Spirit Realm

The flames that resembled thousands of burning butterflies flew from every corner of the fiery landscape toward the lake of fire.

At this moment, Qin Lie sat on a brown red rock beside the burning lake, staring at the three drops of Qilin blood in surprise.

The three drops of translucent blood, which resembled stones made of blood, were suspended in front of Qin Lie at chest height, spinning in midair. Three wisps of scarlet flame shaped like the Fire Qilin burned on the inside of drops of blood and shone with a beautiful red light.

These were the blood essence that Qin Lie had refined using the Blood Refinement Art from the Blood Codex, nurtured using his own blood, cleansed using his own soul consciousness, and tempered using the drops of Qilin blood. These were the lifeblood essences that belonged to him and him alone!

Upon marking these essences with his signature soul imprint, Qin Lie could vaguely sense that he had become connected to them. He had the extraordinary feeling that they were compatible with his own soul.

Right as he attempted to use the three drops of blood, he was suddenly dumbfounded as he realized that there were thousands of flame wisps converging on him from all over the land of fire.

The flames seemed to have a simple, limited kind of consciousness of their own. Like moths charging toward light, the flames flew straight for the three drops of blood floating in front of Qin Lie.

The flames gradually soaked into the blood drops and vanished.

Qin Lie seemed to be in high spirits. His eyes shone with a joyful light as he stared intently at the blood drops floating in front of him.

All of the flames were vanishing into the three drops of blood. The scarlet flames within the blood that were shaped like the Fire Qilin burned brighter and brighter. They radiated a terrifying heat.

The three lifeblood essences that were imprinted with Qin Lie’s soul imprint seemed to have developed their own basic consciousnesses. They appeared to have gained life of their own, becoming simple life forms. It was so miraculous that even he found it a little hard to believe.

Soon enough, the thousands of flame wisps that had flown from all over this fiery landscape had vanished into the three lifeblood essences.

The three drops of blood seemed to have transformed, transitioning from liquid to solid, translucent crystal. The blood drops radiated a shockingly high temperature, the tremendous heat energy contained within them having been exceedingly concentrated

Qin Lie tried to store the three drops of refined blood into his body.

The thought had barely formed in his mind when the three blood essences immediately responded to his call.

The blood essences instantly vanished into his chest, leaving trails of bloody light. They soaked into his blood vessels and boiled within them.

However, the heat that had previously tortured him did not flare into existence.

It was as if the three blood essences had truly become self-aware. Knowing that Qin Lie’s blood vessels and body could not endure the terrifying heat of the Qilin’s blood, they automatically restricted that heat to the fire inside of the blood droplets upon entering his body.

“This is amazing!” Qin Lie’s exclaimed in admiration, his eyes alight.

He changed what he was thinking once more.

“Swoosh swoosh swoosh!”

The three lifeblood essences flew out of his chest, and like three sanguine lights, they shot toward a fiery red rock in front of him.

“Boom!”

The rock was instantly overwhelmed by three frightening clusters of flame. Amazingly, the rock gradually melted from the heat.

“What terrifying firepower!” Qin Lie grinned and laughed.

He believed that most of Netherpassage Realm martial practitioners didn’t have bodies as tough as that rock. If they were caught off guard and struck by the three lifeblood essences, without the protection of spirit armor or a shield of light, they would quickly be burned to ash once their body was ignited.

“Haha!”

Qin Lie’s interest was piqued as he continuously played with the three blood drops that he had gotten through unexpected events by the lake of fire.

The three drops of refined blood were completely under his control. Since they were connected to his soul, they were the spirit artifacts he was most comfortable with.

With a single thought, the three blood essences charged toward their target. The three blood essences would transform into three rays of sanguine light, shooting toward his surroundings.

The rocks would either be blasted to pieces by the dreadful impact of the essences or be covered in flames and melt instantly.

Qin Lie enjoyed manipulating the blood and attacking his surroundings without becoming tired.

He quickly discovered that, just like martial practitioners, the three miraculous drops of blood would lose their energy as they attacked.

—What they consumed was fire energy.

After numerous attacks, Qin Lie could sense that the three drops of blood were making less and less of an impact on the rocks around him, and their heat diminished in the same way. The Qilin-shaped fire inside the blood drops mirrored that decline, growing smaller and smaller. Its temperature dropped sharply as well.

“They’re like a bizarre kind of organism that can sense my orders through their connection to my soul. However, they can also become weak and will require fire energy to be restored. Interesting…”

After a long period of observation, Qin Lie more or less understood how the three blood drops worked and became more and more astonished.

He rescinded his previous order and sent a new command to the blood drops with his soul consciousness—Replenish your energy.

The instant that he thought this, Qin Lie was amazed to discover that the three blood drops actually began moving on their own.

As if they had transformed into three fire spirits, each of the refined blood drops flew in different directions at shocking speeds.

He stared at them blankly for a moment before closing his eyes and using his mind consciousness to examine the area instead.

Many amazing scenes were suddenly reflected into his heart and seen by his True Soul.

It was as if, at this very moment, the three refined drops of blood had become eyes!

Through the three blood droplets, Qin Lie could observe the surrounding area and see what they were doing.

They were actually searching the land of fire for Heavenly Flame Crystals!

One blood drop flew into the fire lake in front of Qin Lie and charged straight to the bottom. It found several dozen huge Heavenly Flame Crystals and instantly dove into the largest among them.

Another blood drop had flown to a gigantic rock several dozen kilometers away from Qin Lie and vanished inside of it.

There was another huge Heavenly Flame Crystal inside of that rock, and it was absorbing the fire energy from it.

The last blood drop submerged itself in a stream of lava and swam inside of it. Dozens of Heavenly Flame Crystals were resting at the bottom of it, enabling the blood drop to absorb fire energy from them.

The fire energy contained within these Heavenly Flame Crystals could swiftly replenish their fire energy, allowing them to quickly recover.

This discovery made Qin Lie become more and more amazed.

Through this observation, he was sure that the three lifeblood essences that he had refined with the Blood Refinement Art each had a basic intelligence of their own. They could instinctively restore the energy they had consumed.

“Amazing! This is truly amazing! I can’t believe how miraculous these three lifeblood essences are!” Qin Lie was extremely excited. “Heavenly Flame Crystals! Heavenly Flame Crystals can replenish the energy they use up. It looks like I should do my best to find as many Heavenly Flame Crystals as possible in this fiery land!”

He quickly came to a realization.

He currently saw these blood essences as a powerful weapon, the kind that was very deadly and impossible to defend against.

To use this weapon effectively, he would need plenty of Heavenly Flame Crystals to replenish their energy. Only then would the three blood essences be able to help him at any time and burn his enemies to a crisp.

In light of this, he got to work.

The three blood essences were the perfect tools for seeking out Heavenly Flame Crystals. Qin Lie only needed to follow their trails and collect the Heavenly Flame Crystals.

The Heavenly Flame Crystals in the lake of fire, however, were currently out of his reach. They were enormous, so he could only give up on them for now.

Qin Lie went to the two other places.

He shattered the huge rock with the Astral Thunder Hammer and exposed the crimson crystals inside of it. He immediately stored them in his spatial ring.

Qin Lie sent a command with his mind, and one of the blood drops searched for more Heavenly Flame Crystals in other places, leaving behind a blazing trail.

Soon enough, it discovered numerous Heavenly Flame Crystals scattered around a volcanic crater.

“There is a ridiculous amount of Heavenly Flame Crystals in this region. Since it’ll probably be difficult to find more after leaving this place, I must collect them as many of them as I can. Whenever these blood drops exhaust their fire energy, they need to use Heavenly Flame crystals to replenish it. The more the better!”

Qin Lie made up his mind and began searching the land of fire for Heavenly Flame Crystals using the blood drops.

“Eh! A smoldering corpse… and this is a Xiahou Family token! This guy was killed by a meteor!”

“There’s another body… a Black Voodoo Cult token! This guy was killed by a fire demon!”

“Here’s another corpse… this guy was from Ten Thousand Beast Mountain!”

“……”

As he searched for Heavenly Flame Crystals, Qin Lie discovered numerous black, charred corpses. He managed to obtain a considerable number of tokens from them.

There were the Xiahou Family tokens, Black Voodoo Cult tokens, Ten Thousand Beasts Mountain tokens, and Illusory Demon Sect tokens.

These people had been killed by Fire Demons, blazing meteors, or volcanic eruptions.

Their tokens and spatial rings were just picked up by Qin Lie. He profited by doing nothing.