Chapter 990 – Hell of Fire
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As the blue-clothed man spoke, several Firebird Hall disciples carefully flew out from range of the spirit ship’s protective array formation. They desperately urged their protective true essence to the limit, but in the violent fire origin energy, their protective true essence shook and creaked, seeming like a bubble that could burst apart at any moment.
They all had Life Destruction realm cultivations; there was not a single Divine Sea martial artist among them.
This was because besides Phoenix Hall, all three other halls only had rookie disciples attending the Ancient Phoenix smelting trial. The senior disciples no longer had any value in raising, and all junior disciples were required to be younger than 33. In the Divine Realm, a martial artist could be considered the cream of the crop if they could cultivate to the early Divine Sea by the age of 33. In Phoenix Cry Palace, nearly all of these disciples were gathered at Phoenix Hall. All other hall disciples were at the eighth stage of Life Destruction or below.
In fact, most Firebird Hall disciples didn’t even have the ability to step into the eighth stage of Life Destruction; it was already excellent if they stepped into the Divine Sea with a seventh stage Life Destruction cultivation. If they didn’t have some great lucky chance, it’d simply be impossible for them to reach Divine Transformation. However, the Firebird Hall disciples that were here all passed the qualification test and they could be considered the highest percentile of the elites. It wouldn’t be an issue for them to reach the eighth stage of Life Destruction, but they were still far from reaching the ninth stage.
Elder Sun frowned as he saw these junior disciples that couldn’t even stand steady. In this state, they could barely survive on Fire Spirit Star, so how could they possibly gain experience?
This time it wasn’t just disciples of Phoenix Cry Palace that had come to gain experience, but also those from Praying Phoenix Palace and Charming Phoenix Palace. If the disciples in a group performed poorly, the leader would also lose a great deal of face. Elder Sun would inevitably be ridiculed by his old friends at Praying Phoenix Palace and Charming Phoenix Palace.
Afterward, disciples of Golden Crow Hall and Vermillion Bird Hall began to leave the spirit ship one after another. The Golden Crow Hall disciples weren’t much stronger than those of Firebird Hall. Most of them barely made it through the qualifications test after experiencing the fierce competition.
As for Vermillion Bird Hall, they had many masters. These were the outstanding individuals of Vermillion Bird Hall and they easily passed the qualification test. In terms of quality they were only inferior to the disciples of Phoenix Hall. They flew into the strong heavenly wind. Although their protective true essence violently fluctuated, their postures were still stable. The strong heavenly wind didn’t impact their bodies in the least. This signified that their foundations were far superior to those of Firebird Hall.
However, Elder Sun’s face was still ugly. In his eyes, these people barely passed and would only complete the lowest level content in the smelting trial. They were all disgraces!
This was until a red armored young man flew into the strong heavenly wind of fire origin energy. His body was like a fish as he casually flew through the skies without any hindrance. All of the fire origin energy heavenly wind blew around his body and was instantly deflected by his formidable protective true essence, unable to approach four feet near him.
Elder Sun’s eyebrows arched up. He looked at the red armored youth for a brief moment, then asked, “Who’s that?”
“Reporting to Vice Palace Master Sun, that person is named Zhou Fei. He comes from Firebird Hall and obtained first place in the smelting trial qualifications competition!”
“Oh? Someone from Firebird Hall can actually obtain first place in the smelting trial qualification test? Not bad. With this ability he is eligible to enter Phoenix Hall.” Elder Sun slowly nodded, exposing the tiniest of rare smiles.
For a time, Zhou Fei was the focus of everyone’s attention. Many Phoenix Hall disciples also asked where he came from. To Zhou Fei, this was an extremely enjoyable feeling. As he turned to look back at the disciples of Phoenix Hall, wanting to see just what degree of excellence they could achieve.
“That boy’s quite the crazy one. His eyes are telling me he wants to compare with us. Hey little eighth stage Life Destruction brat, you’re still far from capable.”
An early Divine Sea junior disciple faintly smiled. Only Phoenix Hall had Divine Sea junior disciples.
“Come on, let’s go.”
Several Divine Sea disciples flew off the spirit ship.
Hu! Hu! Hu!
A savage and violent fire origin energy heavenly wind blew against them. Several Divine Sea realm disciples suddenly condensed their protective true essence, forming a protective barrier. The turbulent heavenly wind violently clashed with the protective barrier and was bounced back, colliding with the incoming heavenly wind. This caused all the strong heavenly wind to be unable to approach within five feet of them.
A five feet distance was superior to Zhou Fei’s four feet distance.
However, these people were older than Zhou Fei. The disparity in comparing a Divine Sea martial artist and an eighth stage Life Destruction martial artist was obvious. This proved that the talent of these Divine Sea martial artists was inferior to Zhou Fei’s.
Zhou Fei faintly smiled. His eyes turned to the others. Those people weren’t able to qualify as rivals in his eyes. He waited to see if there were any fiercer disciples from Phoenix Hall.
After the Divine Sea realm disciples passed, several more Phoenix Hall disciples followed after them. They also had decent performances. They were able to reflect the fire origin energy heavenly wind of Fire Spirit Star several feet away, but even though their performance was better than Zhou Fei, they were also older than him. If they were the same age as Zhou Fei, they would’ve been faintly inferior to him.
Zhou Fei’s smile became increasingly bright. At this time, Zhou Fei’s eyebrows shot up.
“Mm? Huo Yanguang! Good, I want to see just how far you can deflect this fire origin energy heavenly wind!”
Zhou Fei wanted to use Huo Yanguang to estimate Lin Ming’s strength. When Lin Ming fought Huo Yanguang the battle didn’t last long, but Lin Ming still used his full strength to defeat Huo Yanguang. If he could understand Huo Yanguang’s strength, then he could also understand Lin Ming’s strength.
From above the spirit ship, a red haired man silently flew down. His expression was indifferent and he was casually floating down, but wherever he went, all of the fire origin energy would be sliced apart by his protective true essence, forming beautiful patterns like ripples in water.
Huo Yanguang didn’t even use his protective true essence to deflect the strong heavenly wind. In his mind, there was simply no meaning to this. With his four layered heavens ninth stage Life Destruction cultivation, he had lost to Lin Ming. If he competed with these martial artists who were competing with all their effort to see who could deflect the heavenly wind further, wouldn’t he just be a joke?
In Phoenix Hall, his only rival was Lin Ming. He simply didn’t have any interest in competing with anyone else.
In fact, after losing to Lin Ming, Huo Yanguang became a completely different person. He no longer attended any meetings with the juniors of other noble families, but spent most of his time in seclusion, diligently cultivating, withdrawn and indifferent to everything else. Originally, Huo Yanguang should’ve been punished by his family clan due to the seriousness of his loss, and the resources he owed were impossible for him to pay off by himself. However, his uncle had taken responsibility for his loss and had received the blame in his stead. His uncle was willing to repay the phoenix plume blood for him, but Huo Yanguang had rejected his good intentions. His uncle even wanted to compensate him with some high-grade saint artifacts but this was also similarly rejected. To Huo Yanguang’s uncle, several high-grade saint artifacts wasn’t considered anything at all.
This was because Huo Yanguang wanted to depend on himself to repay his own debt.
From start to finish, Huo Yanguang only diverted the heavenly wind around him, appearing extremely calm and natural the entire time. Although this seemed simple, the truth was that it wasn’t simple at all. Just this calmness was something the average person could not hope to achieve.
Huo Yanguang arrived like this in the crowd of people, his expression staying indifferent throughout.
“This Huo Yanguang is indeed formidable. He didn’t even drive his protective true essence and yet he could descend so calmly.” Zhou Fei took a deep breath. He was not afraid of a strong rival, because the stronger a rival was, the more it would arouse his fighting spirit.
Zhou Fei’s eyes turned to Lin Ming. He wanted to see just what Lin Ming would do.
But before Lin Ming could fly down, several white-clothed men flew down from the spirit ship, laughing and conversing with each other. These people were all Ninefall Divine Transformation disciples that were led by White Daohong. They were the most outstanding individuals of Phoenix Hall and were characters that would at least become an Elder in the future.
These people didn’t even raise their protective true essence nor did they reflect the strong heavenly wind. Instead, they flew directly into it. As the fire origin energy heavenly wind blew onto their bodies, this heavenly wind was actually absorbed by them!
Especially White Daohong. Around him, all of the originally crazy and violent fire origin energy suddenly became gentle and submissive. There was even a faint feeling of the energy around him worshipping him. This scene shocked all the surrounding disciples!
Things could even be done this way!?
The Phoenix Hall disciples had been comparing with Zhou Fei to see who could deflect the strong heavenly wind further. But now, compared with White Daohong, it seemed that all of their actions were as laughable as children trying to compete with an adult.
“Senior-apprentice Brother White Daohong can actually reach such a degree!”
“This is too fierce. The violent fire origin energy heavenly wind that is fatal to us, is actually like ordinary fire origin energy to them. They can even absorb it into their bodies. Just how high has their comprehension of the Fire Laws reached?”
“The difference is too great!”
The surrounding disciples from the four halls looked at White Daohong with awe and reverence in their hearts. To them, this fire origin energy heavenly wind was the same as lava to a common mortal. They had to carefully avoid it. But White Daohong was able to directly bathe in the lava; they were on two different levels altogether.
Even Lin Ming was staring intently towards White Daohong. In his field of vision, White Daohong had already disappeared. What he was paying attention to was the points where the fire origin energy heavenly wind flowed and changed. Every single line produced a clear image that reflected in Lin Ming’s immense spiritual sea whereupon it was carefully analyzed by him.
With his current perception along with the support of the saint artifact bracer, he was able to quickly discern the circulating laws of the fire origin energy from their patterns.
“This is the Concept of Creation, the reverse side of the Concept of Annihilation. They use the Concept of Creation to resolve the destructive power of the fire origin energy and diminish it, converting it to a gently fire energy they can absorb. To think that you can actually use the Concept of Creation like this!”
In that moment, Lin Ming could feel the thoughts of Concept of Creation that were lingering in his mind for the past six months suddenly touch upon something, as if he had spontaneously been enlightened on a truth.
After contemplating on the jade slip left behind by Fairy Feng and accumulating a massive amount of understandings, the final finishing touch was added on today as he suddenly obtained mastery. Lin Ming could feel at that moment he comprehended a trace of the Concept of Creation’s essence. He impatiently wanted to take advantage of this time to verify his own comprehensions.
His figure moved and he flew off the spirit ship. He didn’t summon his protective true essence at all, and only relied on his mortal body to rush into that turbulent fire origin energy heavenly wind.
“What is Lin Ming planning on doing? He hasn’t used any protective true essence at all? Does he want to be the same as Senior-apprentice Brother White?” Several junior disciples were dumbfounded by this scene.