The Strange Flame Rekindles in Battle Through the Heavens

Chapter 3 Becoming a Disciple of the Medicine Master

In the early morning, a ray of dawn shone through the window, and the warm sunlight fell on him. Xiao Yan opened his sleepy eyes and saw an old figure appear by his bedside, staring at him with a smile.

"Holy crap! Who are you? What are you doing here?" Xiao Yan was startled when he saw the somewhat transparent white-bearded old man appear in front of him. After all, anyone would be scared if they saw something that looked like a ghost when they first woke up.

"Hehe! Don't worry about who I am, I won't harm you anyway. Sigh! After all these years, I've finally met someone who meets my criteria, it's not easy! But I still have to thank you for your offerings over the past three years, otherwise, I'm afraid I would still have to continue sleeping."

"You're the one who caused my fighting spirit to disappear over the past three years?"

When he first woke up, his head was still spinning. He hadn't expected that it was Yao Lao who had woken up; he thought he had really encountered a ghost! However, after realizing that the old man was Yao Lao, Xiao Yan couldn't help but feel excited. But in order not to give himself away, he pretended to be very angry.

"Alright! Stop pretending! Did you already know I was here?" The old man rolled his eyes.

Xiao Yan's small eyes darted around, and he said with a smile, "Hehe, all I know is that the disappearance of my Dou Qi wasn't due to my cultivation talent. As I've grown older, my soul perception has become stronger, and I've been absorbing Dou Qi faster and faster. It's just that the Dou Qi I've cultivated keeps disappearing inexplicably. That's when I realized that something must be absorbing my Dou Qi, but I didn't know it was you who was behind it."

"Heh! You're quite clever, but how did you realize the problem was with the ring on your finger?"

Xiao Yan thought he had done it perfectly. He took off the ring while taking a bath, thinking he could avoid Yao Lao's attention. But Xiao Yan's little trick was no match for the experienced Yao Lao.

"Hehe! Isn't this how we start by checking the outside? Of all my belongings, only this ring is somewhat different from the others," Xiao Yan said with a smile.

"You didn't just find out yesterday, did you!"

"You should have woken up a long time ago!" Xiao Yan thought to himself. But he still made up a story: "Not really, I only discovered it two years ago!"

"Damn it! I knew it from the moment I was born, so what! Could you guess? Could you even know I'm a transmigrator? I know everything about you except how many hairs you have on your body." Xiao Yan rolled his eyes and thought to himself.

"Then why didn't you pick it sooner? That way you wouldn't have to be ridiculed every day."

"That's what I learned. Entering the Dou Zhe realm too early isn't a good thing. I only discovered this after I entered the Dou Zhe realm myself. The disappearance of the Dou Qi vortex actually relieved me," Xiao Yan explained calmly.

"Heh, you're quite clever! Many people think that the earlier they become a Fighter, the better, but unfortunately, they only regret it when they reach a certain level and have no hope of advancing for the rest of their lives!"

"Hehe! That doesn't erase the fact that you absorbed my three years of Dou Qi! Tell me how you should compensate me!" Xiao Yan said with a cold laugh.

"Hehe, that's true. Do you want to become an alchemist?"

"An alchemist! Can I become one?" Xiao Yan asked excitedly. Having arrived on the Dou Qi Continent, while he was confident in becoming a powerful figure, he was still somewhat uncertain about becoming an alchemist. This was because alchemists not only needed fire-attribute Dou Qi, but also a mixture of fire and wood attributes. A person's attribute directly depended on their soul, and he wasn't the Xiao Yan from the original story. He didn't know if he possessed fire attribute; his Dou Qi attribute would only be tested when choosing a Dou Qi cultivation method after his coming-of-age ceremony.

"Well, I barely made it!" the old man said, somewhat insincerely.

Xiao Yan rolled his eyes, barely managing to stay composed. This reminded him of the famous saying from all his high school homeroom teachers: "You are the worst class of all the students I've ever taught!"

"You can teach me? Are you also an alchemist?" Xiao Yan asked, feigning doubt.

"Hehe! Of course, do you want to learn or not?"

"Yes! Yes!" Xiao Yan quickly replied.

"Then hurry up and become my apprentice!"

Xiao Yan performed the formal apprenticeship ceremony with great seriousness, and the old man accepted it with the same solemnity, clearly valuing these formalities highly.

"My name is Yao Lao. As for my background, I cannot tell you now, lest you be distracted. You only need to know that, under my tutelage, you will not only become a powerful figure on the continent, but also a respected alchemist!" Yao Lao said calmly.

"I've already become your disciple, so do you have any kind of apprenticeship gift? Any kind of Heaven-Rank cultivation technique or fighting skill is fine, I'm not picky," Xiao Yan said with a smile, scratching his head.

"He's talking about Heavenly Rank cultivation techniques and fighting skills! With your third-level fighting qi, could you even practice them?" Yao Lao rolled his eyes.

"Hehe, then a Xuan-rank fighting skill should be fine, right?" Xiao Yan was just joking when he said he wanted a Tian-rank fighting skill.

"That's something to consider. What kind do you want?" Yao Lao stroked his beard and said casually.

"Any offensive ones?" Xiao Yan scratched his head and asked sheepishly.

"Let me look." The old doctor rubbed his forehead and slowly began to search.

Xiao Yan watched as Yao Lao searched for fighting techniques, feeling extremely excited, as if he were winning a lottery or opening a package.

"Found it."

The old man removed his finger from Xiao Yan's forehead and, under Xiao Yan's ecstatic gaze, gently touched his forehead.

When his forehead was struck, Xiao Yan's head swelled slightly as a large amount of information flooded in. It took him quite a while to gradually regain his senses.

"Fire-Blowing Palm: Low-level Profound Rank, capable of creating powerful wind pressure!"

"Blowing Fire Palm!" Xiao Yan said with a hint of disdain; he had thought it would be something like the Eight Extremes Collapse.

"Hehe! You only have three levels of Dou Qi right now, so this is the only thing you can practice. The creator of this thing was a blacksmith who spent his whole life forging iron. Because of the need for furnace fire, he inexplicably created this fire-blowing Dou Technique..." Looking at Xiao Yan's slightly stiff face, Yao Lao laughed jokingly.

The Fire-Blowing Palm technique was not difficult to learn, and the energy flow path was simple. Under the guidance of Yao Lao, Xiao Yan quickly learned it and grasped its basic secrets.

Standing in the room, facing the half-open window, he circulated his internal fighting energy, channeling it along the meridians of the Flaming Palm technique.

"Fire-blowing Palm!"

A slight wind pressure emanated from Xiao Yan's palm, causing the window and door to move slightly.

"Pfft!"

Seeing that Xiao Yan's Fire-Blowing Palm was as ineffective as farting, Yao Lao couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Xiao Yan glared at Yao Lao with a pout, wondering if it was really that funny.

"Alright! Alright! Enough joking. Although I absorbed your battle qi for three years, it has also made your foundation very solid. In battle qi cultivation, the foundation is of paramount importance. You will naturally understand how much benefit these three years of declining strength have brought you in the future. Your strength is too low now, and you need to improve it first, but cultivating in a rigid manner is a bit too slow," Yao Lao said seriously.

"Does the teacher mean that we can use external forces?" Xiao Yan asked, somewhat puzzled.

"More or less! However, given the current resilience of your meridians, you cannot withstand the impact of any kind of elixir energy," the old medicine master said with a faint smile.

"Then what good ideas do you have?" Xiao Yan asked knowingly.

"Tomorrow, prepare three complete Purple Leaf Orchids, the older the better, and two Bone Cleansing Flowers, the age doesn't matter for these. Oh, and one level-one wood-type magic core. These are all low-grade medicinal herbs, I'm sure you can handle them… Someone's coming, I'm going back to my ring. Remember, don't tell anyone about my existence, not even your closest friends." After giving his instructions, the old medicine master transformed into a beam of white light and entered the ring.

(End of this chapter)