Somewhere in space, a large piece of land is floating, miles long and miles wide, just like a large continent which isn't a part of a planet.

This type of land is quite common in the Upper Realm and is usually inhabited by one single organization of people. Like some large sect or family.

In the middle of this particular floating continent, a huge palace could be seen.

"My Lord, something bad has happened. My Lord, it's a tragedy. My Lord!..."  An old looking male servant ran as fast as he could towards a room.

The old man entered the room where a middle aged man in brown hanfu was having a chat with a young man in black hanfu. From their demeanor, the black hanfu guy seems to be the superior.

The old man is here for the man in brown hanfu, so he rushed to him with a face full of tears and snot.

"My Lord! Oh My Lord! A tragedy has befallen upon us. My Lord... Sob sob..." The old man knelt in front of the man with his hands joined in prayer, sobbing.

The man in brown hanfu frowned. "Old Lou, what happened? Can't you see I am in a meeting with the Young Master? What happened so important for you to barge in here without permission?" The man seemed dissatisfied with the actions of his servant.

"My Lord... Boohoo... My Lord, sniff, sniff, a tragedy, My Lord, a tragedy." The old man held one leg of the man in brown hanfu.

The man couldn't just ignore the behavior of the old man, but he understood that something serious had taken place to make this old man act like this.

The man in brown hanfu cupped his hands in salute and slightly bowed to the man in black hanfu. "Young Master, as you can see, there seems to be some emergency. If you will allow me to take my leave..."

The young man with his hands crossed behind his back, slightly nodded. "Elder Lin should solve his personal matters first, we can have our meeting some other time."

"Thank you Young Master." With the formalities done, the man in brown hanfu or Elder Lin, picked up the old man and took his leave.

Out of the palace, in his house, inside his room, Elder Lin sat in a chair with a teacup in his hand. The old man is kneeling in front of him. Elder Lin took several sips of tea then looked at the sorry state of the old man for a while before speaking with a calm voice.

"Old Lou, your behavior was quite disgraceful earlier." "You know how important it is for our family to keep a good relationship with the Fourth Young Master right? And you bringing some unfortunate news in front of him is just showing him our incapabilities." Elder Lin closed his eyes and shook his head. He sighed.

"I am disappointed in you Old Lou— You know your offense is punishable by death right?" Elder Lin asked, slightly opening his eyelids, forming a slit.

"This old man has sinned My Lord, please punish me." The old man banged his head on the floor.

"Looking at our past, how you took care of me during my childhood and how to take care of my children right now, I will overlook it this time. But please Old Lou, don't repeat such mistakes again." "I don't want to lose a competent man." Elder Lin spoke with a worried expression.

"Don't worry My Lord, it won't happen again. It's just..." The old man sniffed.

"Oh yes. You said some tragedy has befallen. What happened? Even if one of my sons died in the ongoing war against the One Sword Sect, it is a matter of honor, not a tragedy. So what happened for you to make such a scene?" Elder Lin frowned.

"Ah My Lord. It's Young Master Lin Kai. He, he... Sniff sniff..." The old man started sobbing hard.

"The Fourteenth? I know you are quite close to him. You even protested against my idea of sending him to the lower realm." "What happened to him?" Elder Lin asked while sipping tea. He didn't seem worried at all.

"Sniff, sniff... F-Few hours ago, his, his, sniff... Few hours ago his Life Token broke." "My Lord... Boohoo, Young Master, boohoo..." The old man formed a pool of water with his tears.

Life Token is a 5 by 2 inches jade token used by people to leave their spiritual mark in it. Just like the artifacts which lose the spiritual mark if their owner dies, the Life Token too loses the mark and cracks when the owner dies.

"So he died huh?... Sigh!" "I knew this would happen sooner or later given his behavior, that's why I sent him to the lower realm where it should be safer for an idiot like him." "I thought he would learn a thing or two and get rid of his greedy nature, but..." Elder Lin shook his head in disappointment. He doesn't look sad at all for losing one of his sons.

Son? This middle aged man has 15 of them. One of them dying is no issue to him. And if all of them die— this man is still raring to go.

Elder Lin is one of the Elders of the Ghost Palace. One of the prominent sects in the Upper Realm. They are at odds with a similarity popular, One Sword Sect.

Ghost Palace is an unorthodox sect while One Sword Sect is orthodox. 

One Sword Sect is too persistent about righteousness. And being closer to the Ghost Place in location, occasional discrepancies leading to small skirmishes or war is quite common.

One of those small wars is ongoing right now. So Elder Lin is quite busy to attain some war merits. He doesn't have time to waste for one of his incompetent sons.

"Just send a message to the branch in the Lower Realm, let them take care of it somehow." "We don't have time for this. The front line is quite intense right now." "Those fucking One Sword Sect bastards!" Elder Lin gritted his teeth while cursing in a suppressed tone. He gulped the remaining tea, put his tea cup down, stood up and took his leave.

After Elder Lin left, the old man stood up and rushed somewhere in the manor to transmit a message to ask for an investigation about the death of his beloved Young Master.

'Young Master, even if no one here cares for you, this old man will never forgive any of your enemies. You called me 'grandpa', now watch your grandpa take revenge for you. You just sit in the heavens and wait for my report.' The old man ground his teeth while wiping his tears.

Seems like our protagonist has unknowingly made quite a troublesome enemy.

Though he doesn't know about Lin Kai's background, we know. And now we also know why Lin Kai was so rich. 

Hmm... Quite an interesting background the dead man has.

...

In the lower realm, inside the Unknown Ruins, at the hind leg tunnel of the White Tiger, Zhu Furong stood in front of a flat limestone wall.

This wall is somewhat different from the wall Ming Zen had created at the White Tiger's neck. This wall here is fake. An illusion.

Though it's an illusion, it also creates a barrier which gives the feeling of hitting a real rock and so Zhu Furong can't cross it. He tried breaking it but it doesn't seem to work at all.

"Seems like a rank 5 artifact to me. Something with both illusion and barrier array inscribed on it." Zhu Xingzuo concluded.

"Seems like another wealth of late Lin Kai." "How to take it down?" Zhu Furong asked, rubbing his chin.

"Why don't you find out yourself? You got those Array information jade slips right? How long are you thinking of keeping them unread? It's not good to always ask me for a solution you know? You won't grow up like this." Zhu Xingzuo suggested.

Zhu Furong scratched his head. "Well you are right. Now as I notice, I have kind of created a habit of subconsciously relying on you."

"Because I look extremely reliable right? I understand." Zhu Xingzuo smugly admired himself.

Zhu Furong shook his head with a helpless smile. He sat down in a cross-legged position and took out a few array information jade slips of rank 5 arrays and artifacts and started to study them. He went on it for the whole night.

Around early in the morning, Zhu Furong put away all the jade slips. Took a deep breath then slowly spread his Divine Sense in front in a wide area. After a minute, he stood up, walked to the right wall and pushed a large rock aside. Under the rock is a small pot hole and inside it is a hexagonal plate of 10 inches in diameter. It's the source of this illusion.

Zhu Furong bit his thumb and dropped a drop of blood on the array plate. He made a few hand seals and covered the array plate with his Divine Sense.

He is refining it. It is the only way to remove the illusion. He has to control it himself.

Thanks to the array plate now having no owner, refining it only took a few minutes. Zhu Furong having Divine Sense made the task quite easier and quicker.

Even though Cultivators under Divine Transformation rank don't have Divine Sense, they can use their Soul Energy to refine an artifact. It is called Soul Mark.

The negative trait of the soul mark is it being made up of one hundred percent Soul Energy. So the damage the soul receives upon the destruction of the artifact is much higher compared to those with spiritual mark. As the spiritual mark is the condensation of a mixture of pure Spiritual Qi and Soul Energy, the damage received by the soul is only half. Also, the time it takes to apply a soul mark is way longer than applying a spiritual mark.

Given the risk of these marks, people usually only mark items with high ranks or higher usability. The blood in these marks is just a medium to tighten your bond with the artifacts. 

Also, using your life essence or heart blood creates the strongest mark and the strongest bond. So people usually only use it for an item they will carry along for their whole life.

...

After refining the array plate, Zhu Furong put it inside the Nine-Layers Pagoda without taking any proper look. He has more important business to take care of. The grade 4 fire.

After the illusion wall vanished, another wall appeared. This time the wall is real.

Zhu Furong frowned. He swept his gaze all over the wall to locate a suspicious spot on the same side as the rock where the array plate was hidden. The wall in this part has been tampered. It is a hole filled with rocks and covered with wet mud mixed with limestone.

"That guy is quite cunning. He wasn't just satisfied with a rank 5 array, he even went ahead to take extra steps to hide the treasure." "But if had so many good items, I doubt he didn't have any way to acquire this grade 4 fire. Then why did he leave it here?" "Also, why Ming Zen left a grade 4 fire here and that Soul Lotus..."  Zhu Furong rubbed his chin contemplating.

"For the Soul Lotus, I would say he was showing consideration, maybe. I saw there were a few lotus stems sticking out of the puddle. He must have plucked those leaving the stem for the lotus to grow again. And left one just so it can maintain a proper environment for new buds to grow. This way he won't ruin nature and also can harvest more treasures when they are ripe." Zhu Xingzuo explained. "As for the grade 4 fire... Maybe Ming Zen got something better? Or maybe he doesn't have any use for the type of fire hidden here. Who knows?" 

"Er... Then didn't I destroy nature by plucking that Soul Lotus? Why did you make me do such a blasphemous thing?" Zhu Furong complained.

Zhu Xingzuo snorted. "Do you have the leisure to think about such stupid things? You are at a stage where you should take whatever you may find to perfect your foundation." "Don't forget, our aim is to create a vessel large and strong enough to hold as much energy as possible. We have to push your body to the limit or way beyond the limit!" 

"Hmm..." Zhu Furong nodded slightly. Then he thought about the reason for Lin Kai to leave the fire here. There is no way someone greedy like him doesn't want this.

Unfortunately, he couldn't find a proper reason. 

After a few minutes of work, Zhu Furong removed all the rocks and dirt out of the hole. The hole is big enough for one person to pass through. The wall isn't very thick.

After passing through the hole, just one step ahead is a deep pit. Peeking in it one could see a weak yellow light glowing at the bottom. The pit is the lower leg part of the left leg of the almost 10,000 feet large White Tiger. So it's a few meters deep.

There doesn't seem to be any danger down below, so Zhu Furong decided to jump in.

But before he did so, he thought of something. He took out the array plate he just kept away and placed it back to the spot, activating it.

'Just in case.' The simple thought of a cautious man.

Landing at the bottom of the pit, the temperature is not as high as Zhu Furong imagined. Covering his body with Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi is not worth it, so Zhu Xingzuo instantly pulled his Chaos Qi back.

Gotta save it if you can.

There are several cracks on the rocky floor of the pit. The weak yellow light is escaping from these cracks. The grade 4 fire is under this rock bed.

Given the characteristics of the environment inside this pit, the grade 4 fire seems to be the grade 4 Rock Flame.

Unlike the super hot, grade 2 Earth Flame and grade 3 Earth Fire, this grade 4 Rock flame has quite mild temperature. It is so weak that people consider it a grade 1 fire. But due the devouring nature of these special fires, Rock Flame has to be put in the grade 4 category.

In case of special fires, a higher grade can devour a lower grade to raise its grade. But finding a proper match of fire is not easy.

For example, the Flame of Nirvana and Dragon Breath both range from grade 6 to grade 8, though a higher grade Flame of Nirvana can devour a lower grade Dragon Breath and vice versa, it doesn't increase their grade due to them having mismatch properties. The Flame of Nirvana has properties of the laws of life in it, while the Dragon Breath have the properties of the laws of destruction. They do not match.

"Sigh!... Looks like a useless fire to me. Now I somewhat know the reason why both Ming Zen and Lin Kai left it here." Zhu Furong shook his head with disappointment.

He is in desperate need of a good fire to concoct the rank 3 Burn and Churn Liquid. He at least needs a grade 2 fire to have a chance of success.

Standing there he hesitated if he should dig the fire out or not.

"Just take it. Even if you can't use it for refining the medicinal liquid, you can use it in battle or something. It's never a waste to have extra resources in hand." Zhu Xingzuo suggested.

Taking his suggestion, Zhu Furong dug at a spot closer to the circumference of the pit where the Rock Flame is supposed to be. After digging about one meters a murky yellow, small fist size fire could be seen floating in the air, burning silently.

It's the essence of the Earth Flame, the core of the fire. Special types of fires burn infinitely till their core is destroyed or devoured.

Among the jade slips there is information about how to refine these special fires. The process is quite similar to applying a spiritual mark, but the place you store a fire essence, is the heart. This part is extremely dangerous.

The heart is where the blood essence of a person is stored. And to store something destructive as a fire in your heart is the same as asking for death. If the fire goes out of control, it will burn your blood essence which is also your life essence and grant you a painful death.

But hey! High risk, high reward.

The opportunity here is to gain an ever-burning fire which can be used as a weapon, as a stove, or as a catalyst to keep impurities out of your blood essence. On the note, that you can perfectly control the fire.

Here, Zhu Furong felt glad that the first fire he is going to refine is a mild one.

"God bless me." He murmured looking at the fire.

"You have my blessings." Zhu Xingzuo answered.

Zhu Furong rolled his eyes before proceeding to follow the refining steps.

After dropping a drop of heart blood this time. He formed a few hand seals then slowly covered the Rock Flame with his hands.

The fire made its way through his palm to his veins and arteries. Covering his veins and arteries with Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi, Zhu Furong slowly led the fire to his heart with his Divine Sense.

He has to be extremely cautious with this. So he led the fire very slowly and carefully.

After a few minutes, the fire started accumulating at the center of his heart.

Zhu Furong didn't cover the insides of his heart with Qi to let the fire become accustomed with his blood essence and form a harmony.

It took him about thirty minutes to form an almond size flame inside his heart. Now he has to keep assimilating more fire and compress it at the same time. The process is quite arduous and his whole body is sweating.

Fortunately the fire is still in control so he doesn't have to suffer from any mishaps or so he was expecting...

Flicker... Flicker... Suddenly the almond sized fire started to flicker slightly.

Zhu Furong didn't lose focus and tried his best to keep it under control. Though he couldn't understand what suddenly happened for the fire to start acting like this, he doesn't have the leisure to investigate.

'Focus, focus. You can't make any mistakes.' He only has this thought running through his mind.

Flicker... Flicker... The intensity of the flicker increased.

Flicker... Flicker... The small almond sized fire inside Zhu Furong's heart started shaking violently.

"This is bad." Zhu Xingzuo cried in alarm, but he was too late.

Wooosh... The almond sized fire split into lines and rushed towards Zhu Furong's head passing through his veins and arteries.

"Aaargh..." Zhu Furong cried in extreme pain from the burning sensation of the veins and arteries. Even though the Rock Flame has a mild temperature, it will still do damage if injected inside an soft, fragile, unprotected vein.

Yes, except the veins and arteries of Zhu Furong's hands, he didn't consider protecting any other parts of his body. And given Zhu Xingzuo's miser behavior when it comes to the use of his precious Chaos Qi, he too didn't give it a thought.

But looking at how smoothly things were going at the start, both Zhu Furong and Zhu Xingzuo didn't expect for a tragedy to take place.

Zhu Xingzuo moved his Chaos Qi as quickly as he could to cover every part of Zhu Furong's body as fast as he could. He ended up using more Chaos Qi than he would have if he carefully covered Zhu Furong's every vein and arteries from the start.

It took several minutes for Zhu Furong to recover from the pain. He laid flat on the ground, surprisingly still holding the fire essence in his hands.

He could feel his palms still sucking the fire essence even though he almost lost his consciousness back there.

"Not my fault! Blame your mother." Zhu Xingzuo instantly passed the blame as soon as he saw Zhu Furong back to normal.

"What?" Zhu Furong asked with confusion.

"It's the Nirvana Life Seal. The Flame of Nirvana around your Spiritual Body is absorbing the Rock Flame. I didn't expect that because I have never heard of this and I don't think your Masters have ever heard of this as well." Zhu Xingzuo remarked.

"Nirvana Life Seal?..." Zhu Furong closed his eyes to focus on what's going inside his body.

He could see the thin hairlike strand of fire passing through his veins and arteries in hands to the heart and from there to the head and slowly being absorbed by the bright red flame at the center of his mall Divine Sea, the sea of knowledge which should only form at the Divine Transformation rank.

The special property of a Divine Sea is its capabilities to store a huge amount of knowledge, so you never forget no matter how many years pass. It can also store special items like Spiritual Artifacts.

Thanks to Chaos Qi and Zhu Furong's unique physique, his scalded veins and arteries healed after a few minutes. Thanks to Zhu Xingzuo's quick reaction, the damage was kept to minimal.

Though both the brothers still couldn't understand what was going on. The Nirvana Life Seal which always lay dormant even after numerous attempts by Zhu Furong to try and make use of the Flame of Nirvana or find out something about this peculiar seal, he always failed. But now the Nirvana Life Seal suddenly started to act on its own and the Flame of Nirvana is sucking the Rock Flame out of nowhere. Why?

Zhu Furong couldn't find the answer, nor did Zhu Xingzuo. Both gave up and Zhu Furong closed his eyes, lying on the floor of the pit to take rest. He doesn't know when he fell asleep.

"Oi wake up! Big Brother! Oi..." Zhu Furong could hear Zhu Xingzuo calling.

He slowly opened his eyes to see pitch black. The weak yellow light spreading inside the pit has now vanished. The Rock Flame has been refined. Or more like, completely devoured by the Flames of Nirvana.

Zhu Furong instantly sat in a cross-legged position and concentrated on the Nirvana Life Seal, to catch any changes.

"Nothing changed. It's still a grade 6 Flames of Nirvana." Zhu Xingzuo commented.

"No, something changed. I can feel it." Zhu Furong mumbled.

"Really? What changed?" Zhu Xingzuo asked, not believing.

Zhu Furong didn't answer, but went completely silent.

"Hey! Why are you ignoring me?" Zhu Xingzuo shows displeasure.

But soon to his surprise he saw thin strands of Flames of Nirvana forming out of the Nirvana Life Seal and slowly passing through Zhu Furong's veins forming a fire in his palm.

"Wow!" Zhu Xingzuo uttered subconsciously. He didn't expect this.

The Nirvana Life Seal and the Flames of Nirvana which never showed any hint of movement are now being controlled by Zhu Furong quite easily. The Flames of Nirvana is so tame that it doesn't even show a hint of damage when rubbing through Zhu Furong's unprotected veins and arteries. The Flames of Nirvana is acting similar to as it does inside a phoenix. The passage of the Flames of Nirvana doesn't require any protection!

If it was any other fire. Even if it was the Rock Flame. If Zhu Furong had refined it like other Cultivators do, he would have to always cover his veins while using the fire. But here in the case of the Flames of Nirvana, it seems totally fine to use it without any protection.

After a minute a ball of fire formed on the palm of Zhu Furong, burning silently. The bright red color is so mesmerizing that Zhu Furong got lost in it. The Flames of Nirvana have intense heat but in the hand on Zhu Furong, it is giving a soothing, warm feeling. Just like the embrace of a Mother.

Unknowingly, drops of tears silently escaped from Zhu Furong's eyes.

Zhu Xingzuo understands what the Flames of Nirvana mean to Zhu Furong. It's his only connection to his birth mother. He kept silent to not disturb his Big Brother.

It took about an hour for Zhu Furong to collect himself.

His mind surprisingly feels quite peaceful. He feels like whatever he does right now, he will achieve great success in it.

Without wasting any time, he took out his alchemy furnace and put inside the materials for the Burn and Churn Liquid. It only took one attempt to refine the best quality medicinal liquid.

Even though the pills and medicinal liquids are divided into nine ranks, there are still some differences among the pills and medicinal liquids of the same rank. So each rank is further divided into low, medium, high and best quality. The high quality pills have pill veins. The best quality pills have pill clouds. While the best quality medicinal liquid has a glow to it.

The Burn and Churn Liquid Zhu Furong concocted is gray in color, but it is giving off a white glow which is gently reflected on Zhu Furong's face, showing his satisfied smile.

Even in his past life, the best Zhu Furong ever concocted was medium quality rank 3 pill. So this is a huge, huge step forward. Considering that a best quality medicinal liquid is much harder to concoct than a best quality pill, this is a tremendous achievement for Zhu Furong.