Destiny in Cinders

The fiendmolts might be a pain to take down, but killing them provides such a huge cultivation boost! Once he assessed his full progress, his resolve to exterminate all the fiendmolts in Palespirit Cave grew even more. Putting the whitespirit swordlotus aside, the heaven purification radiance alone could push him to reach the seventh or eighth seal or even achieve full Qi Refinement for his cultivation on the immortal path.

Now, to figure out how I can take out the rest of the fiendmolts. First, I need to lure the half-dragon one out. It’s quite resistant to lightning because of its draconic traits... He tapped on the waterscreen to order two lightning talismans, which he could use on the other two fiendmolts. Apart from that, it seems to have a tough body. I wonder if I can find any anti-dragon equipment...

He searched the spirit net for a while and did find some, but they were quite expensive starting at around ten thousand merits each, so he closed the websites immediately. If I had up to eighty thousand merits, I wouldn’t even bother coming here to buy those dragonslayer bolts. I would just get arcane artifacts and blast away at the dragon with Trueblitz Pentaphase Infusion! Dragonslayer bolts also only work if driven into the spine. What a joke. If I was someone who could do that to dragons, I’d be able to get much better results using other arcane artifacts. I guess I should consult an expert for this.

After stocking up on lightning talismans and not seeing Huo Qing return, he immediately went back to Void Embrace. The sooner he went back, the quicker his cooldown, after all. Not to mention, he probably wouldn’t be able to find anything to counter dragons apart from actual dragons themselves.

Back at Brokeblade Mountain, the fiendmolt An Jing had defeated was long gone. Nothing but a pool of pitch-black toxic lethal qi was left where the carcass had been. None of the fiendmolts were camped there, awaiting his return. An Jing even went out of his way to set the transfer point around one li away, only for it to have been useless. He shook his head and decided to return to Riverside for rest.

”Hey, Ruhui, do you have time?” An Jing reached out to her through the imperial blood droplet on the way back. ”Do you know about any dragonslaying arcane artifacts or tactics that work well against dragons?”

Given his enhanced soul, his psychic sense was clearer than ever, so You Ruhui should receive the transmission rather quickly.

”Wait, you improved again? One second, An Jing, what are you planning to do?” she said, sounding shocked. ”Why are you asking me about slaying dragons? You do know that I’m with Ancestral Dragon Hall, right? A dragon was greeting me just now when I heard you and I almost jumped from the fright!”

”Ah, well, there’s a half-dragon fiendmolt here that I have to deal with.” He briefed her about the mindless fiendmolts.

Relieved, she said, ”Thank the heavens. I thought that you were about to go on a vendetta against the dragon race. You’d make it hard for Sis Jin and me. As for that half-dragon fiendmolt of toxic and metal aspects, your metal and lightning won’t really work on it. Wait a bit and let me ask around.”

”I’ll wait, but be careful. It’s a sensitive topic you’re inquiring into,” An Jing warned.

”If only your self-awareness kicked in a bit earlier,” she snapped. ”You better thank me well! Once again you have me doing something that’d put me in an awkward position.”

”Alrght, thanks a lot!” An Jing was more than happy to wait, yet You Ruhui somehow learned a trick to deal with metal-aspect dragons before he reached Riverside.

”Sis Jin’s bloodline is somewhat close to that of white metal dragons in the first place. She told me that she fears metal-melting fire the most. The metal-melting part is specifically one that burns up wood first before melting metal. Fire intensifies as it burns up wooden fuel. Only then will it be strong enough to melt metal. Normal fire, especially with the snow calamity raging so strongly, would have its yang aspect diminished by frost and yin. Since you’re weaker than the fiendmolt, it’d be hard for you to use your fire-aspect Pyrestar blood lethal qi to breach the defensive projected qi of the fiendmolt. Dragon projected qi is especially tough, and half-dragons are no exception. So, you need to borrow wood qi to intensify your fire before it can melt metal.”

”Hmm...” Hearing that gave him a rough idea. ”So you’re saying that I’d be able to achieve a similar effect by combining wood-lightning and fire-lightning talismans?”

”Maybe, but I’m not too sure. Thanks to fully mastering Trueblitz Pentaphase Lightning, Sis Jin is no longer vulnerable to five-phase weaknesses like this. I told her that you were only going up against a half-dragon fiendspawn, so she wracked her mind to think of what gave her the most trouble all that time ago. Just give it a try. As for True Dragon Spine, I’ve more or less organized all the information here. I’ll send it to you after a bit. Given your comprehension capabilities, you might be able to figure out more weaknesses of the half-dragon fiendmolt with this information.”

”Alright, thanks a bunch.” He chatted with her a bit more about cultivation in general before ending the conversation.

Having returned to Riverside, he immediately went to the warehouse that stored the city’s spirit-plant supplies. ”Wood qi... If I use blood lethal qi to burn up some low-quality spirit plants that contain wood qi, I might be able to amass quite a bit of blood lethal qi in a short time. Coupled with the martial-scholar formation discs that can tap into terrestrial-vein power and more lightning talismans, I might be able to kill the half-dragon fiendmolt in one go. The other two will be easy to deal with once that one’s gone. I can take my time and set traps to wipe them out.”

The only question was whether this justified using up so many spirit plants. Though he had already made back all the money he had spent on fertilizer, the spirit plants were still part of Riverside’s supplies, which factored into the livelihood of the citizens that dragon-qi production was dependent on, something he truly needed.

Yvelbane did have an idea. ”Why don’t you ask the forest of Brokeblade Mountain? The entire forest should be a large fey of some sort. Though we wouldn’t think of it as a fey in our time given how long it takes for plant feys to gain sentience, this is an era of lifearcs. Many great feys have lifearcs and sapience. Perhaps you can talk to it about the fiendspawn problem and see if it can do anything to help. Not to mention, the unblemished albus wood that’s produced a whitespirit swordlotus should be a fey as well. Though not obvious, it must also possess sapience. That’s how it’s able to hold off the fiendmolts until now.”

”Indeed!” An Jing’s eyes brightened when he was enlightened by Yvelbane’s deep wisdom. ”I’ll give it one more try once the Grandvoid Pathway cools down tomorrow.”

He was usually quite careful while the Grandvoid Pathway cooled down. So, he waited a whole day to make sure he had an emergency escape option. However, he wasn’t able to get any rest as Xu Tai was waiting for him the moment he entered the city.

”City Lord An!” The burly man bowed in a dignified manner to him and handed over two letters. ”There’s an official missive for you. Please give it a look.”

Why is he acting so stiff today? An Jing gave Xu Tai a side-eye; even his facial scar seemed straightened out. ”What in the world is going on? Is this an order from a sage or an official of Grand Chen?”

His guess was right, though the missive came from someone of even higher status. An Jing was stunned when he saw who sent it. Exhaling deeply with a conflicted look, he said, ”Holy crap. It’s finally here.”

The first letter was from his grandmaster in the Brightmirror Sect, Venerated Shrouded Dust. As for the second, it had come from the official office of King De, the sentinel king of the northern frontier.