Perhaps yes….but even if it were able to evolve, it would not evolve to too high a stage. After all, this purple flame is far from being able to compete with a real Heavenly Flame. Also, this purple flame now is too small, even if you were to devour it now, I think, it wouldn’t be much use.”
Xiao Yan lightly nodded his head, frustration appearing on his face. Although the Flame Mantra was quite mysterious, its starting point was simply too trash. This type of Dou Qi creation and storing capability was far from being able to satisfy Xiao Yan’s usage. Also, the Dou Techniques that Xiao Yan were familiar with, most were Xuan Tier, so after using a skill, he had to quickly swallow an Energy Recovering Pill. Or else just depending on the recovery speed of Dou Qi with a low tier Huang ranked Qi Method, would make him enter the awkward situation of having insufficient Dou Qi.
If the current Flame Mantra’s tier were able to evolve to the Xuan Tier, Xiao Yan wouldn’t have needed the Fairy Doctor’s help going to the Wolf’s Head Mercenary Group. He alone would be able to neutralize the entire hundred man strong group easily.
This, was the biggest difference between a Xuan Tier Qi Method and a Huang Tier one! And so, the current Xiao Yan, very urgently hoped for his Qi Method to quickly evolve but not only were Heavenly Flames rare, their destructive strengths would mean that Xiao Yan might not be able to successfully devour it!
So the purple flame that appeared was definitely a well in a desert, causing huge delight in Xiao Yan.
“If you really want to devour this purple flame and let it help the Flame Mantra evolve, there is actually a method.” Pausing for a while, Yao Lao suddenly spoke out.
“What is it?” Hearing this, Xiao Yan perked up and urgently asked.
Gazing at that small tiny purple flame, Yao Lao smiled.
“Refine it into a flame seed, slowly nurture it, and after it reached a certain stage, use the Flame Mantra to devour it and achieve the effect of evolution!”