To speak of the Extraordinary Fires of this world, one must mention the family Yun Fei belongs to—the top aristocratic house of the Demon Realm, the Yun family.
As a family possessing a heritage of Extraordinary Fire, ever since their ancestor obtained the recognition of the Nether Domain Purple Fire, the family leaped from a small border clan to one of the greatest families in the Demon Realm.
Yun Fei’s mother is an even greater expert at wielding fire; she officially raised the Yun family’s status to the peak of the Demon Realm!
Decades ago, relying on her own formidable strength, Yun Ming overthrew the old demon dynasty that had ruled the Demon Realm for over a thousand years and became the Demon Sovereign of the current new dynasty.
The current truce between the two realms is partly thanks to her.
After all, the royalty and old nobility of the previous dynasty were a bunch of brainless warmongers—a group of brutes who insisted on fighting the Mysterious Realm even under the threat of the Void.
However, although the Yun family is a great family in name, it actually only consists of a single direct line of succession—this is to ensure that the strength of the inherited Extraordinary Fire does not weaken too much.
But in reality, the information publically available is incomplete; there are parts of the truth that only Yun Fei and her mother know.
Since the ancestor who formed a contract with the Nether Domain Purple Fire, no one in the Yun family, including her mother, has been able to gain its recognition.
Therefore, every Yun family member before Yun Fei only inherited a small flicker of its flame, which was reclaimed by it upon their death.
Only Yun Fei is the one who obtained the inheritance of the Nether Domain Purple Fire’s main body.
It was also because its main body directly left with Yun Fei that the purple flames, which had burned in the family’s forbidden grounds for hundreds of years, finally extinguished.
Feeling the temperature in the room continue to climb, Hua Li couldn’t help but marvel, “As expected of the legendary Nether Domain Purple Fire that scorched a dead zone for hundreds of miles. Even with a host only in the Void Shattering Realm, it can display such might…”
At this moment, Yun Fei couldn’t hear Hua Li’s admiration at all.
To reduce the pressure of the high-intensity operation of her spiritual power, she had sealed her five senses, relying entirely on the precise perception of her spiritual power to carry out the steps of alchemy one by one.
Beads of sweat gradually appeared on her forehead, gathering and merging into streams that poured down.
Before this, Yun Fei’s study of alchemy was entirely due to Bai Yuetong’s suggestion and a sliver of her own subtle interest.
She had never pushed herself this hard before!
After all, precisely manipulating several branches of spiritual power is very draining; she wouldn’t go looking for trouble to make herself suffer for no reason!
It was precisely because of this that she had lingered at the fourth rank for a long time.
This alchemy session would take a long time, and Yun Fei was cautious at every step.
She usually didn’t have the time to refine Spirit Breath Pills, so this time it was imperative to succeed in one go.
Time stretched on, and every minute and second was an ordeal for Yun Fei, but fortunately, her will was tough enough.
For two whole hours, she managed to endure it!
Outside the window, the sky had turned a dusky yellow, and the afterglow of the setting sun hit Yun Fei’s forehead, reflecting a shimmering glint through her sweat.
“Hmm, not bad. Thirteen pills—five medium-grade, seven high-grade, and one top-grade. No low-grade and no wasted pills. Your first time trying to refine this kind of pill? Your talent is good! I didn’t pick the wrong person!”
Hua Li checked the pills in the furnace for the exhausted Yun Fei and was very satisfied with the result.
“Take one of the Spirit Breath Pills you refined yourself to recover your spiritual power.”
Hua Li sealed the pills in a white jade porcelain bottle and handed it to Yun Fei.
Her mind was a bit chaotic and throbbing with pain, so she didn’t feel like saying much.
She opened the stopper, took out the top-grade pill, swallowed it in one gulp, then crawled up from the floor and sat cross-legged to begin adjusting her breath.
“Whew—that’s better~”
After a long while, Yun Fei opened her eyes.
The faint shadow of flames flashed in her purple pupils, and she looked even more energetic than before!
“Oh? Your realm increased as well? Fourth stage of Void Shattering? Breaking through two minor realms in a row… Is it feedback from the Extraordinary Fire? Truly enviable…”
Feeling the aura Yun Fei was emitting at this moment, Hua Li clicked her tongue in wonder.
Being stared at by her master with a look reserved for rare species, Yun Fei suddenly felt her scalp tingle, “Err, haha… That, Master, I see it’s getting late. Since you’re satisfied with my results, should I head out first?”
“Yes, you may. However, as your master, I still need to give a word of advice. Your alchemy attainments are good; I imagine you were already a fourth-rank alchemist back in the Star Reaching Realm. But for now, do not be in a hurry to pursue the fifth rank. The spiritual energy—or in your case, magic power—required for fifth-rank pills is not low. I suggest you consider the fifth rank when you break through to the Heaven Burning Realm. For now, you can practice more on refining Spirit Breath Pills. The fifth-rank assessment is limited to two hours total, requiring one furnace of fourth-rank Spirit Breath Pills and one furnace of any fifth-rank pill. You can still compress your time further.”
“Yes, Master!”
Yun Fei cupped her fists in response, then dragged her somewhat numb legs away.
In her own planning, reaching the fourth rank as an alchemist was a point where she could stop for a while.
Hua Li’s advice was essentially redundant to her, but when she said to practice compressing the refining time of the Spirit Breath Pills, Yun Fei felt a bitterness in her heart.
This one time had almost squeezed her dry; she had to do it several more times?
Even though Yun Fei knew the logic was sound, she couldn’t help but feel miserable.
Having one Mu Lingxi wasn’t enough?
She had to find ways to make herself suffer too?
With this mood, Yun Fei flew back to the courtyard in District 24 on her sword with an expressionless face, not even entering through the door.
Seemingly hearing the commotion, Mu Lingxi walked out from her room.
“Yun Fei? Why did you come back so late? Wasn’t the afternoon class only an hour? I hurried back after my class to find you, only to be left waiting for so long! You didn’t even reply to my messages!”
Mu Lingxi looked a bit angry.
With her hands on her hips like that, Yun Fei didn’t even know what she was mad about.
“Me? I was refining pills for two hours without a break. How could I be as free as you, just going to swing a sword and being done with it? By the way, you were looking for me for something urgent? What is it?”
Hearing this, Mu Lingxi silently looked at Jiang Qing’s room.
Seeing this, Yun Fei understood immediately.
“Come, Yun Fei, let’s go into my room to talk in detail.”
“Oh… wait! Into your room?! Can’t we do it here?”
Yun Fei nodded, then belatedly realized Mu Lingxi seemed to have said something quite extraordinary.
“No! Why so much nonsense! Are you coming in or not? You’re a girl now, throw away those lingering male thoughts quickly. I really don’t know what you’re afraid of; I’m not going to eat you!”
“Uh… hard to say.”
“Hmm? What did you say?”
“No! Nothing! I’m coming right in!”
Yun Fei suppressed the naughty thoughts popping up in her mind and quickly followed Mu Lingxi into her room, closing the door behind her.
Serious business first!
Once Yun Fei had closed the door and turned back to look inside the room, she was somewhat stunned.
The scene before her caused the corner of her mouth to twitch.
There was nothing special about the layout of Mu Lingxi’s room, but the color scheme…
Why was it so pink and tender?
It was just like the room her own mother had secretly decorated for her after finding out she had turned into a girl!
It was too dazzling!
So Mu Lingxi puts on the appearance of a cold and aloof ice fairy on the outside, but is so “maidenly” on the inside?
How was she, a former tough guy, supposed to deal with this?
Seemingly noticing Yun Fei’s obvious stare, Mu Lingxi also seemed to realize the issue.
Her face couldn’t help but turn red, yet she hardened her heart and said, “What are you looking at? What kind of look is that! Is it strange for a girl to have a pink room?”
Yun Fei rubbed her nose guiltily.
She wasn’t going to admit that her room in the Demon Palace was also like this!
“No… I just think compared to your personality… err… how do you say it using the words you taught me? This should be called… gap moe? Hehe~ anyway, it’s quite nice~”
Yun Fei tried her best to pull at the corners of her mouth to keep herself from bursting out laughing.
But upon hearing Yun Fei’s description, Mu Lingxi’s face turned so red it looked like it could drip blood.
“Wh… what gap moe! Is that how the words I taught you are used!”
“Eh? Did I use it wrong? Then how is it used?”
“It’s… oh! What are you doing! Is now the time to talk about this?!”
Mu Lingxi was now utterly exasperated.
She couldn’t tell if the crimson on her face was from anger or something else.
Mu Lingxi almost shouted that sentence.
Seeing her “overheated” state, Yun Fei quickly backed off, no longer stimulating Mu Lingxi’s pitiful and contradictory psyche.
“Yun Fei, have you heard of a Tribulation?”
After Mu Lingxi used ice spiritual power to forcefully cool herself down, she asked with a feigned air of calm and seriousness.
…
“So, your master said this is the Senior’s Life Tribulation, and she cannot intervene?”
“Yes. Did you get any results from asking your family?”
“No substantial progress, but I have a direction. However, it’s impossible to have results overnight; the Senior definitely won’t last that long. Moreover, according to what you said, a Life Tribulation… if we reason through the known information, the only thing that could take her life is likely that array transferring spiritual power to Senior Liang.”
“So if we want to help Senior Jiang escape the danger to her life, the key is that array. As long as that array is eliminated, there might be an improvement.”
This was currently the most obvious lead.
Both Yun Fei and Mu Lingxi knew the array was the problem, but they also knew that if the array were destroyed, it meant the other person involved—Liang Yin—might fall into a desperate situation.
In Yun Fei’s own mind, between Jiang Qing and Liang Yin, she was familiar with Jiang Qing, while she had never even met Liang Yin.
Her first thought was to save Jiang Qing; as for Liang Yin…
Let her leave it to fate.
“But Jiang Qing set up the array specifically for Liang Yin. If we do this, she’ll probably have a hard time moving on, right?”
Mu Lingxi had doubts about this.
Based on her understanding of Jiang Qing, for her to go this far for Liang Yin, the relationship between the two must be extraordinary.
If something happened to Liang Yin, there was no guarantee Jiang Qing wouldn’t do something even more extreme.
“Perhaps we can go meet Senior Liang. With that array, her condition should be a bit better now.”
“…Fine, let’s do that first. We can ask about her attitude, then study ways to break the array.”
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