Chapter 759: Heart Flame Spirit-Tempering (I)

Inside the inn, Ji Haozhong breathed a sigh of relief and rose to meet Lin Zheyu. "You're finally back. Are you all right? That Senior Xiao... didn't make things difficult for you, did she?"

Ever since Xiao Yiqing had summoned Lin Zheyu away several days ago, Ji Haozhong had not once stepped outside, remaining here as he waited for Lin Zheyu to return.

Lin Zheyu shook his head, walked over to the table, and sat down. "No. She was cultivating when I arrived, so I was delayed for a while."

He picked up the teapot and filled both Ji Haozhong's cup and his own. All the while, he mentally reviewed everything that had happened during his recent encounter with Xiao Yiqing. That woman was dangerous. When Lin Zheyu stood before her, he felt as though she could see right through him, and his instincts made him deeply wary of her.

"That's good. You were gone for so long that I thought something had happened to you. I went to that lord's residence to ask about you, but I could never get an answer. All that matters is that you're back...

"When those above us fight, it's those below who suffer. It's best not to get involved in their grudges. Small fry like us should know our place. We should simply do whatever those above tell us to do without taking sides. As for the grudges between them, we..."

With Lin Zheyu safely back, Ji Haozhong finally relaxed. He raised the cup on the table and drained it in one gulp, then began rambling about his philosophy for surviving as a small fry. Lin Zheyu, however, was lost in thought and merely murmured agreement from time to time. His mind had long since sunk into his sea of consciousness.

Within his sea of consciousness, the vast ocean of golden energy undulated as enormous waves rose one after another. At its center, faint vermilion flames burned upon his radiant golden soul, which looked almost corporeal. The boundless golden energy surged madly toward his soul form, gathering into an enormous vortex. Drenched in this golden energy, the flames burning on his soul gradually began to diminish.

"So this is Heart Flame...? What kind of secret art is this? It can actually bypass the defenses of the golden energy in my sea of consciousness and directly kindle the Heart Flame within my soul," Lin Zheyu murmured, his expression grave.

This was precisely why he was so wary of Xiao Yiqing. Ever since he had inadvertently infused the golden energy in his body into his sea of consciousness and formed a powerful soul-defense barrier, it had never failed him. Although Lin Zheyu possessed formidable physical defenses, they were insignificant compared with the vast, ocean-like barrier of golden energy within his sea of consciousness.

Even the most powerful soul attack secret arts could do no more than send ripples across the surface of the ocean of golden energy within his sea of consciousness. At most, they might stir up a few waves. That was their limit. Yet against Xiao Yiqing's attack, the defensive barrier formed by that golden ocean had been completely ineffective!

"The secret arts of the Immortal Dao are strange, mysterious, and powerful. I have underestimated Immortal Dao cultivators all this time. The Heart Flame Xiao Yiqing used is completely different from conventional soul attack secret arts.

It does not seem to attack the soul directly. Instead, it acts upon the physical body. It uses the special connection between the body and soul to affect the soul through the body, thereby bypassing any soul-defense dharma treasures that might be present.

Against such an unusual secret art of attack, this golden energy barrier is completely useless, Lin Zheyu thought.

He had not taken the medicinal pill Xiao Yiqing had given him, choosing instead to endure the searing torment of the Heart Flame by sheer force of will. As the golden energy within his sea of consciousness continuously poured over his soul, the burning Heart Flame was kept within a tolerable range.

Deep within his sea of consciousness, his spiritual Heavenly Eye abruptly opened. The instant it did, Lin Zheyu pushed it to its utmost limit, causing it to blaze with dazzling golden light. The mysteries contained within the vermilion flames burning upon his soul gradually unfolded before his Heavenly Eye...

Lin Zheyu was deliberately keeping this Heart Flame alive so that he could study its underlying principles and devise a means of defending against it. If he were suddenly struck by a similar secret art during battle, the consequences would be extremely grave. In a battle between experts, even a momentary lapse lasting only a few hundredths of a second could send him plummeting into the deadly abyss of defeat.

As Ji Haozhong continued talking, he noticed that Lin Zheyu's attention had wandered and waved a hand back and forth before his eyes. "Fellow friend? Brother Xiao? Fellow Xiao?"

"This brat can enter a state of enlightenment in the middle of a conversation?" Ji Haozhong remarked speechlessly. Finding himself rather bored, he poured himself a cup of spirit wine and began drinking alone.

Lin Zheyu returned to his senses and asked with a smile, "Hmm... Sorry, I got lost in thought just now. What did you ask me?"

"You brat, it's no wonder you're so strong and cultivate so quickly when you can immerse yourself in cultivation even under these circumstances," Ji Haozhong said irritably.

In his view, Fellow Xiao must have experienced a sudden flash of inspiration and begun cultivating without regard for his surroundings. He had seen the same thing happen to other cultivators before. Inspiration could only be encountered by chance, and once the opportunity was missed, there was no telling when it might come again. Thus, Ji Haozhong did not take offense.

"Have you ever heard of Heart Flame?" Lin Zheyu asked with a smile, abruptly changing the subject.

"Heart Flame? There are many kinds of Heart Flame. Many sects and families use similar names for their techniques, but their fundamental natures differ greatly. If you're referring to the Vermilion Bird Sect, however, there should only be one." Ji Haozhong pondered for a moment before answering. He was, after all, a veteran Shackles realm expert. Having joined the Martial Alliance and served under the Vermilion Bird Sect's formation camp for so long, he knew a great deal.

Lin Zheyu cupped his hands. "Please enlighten me."

"Heart Flame is a special flame cultivated through one of the Vermilion Bird Sect's secret arts. It is extremely powerful and is the bane of cultivators with weak resolve. More than that, the Vermilion Bird Sect's Heart Flame is exceedingly strange. It seems capable of ignoring all defenses and striking directly at a cultivator's mind.

"So long as a person's mind is not sufficiently pure or their will is not sufficiently firm, any distracting thoughts or inner demons that have ever arisen within them will kindle the Heart Flame. Those distracting thoughts and inner demons will then become fuel for it." Ji Haozhong looked gravely at Lin Zheyu, his eyes filled with astonishment. "That Senior Xiao has mastered Heart Flame?"

"Yes. It's very powerful. It strikes without warning and cannot be defended against. It truly is strange," Lin Zheyu replied with a nod.

"She used Heart Flame on you? Are you all right?" Ji Haozhong hurriedly asked with concern.

"Although martial artists possess firm resolve from tempering their martial will and rarely give rise to distracting thoughts or inner demons, they primarily cultivate their physical bodies, so their souls are far weaker than those of immortal cultivators. When afflicted by Heart Flame, they fare even worse than immortal cultivators. Most troubling of all, Heart Flame is extremely insidious. It can not only burn distracting thoughts and inner demons, but also possesses the sinister ability to entice and beguile its victim. It draws out a cultivator's inner demons and distracting thoughts, then turns them into fuel for the Heart Flame.

"If you were struck by Heart Flame, you must not lower your guard merely because it appears to have gone out. As the saying goes, a single spark can start a prairie fire. The same is true of Heart Flame," Ji Haozhong warned solemnly.

Heart Flame was one of the Vermilion Bird Sect's most powerful secret arts. Ji Haozhong had never expected Xiao Yiqing to have mastered it. What angered him even more was that, despite being a genius of the Vermilion Bird Sect and a Nascent Soul realm expert, she had actually used Heart Flame against a mere Shackles realm martial artist. It was simply too much.

"Heart Flame is actually that formidable?" Lin Zheyu had already held the Heart Flame used by Xiao Yiqing in extremely high regard, but he had never imagined it could be so powerful.

His eyes narrowed slightly as his spiritual Heavenly Eye opened once more. During his earlier study, he had overlooked the distracting thoughts and inner demons within his soul. Lin Zheyu had never paid much attention to such things before. He had assumed that the soul resembled the physical body. Just as the body's physiological processes produced metabolic waste, the soul's workings must do the same.

He had therefore regarded the various distracting thoughts and fleeting impulses of inner demons within his consciousness as nothing more than waste produced by the soul's operation. Now that Ji Haozhong had drawn his attention to them, however, Lin Zheyu realized that matters were not so simple after all.

"This is no time to marvel at it. Hurry back to the Martial Alliance immediately. Leave the Ascension Assembly to me. Once you return, ask the alliance leader to suppress the Heart Flame for you at once, then enter seclusion to temper your martial will. Otherwise, under the Heart Flame's influence, the martial will you worked so hard to temper will be completely consumed, and your spirit and will shall sink beyond recovery," Ji Haozhong urged anxiously.