Chapter 156 – Devouring Lava Fire
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The news of Lin Ming crippling Zhang Guanyu quickly spread throughout Sky Fortune City.
Prior to this, Zhang Guanyu was a martial artist whose talent was only inferior to Qin Xingxuan throughout the entire Sky Fortune Kingdom; he was simply a favored child of the heavens. Now, in just a single night, he had been completely wasted! This was an astonishing matter!
Moreover, when Lin Ming had crippled Zhang Guanyu, it was in the presence of Ouyang Dihua. Ouyang Dihua, whose cultivation was already at the Pulse Condensation Period had personally moved, but he still had not been able to stop Lin Ming.
Afterwards, when Lin Ming faced Ouyang Dihua, he was not even forced back a tiny step by his oppressive aura. If it were not for the timely arrival of the Seven Profound Martial House Master, there would have been no end to that night.
This chain of events caused Lin Ming’s public image to suddenly become decisive and ruthless.
In just two and a half months of time, he had defeated Zhang Guanyu. There was no longer any doubt that Lin Ming would surpass Ling Sen and Ta Ku in the future. He was only 15 years old; his future achievements could only be imagined.
If such a fierce person was also so decisively ruthless…
Thinking this, everyone could not help but grow a thought in their mind. They absolutely could not provoke Lin Ming.
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Seven Profound Martial House, Skyrage Mountain —
This volcano was located 700 miles west of Zhou Mountain.
This was Sky Fortune Kingdom’s most active group of volcanoes. If one walked around the craters, the thick pervasive sulfuric gas would choke their nose. These heated rocks underfoot could be used to fry eggs, and in the rivers of flowing lava, one could see dark red magma bubbles with molten iron chunks floating within.
Even if the ground didn’t appear to have any problems, one could not hastily step on it. Because the ground could be a shell of cooled magma, if a foot stepped on it, it was possible to crush that layer of cooled magma, and lava would spew out and immediately devour whoever stood there.
This was the fire array of the Seven Profound Martial House’s seven major killing arrays – Lava Cave.
As soon as Lin Ming arrived via the Seven Profound Martial House’s transmission array, he immediately felt a sweltering heat wave crash into him. The rocks underneath were red like garnet crystals; a normal person would simply not be able to put a single foot down.
“Good Lava Cave!” Lin Ming highly praised. The Lava Cave and Icy Pond Waterfall were just like their names; one was extremely hot, the other was extremely cold.
Both had a similar function, but were slightly different.
The Icy Pond Waterfall focused on tempering the body. A martial artist would resist the cold, and the true essence would thoroughly penetrate through to every inch of skin, flesh, and blood.
But the Lava Cave tempered true essence. For any number of reasons, when a martial artist cultivated martial arts, their true essence would always contain some impurities, and would not be pure. The function of the Lava cave was to force a martial artist to use their true essence to resist the scorching heat, and the burning heat would smelt away the impurities within the true essence.
What Lin Ming cultivated was the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’; the true essence within him was already thick and extremely pure, so there was simply no need for him to enter the Lava Cave.
However, Lin Ming had eaten the Crimson Gold Dragon Marrow Pill and the Golden Snake Scarlet Pill. These two pills had directly increased his cultivation and even further increased the rate of his cultivation for a period. But they had still left behind some impurities and pill toxins in Lin Ming’s true essence.
Through these recent days of cultivation, Lin Ming had constantly been refining out these impurities from his body, but there were always some left behind and they were not completely removed.
Now that Lin Ming needed to take the 500 year old Blood Lingzhi, he had to ensure that the true essence within his body was as pure as possible. Otherwise the impurities would accumulate, and it would become ever more difficult to eliminate them.
“Junior Apprentice Brother Lin, you came!” The deacon senior apprentice brother responsible for the Lava Cave said with a laugh. Guarding the Lava Cave was a chore. Although they did not fear the blistering heat waves, that didn’t mean that they liked to stay in a steamer all day long.
“Eleventh level of difficulty, two hours. Thank you, Senior Apprentice Brother.”
Since this was the first time Lin Ming had come to the Lava Cave, he planned to choose a difficulty in accordance with his own abilities. As for the twelfth level of difficulty, that was a setting that not even Ling Sen could persist in, so he had no interest in trying it yet.
“Mm. Okay!” The deacon did not believe that Lin Ming would have any difficulties in the eleventh level of difficulty.
In the seven major killing arrays, the array formation was usually placed there to increase the natural forces within. For instance, the array formation in the Icy Pond Waterfall would cause the force of the waterfall to be stronger and the icy pond to be colder. The Violent Wind Tunnel would have more violent wind and all sorts of various vortices and turbulent tornados.
But the Lava Cave was the exception to this. The main role of the array formation was actually to weaken the natural force, so that the temperature of the lava would fall.
The temperature of ordinary lava was at least ten times hotter than boiling water, and Skyrage Mountain’s lava was even hotter than that.
Because Skyrage Mountain also produced darksteel, the lava had mixed with darksteel ore. The temperature of it was higher; it was about 20 times hotter than boiling water.
Not to mention a mere Body Transformation martial artist, but even if a Houtian realm martial artist were to jump in, their bones would be fried to a crisp!
Lin Ming had chosen the eleventh level of difficulty; the temperature of the lava was a full 8 times hotter than boiling water. Still, this temperature could already melt many different metals.
As he arrived inside the Lava Cave at the eleventh level of difficulty, Lin Ming stripped himself of all his clothes. If he stepped into the lava pond with his clothes on, they would all be immediately burnt to cinders. Naturally, he had to be naked for this.
Barefoot, he walked on the blistering hot rocks towards the lava pond. The red-hot lava was just like boiling molten iron, and it reflected on Lin Ming’s face, giving him a tomato-like appearance. Occasionally a huge bubble emerged from the lava, burst open, and sprayed hot and toxic gases as it issued a dull sound.
To jump into this pool of lava required great courage and a firm heart. A martial artist whose mind was not tenacious would not even dare to cultivate within the Lava Cave.
Lin Ming revolved his true essence to the limit, took a deep breath, and jumped into the lava pond.
Splash!
Lin Ming’s feet had just fallen into the lava. However, his body was sinking at a very slow rate. The lava had an unusually viscous texture. If a martial artist were quick enough, they might even be able to run atop the lava.
“So hot!”
Lin Ming felt as if his legs had stepped into a blazing brazier. Although he was protected by his true essence, the burning ache was like a blazing knife was cutting through him, almost unbearable.
The resistance of the lava began to decline. Taking a deep breath, Lin Ming’s entire body immediately plunged into the fiery lava pond.
In the world of lava, scalding hot glowing red light was everywhere; visibility was zero. Lin Ming couldn’t even see his hands.
He revolved his true essence to condense into a sort of true essence clothing that covered his body. Even with this though, Lin Ming could still feel pain like sizzling needles as the flow of heat traveled through his true essence clothing.
In the Icy Pond Waterfall, once a martial artist physically contacted the icy cold water, they could direct the frosty energy to enter their body and temper their organs, blood, and skin.
But in the Lava Cave, no matter how fierce a martial artist, they were not dumb enough to let their body directly touch the hot lava. Inside the lava, there was also a toxic heat. If one breathed in a few mouthfuls of this smoke, it was possible that they would immediately die.
Therefore one had to form true essence clothing and isolate themself from the lava. Then, meticulously, they would slowly introduce the fire of the lava into their bodies, and burn away the impurities contained within their true essence.
This was an exceptionally perilous method of cultivation. If one didn’t have a sufficient level of cultivation and jumped in, they could easily burn their meridians and cause irreparable damage.
Even if one had a high enough level of cultivation, it was easy to leave hidden injuries after long-term use of tempering true essence with fire.
Because of these reasons, of the seven major killing arrays, the Lava Cave was the loneliest. One didn’t even need to make an appointment; they just had to come and momentarily wait to have a position.
Chi chi chi chi chi!
Lin Ming could even hear the sound of true essence burning against the hot flaming lava. But Lin Ming was in a hurry to introduce the lava’s fire into his body. He shut his eyes in meditation, and adjusted his mental state for half an incense stick of time. He let his mind completely relax, and entered into a deep ethereal state before he began to gingerly introduce the fire of lava into his body.
As soon as a small flame entered Lin Ming’s body, it was like a fierce crimson fire flood dragon that tried to rush left and right. However, Lin Ming’s true essence was incomparably thick, and no matter where it rushed, it was unable to create any damage.
Lin Ming quickly subdued the wisp of lava fire, and it obediently circulated through the meridians in his body, burning away the impurities.
Lava fire not only burned away impurities, but it also burned away pure true essence. However, true essence was able to quickly regenerate, and the accumulated impurities could not.
Lin Ming introduced wisp after wisp of lava fire into his body. Gradually, there were dozens of fire wisps inside of Lin Ming’s body.
A small flame did not count for much. However, there were so many flame wisps that were rushing about, that even though Lin Ming’s true essence was so thick and pure, he still felt that it was difficult to control.
His face was very red, and the blue veins of his forehead were bulging from the intense pressure he was feeling. He continuously exuded large beads of sweat, but as soon as these beads met the sizzling heat, they immediately evaporated before they could even fall.
Because of the atrophy of the true essence clothing, Lin Ming’s hair had been singed by the heat; it broke upon a light touch.
Lin Ming withdrew a true essence stone from his spatial ring and placed it in his hands. He began to absorb the true essence from the true essence stone as he grinded his teeth together and forcefully revolved the ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’.
Under such a difficult state, the impurities in Lin Ming’s body began to melt away at a very slow rate…
Again and again, the impurities continued to decrease, and true essence stones were completely used up one after another.
In half an hour he had used a pure true essence stone. This kind of excessive method of burning away money was something that not even the juniors of large aristocratic families could do.
A pure true essence stone costed 1000 gold taels; it could be considered half a treasure.
The lava fire in his body began to grow more and more wild. The countless tiny units in Lin Ming’s body began to breathe at the same frequency, suppressing the restless wisps of fire. But even so, Lin Ming was finding it more and more difficult to persist.
At this point, Lin Ming was considering temporarily leaving the lava pond. Otherwise, if he stayed down any longer, it was possible that he would damage his meridians, or even be burned to death!
But if he left the lava pond halfway, the amount of impurities that would be burned away would truly be reduced by a great deal.
Lin Ming struggled with his hesitation, when at this moment, a wisp of fire lava burst into the aorta near Lin Ming’s heart.
“This is bad!”
Lin Ming was shocked. The heart was the center of the blood. If it was damaged, he would suffer a life threatening injury.
He began to move true essence to stop the flame but it was already too late. The violent lava fire broke through the ventricle and rushed around, as if it were trying to create a hole in Lin Ming’s heart.
But at this moment, the sleeping Heretical God Seed in Lin Ming’s heart suddenly burst out. A surge of highly compressed fierce and brutal true essence instantly surrounded that wisp of lava fire. With a light puff sound, that wisp of lava fire had been directly devoured by the Heretical God Seed!
“Mm?”
Lin Ming’s mind blanked for a moment. The Heretical God Seed could actually devour the fire of lava?
Lin Ming probed with his soul force, and was utterly shocked to find that the lava fire had already fully integrated into the Heretical God Seed, and had become a part of the Heretical God Seed!