Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-360-2-30041322

Lu Ping was shocked, but he didn’t panic. His divine revelation allowed him to control his true energy with great control, so he swiftly severed his true energy from everything outside of his body, while quickly retreating backwards.

However, it was too late. A heat source appeared within the range of Lu Ping’s divine revelation, heading straight towards him like a hungry beast.

Lu Ping’s expression was grave. There was no point retracting his true energy anymore. He decisively sent out his water-blue true energy again and wrapped it around him.

Although the pure water-element true energy seemed to scare the heat source back, it quickly resumed chasing after Lu Ping relentlessly.

A palm-sized ball of scorching white fire appeared in Lu Ping’s vicinity. It headed towards him with a divine aura that felt like it could actually burn heaven and earth into ashes.

Lu Ping turned solemn. The huge water ball that covered him suddenly splashed onto the fire ball.

Chi—

A large amount of steam was released when the two came into contact. Lu Ping’s true energy water ball was vaporized while the white ball of fire only became slightly weaker. However, shortly after, the fireball actually grew even larger and stronger.

Bizarrely, there still wasn’t a single trace of spiritual energy that emanated from the white fireball. Even Lu Ping’s true energy didn’t break down into spiritual energy like it usually would.

Lu Ping’s expressions changed as he finally thought of something, and exclaimed in shock, "Spirit Fueled Mystical Heavenly Fire!"

As if in response to his proclamation, the white fireball burned brighter, steadily pressing forward like a predator approaching its prey.

The spirit fire flickered a few times before once again lunging at him.

Lu Ping’s expression had been gloomy ever since guessing the identity of the spirit fire. When he saw it approaching him again, he quickly moved back while throwing out two high-grade spirit stones and causing them to explode.

Two massive waves of spiritual energy filled the space between him and the spirit fire, stopping the spirit fire in space for a few moments.

The massive spiritual energy in that area suddenly stopped spreading and shrunk rapidly towards the center where the spirit fire was. Then, the spirit fire fully absorbed the spiritual energy, becoming even larger, and hotter.

In Lu Ping’s divine revelation, the spirit fireball had become livelier!

Lu Ping exhaled deeply. His actions had confirmed his initial guess that the spirit fire was the mid-grade Earth-class spirit fire, Spirit Fueled Mystical Heavenly Fire!

This spirit fire fed on spiritual energy and was often found in spirit veins, feasting on the spirit veins’ spiritual energy in order to maintain its own spirituality.

Although the Spirit Fueled Mystical Heavenly Fire was just a mid-grade Earth-class spirit fire, when it had enough spiritual energy, it could be as strong as high-grade Earth-class spirit fires.

In the cultivation world, everything was about spiritual energy, even cultivators used spiritual energy to cultivate. Hence, it was almost impossible to capture and subdue a spirit fire like this without the right preparations as it could literally feed on everything, including the cultivators’ spells and attacks.

Despite Lu Ping’s pure water-element true energy proving effective against the spirit fire, his true energy wasn’t sufficient at this stage. Clearly, Xuan-Yan wanted to let Lu Ping know his limits and make him leave with nothing.

However, instead of feeling desperate, Lu Ping actually smiled joyfully.

No matter how much Xuan-Yan had calculated, the one thing that he could not control was Lu Ping’s luck.

After confirming that the spirit fire was the Spirit Fueled Mystical Heavenly Fire, Lu Ping stayed on the same spot and patiently waited for it to come to him.

At this time, the spirit fire had grown to the size of a human’s head after absorbing the spirit stones’ spiritual energy, and it was much more powerful than before.

But just as it lunged at him, a ball of black water suddenly appeared in front of Lu Ping.

The spirit fire immediately felt a sense of threat coming from the black water and quickly made a sharp turn in an attempt to distance itself.

Lu Ping wasn’t going to let the chance slip. He just about managed to quickly cast a spell, stretching the black water into a large curtain that contained the spirit fire inside.

Then, the black water gradually shrunk. The trapped spirit fire was shivering timidly, but it didn’t dare to touch the black water.

Seeing that his trick had worked, Lu Ping quickly cast another few hand signs and a stream of the black water impaled the spirit fire. Lu Ping injected his true energy and divine revelation continuously into the spirit fire as he attempted to subdue the spirit fire’s spirituality.

Chi—

Every second, Lu Ping’s true energy was incinerated into pure spiritual energy, while his divine revelation was scorched in pain. But he didn’t give up and continued to search for the spirit fire’s spirituality.

After a while, Lu Ping’s divine revelation finally found the spirituality and he aggressively proceeded to subdue it. Only after doing so did Lu Ping recall the black water.

Then, he checked the depletion of his true energy, and was shocked to find out that the Heaven-class Mystical Heavy Water had consumed more than half of his true energy. Furthermore, if not for Lu Ping having cultivated the [Water Manipulative Art] to the level of a mini divine ability, improving his energy efficiency, the consumption would have been far worse.

A few moments later, the teleportation light door emerged in the basement again. A pale faced Lu Ping feebly walked out of the light door.

Xuan-Dian saw Lu Ping’s feeble state and furtively smiled, "Junior Nephew Xuan-Ping, Senior Brother Xuan-Sen is severely wounded. Teacher has summoned all alchemists to the meeting. As one of the five Master Alchemists, teacher wants you to check on Senior Brother Xuan-Sen’s condition. The situation is not looking good, in the worst case scenario, senior brother could be crippled and lose all of his cultivation base."

The small trace of joy on Xuan-Dian’s face naturally didn’t escape Lu Ping’s eyes. He had clearly thought that Lu Ping had failed to subdue the spirit fire, exiting the spatial dimension in this shabby state. At the same time, Lu Ping also didn’t want to say much about his success, even though the Pavilion of Smithery would soon find out.

Instead, Lu Ping turned serious when he heard that a Late Core Forging Realm junior uncle was ambushed and injured by the monster race. He quickly realized the urgency of the matter, and said, "We shall hurry. Junior Uncle Xuan-Dian, please lead the way."

Junior Martial Uncle Xuan-Sen was in the same generation as the Seven Sages. Although he wasn’t as outstanding as them, he was hardworking and diligent. Over time, he had steadily made his way to the Late Core Forging Realm, becoming a sturdy pillar of the sect.

In the human-monster war, Xuan-Sen had fought back the monster invasions at the northwest medium-sized island that he was stationed on more than one occasion. However, this time he had fallen into a monster ambush. Although he had made it out alive, his injuries were so serious they had impacted his cultivation foundation, pushing it to the verge of collapsing.

On the way to Great Ancestor Tian-Lu’s alchemy room, Xuan-Dian briefed Lu Ping about Xuan-Sen’s condition. Lu Ping frowned deeply. He really didn’t think that his junior martial uncle could fully recover from the injuries.

Great Ancestor Tian-Lu’s alchemy room was situated on a hill behind the Pavilion of Alchemy. The alchemy room was also connected to the Great Ancestor’s residence.

The instant Lu Ping walked into the alchemy room, he felt the same sense of spatial distortion he had felt in Great Ancestor Liu Tian-Ling’s Chong Hua Palace.

As he appeared in the room, more than a dozen gazes looked towards him in unison.

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