What does my ancestor's pregnancy have to do with me, a mere servant?

The cracks in the ground are widening.

That viscous, mercury-like, pure black aura silently seeped from the cracks in the rocks, spreading rapidly along the cave floor. Wherever it passed, a layer of jet-black ice crystals condensed on the hard rock surface, and the temperature dropped drastically.

Lin Feilu drew spiritual light over his entire body to resist the pervasive chill.

"Retreat?" She looked at Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan's gaze was fixed on the widest crack in the ground.

Ordinary Yin energy is a purplish-black mist, diffused and disorderly. But the trajectory of this pure black Yin energy flow underfoot is extremely regular—it is not seeping in aimlessly, but spreading outward from a certain point.

Lin Yuan squatted down, placing his palms on the cold ground.

The extreme cold pierced his meridians through his palms, but his expression remained unchanged. In his mind, however, he was rapidly flipping through the miscellaneous books he had read so many times in the library.

Ordinary Yin meridian collapse? Unlikely. Yin meridian collapse is a disordered dissipation, not a regular diffusion trajectory.

The seal has loosened? No, that's not quite right either. Although this is a forbidden exile area, it's impossible for a sect to seal something underground without taking precautions.

Suddenly, Lin Yuan's pupils contracted slightly.

He recalled an inconspicuous description in a miscellaneous book that had been annotated by his predecessors as "fabricated nonsense"—that after thousands of years of accumulating and settling to their extreme, there was a very small probability that the Yin energy would naturally give birth to the spiritual fire of heaven and earth.

"There seems to be a ball of celestial fire down there!"

"Heaven and Earth Spiritual Fire?" Lin Feilu was also taken aback.

"The Yin energy of the earth has gathered here for countless years. When it became extremely concentrated, it underwent a qualitative change and naturally gave birth to spiritual fire. This thing is intelligent. Just now, when I drained the Yin energy in the cave to refine the Thunder Pearl, I disturbed it."

Lin Feilu's expression changed; she naturally knew what the Heavenly Spirit Fire represented.

If an alchemist can refine a ball of spiritual fire from heaven and earth and incorporate it into their dantian, the quality of their alchemy will improve by at least one level. The same principle applies to weapon crafting.

Even without refining weapons or pills, this Heaven and Earth Spiritual Fire is extremely powerful when used to fight enemies.

It is a rare opportunity.

"I want to try and see if I can tame it. If I succeed, I'll have struck it rich!"

Lin Feilu stared at him: "Most of the spiritual flames of heaven and earth possess sentience. The process of subduing them requires forcibly refining them and pressing them into your dantian. Once the spiritual flames backfire, your entire meridian will be burned through."

"So I need my senior's help."

Lin Yuan crouched down, formed hand seals, and poured spiritual power into the crack in the ground, enveloping the outer edge of the energy core thirty feet below and beginning to pull it upwards.

The ground trembled violently.

A deep, rumbling sound came from underground.

Then a fist-sized flame burst out from the rubble.

It was entirely black, yet a layer of eerie blue light swirled around its edges. The black flames did not emit heat; instead, they released an aura of extreme cold.

Lin Yuan knew about many kinds of fire, such as the core fire of Core Formation cultivators, the demonic fire spewed by demonic beasts, and even the fire of the earth's core, but the fire in front of him seemed to be alive.

It hovered in mid-air, the tip of the flame swaying slightly, like a wary beast surveying its surroundings.

"Earthly Fiend Netherfire," Lin Yuan blurted out the name.

He had seen records of this fire in ancient books—a spiritual fire of heaven and earth formed naturally from the yin energy that had been accumulating for thousands of years. It was of extremely high quality and had a violent nature.

Seemingly sensing danger, the ball of ghostly fire suddenly shot towards the cave entrance in the next second.

It was incredibly fast.

Before the afterimage had even dissipated, the flame itself had already shot out ten feet away.

"Stop it!" Lin Yuan shouted.

Lin Feilu reacted extremely quickly.

The sword's spiritual light surged, unleashing a series of sharp sword energies that blocked all escape routes from the cave entrance.

It formed a curtain of swords.

The Netherfire collided with the sword curtain.

With a hissing sound.

A hole was burned into the sword barrier, and Lin Feilu's expression changed. He shot out his flying sword, which struck the Netherfire and forced it back.

The Netherfire was forced back to the center of the cave by the flying sword, and the flames contracted violently, its volume suddenly shrinking to one-third the size of a fist.

Lin Yuan's pupils contracted.

Not good—it's compressing energy.

"Senior sister, step back!"

Before he could finish speaking, the Netherfire suddenly lunged straight at Lin Feilu.

The ball of dark blue flame skimmed along the ground at high speed, leaving a layer of ice marks on the stone surface wherever it passed.

Lin Feilu parried with his sword.

The defensive array patterns of the Hundred Flowers Ice Silkworm Skirt were activated, and the Ice Blue Heavy Shield was unfurled.

But the ghostly blue flames of the Netherfire climbed up the sword's blade to Lin Feilu's wrist.

A burning sensation that made my scalp tingle came over me.

Lin Feilu let out a muffled groan.

The skin on the web of her right hand quickly turned black, and fine ice crystals spread from the wound.

"Let go!" Lin Yuan had already rushed to the front.

He unleashed both palms simultaneously, channeling all the fire control skills of a sixth-grade alchemist.

Spiritual energy surged from his ten fingers, but instead of being brutely suppressed, it transformed into dozens of slender threads of spiritual energy that precisely wrapped around the outer edge of the Netherfire.

The essence of fire control lies not in using force to subdue force, but in adapting to the nature of fire and guiding its spread.

Lin Yuan's ten fingers rapidly changed hand seals, constantly fine-tuning the temperature, frequency, and rotation direction of the Netherfire. Each adjustment was precisely timed to coincide with the flickering of the Netherfire.

The Netherfire struggled desperately, but no matter what it did, it could not break free from Lin Yuan's control.

Lin Feilu watched with great interest.

As time passed, more and more spiritual threads appeared on the outer layer of the Netherfire, like a well-woven net that sealed it inside.

"I've temporarily suppressed it; now I'm attempting to refine it. Protect me!"

As Lin Yuan spoke, he sat cross-legged and used the fire control technique of a sixth-grade alchemist to manipulate the spiritual energy threads, guiding an extremely thin wisp of Netherfire into his meridians under the protection of the spiritual energy.

Although it was enveloped in spiritual energy, it was only a tiny wisp of that energy.

But the moment the Netherfire entered his meridians, fine beads of sweat appeared on Lin Yuan's forehead.

The excruciating pain spread throughout his body, and the spirit of the Netherfire instinctively resisted being devoured.

It desperately tried to break free from its restraints and resist being refined.

Lin Yuan gritted his teeth. If he failed, not only would his meridians be burned, but his path of cultivation would also be cut off!

Fortunately, the sixth-grade alchemist had an exceptionally profound understanding of fire. Lin Yuan laid out layers of alchemical fire guiding patterns on the inner walls of his meridians—like setting up sluice gates and ditches in a river, gradually guiding the violent energy of the Netherfire towards his dantian.

In the end, Lin Yuan refined this first wisp of Netherfire little by little in his meridians, and it eventually existed in his dantian, as docile as a well-behaved cat.

With the experience gained from the first attempt, the subsequent refining processes gradually got on track.

The third, the fifth, the seventh... more and more Netherfire accumulated in the dantian.

However, the moment the ninth strand of Netherfire was introduced into the meridians, all the Netherfire that had been "tamed" in the dantian suddenly erupted at the same time.

As if receiving some kind of command, they all rushed towards the meridian wall.

Lin Yuan's face turned pale.

A tearing pain shot through his dantian—the Netherfire's intelligence hadn't been completely extinguished. It was waiting. Waiting until enough flames were sent into his dantian before launching a counterattack from within.

Lin Feilu noticed the violent fluctuation in his aura and immediately stood up and walked closer, placing her hand on the hilt of her sword: "What's wrong?"

Lin Yuan gritted his teeth and did not answer.

He cannot be distracted.

At this moment, the full skill of a sixth-grade alchemist was pushed to its limit. He frantically reinforced and overwrote the guiding patterns of the alchemical fire, adding two layers if one wasn't enough, three if two weren't enough—until the inner walls of his meridians were densely covered with fiery red sealing patterns.

Ten breaths later.

The riots were quelled.

Lin Yuan opened one eye, a forced, ugly smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"...almost crashed."

Lin Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

He raised his right hand, his five fingers spread.

A tiny black flame appeared in his palm. A faint blue glow swirled around the edge of the flame, hovering quietly at his fingertips, like a flower blooming at the bottom of an abyss.

It's not hot.

However, the air within three feet of Lin Yuan visibly distorted.

The frost that had formed on the ground shattered and evaporated the instant the flames appeared, vanishing into nothingness.

Lin Yuan clenched his fist.

The flames died down, and everything returned to normal.