232 The Earth Realm

Inside the dune.

Shi Yan's entire body was glowing like a crystal as his tendons and vessels had been overwhelmed with the bountiful Profound Qi, making his vessels sleek and smooth. Consequently, the veins in his body were developing. They enlarged and obtained great tenacity.

The running speed of his Profound Qi was getting faster while Profound Qi flows kept moving non-stop then branched forth, pouring into the blinding rays of the Profound Qi halo.

The Profound Qi's halo on his lower abdomen was compressed unceasingly and refined. It had propelled the stored energy inside the halo, increasing it, and resulted in his strange power developing further.

The fantastic strength that was released from his meridians then promoted the Profound Qi halo’s miraculous effect. Thanks to this mysterious effect, the Profound Qi halo kept condensing and refining nonstop. And, it didn't seem to stop although it had already tripled in size.

As the vessels had been enlarged and hardened, Shi Yan's body seemed to swell up while he was swarmed by heavy sensations of pain. However, the pain that ensued from his swelling was nothing compared to the previous hardships of his martial arts cultivation.

Shi Yan held his breath as he was initiating the realm while his entire body and mind were concentrating on the process in which the Profound Qi halo was transforming his body.

"Ah!" said the Ice Cold Flame, as it suddenly sent out a message from the Blood Vein Ring, "Are you going to break through the Earth Realm?"

"Yes, I am."

"Very good…very good..!" the Ice Cold Flame said with a wicked tone, "You have already obtained another Flame. If you use the burning fires of the Earth Flame to temper your vessels during your cultivation, your vessels will be more tenacious and resilient. As long as you can withstand this arduous cultivation, the circulation speed of the Profound Qi in your vessels will be much stronger than that of the other ordinary Earth Realm warriors that have been trained with the same martial techniques. Naturally, it means you will be quicker than them when performing such techniques,… what do you think?"

Shi Yan’s eyes had suddenly brightened as he exclaimed, "Not a problem at all. I'll call the Earth Flame now. You won't have to do anything this time. Anyway, you are in the confinement area of the Blood Vein Ring, and the communication between the Earth Flame and me is no longer difficult."

"That’s good since I can’t use my strength. Either way for now I will not be able to help you. Alright, after using the Earth Flame's power to temper your body, you still have to be cautious and try not to be too harsh because the Earth Flame's now equivalent to the other Heaven Flames; its heating power can easily burn you down. Remember carefully: You have to carry on just one step at a time."

"Got it."

Shi Yan then moved his Soul Consciousness from the Ice Cold Flame to the Ten Thousand Year Earth Flame's direction in the Blood Vein Ring, sending a clear message that he wanted to ask for the support using its heating power to temper his body.

The Earth Flame could not send him a message, but it still showed its excitement and joy. As soon as the Earth Flame showed him its emotions, Shi Yan immediately realized many scorching energy fibers had shot out from the Blood Vein Ring. Flames were now running along his finger toward the vessels in his body.

The torment of being burned by the fiery flame had been spreading all over his body. His once comfortable face now became fierce.

He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath before urging the power of the burning flame to disperse the heating power into his vessels. Right after the Earth Flame's burning fires had thoroughly penetrated into his vessels, the once bright translucent vessels were now turned into the brilliant color of a fire crystal.

At the same time, when the Earth Flame's power had seeped into his body, tiny dots of black impurities were instantly incinerated into ashes, and then expelled through his pores.

Absorbing a few impurities was inevitable when his vessels were developing. Although the existence of contaminants would have certainly affected the resilience and tenaciousness of his tendons and vessels, after breaking through the Earth Realm warriors would usually be so overwhelmed with joy that most of the time they wouldn't have noticed these contaminants.

Even though they had known that the impurities would be generated while their vessels were developed, they had no solutions to avoid it.

However, these peculiar body refining martial techniques could have easily taken advantage of the Heaven Flame's power to purify all the contaminants left in Shi Yan's body. At the same time, it would enhance his vessels' resilience.

Anyway, the techniques of the body refining martial techniques were initially used to temper magical weapons, since each magical weapon needed to have gone through thousands of tempering and purification processes for the purities to be removed. After that, these weapons would dominate the battlefield without being defeated by other superior weapons.

"Alright," as the Earth Flame was pouring more scorching forces into his body, Shi Yan could feel that even his vessels would have burned down if this continued. He hastily sent a message to ask the Earth Flame to stop. Thus, the sweltering power of the fiery flame of the Earth Flame was ceased quietly.

Exhaling in relief, Shi Yan stopped thinking and then put his mind into the ethereal state, and sustained his restful mind, while suffering the pain from the heat moving inside his vessels. He cautiously gritted his teeth.

He gradually relaxed and enlarged his vessels to receive many streams of Profound Qi massively flowing into his vessels like surging tides. After a while, his vessels had quietly absorbed a lot of the Profound Qi, which resulted in the decrease of the Profound Qi that were now moving inside the vessels.

The Profound Qi also blended with the strange energy that had been refined by his Mystery Martial Spirit. This energy seeped deeply into Shi Yan's vessels, amending and soothing his painfully cracked vessels a little bit.

He could feel this strange energy's existence which seemed to make his vessels sturdy and tenacious. As long as these mysterious energies ran inside his vessels, he instantly felt a miraculous fantasy that his vessels would never break.

The Mystery Martial Spirit was marvelous, indeed.

Time passed by quickly.

After an unknown duration of time, his vessels had stopped enlarging. At this moment, they were like a fire crystal that flared up the heart-stirring glowing red light. When the power of the fiery flame gradually vanished and the red light also faded away, his vessels were finally recovered. Little by little, they regained their normal state.

The Profound Qi halo on his belly shrank to peach-sized, radiating sparkling light which contained powerful energy fluctuations.

After going through this refinement, his Profound Qi had been increased five times more than before.

Shi Yan's mind flickered as the Profound Qi was suddenly poured into his vessels, inducing its moving speed to be tripled. The vessels' capacity that carried the Profound Qi had also increased significantly.

Shi Yan then comfortably released a Life Seal.

The handprint was sparkling with seven beams of light. It was now big as a basin compared to the previous palm-sized seal. He suddenly launched the strike, shooting over his head.

As soon as the Life Seal was released, it pierced through the ten-meter-tall dune above his head like a magical weapon, breaking the dune, opening up to the glowing red sky outside.

The sky was as red as fire. It was burning hot. Everything stayed the same.

Shi Yan beamed a faint smile as the vessels on his feet suddenly produced an explosive sound. His body then instantly moved like lightning, soaring aloft.

Standing on the dune, scooping down at the sand crater, Shi Yan saw his illusory figure had gradually disappeared.

After breaking through with the power of the Earth Flame, the speed of his martial technique performance was several times faster. His strength also skyrocket as well.

Previously, he hadn’t been skillful in changing the phantoms. However, as he had just reached the Earth Realm, he could now arbitrarily perform it.

Facing up to the sky, Shi Yan gradually restrained his joy as he then searched inside the Blood Vein Ring for a while before taking out the Sound Stone. He then tried to contact Yang Mu's group.

However, there was no response after his voice had been transmitted into the Sound Stone. It seemed that the Sound Stone wasn’t working anymore.

Shi Yan's face became grave while he knitted his eyebrows tightly. He then tried again to transmit his voice into the Sound Stone, with the hope again for a response to come out. Regretfully, it was unknown whether because of the situation or other reasons that the Sound Stone didn't have any reactions.

Eventually, Shi Yan had to accept that he had lost contact with the Yang family’s people.

In the vast Chasm Battlefield, being an outsider, coupled together without the Sound Stone's communication, he had no way to find Yang Mu's group. In this immense desert, his Soul Consciousness couldn't detect any living fluctuations. There was neither sun, nor moon, nor stars in this place. He couldn't find the direction to move forward, didn't know where the road ahead led him to.

Shi Yan suddenly felt a little confused.

A small crimson red flame was quietly flying out of the Blood Vein Ring, gathering on his chest, dancing and jumping joyfully.

"You're going out again?" Shi Yan forced a smile and temporarily forgot his distressed matter of the unknown directions. He then used his Soul Consciousness to send a message to ask with excitement. "So? Do you know the direction? Hmm, I still don't know which way to go. If you have any suggestion, I'll follow you."

The Ten Thousand Year Earth Flame flickered beautifully in the air like a fire wizard and then concernedly retrieved most of its flame power to reduce the heat that Shi Yan was unlikely to endure.

Receiving Shi Yan's message, the Ten Thousand Year Earth Flame didn't waste more time and proactively led the way.

Without the sun, the moon, and the stars, Shi Yan couldn't identify the direction, though he just vaguely felt the direction that the Earth Flame was heading towards was the hottest place in the desert.

"Okay. I'm going with you." Shi Yan beamed a smile and nodded. He joyfully followed the Earth Flame, heading with it towards the direction that it was leading him without overthinking.

It was still early anyway, and even if he had to stay in this Chasm Battlefield for three more years, temporarily losing his direction was not a terrible thing. Thus, he was not too anxious.

…

Under the red fire sky.

In this endless desert, many beams of light flashed up in different areas at the same time.

Besides Shi Yan, the group of Cao Zhi Lan, Pan Zhe, Gu Ling Lung, Xie Kui, Qu Yan Qing, He Qing Man, and almost a hundred of the other warriors that had also arrived at this desert. Although they had entered that Ancient Formation as a group, for some reason, they had been transported to different areas.

Pan Zhe, Cao Zhi Lan, and more than ten other warriors who didn't belong to their group had been teleported to the same area. Meanwhile, Gu Ling Lung and Qu Yan Qing had been transferred to another different area. Xie Kui and He Qing Man, who were always together, had appeared in two different but close areas; they then quickly found each other.

Many of the Earth Realm warriors, who had also been scattered in different regions of this immense desert, were mentally fatigued since they couldn't identify their coordinates because they didn't see the sun, the moon, or the stars.

Like Shi Yan, those who had arrived at this strange space couldn't use the Sound Stone to contact anyone. In this place, the sensibility of the Soul Consciousness was dramatically weakened.

Once falling into this place as well as being unlikely to find the other companions, when the warriors realized that both the Sound Stone and the sensing power was of no use, they were all in a daze like Shi Yan. They didn't know which direction or where to go first in this boundless desert.

The feeling of losing their purpose had dispirited them severely.

Arriving at this place, as those pursuers all realized that it was tough to find their target as well as the way to go back, they all had a toneless look on their faces.