Chapter 299
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The Fire Escape Technique was indeed exquisite—Zhang Xiaohua spent a full year merely to grasp its essence, only barely reaching the foundational level that the True Person Fire Dragon had mentioned.
Once again, Zhang Xiaohua arrived at a corner of the cave. He cast a spell to unravel the restriction, and as the barrier faded away, a pitch-black hole emerged before his eyes. A wave of fire-attributed Yuan Qi surged forth, ancient, desolate, and unbearably scorching. Zhang Xiaohua instinctively stepped back half a pace. Only after acclimating a little did he leap down.
The cave was not deep; within half a moment, he reached the bottom. Zhang Xiaohua immediately released his divine sense, but it seemed that restrictions had long since been laid down in the surroundings—his divine sense could only extend a few zhang at most.
“My divine sense can cover the entire island now, yet here it barely reaches a few zhang. Why did that Old Huo set up such a restriction?”
With that thought, Zhang Xiaohua drew a luminous pearl from his robe. The faint light illuminated the path ahead, and together with his divine sense, he cautiously proceeded forward.
It was a descending slope—though winding and rugged, it had no side paths, so there was no worry of getting lost. At one point, Zhang Xiaohua even considered using the Earth Escape technique, but the surrounding restrictions suppressed even that, leaving him no choice but to stumble forward step by step, slowly making his way downward.
After what felt like a long time, the path still showed no end. Zhang Xiaohua was alarmed—had he already reached beneath the sea?
After all his cultivation, Zhang Xiaohua’s temperament had long since become resolute. The playful impulsiveness of the past had vanished; he simply pressed forward with patience, not allowing the thought of turning back to take root.
More time passed. Even the air now felt searingly hot, and though Zhang Xiaohua’s body was impervious to heat and cold, even he began to feel discomfort. Only then did he truly understand why the True Person Fire Dragon insisted one must first attain a foundation in the Fire Escape technique before coming down here.
Zhang Xiaohua formed a seal with his right hand. A stream of True Qi descended, enveloping his entire body in a thin, faint red membrane of Qi—was this not the most basic technique of Fire Evading? Without even this, one would not even catch a glimpse of the Earth Lung Fire.
After walking a little longer, a faint red glow appeared ahead, flickering and leaping. Zhang Xiaohua’s heart settled—he must be close. As expected, turning a corner, what met his eyes was a sea of flames—twice the size of the small lake on the deserted island!
Hmm, calling it a Lake of Fire would be more fitting.
The entire “lake” was a dark crimson, filled with a thick, molten substance bubbling and gurgling upwards. A foot or so above the surface of the “lake” blazed flames several feet tall, roaring fiercely as though they would burn on eternally.
Zhang Xiaohua understood in his heart—this was surely the place where True Person Fire Dragon cultivated his Fire Escape technique.
He looked around. The surroundings were entirely of rock, illuminated by the crimson glow. Above him stretched a space several zhang high, its ceiling and walls also of stone, yet shining brilliantly under the firelight!
Zhang Xiaohua’s eyes lit up, his heart pounded wildly, and with a whoosh, he released his divine sense. As expected, the brilliance came from countless night-luminescent pearls!
“No wonder Old Huo’s cave was decorated with so many night-luminescent pearls—so they came from here! So many pearls… aiya, I’ve struck it rich!”
“But how should I collect them? If I try prying them loose with my little sword, I won’t be able to catch them—they’ll fall straight into that sea of fire. Hmph, I’d best hurry up and train in the Fire Escape technique. For the sake of these pearls, I must learn it!”
With that thought, Zhang Xiaohua no longer wished to waste another moment. He tucked the night-luminescent pearl in his hand into his robes, formed a hand seal with his right hand, and pointed toward the flames above the lake. A wisp of flame shot over, entwining with the light membrane around his body. Zhang Xiaohua’s hand seals changed once more, and his body began to melt like wax, slowly fusing into that wisp of flame. The flame then returned to the surface of the sea of fire, and Zhang Xiaohua vanished without a trace.
But suddenly, a puff of black smoke rose—and from another flame nearby, Zhang Xiaohua shot out in a sorry state, half of his long hair already burned away.
Helpless, Zhang Xiaohua rubbed his scorched hair and consoled himself: “Well, it was getting long anyway. I was planning to trim it with my little sword. Guess this counts as an early cut.”
Then he sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began to ponder the gains and losses of his earlier attempt.
After a while, a smile appeared on his lips. He formed another hand seal, and his figure once again vanished into the flames.
And so, Zhang Xiaohua went in and out of the flames, cultivating continuously until evening. Only then did he return to the cave, where he reflected on the insights he’d gained and continued to cultivate the Carefree Heart Sutra. The next morning, after completing his daily regimen of cultivation techniques, he once more delved deep underground to continue practicing the Fire Escape technique.
As the old saying goes—there is no sense of time in cultivation. In the blink of an eye, over half a year had passed. Zhang Xiaohua, following the records within True Person Fire Dragon’s jade slip, had more or less mastered the Fire Escape technique.
However, the mysterious secret that True Person Fire Dragon had speculated upon remained entirely undiscovered by Zhang Xiaohua.
On this day, confident that his cultivation of the Fire Escape technique was largely complete—and that he could now freely appear at any point within the flames—Zhang Xiaohua finally released his flying sword and began enacting his grand plan to strike it rich. He skillfully used the little sword to pry loose a night-luminescent pearl, and as the pearl began to fall, he estimated its trajectory, performed the Fire Escape, and caught it midair. The first two attempts failed due to lack of experience—the pearls slipped through his grasp and fell into the sea of fire, causing Zhang Xiaohua heartache for quite some time. But after that, he didn’t make any more mistakes. Under this intensive training, his mastery of the Fire Escape technique improved at a rate faster than in all the previous days. Before he had even finished prying all the pearls from the rock walls, his Fire Escape technique had ascended to a new level. Now, not only could he appear precisely where he intended, but his speed had increased significantly as well.
Naturally—if he were even a split-second too slow, the night-luminescent pearl would fall into the fire sea, and that was no small loss in silver!
Zhang Xiaohua pried pearls one after another, darting through the flames with great excitement. But then, with one careless step, his figure slipped and dropped straight toward the sea of fire. Startled, Zhang Xiaohua quickly cast Floating Technique and drifted toward the shore. Only once his feet touched solid ground did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The fire sea’s flames were born of that crimson molten fluid—how could he dare provoke something like that?
But just then, another thought came to him: that crimson fluid surely wasn’t water, but likely some kind of high-temperature molten rock. And as he thought of magma, a sudden realization struck him. Magma, while fluid, was still fundamentally rock. And since it was rock, shouldn’t Earth Escape be usable here? And the reason the magma appeared molten was clearly due to the intense heat within.
“If this magma contains both rock and fire, then what if I use Earth Escape and Fire Escape at the same time—could I then enter this magma?”
“Could this be the mystery that True Person Fire Dragon mentioned? He hadn’t cultivated Earth Escape individually, only the Five Elements Escape and Fire Escape—so he probably couldn’t enter the magma. That would explain why there was no mention of magma in his jade slip. But, should I take this risk?”
“Sigh, forget it. I’ll get my hands on the night-luminescent pearls already here first, then decide.”
With that, Zhang Xiaohua calmed his thoughts and carefully stored the remaining night-luminescent pearls into his coin pouch.
Then, grinning from ear to ear, he returned to the cave.
The next day, upon descending underground once more, Zhang Xiaohua had already made up his mind. In truth, whether cultivators or martial artists, none would pass up an opportunity to increase their strength. All were willing to take some measure of risk in order to grow stronger—and Zhang Xiaohua was no exception.
Though the magma was certainly dangerous, it was plainly a mixture of rock and fire. Theoretically, as long as one combined the Fire Escape and Earth Escape techniques, it should be possible to travel through this terrifying magma. Of course, while magma was indeed a substance of the Five Elements, it was not something that could be subdued with the likes of the “all-purpose” Five Elements Escape technique.
Moreover, as his cultivation deepened, Zhang Xiaohua gradually came to understand that the path of immortal cultivation was a path of challenge—a struggle to surpass oneself and defy Heaven and Earth. Combining Earth Escape and Fire Escape was certainly an extension of two techniques, but more importantly, it was a challenge to himself: a test of his courage, cultivation, and mental state. If he chose not to face it, he might leave behind a knot in his heart, which could hinder his future cultivation.
Thus, after much deliberation, he came again.
Sitting cross-legged before the sea of fire, Zhang Xiaohua pondered for a long time.
“What I need to do now is combine Earth Escape and Fire Escape… but how exactly should I combine them? Should I form two sets of hand seals with both hands at once? My left hand hasn’t practiced forming hand seals—there’s no guarantee I could pull that off successfully in a short time. Hmm… maybe I should first cast Earth Escape and dive into the soil beneath me, then immediately switch to Fire Escape to enter the magma. Or I could use Fire Escape first to enter the flames, then follow with Earth Escape to dive into the magma. Hmm… there’s definitely magma in the soil below me too. I’d better not fall in by accident. Better to start with Fire Escape, then go from fire into magma.”
Once he had made up his mind, Zhang Xiaohua gritted his teeth, formed the hand seal, and in a flash entered the flames. After pausing within the fire for a moment, he formed the Earth Escape hand seal, and his figure immediately vanished from the fire, only to reappear in the dark red magma.
Within the magma, Zhang Xiaohua anxiously looked at the black and red light membrane surrounding his body. After confirming that everything was stable, he tested the movement techniques of Earth Escape and Fire Escape one by one, and discovered that both worked within the magma. Overjoyed, he began swimming through the molten rock using his escape techniques. The twin light membranes kept the dark red, extremely hot magma at bay, not letting a trace touch him.
However, within this magma, Zhang Xiaohua’s divine sense was suppressed. He could no longer extend it as far as he could in mere fire or soil—only several zhang in distance. But even those few zhang were enough. Before long, he had already spotted signs of night-luminescent pearls on the rock wall beside the magma. Harvesting the pearls with Earth Escape was even easier: once his divine sense locked onto them, he simply activated Earth Escape, reached out, and grabbed them. It was even more efficient than using his little sword.
And so, Zhang Xiaohua forgot about the danger, greedily plucking night-luminescent pearls as he escaped deeper and deeper into the magma!
PS: Everyone, happy National Day! Also, during the holiday, updates might not be consistent—thanks for your understanding. And regarding the night-luminescent pearls in the volcano, that’s the protagonist’s understanding. If you think they’re diamonds, you’re not wrong either, hahaha.
