Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

Long Chen examined the jade bottle in his hand. Inside was a ball of liquid, yet it released a scorching heat.

He knew that this ball of warm liquid was the beast flame. That was the essence of a Magical Beast’s flame. 

Beast flames were exceptionally precious. A beast flame was equivalent to a Magical Beast’s life, and only second rank or higher Magical Beasts had the ability to nourish a beast flame.

Long Chen used his divine sense to examine the beast flame. The flame element inside was extremely dense, and according to Long Chen’s memories, this beast flame was probably from a peak second rank Magical Beast. It was no wonder Wei Cang’s expression had been so extremely ugly when he had handed over the beast flame.

His Pill Flame spread and enveloped his whole body. Opening the jade bottle, he swallowed the ball of beast flame essence.

BOOM!

When Long Chen swallowed it, its original appearance of a ball of liquid changed. It went from being as gentle as a rabbit to a berserk beast.

A beast flame was a Magical Beast’s life essence. It contained the berserk nature of the Magical Beast, and for a normal pill cultivator to force it to surrender required a great deal of time to grind down the berserk willpower.

Only when that berserk willpower was ground down could you use your Pill Flame to join with the beast flame and slowly make it give up its resistance, gradually refining it one step at a time.

But Long Chen wasn’t the same. The battle today had made him disclose every single one of his hidden trump cards in order to come out on top. He needed some stronger ones to protect his life.

Xia Changfeng had lost his most trusted lieutenant, and Wei Cang had lost his beast flame. They wouldn’t take that lying down.

The only person who Long Chen could rely on in the imperial capital was grandmaster Yun Qi, but as the chairman of the alchemist guild, he couldn’t interfere directly with the empire’s struggles.

Unless Long Chen completely gave himself to the guild and no longer participated in the empire’s affairs, Yun Qi wouldn’t be able to do anything. But after being repressed for so many years, how could Long Chen be willing to give up on finding out who was the villain hiding the shadows that had tormented him for so long?

And how could he possibly abandon Chu Yao? Chu Yao had also endured such bitter experiences, making him think of his own troubles. Was the person who had secretly schemed against Chu Yao also the one who had stolen his Spirit Root?

Before everything became clear, Long Chen couldn’t give her or his own enmity up. He couldn’t just swallow this hatred. So, his time was extremely limited, and he could only use the most violent and direct method to refine the beast flame.

BOOM! Another explosion came from within Long Chen’s body. After the beast flame entered his stomach, it transformed into the shape of a vicious leopard’s head that was fighting as hard as it could. A terrifyingly high temperature almost burned Long Chen to a crisp.

When beast flames were extracted, they shouldn’t be suppressed. Doing so would weaken them, causing their quality to decline.

Long Chen was now basically facing a peak second rank Magical Beast flame’s roasting. The berserk energy caused Long Chen to spit out blood.

As soon as that blood was spat out, it turned to vapor. Long Chen’s body had already been turned into a burning stove.

“Hmph, a small second rank Magical Beast also dares to resist me?”

Long Chen snorted and his FengFu Star activated; the seven cyclones revolved wildly, and his entire flame energy was like a giant net that forcefully enveloped the ball of beast flame.

That beast flame now entered its most violent state, but Long Chen’s Pill Flame ended up becoming incomparably firm and forceful with the support of the FengFu Star and the larger seven cyclones.

In the beginning, that beast flame was capable of dashing around, but in just a few breaths’ time, it became just like a captured beast, and no matter how it struggled, it was useless.

After all, that ball of beast flame didn’t have any further energy as support. Under Long Chen’s full effort, its violent aura was gradually eroded and it slowly calmed down.

Although Long Chen had already anticipated this result, he still sighed a breath of relief. His clothes were now drenched with sweat.

At this time, he felt as if his personality was split. Part of him was filled with contempt for this beast flame; the other part of him greatly looked forward to it. One side was happy, while the other felt disdain.

Long Chen bitterly laughed. He knew that he had fused with a Pill Sovereign’s soul, and naturally, that Pill Sovereign looked down on such a beast flame.

But it was what he needed urgently. This beast flame was the first step on his pill path.

Under Long Chen’s continuous refining, the beast flame gradually became completely calm, as calm as a ball of water. It was extremely docile now that it was completely purified, its berserk nature all refined away.

An ordinary pill cultivator’s first flame was actually created by using the Dantian’s spiritual qi to follow specific paths and be released outside as a high temperature.

Such a flame was more accurately a kind of hot gas. Only those who could form this gas had the potential to be pill cultivators.

Less than one in a thousand people could do this, so pill cultivators were extremely rare. But some people had a special Dantian that already possessed a trace of flame energy. Through training, it could be condensed into a Pill Flame. That was a true Pill Flame.

But such people weren’t one in a thousand, but less than one in a million. So amongst pill cultivators, most of them were like Long Chen, and for them to advance, it required refining a beast flame as a start.

Even so, beast flames were extremely precious and could not be measured in terms of just gold coins. Perhaps in all of Phoenix Cry, only Yun Qi possessed a beast flame.

Slowly withdrawing his flames back into his body, Long Chen examined the ball of beast flame that was now docile in his body and couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed.

When most pill cultivators finished refining a beast flame, they would let it merge into their Dantian and use the beast flame as their only cultivation path.

But Long Chen couldn’t do so. For one thing, the main source of his spiritual qi was not in his Dantian but his FengFu Star.

Furthermore, he cultivated in the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, and this technique was extremely mysterious and powerful. It allowed him to fight people several levels above him. There was no way he could give it up to only follow pill cultivation.

“I’ve got it!” Long Chen suddenly thought of an idea and placed the beast flame into his Dantian, using the seven cyclones to slowly envelop it.

“Let’s try it out.”

Taking a deep breath, he started a very audacious test. He used his cyclones to slowly absorb the beast flame.

That beast flame didn’t have any resistance to the absorption. Following Long Chen’s orders, it dissolved into the meridians all around his body.

This was merging the flame; dissolve the beast flame, and send it throughout the entire body. This was the best way for him to become familiar with the beast flame and gain greater control.

Since it had already been completely refined, this process occurred extremely easily. Just like that, the beast flame dispersed throughout his meridians.

This method of his had definitely never been used before. Even in his Pill Sovereign memories, there was no mention of such a thing.

After dissolving the beast flame throughout his meridians, Long Chen was pleasantly surprised to find that his meridians had actually become a bit wider.

That additional widening could not be underestimated. Each meridian was like a canal. The wider the canal was, the greater the amount of spiritual qi it could support during battle, allowing you to explode with greater power.

The Dantian could be likened to a lake while the meridians would be the channels. During a battle, you needed to draw the lake’s water throughout the channels before converging them back together. This was also how Battle Skills could be so explosive.

But the more powerful the Battle Skill, the greater the amount of energy required. If the channels’ capacities were insufficient, they would burst. Without even harming your enemy, your meridians would break down.

That was also why he was still unable to use Split the Heavens despite having figured out how to. It was because his meridians weren’t wide enough.

His test today almost made him jump with excitement. He now used his own meridians as carriers to nourish the beast flame, the two of them complementing and assisting each other. 

As he cultivated and became stronger, his meridians would be constantly enlarged by the beast flame. Long Chen had truly profited this time.

Although other pill cultivators who brought the beast flame to the Dantian would be able to cultivate quicker, that wasn’t even comparable to the benefit of having wider meridians.

“Okay, I still have to see whether this is all good or bad.”

Taking a deep breath and praying inside, he slowly collected the beast flame that had merged into his meridians back into his Dantian.

A flame appeared in the middle of his palm. It had a light red color, and as soon as it appeared, it caused the air around it to twist.

He nodded pleased. It already had this much strength just after refining it. It truly was worthy of being a beast flame; it was many times stronger than his original flame.

Hesitating for a moment, he gritted his teeth and slowly circulated a small strand of spiritual qi from his FengFu Star to his cyclones.

The slowly revolving cyclones immediately grew larger and began to wildly spin.

“I wonder if this will work…”

Long Chen was worriedly looking at the flame in his hand. He was extremely nervous about this experiment.

But he still decided to carry it out. He sent those seven cyclones’ energy to the ball of flame that he had condensed.

Long Chen felt his body jolt as if it were about to explode. The blaze in his hand that was originally one foot long immediately grew to ten feet.

“Crap!”

Alarmed, Long Chen hastily took back the flame.

That eruption of his Pill Flame immediately scorched the roof.

Flapping his hand, he created a wind to put out the flame. But although the flame was extinguished, the entire roof was also sent flying.

Looking up at the three-sixty panoramic view he had of the starry sky, Long Chen felt the urge to cry. Almost as soon as he had come to a friend’s house, he had ended up not burning the house down, but actually tearing it apart! That wasn’t good…

As expected, footsteps came running as the people from the Shi household were all alarmed. Even someone deaf would have been awoken from the clamor.

Seeing Long Chen’s embarrassed face, Shi Feng’s father covered up his shock and smiled. Without saying anything to him, he told someone to prepare a new room for him.

Long Chen wanted to say something, but Shi Feng’s father just patted him on the shoulder and laughed, “You and Shi Feng are brothers, so just treat this place like your own home.”

After a new room was arranged for him, Long Chen didn’t dare further experiment with anything he didn’t understand. Sitting on the bed, he started to use his cyclones to absorb the world’s spiritual qi, sending it into his FengFu Star.

The next day before the sun had even arisen, Long Chen’s body suddenly emitted an explosive sound.

Long Chen slowly opened his eyes happily. After his battle with Huang Chang, the next bottleneck had slackened, allowing him now to reach the eighth Heavenstage of Qi Condensation. 

He ate breakfast and examined Shi Feng. He saw that Shi Feng didn’t have any serious sequelae and left two medicinal pills for him. After that, Long Chen left the Shi household and went directly to the alchemist guild.