Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-581

The moment Tang Jie entered the valley, fire surged up and engulfed him. Even though he had a barrier around him, his body still hissed as it was seared.

The startling waves of heat made it almost impossible for him to breathe, and everywhere he saw dancing flames that narrowed his field of vision. Even with his Celestial Eye, Tang Jie found it difficult to see more than flashing sparks through the flames.

Rivers of lava flowed across the ground, burning everything that could be burned. Tang Jie cautiously made his way through, maintaining his barrier. The barrier was his greatest tool of survival in Holy Fire Valley, and if he lost it, he wouldn't be able to last long against the flames.

In comparison, the original body would have no problem. This was an advantage body cultivation had over law cultivation: the ability to survive in most harsh environments. As for law cultivators, they would need to reach Immortal Platform or enter the Dao of Fire to reach this level.

Stripped of his vision, Tang Jie didn't know when the Blood River Lord would catch up to him.

He could only press forward, deeper and deeper. This also meant that his barrier was tested more and more, so he had no choice but to put in more spiritual energy.

Tutu and Yiyi were soon to break, particularly Yiyi, her face turning bright red. She was a plant sprite, so her greatest fear was fire. It was already quite incredible for her to last this long in the sea of fire. Tang Jie put them in the Mountain River State Diagram and then continued on.

After some time, Tang Jie suddenly stopped.

His input into the spiritual energy barrier now matched his spiritual energy recovery speed. In other words, his spiritual energy consumption and restoration were perfectly balanced.

If he didn't use his energy on anything else, theoretically, he could perpetually maintain the barrier.

For cultivators who entered Holy Fire Valley, this was a standard, a dividing line. Crossing this line meant danger.

Spiritual energy recovery speed depended on the Minor Circuit Heaven, and when one cultivated to a certain level, there was a saying of "one Circuit Heaven a breath". This referred to the way that powerful cultivators could recover a certain amount of spiritual energy with each breath they took.

Although Tang Jie hadn't reached this level, his foundations were extremely solid. His Minor Circuit Heaven's revolution speed had never been slower than that of his peers, and after attaining the Heavenly Spirit Law Body, he was more efficient in both recovery and consumption. This was further boosted by the Ninedark Mantra, meaning that Tang Jie actually wasn't far from reaching the "one Circuit Heaven a breath". And the speed of one's spiritual energy recovery decided how far one could proceed into the valley.

For this reason, Tang Jie had a greater safe distance than the average cultivator, and his safety line was several thousand feet deep into the valley, allowing him to leave the others far behind him.

After a slight pause, Tang Jie continued forward. This battle with the Blood River Lord was starting with a contest of recovery ability. In Holy Fire Valley, the one who could travel the farthest while consuming the least and recovering the fastest would be closer to victory.

Tang Jie naturally wasn't so naive as to believe he could outmatch the Blood River Lord in spiritual recovery.

His foe was at Immortal Platform, and his Minor Circuit Heaven was bound to have reached perfection long ago. In a real contest, he had no chance of winning. But the Blood River Lord had a natural weakness: these four were all avatars!

Since they were avatars, and multiple avatars, there was one thing he was sure about: these four avatars wouldn't be carrying any art relics or pills. Nobody would distribute art relics and pills to ten-some avatars, and he had confirmed this earlier when he had observed that none of them had been carrying Mustard Seed Bags.

Thus, in this first battle, Tang Jie was really competing in logistics!

The Blood River Lord had no logistics!

After finding this weakness, Tang Jie would naturally exploit it.

He wanted to go deeper and deeper until the Blood River Lord couldn't take it anymore, and when most of his power had been used up, he would fight him there.

With this in mind, Tang Jie advanced ever forward.

Tang Jie was now in the middle region of Holy Fire Valley, where the flames licking at his barrier made it flash a rainbow of colors. His spiritual energy was used up faster and faster, and his Spirit Sea roiled as the icebergs melted and spiritual energy flooded out.

Even Tang Jie's sturdy foundation was gradually reaching its limit, and he had no choice but to take out a bottle of spirit-restoring pills from his Mustard Seed Bag and take a pill. Xu Miaoran had made these pills, and as they were one of the most important pills in battle, Xu Miaoran had refined several dozen bottles for him—so many that he didn't have space in the Mustard Seed Bag and had to store some in the Mountain River State Diagram. Tang Jie had only brought them along so that Xu Miaoran would relax, not thinking that he would actually need to use them.

While the flames raged around him, Tang Jie steadily pushed through.

It was only when he came before a fiery cliff that he stopped again. His barrier swelled with even greater light, signifying that the consumption of spiritual energy had reached another level. Here, Tang Jie's recovery speed once more reached a balance with consumption, but this time, it was his recovery speed after he had taken pills.

"About here should be good enough," Tang Jie muttered as he looked around.

In this position, Tang Jie had to take one pill per hour to maintain the balance. This was the safety line he had chosen for himself, and this was already very close to the limit for the vast majority of people, with some weaker cultivators not even being capable of getting this far.

For Tang Jie, this was only a safety line, and when the battle began, he could go deeper at any time.

After setting his safety line, Tang Jie found a place under the cliff to sit. He began to cultivate the spark in his body, absorbing the surrounding flames.

But he quickly discovered that while the spark could absorb the surrounding flames, his spark was too weak to protect him for more than a split second. And trying to strengthen the spark using this place was also difficult, for he had a barrier. This stopped the sea of fire from hurting him, but it also separated the spark from the fire, making the process of absorption extremely difficult.

"As expected, it's still no good," Tang Jie sighed.

As he was sighing, Tang Jie noticed something sparkling at the base of the cliff.

He reached into the searing lava and picked out a fiery-red crystal. "Oh, a fire crystal."

The glistening fire crystal seemed to have lava flowing within it. He knew at a glance that it was an upper-grade fire crystal, perfect for cultivating Fire-type techniques or laying down Fire-type formations.

"Not bad, not bad." Tang Jie nodded. He looked around and found several more fire crystals.

The savage flames of Holy Fire Valley meant that very few people ever got this far, so the farther one went in, the more treasures there were. As for the outer edge, since it was easier to enter, it had basically been picked clean of treasures.

After getting the fire crystals, Tang Jie sat down and began to cultivate the Contraflame Mantra, attempting to absorb the energy within a fire crystal using his spark.

Without the interference of the barrier, the spark pulled out the Fire energy very easily, and the energy within the crystal was naturally easier to extract and refine than the free energy of the surroundings, so the spark was able to quickly drain the crystal. After being drained, the fire crystal became a pale white while Tang Jie's spark became ever brighter.

In the past, the spark was just a ball of flame floating above the Spirit Sea, but now, it appeared like a cloud.

Tang Jie was delighted to see that this had worked, and he quickly grabbed another crystal. With each successive fire crystal, the spark in his Spirit Sea condensed more and more.

It began to transform, the flames forming a framework of a prismatic crystal within which lava flowed. It seemed a little like a special form of a fire crystal.

Tang Jie saw what was happening in his Spirit Sea using inner sight and knew that this was a spark's nascent form.

Tang Jie immediately chose to absorb the rest of the Glaze Flame.

He did it not sliver by sliver, but the rest of the Glaze Flame all at once, like a drunkard guzzling down alcohol. Tang Jie felt his body heat up as if something was roasting him, and his head felt a little dizzy. Tang Jie knew that this was a sign of excess Fire energy, but this feeling was exactly what he wanted, what was needed to sublimate the spark.

A moment later, a storm swept through the Spirit Sea.

A blazing sun rose over the raging ocean, floating between the blood cloud and the waves, exuding endless light and heat.

The spark had been formed!

As the spark was completed, Tang Jie's body began to give off a red glow. Because of his barrier, Tang Jie appeared like a giant lightbulb.

Seeing this, Tang Jie realized something and removed his barrier.

The moment the barrier was removed, the sea of flames rushed in. Just when it was about to consume Tang Jie, the red glow around him erupted, and the flames rushed into his body, into the spark in his Spirit Sea.

The spark greedily absorbed the flames, constantly giving off light and heat.

It seemed more and more like a sun.

Thus, a wondrous sight appeared in Holy Fire Valley: Tang Jie standing in a sea of flames that rushed toward him, but rather than burning him, they constantly entered his body like he was a black hole.

After a long while, Tang Jie felt a sense of fullness and knew that the spark had eaten its fill. He put the barrier back up, keeping out the flames once more.

After absorbing the flames, the spark stopped giving off light and heat, falling silent.

Tang Jie knew that the spark was digesting the flames to prepare for its second transformation.

The spark existed to constantly transform and devour flames. Each devouring was for the sake of transforming and accumulating power, and each transformation would grant it more ability to devour. The two of them formed an endless cycle.

After the first devouring, he could use the spark to unleash flames to attack the enemy, just like Zuo Quanming.

But Tang Jie felt like this was a great waste.

The one thing Holy Fire Valley didn't lack was flames. He wanted to use this opportunity to quickly nurture the spark, which was the only way he could deal with the Celestial Flame Pagoda after he left the Treasure Paradise—there was a price to be paid for selling him out.

Of course, he first had to resolve the problem in front of him.

He smiled.

He suddenly shouted, "I'm here waiting for you. Come here if you have the guts!"

"Come here if you have the guts…"

"Have the guts…"

"The guts…"

His arrogant cry resounded through the valley.

At that moment, the Blood River Lord and tiger fiend both looked over with murder in their eyes.