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The scorching heat waves continued to assault Ning Cheng. But Ning Cheng’s Starry Sky Body managed to block the heat waves even better after advancing to the middle stage. However, he had to endure considerable discomfort. If he relaxed even for a bit, the scorching heat could easily tear through his domain and defences.
He had sensed an aura coming from the heart of the island. Therefore, he decided to investigate it. But after walking towards it for a few meters, he suddenly brought out the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort. He could walk to the heart of the island without it, but his robes were of the ordinary kind. They would disintegrate once again if he moved any further.
Unless there was no other choice, Ning Cheng did not want to face any stranger while entirely naked.
Moreover, after bringing out the Blue Thunder Fort, the pressure on Ning Cheng suddenly reduced. Walking forward for another dozen breaths, Ning Cheng finally saw the source of the aura he had felt previously.
It indeed was a person. More specifically, a woman. However, this woman did not have any form of clothing covering her body. Moreover, Ning Cheng’s gaze couldn’t find the slightest defect when looking at that woman’s perfect curves. It felt like the fire of this place had burned away all blemishes off her body, leaving only a masterpiece between heaven and earth.
She stood in the middle of a colourless flame that raged in the heart of this island, letting the colourless flame scour her body. However, she showed no movement. One had to know that Ning Cheng currently stood a few feet away from the heart of the island and had the protection of the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort. Yet, even when combined with his middle-level Starry Sky Body, the heat still felt a bit overwhelming.
Moreover, this woman didn’t have any clothing covering her, so how was she enduring the horrifying flames? These colourless flames continually scoured the woman’s white jade-like body. But Ning Cheng could not find any form of Dao Trace within it or on her body despite observing it for a long time.
Ning Cheng wasn’t in the mood to appreciate this woman’s body, which in his opinion had already reached the limits of a Starry Sky Body. If not for that, it wouldn’t have been possible for her body to remain safe in such a horrifying place.
As he thought about it, Ning Cheng secretly felt shocked in his heart. The only reason he managed to upgrade his body, apart from his tenacity, was due to the help from the Mysterious Yellow Formless. Yet, here he saw a woman whose body-forging accomplishments clearly surpassed his. In fact, this woman had already reached the full-circle of Starry Sky Body. Therefore, even if her cultivation did not match up, the strength of her body clearly exceeded his.
Ning Cheng carefully stepped back; he didn’t want to alarm such an expert. It was one thing to encounter a woman who only ran her mouth. But if this woman had an unreasonable personality, coupled with higher cultivation, he would definitely have to suffer.
However, just as Ning Cheng took a step back, he felt something wrong. This woman’s behaviour seemed eccentric. Standing in the heart of this island within that flame, it showed that her forged body was at the very least at the same level as him, if not higher. Even if one came here to strengthen one’s body, one would remain vigilant about someone approaching. Moreover, he also felt no life-like aura from this woman.
Ning Cheng’s gaze then fell on her body. He didn’t look at her private areas but instead focussed his gaze over a pale blue slab under the woman’s feet. Moreover, the terrifying temperature of this slab almost disintegrated his spiritual consciousness before reaching it.
From the looks of it, this blue slab was the reason that this volcanic island had such high temperature. For this woman to dare step on this slab to forge her body, just what level had this woman’s body cultivation reached?
Ning Cheng suddenly felt an impulse in his heart. He wanted this slab.
His spiritual consciousness carefully landed on this woman’s body. Glancing at her body warily, he sensed that this woman’s consciousness had already dissipated. Moreover, her Essence Spirit also showed signs of falling apart.
Ning Cheng breathed in a sigh of relief. From the looks of it, this woman could not control the horrifying temperatures during her body forging process. As a result, fire toxins ended up invading her consciousness. To preserve her life, she forcibly sealed her six senses, and only operated her body forging cultivation method on instinct. If no one helped her undo it, her corporeal body would disintegrate once her Essence Spirit started breaking apart, resulting in total death.
At first, Ning Cheng hesitated on whether to take away this bluestone. But seeing that this woman was already on the verge of death, Ning Cheng felt slightly relieved. Taking away this bluestone would actually help this woman.
Thinking of this, Ning Cheng jumped on to the bluestone at the heart of the island without hesitation.
As the terrifying temperature swept over, Ning Cheng’s Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort rattled and instantly shrunk. Seeing that, Ning Cheng took in a deep breath. Just as he was about to start placing restrictions to seal this bluestone, he felt Celestial River Flame jumping around excitedly in his Sea of Consciousness.
The Celestial River Flame showed no reaction when he first picked up the Purple Light Treasure Essence. Yet, this slab caused it to jump around in excitement.
Ning Cheng felt happy and immediately brought out the Celestial River Flame.
The Celestial River Flame turned into blue light and gracefully descended on the bluestone slab. Ning Cheng and the Celestial River Flame shared a connection; therefore, he could clearly feel the changes within the flame as it underwent a metamorphosis.
The two golden shades around the Celestial River Flame quickly turned into three. Although a fourth one did not form immediately, Ning Cheng could feel that his Celestial River Flame was undergoing continuous improvement.
This bluestone definitely was a fire-attributed treasure. Ning Cheng thought to himself and took out the Polar Star Nucleus without hesitation. The moment the Polar Star Nucleus came out, the Celestial River Flame, hovering over the bluestone slab, immediately shot out a blue tongue of flame. As the blue glow faded, the Star Flame Nucleus[1] disappeared.
After about a dozen breaths, the Celestial River Flame let out a thunderous roar. It erupted with heat even more terrifying than the bluestone slab. Ning Cheng quickly stepped up and took away the woman still standing on the bluestone slab. Otherwise, even if this woman were in an unconscious body forging state, the Celestial River Flame’s explosion would have burned her to ashes.
Celestial River Flame’s temperature kept climbing higher and higher, and the surrounding flames quickly started to gravitate towards it. Through the spiritual connection with the Celestial River Flame, Ning Cheng could clearly feel the Celestial River Flame growing stronger. At the same time, he could also sense the rising feeling of joy in the Celestial River Flame.
As time passed, Ning Cheng completely forgot about the woman in his arms and just kept looking at the Celestial River Flame in surprise. After his Celestial River Flame had evolved into a starry sky flame, four golden halos had gradually formed around it. However, the advancement of the Celestial River Flame did not stop, and a fifth golden halo slowly appeared on the flame’s surface.
Another hour later, the Celestial River Flame gave out a crisp sound, before landing on Ning Cheng’s outstretched palm. It now looked like a flower bud that had just bloomed under the first rays of dawn.
Ning Cheng then took out a robe, wrapped it around the woman before putting her aside, and forgot about her for the time being. He couldn’t help but look at the Celestial River Flame in his hands in delight. Ning Cheng truly felt satisfied with the level his Celestial River Flame had grown into and could clearly feel the power contained within it. Ning Cheng even suspected that if he used the Celestial River Flame with all his strength, it could quickly destroy a planet by itself.
This flame contained so much power that Ning Cheng now only held a single desire in his heart. To find a place to refine the Nirvana Spear and transform it into a genuine weapon.
So far, he didn’t have any weapon which he could call his own, which was very distressing at times.
But regardless of what he thought, his Celestial River Flame had used the bluestone slab in the centre of the volcanic island to advance. This seemed to have caused a slight drop in the temperature of this volcanic island. However, it remained sweltering.
Ning Cheng, without caring about the woman on his side, kept placing restriction after restriction onto the slab. By now, he felt sure that this bluestone was not an ordinary treasure.
One had to know, Ning Cheng’s attainments in array formation had already come infinitely close to that of the Starry Sky Grade 9. That is, he was about to become an Array Emperor who could arrange Starry Sky Grade 9 Arrays. Yet, despite his accomplishments, it still consumed a lot of time.
But despite the high temperature of this bluestone, Ning Cheng’s containment array formations and restrictions slowly contained and started confining the heat to the inside of it. After half a day, Ning Cheng managed to seal the bluestone completely. At the same time, he also placed the bluestone into the 5-element Array Formation within the Mysterious Yellow Bead.
The temperature contained within the bluestone slab had already reached terrifying levels during the sealing process. Therefore, Ning Cheng did not dare put this bluestone in his True Spirit World. In case the restrictions weaken, and the heat contained in the bluestone slab erupted, wouldn’t it destroy everything inside?
Only after Ning Cheng put away the bluestone slab did he feel a significant change around him. It felt as if someone had turned off the source of the horrifying temperatures permeating the volcanic island. The island had actually started to cool down.
Ning Cheng felt secretly happy at this and confirmed his suspicions about the bluestone slab. Moreover, he also saw many more pieces of Purple Light Treasure Essence all around him.
After his Celestial River Flame advanced to a Grade 5 Starry Sky Flame, Ning Cheng no longer had any uses for the Purple Light Treasure Essence.
However, Ning Cheng wouldn’t let go of such earthly treasures. Therefore, in just a short while, he collected nearly 100 Purple Light Treasure Essence. Moreover, with Ning Cheng taking away the bluestone slab, it seemed as if the island had lost something integral to it. Rattling sounds suddenly started emerging from somewhere from under the island, forcing Ning Cheng to sweep out with his spiritual consciousness to examine. Sure enough, he found that the island was about to crumble apart and sink.
He quickly grabbed the unconscious female cultivator, who only seemed to know about operating her body forging cultivation method and rushed out of the volcanic island.
Soon after Ning Cheng left the volcanic island, the volcanic peninsula quickly crumbled and dissolved into the water surrounding it just like mud dissolving into a running stream.
An hour later, Ning Cheng stopped on another island. He set the female cultivator aside and sealed everything around him with array formations. He couldn’t wait to bring out the Celestial River Flame and begin refining the Nirvana Spear.
He still couldn’t figure out what kind of material was his Nirvana Spear. But he believed that if he combined the Nirvana Spear with Twilight Sand, he could definitely make an excellent top-grade weapon for himself.
When the Celestial River Flame landed on the Nirvana Spear, it immediately made crackling-like sounds. However, to Ning Cheng’s disappointment, even after his Celestial River Flame advanced to Grade 5 Starry Sky, it couldn’t do anything to the Nirvana Spear. Apart from the crackling-like noises, the flame couldn’t create even a single ripple over the raw material, let alone refine the Nirvana Spear.
A full day later, Ning Cheng put away the Nirvana Spear in disappointment. He really couldn’t understand how such a sturdy spear shaft had appeared in a place that didn’t even have any cultivators. It looks like he still had to continue enduring the pain of not having a personalised weapon.
Opening the restrictions around him once again, he also brought out the woman he rescued. Ning Cheng decided to wake her up before walking away from this place.
Previously, Ning Cheng cared more about the advancement of his Celestial River Flame and refining the Nirvana Spear; as such, he didn’t particularly care about this woman’s appearance. He only knew that this woman had a perfect body. In any case, it wasn’t out of place for body-forging cultivators, both male and female, to have perfectly sculpted bodies.
But now that Ning Cheng finally took notice of this woman’s appearance, he definitely felt impressed by it. This woman not only had a perfectly sculpted body but also a perfect face.
Because of the extended body-forging period, it made her hair and eyebrows look a little yellow. But with her beautifully sculpted nose and her soft, slightly closed lips and a face similar in shape of a goose’s egg, it almost gave her an otherworldly feel to her.
Except for Yu Qing and Qionghua, Ning Cheng really couldn’t recall any woman who looked more beautiful than she did.
After a moment’s hesitation, Ning Cheng took out a Rootless Green Bamboo Leaf. He then tore the leaf into two halves and then put it into the female cultivator’s mouth.
This female cultivator’s Essence Spirit had separated from her body for a long time, which made it unstable. Therefore, to deal with the Essence Spirit’s instability and the loss of Essence Spirit’s control over the body, Rootless Green Bamboo was the most effective medicine.
In just an incense stick worth of time, the female cultivator finally opened her eyes and suddenly sat up. As her eyes swept around, she also stretched out her spiritual consciousness.
Soon her gaze focussed on Ning Cheng, “Did you save me?”
Ning Cheng found this behaviour slightly strange. Was it normal for this woman to wake up and see a man hovering around her naked body? This woman most likely knew that she wasn’t wearing anything, yet she still behaved as if she had her robes on. How could she ignore it and ask if he saved her? Or was he reading too much into it?
[1] Polar Star Nucleus and Star Flame Nucleus refer to the same thing.
