Chapter 22

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Chapter 22: Fusang Fire

Lou Yun had a dream. He dreamed of being surrounded by endless fire. He struggled to escape, yet invisible barriers seemed to stand all around the flames, blocking his path. In the end, he couldn\’t escape being consumed by the fire; his entire body began to burn in the flames.

\"Hot, so hot!\" After uttering a short groan, Lou Yun slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was his father\’s face, looking at him with deep concern. Seeing Lou Yun awake, a smile appeared on Lou Tianming\’s face. He reached out to touch Lou Yun\’s forehead and handed him a large water jug.

Though filled with questions, Lou Yun\’s mouth was unbearably parched. He couldn\’t manage any inquiries. Taking the jug, he began gulping down water frantically.

After finishing the whole jug, the thirst finally subsided. Lou Yun put the jug down and saw his father still smiling at him.

Lou Yun was now completely lucid. He remembered being on the second floor of the Treasure Pavilion before losing consciousness. He had encountered a senior elder of the Lou Family who said he wanted to give him a gift, and then he had inexplicably passed out. Now, he was clearly lying in his own bed.

\"Father, what happened to me?\"

Lou Tianming chuckled. \"Don\’t ask questions yet. Hurry and take a bath first. I\’ll get someone to change the bedsheet too.\"

Prompted by this, Lou Yun noticed he was naked, and water droplets rolled down his entire body. The bedsheet beneath him was completely soaked, like it had been spread on the bed immediately after washing without being dried.

This was unmistakably his own sweat. What on earth had happened to make him sweat like this?

Urged by his father, Lou Yun rushed to take a shower, his mind buzzing with questions. Yet after washing, he truly felt comfortable, experiencing an indescribable ease all over.

Returning to his room, he discovered his bed had actually been carried out. Apparently, the soaking was too severe; simply changing the sheet wasn\’t enough.

Lou Yun poured another jug of water for himself and then sat back down in front of his father, asking again, \"Father, what really happened to me?\"

Lou Tianming, his eyes filled with paternal affection, patted Lou Yun on the head. \"Actually, I don\’t know exactly what happened. But the Great Grandfather said that if you could wake up within three days, you\’d be fine!\"

\"Great Grandfather?\"

\"Not your great-grandfather, mine. The old man you met in the Treasure Pavilion.\"

Ah!

Though Lou Yun knew that man was unquestionably a senior elder, he never imagined that the old man was his father\’s great-grandfather. That meant he had to be at least a hundred years old.

\"Wait, Father, I was unconscious for three days already?\"

Lou Tianming nodded and began recounting the events of those three days.

After Lou Yun entered the Treasure Pavilion, Lou Tianming and his two brothers waited outside the door. Barely half an hour later, they saw the Great Grandfather carrying Lou Yun out.

Lou Yun’s eyes were tightly shut, clearly in a deep state of unconsciousness. His entire body radiated an astonishing, fiery heat, like he was on fire. The heat was so intense that Lou Tianming couldn\’t even hold him; it was Lou Tianzhi who eventually carried Lou Yun back to the house.

The Great Grandfather hadn\’t said much either. He simply gave one instruction: if Lou Yun woke up within three days, then nothing was wrong. If he didn\’t wake up within that time, he had to be carried back to the book repository.

For the entire period that followed, Lou Yun remained burning hot and unconscious. Only now, just as the three-day mark was about to pass, had he finally woken up. This naturally brought immense relief to Lou Tianming, whose heart had been tightly clenched with worry.

As for what exactly had happened to Lou Yun, Lou Tianming genuinely didn\’t know. Moreover, he didn\’t dare to ask, because the Great Grandfather hadn’t left the book repository for nearly thirty years.

Lou Yun scratched his head. \"I don\’t know either. He just said he\’d give me a gift, and then I passed out. To this moment, I still have no idea what gift he actually gave me.\"

Lou Tianming looked puzzled. \"A gift? I didn\’t see anything! Your clothes were actually steaming! I took all of them off you, and we took everything out of them too. There wasn\’t anything!\"

Lou Yun was stunned too. No item? What kind of gift was that?

\"Don’t think too much about not knowing,\" Lou Tianming advised. \"The Great Grandfather certainly wouldn\’t harm you. And with his cultivation, whatever he gave you must be a precious thing. Maybe your cultivation base is still too low right now to sense it. When you grow stronger in the future, you’ll naturally understand.\"

\"Mm.\" Lou Yun nodded. \"Father, lying in bed for three days has worn me out. I need to get out and walk!\"

\"Go ahead,\" Lou Tianming replied. \"But don\’t go back to the Hidden Weapons Pavilion. The Great Grandfather already brought out the cultivation method and weapon manual you had chosen.\"

\"Oh, got it!\"

After speaking, Lou Yun hurriedly rushed out. He wasn\’t planning on taking a stroll; he wanted to find a secluded place to properly question Chang Xiang about what was wrong with him. While others might not know, Chang Xiang surely did.

Sprinting all the way to the mountain peak at the back, Lou Yun couldn\’t wait to shout, \"Brother Chang, come out quickly!\"

As soon as the words fell, Chang Xiang appeared in front of Lou Yun, smiling. Before Lou Yun could even ask his question, Chang Xiang proactively said, \"Kid, I\’m becoming more and more confident in you. Your luck truly isn\’t ordinary. Do you know what kind of gift that Great Grandfather of yours gave you?\"

\"What was it?\" This was precisely what Lou Yun was burning to find out.

Unexpectedly, Chang Xiang started playing coy. \"Heh heh, guess!\"

Lou Yun glared at him irritably. \"How am I supposed to guess that?\"

\"Alright, I won\’t tease you. What your Great Grandfather gave you is… a Heavenly Fire!\"

\"What!\" Lou Yun was stunned for a moment, then couldn\’t help but shout, \"A Heavenly Fire?\"

\"Yes! Although the grade of the Heavenly Fire he gave you is considered quite low, it offers tremendous benefits for you.\" Chang Xiang was clearly very pleased too, his eyes dancing with excitement. \"I truly didn\’t expect that someone in your Lou Family once managed to subdue a Heavenly Fire! And that this person has now passed it to you! Haha, it looks like it was your destiny to become a skilled weapon maker!\"

Lou Yun was still in shock, but the words \"skilled weapon maker\" suddenly reminded him. The last thing his Great Grandfather had said to him was: \"You want to become a skilled weapon maker? Very good. The Lou Family has truly never produced one. I\’ll lend you a hand by giving you a gift!\"

At this point, Lou Yun\’s mind finally became active again, unfolding a series of thought processes.

It seemed that his Great Grandfather was also extremely knowledgeable about skilled weapon makers. It was very possible he also wanted to become one and, through some lucky coincidence, managed to subdue a Heavenly Fire. But ultimately, he must have failed to achieve his goal. So, upon hearing that Lou Yun desired the same path, he simply gifted him the Heavenly Fire he had subdued.

Later, Lou Yun inquired about this from his father, but his father knew nothing regarding the Heavenly Fire. He only heard that the Great Grandfather indeed wanted to become a skilled weapon maker, but ultimately failed to realize this ambition. He disappeared for a period afterward and, upon his return, voluntarily requested entry into the Hidden Weapons Pavilion, never emerging again.

Chang Xiang, however, couldn\’t be bothered with these details. He was solely focused on his delight. Possessing a Heavenly Fire was a monumental boon for Lou Yun, who currently aspired to be a skilled weapon maker.

\"Kid, the specific Heavenly Fire your Great Grandfather gave you is called Fusang Fire. Legend says it’s a clump of flame that carelessly fell into the mortal world alongside the newborn sun, concealing itself within Mount Fusang. Among the Eighteen Known Heavenly Fires, it\’s considered the lowest grade. Otherwise, given your Great Grandfather\’s capabilities at that time, no matter how great his luck, subduing it would have been impossible.\"

\"Brother Chang, don\’t rush into explaining yet! I haven\’t even seen what it looks like! Is it inside my body right now?\"

Chang Xiang, who had been speaking enthusiastically, was interrupted and replied somewhat unhappily, \"Of course it’s inside your body! Now that you have a magical weapon, you can practice inner sight to view it yourself. Take a look.\"

Inner sight was a special ability gained upon becoming a magical weapons master. It meant no longer relying solely on spiritual sense to perceive, but actually seeing the internal state of one\’s own body.

Lou Yun hurriedly closed his eyes, focused inward, and looked within himself.

First, Lou Yun focused on his dantian. He assumed that a Heavenly Fire merged with his body must reside within the dantian alongside his magical weapon. But he found nothing there.

After searching for a while, he finally located it in the crook of his right arm – a flame roughly the size of his thumb, intensely red.

Honestly, seeing a flame within his own body was a bizarre experience. Lou Yun felt decidedly uncomfortable upon his first glimpse of the Fusang Fire.

The Heavenly Fire seemed to sense Lou Yun\’s observation. The gently burning flame suddenly flared upwards twice, as if greeting him, before settling back to its previous state.

Opening his eyes, Lou Yun quickly looked at the crook of his right arm but didn\’t notice anything unusual. He asked, \"Brother Chang, why is the Fusang Fire in my right arm\’s crook? Why isn\’t it in my dantian?\"

\"Who said Heavenly Fires must reside in the dantian? To tell you the truth, in a way, you can actually consider a Heavenly Fire as a type of demon beast. Because it possesses spirit and sentience, it chooses where it wishes to reside itself! It’s not strange for it to be in the crook of your arm; it could just as easily be under the sole of your foot!\"

The revelation that Heavenly Fires possessed sentience was another mind-opener for Lou Yun. However, recalling how the Fusang Fire reacted when he saw it seemed to confirm this insight.

\"So how do I use it? By the way, Brother Chang, did you help me subdue it?\" Lou Yun added the last question offhandedly, figuring the answer was obvious.

However, Chang Xiang shook his head repeatedly. \"It had nothing to do with me. You subdued it yourself. And remember, in the future, subduing Heavenly Fires must rely solely on your own strength. Help from anyone else wouldn\’t just be useless; it could result in both of you suffering backlash from the Heavenly Fire. The consequences would be extremely dangerous.\"

\"I subdued it myself?\"

\"Mhm, absolutely. Although I certainly deserve some credit, it was for helping strengthen and temper your body beforehand.\" Chang Xiang revealed a smug smile. \"Without that, you definitely couldn\’t have subdued it. If you hadn\’t subdued it, its master would still be your Great Grandfather, who could potentially reclaim it. But once you subdue it, you become its new master, and it will only obey your commands.\"

\"That doesn\’t make sense! I was completely unconscious! I have no idea how I could have subdued it.\"

\"You were unconscious, but your body\’s spiritual energy, your magical weapon, including your physical form itself, were all autonomously resisting and contending with it. This situation was different though. If you were trying to subdue an unclaimed Heavenly Fire yourself, you\’d need to forcefully subdue it using your own power. In that case, if you were unconscious, you\’d be doomed! While unconscious, the Heavenly Fire would mercilessly burn your body to nothingness without a trace!\"

Chang Xiang\’s words sent a shiver down Lou Yun\’s spine. Hurriedly changing the subject, he asked, \"Can you just teach me how to use the Fusang Fire already?\"

\"It\’s simple. Since you\’ve already subdued it and become its master, you just need to use your spiritual sense to communicate with it or issue commands!\"

Is it really that simple?

Lou Yun found it hard to believe. Could controlling something as precious and immensely powerful as a Heavenly Fire truly be so straightforward?

But it really was the case. Just like taming beasts – the more ferocious and violent the beast, the more arduous and painful the taming process. But once that ordeal is complete, controlling the beast afterward becomes relatively simple, and the beast will absolutely obey its master\’s commands.

The Heavenly Fire was precisely the same!