Hot!

The first word that crossed Zhu Furong's mind as he fell into a pit.

Opening his eyes he found himself inside a tunnel of 250 meters in diameter.

There are coils of lava rocks producing temperature above 1000°C along with red and yellow light.

If not for the protection of Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi, Zhu Furong would have been charred to death.

"A dragon?"

"Looks like a snake skeleton to me." Zhu Xingzuo denied.

"Snake? What snake is so huge?"

"Given the diameter of the rib bones, this skeleton should be 10,000 feet in length— A snake that can reach this length..."

"A pseudo Divine Beast, an Imugi!"

"You mean the Imugi that turns into a real dragon after 1000 years of Cultivation?"

"Yes, that one."

"But how did such a creature end up dead here?"

"Something must have happened in the past which we are unaware of. That White Tiger fossil was also unexpected."

"Speaking of the white tiger..."

"As expected, this fossil also has rune marks."

"Laws of water! This Imugi was a water type."

The next moment we could see Zhu Furong noting down all the runes in a jade slip, slowly proceeding into the depths of the tunnel.

...

"A dragon fossil!?"

This time it is the old man.

"What a find."

After his exclamation, the old man along with the two middle aged peak Revolving Core rank Cultivators, started exploring the tunnel.

...

About 500 meters ahead of the trio, Zhu Furong came across a bowling ball sized blue crystal— The core of the Imugi.

The element of water is so strongly imbued in this core that the 50 meters surrounding radius have no signs of scorching. Rather, it is soaking wet.

The contrast is so stark that there is no formation of water vapor here. It tells us that as much as powerful this Imugi Core is, there is something similarly powerful of the opposite element present in this tunnel.

Upon touching the core, Zhu Furong didn't feel any discomfort, rather felt a cold and refreshing.

"Water is a gentle element. If not agitated, it won't cause any destruction. Just hold it carefully and store it in the Nine-Layers Pagoda, away from other items."

Zhu Furong followed Zhu Xingzuo's suggestion.

"We will share it half." Suddenly Zhu Xingzuo added.

Obviously Zhu Furong isn't going to deny it. After how much Zhu Xingzuo has sacrificed for him, if he asked for the whole core, Zhu Furong would happily oblige.

As soon as the Imugi Core vanished from the tunnel, the surrounding coiling ribs instantly heated up producing a large amount of water vapor.

Zhu Furong instantly held his breath and escaped the area. The water vapor produced is like a dense cloud spreading inside the tunnel at a fast speed. Such an amount of vapor is quite suffocating. If you breathe in, it may even burn your internals.

The trio were unexpectedly caught in this hot water vapor, struggling to breathe. This increased the distance between them and Zhu Furong by a large margin.

Zhu Furong is unknown to the fact that he has just escaped from a peril. If not for the water vapor, he was almost about to be caught by the old man and his group.

The spreading of the water vapor stopped after covering a length of 2500 feet from the mouth of the snake.

5000 feet deeper into the tunnel, Zhu Furong found himself squinting his eyes, looking at a fist sized scorching sun.

It's so bright and hot that Zhu Furong is feeling a burning sensation all over his body even though he is covered in Chaos Qi and standing 10 meters away.

Zhu Xingzuo exclaimed with surprise, "Wow, it's the essence of a sun!"

"So that's why it is so hot, I feel like burning." Zhu Furong wiped his forehead.

"The grade has dropped a lot with time, should be somewhere around grade 6 right now. About 4000°C?"

Zhu Xingzuo clicked his tongue, "To devour a whole sun... I somewhat got the rough estimation of the Imugi's Cultivation rank."

"How high is it? What rank?"

"Er... I can't tell you the name of the Cultivation rank right now, but if I say it's strength was equal to your past life father's, will you understand?"

Zhu Furong's expression instantly fell but then he snorted, "I had never met Ye Wang, so I don't know how strong he was, but I had heard some rumors."

"Sorry, I reminded you of something painful." Zhu Xingzuo apologized.

"It's fine. I have to face it someday anyway. If I can't overcome those painful memories, I will only show weakness when the time comes."

He closed his eyes for a moment and muttered something in desolation.

He breathed out, shook his head and then opened his eyes, all calm and collected.

"Can we take it?" Zhu Furong asked, pointing at the fist sized, orange, glowing ball of fire.

"Take it? If you are thinking of storing it in the Nine-Layers Pagoda, it might work. But unlike the Imugi Core, this one is quite destructive."

"The best way would be to refine it."

"Refine it? Won't it conflict with the Flames of Nirvana? They both are of the same grade, right?"

"It will be 50-50, the stronger one will prevail and the weaker one will be devoured— But no matter which one wins, you will get your hands on a grade 7 fire."

The outcome is quite alluring but to lose the Flames of Nirvana, the only thing left behind by his mother, Zhu Furong cannot accept it.

Zhu Xingzuo knows this and he was just pointing out the facts.

"Don't worry, I have a good solution for this."

"Just absorb the essence of the Sun and slowly refine it. This will take long but your Flames of Nirvana will stay the dominant one."

After that Zhu Xingzuo explained the procedure.

Zhu Furong relaxed, "Thanks— Let's go with that."

Following Zhu Xingzuo's instructions, Zhu Furong carefully wrapped both of his hands around the essence of the sun. He discharged a thin layer of Flames of Nirvana, covering the essence of the sun and slowly started absorbing it. A hair like thin tube of Flames of Nirvana filled with the essence of the sun made its way through Zhu Furong's veins to his Divine Sea.

The Divine Sea is located in the upper dantian, inside the head. It is a place formed after the formation of Nascent Soul.

The formation of Divine Sense is the requirement to reach Divine Transformation rank. The requirement for ascension!

A Divine Sea is like a library holding vast information in the form of memories and the Nascent Soul works as the librarian.

You can say that it is thanks to the Divine Sea that a Cultivator has a very sharp memory. They never forget anything no matter how long the time passes by.

Since Zhu Furong has an imperfect Nascent Soul his Divine Sea is obviously imperfect as well. But it doesn't hinder him from using the abilities which come along with the formation of Divine Sea— Divine Sense is one of those abilities, while having the ability to store Spiritual Artifacts in Divine Sea is another.

...

A small lake-like structure, glowing with a halo of light and at the center of it is floating a bright red flame, under which is an orange flame, burning like a stove. It is the Flames of Nirvana and the Essence of the Sun, respectively.

It took about 30 minutes for Zhu Furong to absorb the Essence of the Sun.

The fist sized ball of fire is now just a pea sized stove of fire, burning under the Flames of Nirvana.

A thin hair like thread of fire is leaking out of the Essence of the Sun and entering the Flames of Nirvana burning above. This is the process of refining. Slow and steady.

"You twerp, you are still alive?"

As Zhu Furong was sitting in a lotus posture he heard the old man shouting from behind.

The old man frowned looking around, "The bones of the dragon are cooling down? Did you do something?"

"Don't tell me you got the core of the dragon or something."

Unlike the blabbering old man the two peak Revolving Core rank Cultivators grabbed their swords as soon as they heard the old man.

'Treasures? Yummy!'

The two men were just waiting for the old man to start the battle and they will jump in to contribute for their share.

Zhu Furong stood up dusting his back.

"As I said before, your eyesight is quite poor, old fool. This isn't the fossil of a dragon but a snake."

"Snake? Bullshit! What snake is so big?"

"Er... Did I also sound like this old fool?"

Zhu Xingzuo laughed, "Yep, you did."

Zhu Furong sighed.

He then held his waist and twisted it.

"May snake!— It's quite big."

"You—"

"Pffft..." At the back, the duo couldn't hold their laughter.

This made the old man even more enraged.

The old man snorted, "Too much trash talking, hand over your Spatial Bag and I may give you a quick death. Don't make this old man torture a young kid."

Ignoring the old man, Zhu Furong is busy chatting with Zhu Xingzuo—

"You sure, we can take on these people? Not to mention the old man, the other two are peak Revolving Core rank Cultivators."

"It would be possible if you take them one at a time. The Essence of the Sun you just absorbed is not refined yet, if you let it go unchecked, it can cause some serious damage—We can use that to our advantage."

"For now create some distance and try to separate them. In the meantime, I will explain the plan."

Zhu Furong slightly nodded, then dashed deeper into the tunnel.

"That bastard, running again." The old man quickly chased.

The duo didn't follow instantly but looked at each other.

"That kid was a peak Foundation Establishment rank Cultivator right?"

The other man nodded, "That's what I am confused about too. What is such a weakling doing here? In the first place, the Gale Desert is only suited for Revolving Core rank Cultivators and above."

"Right! That kid is quite suspicious." The man frowned.

"Let's follow them for now. We can just keep some distance and let the old man do all the work— We are not his lackey anyways."

"True, I doubt we will get anything even if we help the old man."

They both nodded to each other and then followed the old man, maintaining a fixed distance.

...

There is no sandstorm inside the tunnel so Zhu Furong cannot take advantage of vibration here.

Though he still maintained a peak Revolving Core rank Cultivator's speed with the help of Wind Steps, the distance between the old man and him kept decreasing.

The old man frowned, 'Why isn't he using the treasure? Is he planning something? Or does the treasure have some sort of restrictions?'

Filled with doubts, the old man dropped his speed and maintained a fixed distance of 50 meters from Zhu Furong.

Zhu Furong doesn't understand why the old man suddenly dropped his speed but it is good for him nonetheless.

Sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes left, sometimes right. A snake is quite flexible and so is this tunnel formed by its fossil.

After several twists and turns, Zhu Furong reached the end of the tunnel.

...

Standing at the tail of the Imugi, the end of the tunnel, Zhu Furong snorted, "Old man, you are quite persistent."

The old man sneered, "Hehehe, Run! Why don't you run anymore?"

Zhu Furong sighed, "To tell you the truth, I didn't get any treasures in the sandstorm above, but you kept asking me for treasure. Even if I told you, you wouldn't have believed me."

Zhu Furong took out the Imugi Core, gently holding it in his hands, "But after entering this fossil tunnel, I found this treasure, the core of an Imugi, want it?"

"Imugi? What's that?" A bit confused by the name, the old man stared at the Imugi Core and found it quite fascinating.

'Who cares about the name? If it's a treasure I want it.'

Like an idiot, he nodded his head, "Yes, I want it. Give it to me." He reached out his hand.

"Pffft, you really are an old fool."

Zhu Furong put the core back inside the Nine-Layers Pagoda and pulled out a rank 1 sword artifact.

"Before that, check out this treasure." He threw the sword towards the old man.

Without doubting anything the old man reached out for the sword.

Boom!

The sword exploded on his face, leaving him stunned.

After a minute he shouted at the peak of his throat, "You-You Bastaaaard... I will kill you."

No more talks, the old man rushed to Zhu Furong with a sword.

Zhu Furong didn't fluster, and took out several rank 1 artifacts and dumped them in front of him.

He picked one, injected it with the flames from the Essence of the Sun. With the Flames of Nirvana working as a fuse and the Chaos Qi working as a chamber, he threw the artifact at the old man.

Boom!!

Like a bomb, it exploded.

The old man flew back and hit the wall of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, the damage to the old man was minimal.

The old man stood up, dusting his clothes like nothing happened, he licked his lips, "Explosive artifact? You got some nice stuff. Now I want to kill you more and more. After I am done with you, all your belongings will be mine, hehe."

"Before that, make sure to not die in the hands of a Body Cultivator."

"Body Cultivator? What bull—"

Before he could finish his word, another explosion greeted him.

This time the old man dodged and snorted, "The same trick won't work again and again. Who do you take me for? A fool?"

But the wise old man got caught in the next explosion, launching him backwards.

...

We all know where this is going to end. The current Zhu Furong is Lin Kai while the old man is the Cave Crocodile.

Boom! Boom! Bang!

One after another, consecutive blasts kept happening.

After 30 minutes, the old man stood covered in blood.

"You bastard, just how many artifacts do you have? Even the Emperor doesn't have this many in his treasury."

Zhu Furong smiled, "You see, my friend was from a rich background. Before his departure, he left all his wealth to me."

Boom! Bang! Boom!

The explosions are like fireworks, filling Zhu Furong with excitement. His sullen mood has recovered by quite a lot.

The smile on his face is proof of it.

Going on adventures can really heal one's mental health.

...

The bombardment continued until the old man was on his last breath.

The duo which followed, tried to step in a lot of times but the constant rain of explosions pushed them back again and again. In the end they could only watch a peak Foundation Establishment rank Cultivator kill an Open Ascension rank Cultivator.

Truly terrifying!

Zhu Furong slowly walked to the limp old man and slashed his neck with a swift motion. He looted the body and then looked towards the direction of the duo.

Thanks to his improved perception skills, he can always stay vigilant. He wasn't going to repeat the same mistake as Lin Kai.

"Come out! I know you are there." Zhu Furong shouted towards the winding corner.

With a nonchalant expression, the two middle aged men walked out of the corner.

Opposite to their expression, their heart was in turmoil.

'So young but so cruel— Oh god, we are in deep trouble. Even if that old man died, then what are we?'

Both the men lamented their poor luck. But they didn't show any weakness.

Zhu Furong snorted, 'My experience in the martial world is no less than yours, you think your acts can fool me?'

Zhu Furong infused a rank 1 artifact with flame and Qi and threw it a few meters away from the two men.

Boom!

"Ah! Little ancestor, mercy!" Both the men yelped at the same time.

Zhu Furong glared at them, "Make way if you don't want to die. I don't want to kill innocent people. Since you two didn't do anything to me, I will let you go."

Just a farce. In reality, that was the last rank 1 artifact Zhu Furong had left, if he fought these two now, he would have to use some rank 2 artifacts.

With the amount of rank 2 artifacts Zhu Furong have, it won't be anywhere near enough to kill these two. Also, rank 2 artifacts sell well in the lower realm.

Having too much money is never enough.

The fear got the better of the two men and they couldn't see through Zhu Furong's fakery. Without any arguments, they moved aside.

Like a lion, Zhu Furong sauntered by the duo.

After walking for 500 meters or so, he dashed towards the mouth of the tunnel at a max speed.

The dense water vapor has dispersed by now and after the loss of the Essence of the Sun, the tunnel has started cooling rapidly. The brightly illuminated tunnel is almost dark by now.

Within half an hour Zhu Furong was at the mouth of the tunnel. By now the tunnel has gone completely dark due to the absence of the essence of the sun.

"How to get out?"

"Not sure. Maybe swim through the sand?"  Zhu Xingzuo is not sure as well.

Zhu Furong contemplated for a while before coming up with an idea.

"Hey, put a dense protection of Chaos Qi on my feet."

"What?"

Before Zhu Xingzuo could ask 'why', Zhu Furong had already tied a rank 1 artifact under his feet. He plunged into the sand above his head and infused the artifact with the same mixture of  elements to cause an explosion.

"Ah! Wait, Big Brother... Oh shit! I said wait a bit..."

Bang!

Zhu Furong shot out of the quicksand like a bullet and fell on something soft.

"Siiii..." Zhu Furong started blowing on his scorched feet.

"I told you to wait stupid Big Brother, now suffer, humph!"

At least he didn't lose his legs, it's just some burn marks.

Zhu Furong suddenly felt a chill approaching his back and he shot forward like an arrow.

Turning back he saw the airbag he had landed on. It's the remaining member of the Ghost Sect holding a sword.

The man didn't waste any time and dashed, launching Sword Qi strikes at Zhu Furong with all his strength.

"Just when I thought I could lower the supply of Chaos Qi..."

"Fuck!"

Zhu Xingzuo cursed with frustration and maintained the protection cover on Zhu Furong.

The man is just a little bit weaker than Chang Shun, there is no way Zhu Furong can win a head on fight. His only option is to play the same game he played with the old man.

But the problem is that, the rank 1 artifact he used as launching pad was really the last of the rank 1 artifacts. I swear.

Moreover the wind...

The 1700mph wind is blowing at 2200mph right now.

The wind speed doesn't help the situation.

After several clashes, both the men stared at each other, huffing and puffing.

...

Swooosh... Swooosh...

Just like every protagonist has the author helping them, Zhu Furong also got some help.

Several massive tornadoes are approaching this direction from various sides, caging the duo inside.

You can somehow stand against the strong wind with Qi protection, but going against a bunch of tornadoes? That's asking for death. Those tornadoes are definitely swirling at a speed of over 2,200 mph.

Anyways, this sudden occurence of the tornadoes created a chance for Zhu Furong to get out of this situation.

And to take advantage of this situation all Zhu Furong needs are balls of steel. And he got titanium ones.

The man showed a middle finger to the Ghost Sect guy and ran towards the tornadoes.

Behind him a familiar voice sounded.

"Fucking hell! Better go back inside." The two peak Revolving Core rank Cultivators who have just crawled out of the quicksand, dived back into the sand again.

With a frown, the Ghost Sect guy looked at Zhu Furong running towards the deadly tornadoes then looked at the spot the duo vanished. 

His decision was quick as he jumped in the quicksand.