Martial Peak

Chapter 1243, Complete Refinement

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain

In the fifth layer of the Flowing Flame Sand Field, inside a stone chamber at the bottom of an unoccupied Earth Lung Fire Pond, a pale Yang Kai sat calmly.

Although he was exhausted and about to collapse, Yang Kai’s expression still had traces of joy and excitement mixed into it, and the Saint Qi fluctuations emanating from his body clearly indicated he had obtained a substantial improvement in his cultivation.

It had been more than a month since he began refining the Profound Yin Sunflower Water, but it was not until yesterday that he finally finished.

He hadn’t expected that it would take such a long time and that there would be so many unexpected developments during the refining process.

The cold power contained in the Profound Yin Sunflower Water was far too powerful, and the spirit grasses and spirit medicines he had taken before, coupled with the Fire Attribute energy drawn in by the stone chamber’s Spirit Array with two stone tables activated, still couldn’t suppress it. As the hot and cold forces in his body became unbalanced, as a last resort, Yang Kai had activated the third stone table control to dramatically increase the amount of Fire Attribute energy being channelled into the stone room.

This attempt to balance the power of the Profound Yin Sunflower Water with the power of the Earth Lung Fire Pond had backfired though. When Yang Kai activated the third control table, the cold power of the Profound Yin Sunflower Water was completely suppressed, and the burning power began running rampant in his body.

Unable to back down, Yang Kai took a second drop of Profound Yin Sunflower Water but was aggrieved to discover that the initial imbalance appeared again.

In the end, Yang Kai had to activate all four of the stone tables allowing the Spirit Array to extract the maximum amount of Fire Attribute energy from the Earth Lung Fire Pond. Fortunately, this just barely managed to balance the cold and hot forces in his body.

However, doing this increased the risk and suffering Yang Kai had to endure exponentially, and during this past month, he had constantly wandered the line between life and death, nearly falling over its edge several times.

His strong body and powerful Soul played crucial roles at the critical moment. Yang Kai had to use his pure Golden Blood several times to repair his wounds, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to survive and been killed by the rampant hot and cold energies.

Although it had been an incredibly dangerous and painful experience, the final result was actually quite different from Yang Kai’s expectations.

Zong Ao had praised the Profound Yin Sunflower Water to Heavens so, naturally, Yang Kai believed it to be extremely powerful and was hoping to use this refining to directly break through to the Third-Order Saint King Realm and possibly even touch the threshold of the Origin Returning Realm, but currently, his cultivation was only Second-Order Saint King.

Two drops of Profound Yin Sunflower Water, so many rare spirit herbs, pills, and all the power of the Earth Lung Fire Pond, yet he had only broken through one Minor Realm.

Nevertheless, despite his cultivation not increasing much, Yang Kai had gained something else.

Pondering for a moment, Yang Kai opened his hand and a dark Demonic Flame appeared atop his palm like a burning fireball. The Demonic Flame looked the same as before, but it was no longer fluctuating between hot and cold, good and evil aura. Anyone who swept it with their Divine Sense would not just think it was a strange, somewhat malevolent looking ball of fire, without even any kind of temperature.

However, with a single thought, Yang Kai transformed this indistinct Demonic Flame into one that emitted a bitter cold aura. With a crackling, the entire stone room filled with frost. The walls of this massive room also began to freeze over with seemingly everlasting ice, causing the protective Spirit Arrays to activate automatically and resist this spreading chill.

Yang Kai’s thoughts changed again, and the icy chill instantly disappeared and was replaced by a blistering heat. The frost that had diffused before disappeared in the blink of an eye and a raging inferno took its place. The protective Spirit Arrays in this stone room couldn’t respond to this dramatic change fast enough and many cracking sounds rang out.

Yang Kai showed a look of satisfaction as he gently clenched his fists, causing the black ball of Demonic Flame to disappear.

He also noticed that after refining two drops of Profound Yin Sunflower Water, the main reason why his cultivation didn’t improve too dramatically was that his Demonic Flame had absorbed most of the energy.

When the Profound Yin Sunflower Water and the various hot forces reached a balance in his body, logically speaking, these two conflicting forces should have led to massive growth in his cultivation, but the strange Demonic Flame, which itself was an amalgamation of hot and cold energy was actually able to accept the efficacies of the Profound Yin Sunflower Water and the Fire Attribute energy to strengthen itself.

The Demonic Flame only recently came into existence, and up until a month ago, it had been a coexistence of cold and hot energy. Although this simultaneously hot and cold energy was unpredictable and incomprehensible, Yang Kai was unable to manipulate its state at all.

But now, Yang Kai could achieve fine control of its properties. The power of his Demonic Flame had greatly improved and his ability to manipulate it had also increased dramatically.

In the future, when Yang Kai faced enemies, if he wanted his Saint Qi to be cold it would be cold, then if he wanted it to be hot it would be hot. This ability to control the properties of his Demonic Flame provided a greater boost in combat efficiency than a simple increase in his own power.

Overall, Yang Kai was very satisfied with this refining. From the moment the Demonic Flame came into existence, Yang Kai knew that this exotic power had great growth potential.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to figure out how to enhance his Demonic Flame and there was no one who could help guide him.

This opportunity was a coincidence that allowed him to find a way forward.

As long as he could create a balance of hot and cold energies, Yang Kai could allow his Demonic Flame to absorb them and promote its growth.

It seemed that the remaining Profound Yin Sunflower Water wasn’t useless after all, Yang Kai thought secretly.

He was still thinking about what he was going to do with so many Profound Yin Sunflower Water drops. Selling them wasn’t an option. Everyone would know he had such a treasure and there would be no end in troubles. But allowing the Profound Yin Sunflower Water to simply collect dust would be nothing short of wasting Heaven’s precious gifts.

Now, Yang Kai had a plan.

As long as he could collect a large number of Yang and Fire Attribute herbs, he could refine the Profound Yin Sunflower Water two or three more times to further strengthen his Demonic Flame.

Of course, this was all just an idea, and Yang Kai didn’t even know whether he could realize it.

If not for the fact that time was running out, Yang Kai would be willing to refine some more Profound Yin Sunflower Water here to experiment. Unfortunately, more than five months had passed since he first entered the Flowing Flame Sand Field, so there wasn’t much time left until the six-month deadline. He could only put this idea on hold for a while and try to verify it later.

Yang Kai was afraid that he would never again find such a good refining environment like the Earth Lung Fire Pond here; after all, the next time the Flowing Flame Sand Field opened would likely be hundreds of years from now.

After sitting in meditation for a day, Yang Kai had fully restored himself, got up, walked around the room to collect the four soft glowing orbs embedded in the walls, and tossed them into his Space Ring.

These light orbs were not ordinary objects, so Yang Kai planned to take them back and place them around his residence. Not only could these things calm one’s mood, but they could also optimize one’s environment, so he didn’t plan on leaving them behind.

After making sure that he had thoroughly cleaned out anything of value in the stone chamber, Yang Kai left and walked down the long tunnel.

Soon, Yang Kai walked out of the passage and stood at the entrance to the cave. Staring out this entrance, his lips couldn’t help curling into a grin.

More than a month ago, he had suffered a big loss to that Artifact Spirit, and if he hadn’t cultivated Space Force, he would have died on the spot. Now that his cultivation had risen a Minor Realm and he had obtained the ability to manipulate his Demonic Flame’s temperature, he definitely planned on settling the score.

If Yang Kai said he wasn’t interested in owning an Artifact Refining Furnace with an Artifact Spirit, it would be a lie. If possible, he would naturally want to subdue the other party.

But that Artifact Spirit was not an existence to be taken lightly. Even if Yang Kai was more confident now, he knew that it wouldn’t be easy to defeat it. On top of that, he needed to obtain victory swiftly because he had no idea when the Flowing Flame Sand Field would close. It wouldn’t be good if he was heavily engaged with that Artifact Spirit then suddenly transported outside the Flowing Flame Sand Field by the World Principles here.

After hesitating for a moment, Yang Kai’s figure flickered as he rushed directly towards the other cave.

In mid-air, the extreme heat from the Earth Lung Fire Pond below wrapped around Yang Kai and the tangible Fire Attribute energy tried to incinerate his body. Yang Kai immediately condensed a layer of Demonic Flame around his body that emitted a profound chill, and although resisting the ambient heat couldn’t be considered easy, it was also not particularly difficult.

Yang Kai smiled happily as he realized that his Demonic Flame had truly become more powerful. The last time he rushed though the Earth Lung Fire Pond, he had to act extremely carefully, but now he could traverse it with just a bit of effort.

In the blink of an eye, Yang Kai arrived at the left cave and stepped inside.

The several-thousand-metre-long passage was quickly crossed by Yang Kai and from beginning to end, the Artifact Spirit was completely unresponsive, but when Yang Kai’s figure appeared in the stone room again, the Artifact Refining Furnace in the middle of the chamber suddenly began humming though and its surface glowed bright red. In the next instant, the Scarlet Firebird let out a piercing cry and its lithe body leapt off the surface of the furnace.

The temperature of the entire stone chamber rose sharply, and the air took on a red hue.

This Artifact Spirit was obviously bearing a grudge. The last time it had allowed Yang Kai to escape, which had been frustrating it for the past month, but now that it saw Yang Kai appearing before it again, it immediately felt like it was being provoked and was preparing to teach this impudent human a lesson.

This was also in line with Yang Kai’s intentions. His muscles tightened and the ice-cold Demonic Flame layer around his body welled up to resist his opponent’s hot aura. Waving his hand, Yang Kai condensed a Heaven Punishing Spear and hurled it towards the Scarlet Firebird.

The Scarlet Firebird screamed in anger, seemingly annoyed that it was being underestimated, releasing a large swath of fire from its beak that it sent towards Yang Kai.

Yang Kai sneered, not showing any intention to dodge. His Heaven Punishing Spear swiftly broke through the wave of flames while transforming into a black dragon. Opening its mouth, this black dragon spat out a jet of ice-cold black flame, resisting the burning hot aura before it.

After several battles, Yang Kai had gained some experience with his Yuan Control Mastery and could now easily manipulate his Saint Qi and transform it into various kinds of attacks.

Yang Kai had to admit that obtaining enlightenment about Yuan Control Mastery with the help of the Red Candle Fruit was extremely helpful in battle. This alone improved his combat power by at least twenty percent.