Chapter 13: Strange Fire?!!

  Several withered trees lay on the ground, flickering and emitting a faint glow, which was another strange thing.

  The fireball technique, one of the most ordinary fire-based techniques in the Five Elements Xuanhuo Jing, ranked among the last few. Although these primitive techniques claim to be direct pointers to the origin of the Great Way as soon as they are understood, the problem is that he is now only a second-tier cultivator, a rookie at the Suspended Light Realm. Even if he had transcended a thousand or ten thousand times, it would still be impossible for him to point directly to the so-called "origin of the Great Way" at this time. His fireball technique was just that - a fireball technique, merely gathering the most ordinary fire elements around him, rubbing them into a ball, and shooting them out. Such a fireball might be able to burn trees to ashes, but it would never make the surrounding yin energy retreat three feet. In the midst of dense yin energy, he was brazenly burning dry wood, and what was most bizarre was that even now, there was still a faint flicker of flames there, leaving the yin energy helpless.

  "This spark, seems to be a bit unusual!!" Wang Guanlan crouched down, focusing his eyes, and saw that the spark, about the size of a soybean, was stubbornly flickering on top of the surrounding yin energy. Several times it almost got extinguished by the yin energy, but each time it flashed brightly at the last moment, wrapping its "roots" around the withered wood, resisting the surrounding yin energy.

  A familiar feeling was transmitted from the spark, which was the fusion of the Flame Conducting Yuan Force in the Scarlet Flame Crystal and the fragments of the One Thought Creates All Things talisman, producing a strange property that formed a peculiar flame.

  Originally, Wang Guanlan could feel this strange quality, but he couldn't grasp it, couldn't capture it. However, now, in this yin array, the impurities in the flames were swallowed up by the yin energy, allowing this strange quality to manifest, and finally forming this sprout of fire.

  "What's this strange fire?!!" Wang Guanlan's heart skipped a beat, but he immediately shook his head. All strange fires have unusual properties, but not all flames with unusual properties are called strange fires.

  Yi Huo Tong Ling, even the lowest grade of Yi Huo is at least equivalent to a spiritual artifact, but the flame in front of him seemed to lack the spirituality that it should possess.

  "Although it's not a hetero flame, it seems to have a restraining effect on the surrounding yin energy!!" Wang Guanlan's heart moved, his eyes became strange, "It seems that these yin energies have a purifying effect on my flames, in that case——!"

  A small fireball appeared with his thoughts, followed by a second and third. The surrounding air was filled with yin energy, and the fire element's power had almost been suppressed to the point of disappearance. However, he had the Chi Yan Jing, which originally contained intense fire element power. This power was enough for him to release over twenty fist-sized fireballs. Now, these fire elements were released in the form of fireball techniques, entangling with the surrounding yin energy. Quickly, the flames shrank at a visible speed, and Wang Guanlan could even feel that the ordinary fire element power was being devoured by the yin energy without resistance. However, when the ordinary fire element power was devoured to a certain extent, a faint, eerie green glow appeared from the center of the fireball and spread.

  More than twenty fireballs quickly turned into the size of soybeans, like flames burning on the ground, but unlike the flames on the ground, these flames showed a faint pale green.

  "This is interesting, this fire seems to be able to devour the yin energy. No, this fire can directly scorch the soul!" The fireball was controlled by Wang Guanlan's soul, and some of its characteristics naturally did not escape Wang Guanlan's notice. With a thought, more than 20 sparks merged into one place, and then combined with the spark on the ground, finally forming a green fireball the size of a fist.

  The fireball presented a light green color, floating in front of Wang Guanlan, the surrounding yin energy suddenly surged up, and a large amount of yin energy began to gather towards Wang Guanlan, rushing over like a tide.

  Wang Guanlan's face turned slightly pale, but before he could make another move, the fireball suddenly burst into a brilliant green light, enveloping an area of about five square meters around him in a faint green glow. The dark energy seemed to be stimulated by the green light and let out a hissing sound as it began to weaken and dissipate. Then, the dark energy started to retreat, pulling back to just outside the range of the green light's coverage, where it churned and seethed but did not dare take another step forward.

  Spirituality!!

  Wang Guanlan stared blankly at the green light emitted by the fireball, feeling a kind of spiritual energy that seemed to emanate from it.

  "Is this spirituality? If so, is this really heterodoxy?!!"

  No!

  Soon, Wang Guanlan overturned his own conclusion again. The hetero-fire has two obvious characteristics: one is spiritual and the other is a special shape. Now this green fire in front of him seems to have spirituality, but it doesn't have a fixed shape, it can only be called a hetero-fire embryo, or a hetero-fire seed.

  "Even if it's not a true hetero flame, but just a hetero flame seed, there is still a great chance for it to grow into a hetero flame!" Realizing this point, Wang Guanlan felt very excited. "It's just unknown whether the grown-up one will be in the original hetero flame list or outside of it!"

  The Five Elements Spirit Object List was predetermined by our predecessors, but this list is not immutable. It's more like a collection of data that can be updated at any time with new content added in. However, the Five Elements Spirit Objects are too precious, and adding one often requires decades or even hundreds of years of effort. The further back you go, the longer it takes to discover a new spirit object. As a result, the current Five Elements Spirit Object List has basically stabilized.

  Wang Guanlan didn't think that the green flame in front of him would be special enough to not be on the Five Elements Spirit Object List. In fact, it wasn't even qualified to be ranked on the Spirit Object List, but only had a chance to become an unusual fire.

  Wishing to become a heterodox fire, having qualifications is not enough, and opportunities are also needed.

  That is to say, the cultivation of this nuclear calculation of different fire seeds in front of him, after all, needs what kind of cultivation to become a real different fire, still need him to explore, but obviously, now is not the time to explore.

  He is still in danger now.

  This is something he cannot ignore no matter what.

  Yes, now still in danger, he has entered the mysterious figure's trap, and the flames before him are only an accident.

  Realizing this, Wang Guanlan took a deep breath and began to look around at her surroundings.

  Under the protection of the green flame, Wang Guanlan can already ignore the threat of yin energy, but this is still far from enough. He also needs to break through the formation and find the person who set up the formation in order to solve this problem.

  "Someone who can lay down such a large-scale Yin array must be at least a skilled cultivator, and their level is definitely higher than mine. I'm not capable of inducing so much Yin energy in such a vast area!" Wang Guanlan narrowed his eyes, stretching out his spiritual awareness.

  At this moment, he had an unexpected discovery. After his spiritual awareness expanded in the green light, it became clearer than before. Most importantly, the yin energy that was extremely harmful to his spiritual awareness began to retreat. It was only then that he discovered that after releasing his spiritual awareness, it merged with the green flame, and the flame also changed.

  As his spiritual awareness expanded, the green flames fully merged into his spiritual awareness, combining with it to form a green light shield, or rather, a green "circle" that pushed outward. Wherever it reached, yin energy either retreated or was absorbed. Soon, within a twenty-zhang radius around him, not a single thread of yin energy remained.

  This time, it was the complete fusion of his spiritual awareness and green flames in one place, so his senses were even clearer. The green flame was the nemesis of yin energy, and its handling of the surrounding yin energy also broadened his horizons.

  Through the green flame's restraint on yin energy, Wang Guanlan managed to analyze these yin energies, which were basically composed of two types of yuanqi. One was a special type of yin energy from the surrounding heavenly and earthly yuanqi, known as jiuyin yuanqi. This type of yuanqi was extremely rare among the countless mid-grade yuanqi that made up the heavenly and earthly yuanqi, only appearing in certain special locations. Its greatest function was to nourish yin souls, note that it's yin souls, not shen souls. It was the favorite of the ghost-controlling masters among the Daoist practitioners. The other type was the vengeful spirit energy, which wasn't innate but rather formed from the condensed soul of a deceased person.

  Wang Guanlan knew that the spirits of the living presented a blue flame, but the vengeful spirits of the dead were no longer blue, but colorless or black.

  Innumerable vengeful spirits are weak and easily dispersed, but when a certain number of them gather in one place and merge with each other, they will present a black aura in the spiritual sense, just like what Wang Guanlan is sensing now.

  The Nine Yin Primordial Qi can nourish is precisely this vengeful spirit qi, and when the vengeful spirit qi grows to a certain extent, it will produce spirituality and transform into the favorite of the Onmyojis, the specter.

  At this moment, Wang Guanlan could almost judge that the person hiding in the depths of the forest, setting up this yin array to steal the life force of ordinary people, was a ghost master, and his purpose was to cultivate a ghost.

  Ghosts are the best partners of Onmyodo masters, and only those who possess ghosts can truly be called Onmyodo masters. Even the lowest-level ghost has a fighting power equivalent to that of a 7th-dan martial artist, of course, it's just equivalent.

  The green flame has two completely different ways of dealing with the Nine Yin Yuan Qi and the Vengeful Spirit Qi. For the Nine Yin Yuan Qi, the green flame is ruthless in burning it to nothingness, treating it as mere fuel. As for the Vengeful Spirit Qi, the green flame devours it, or rather, absorbs it. With each absorption of the Vengeful Spirit Qi, he feels his own green flame growing stronger by a fraction.

  In a place where yin energy filled the air, it had unexpectedly become the best place to cultivate green flames.

  "Must I really use the power of vengeful spirits to cultivate this flame?! Wang Guanlan slightly narrowed his eyes, and his expression turned strange. "Then won't I have to run to piles of dead people every day from now on? How inauspicious is that?!"

  "Damn it, what the hell is that thing? A strange fire?!" Just as Wang Guanlan was thinking about whether the future would be auspicious or not, a man wrapped in a gray cloak cursed in a low voice from the depths of the dense forest. The man was tall and sturdy, even slightly fat, with an ugly face, a large boil on the left side of his cheek, and dull, lifeless skin that gave off a sense of death.

  …………………………

  Damn it, I'm getting sick of writing development strategy suggestions for small and micro industrial enterprises!