Battle Through the Heavens: Starting with Cao Ying as an apprentice

In the center of the lava lake, the giant fire serpent that had been coiled for many years suddenly opened its eyes.

The Fallen Heart Flame churned violently within the seal, its crimson flames nearly filling the entire underground space.

It recognized the human who had been spying outside the seal during the day—his indifferent aura was completely different from that of the elders of Canaan Academy.

During the day, the seal prevents it from harming this person.

Now, this person dares to step into its territory!

"Roar--!"

A deafening roar, accompanied by a heatwave that could incinerate everything, caused the giant flaming serpent to soar into the sky, its gaping maw condensing into a compressed white fireball.

That was the original heart fire of the Fallen Heart Flame, enough to burn a Dou Wang powerhouse to nothingness in an instant, and even Dou Huang was very wary of it.

Su Baichen raised an eyebrow, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.

"Heh heh," he chuckled, his voice clearly audible amidst the roaring lava.

"Having been locked up for so long, has it made you stupid?"

Before the words were even finished, the giant python was already in front of them.

Su Baichen didn't even move a step. He simply raised his right hand slowly, his five fingers loosely clenched. Invisible battle qi condensed, compressed, and shaped in his palm—the whole process seemed slow, but it was completed the instant the fireball struck.

A semi-transparent giant hand appeared out of thin air.

There was no earth-shattering grandeur, no dazzling brilliance. The hand was simply extended horizontally, as casually as brushing dust off a shoulder.

"Snapped!"

The crisp sound seemed out of place amidst the roar of the lava.

The massive body of the fiery serpent suddenly froze. The fireball, which contained three-tenths of its original power, silently burst like a bubble with a gentle touch of that hand.

Immediately afterwards, an irresistible force slapped it hard across the "cheek".

"boom--!"

The giant python was sent flying backward, crashing heavily into the lava wall a hundred feet away. The hard rock was cracked like a spiderweb, and fragments of rock fell down in a flurry.

It struggled to peek out from the rock face, its eyes, filled with flames, filled with confusion.

This script... something's not right.

Shouldn't it devour this ignorant human, thereby breaking the seal and gaining freedom from then on?

“It seems…” Su Baichen walked forward slowly, and the lava automatically parted a path under his feet.

"You can't understand it just by hearing it."

Over the next half incense stick's time, a truly absurd scene unfolded in the lava world.

The translucent hand sometimes transformed into a cage, imprisoning the giant fire serpent within; sometimes it became a heavy hammer, smashing it deep into the lava; and sometimes it transformed into a long whip, lashing it and causing flames to scatter.

Every instance of "education" precisely avoids its core essence, yet it is still deeply painful.

The Fallen Heartflame's journey progresses from anger to terror, and finally to numbness.

When Su Baichen finally stopped, the once unruly fire python had obediently coiled up in the lava lake, and even the churning waves had subsided considerably.

"It would have been better to do this earlier."

Su Baichen nodded in satisfaction, then made a grasping motion with his right hand. A wisp of milky-white flame, about the thickness of a thumb, was forcibly ripped from the giant python's body, the flame faintly displaying a heartbeat-like rhythm. This was a wisp of the Fallen Heart Flame's secondary flame.

He sealed the wisp of fire into the Heavenly Profound Pearl. The pearl trembled and emitted a mysterious fluctuation, perfectly suppressing the flame's agitation.

After doing all this, Su Baichen patted non-existent dust off his hands, turned around and flew deeper into the lava world, without even glancing at the trembling Fallen Heart Flame again.

Based on his daytime exploration, he quickly located the nascent Fallen Heart Flame.

Unlike the ferocious adult form outside, the floating, fist-sized, milky-white flame of the Fallen Heart Flame was as docile as a newborn chick, its flames swaying gently and radiating pure and soft heartfire energy.

Su Baichen did not go to get it immediately.

He stopped, his gaze sweeping over the seemingly ordinary rock wall in the corner of the cave, a meaningful smile curving his lips.

“Friend in the shadows!” he spoke, his voice echoing in the narrow cave: “Won’t you come out and meet me?”

silence.

The only sounds were the gurgling of flowing lava and the faint burning of nascent flames.

Su Baichen waited for a moment, then shook his head and chuckled, "If you don't come out soon, I'm going to take this little guy and leave. Once we leave, I'm afraid no one will ever set foot here again."

He reached out and slowly extended his hand toward the young, fallen heart flame.

When the fingertips were still inches away from the flame—

"Hey hey hey! No, no, no!"

An anxious voice suddenly rang out.

Ripples spread across the rock face like water, and a phantom figure floated out from within them.

That was an old man with white hair and beard, whose body was as transparent as glass. He was none other than the Heavenly Fire Venerable, Yao Tianhuo, who had survived to this day in a remnant soul state.

"Why are you so impatient, young man!" Yaotianhuo floated between Su Baichen and the strange fire. Although it was only a soul, it deliberately put on a "this way is blocked" posture.

"Let's make a fire, why don't we chat? Do you know how many years I've been in this godforsaken place?"

He talked on and on, his words coming out so fast it was as if he were chasing something:

"So many years! So many years! There's not even anyone to talk to! At first, I kept counting the days, but then I got so confused about the days that I could only watch this little flame slowly grow..."

"I was so bored I was going crazy, you know! I even played chess with myself, my left hand against my right, and we ended up arguing..."

"It's so bitter, it's just too bitter..."

Su Baichen listened with great interest until Yao Tianhuo mentioned, "He even counted how many cracks there were on the rock wall," before raising his hand to interrupt:

"Alright, alright, friend, I have something important to discuss with you."

Yaotianhuo's rambling stopped abruptly. A relieved expression appeared on his illusory face as he waved his hand and said, "Discuss? What's there to discuss? Look at me, just a wisp of a soul. I can only last a few decades before I dissipate. Just be kind and take me out for a stroll, let me see the sky outside one last time, and I'll be content."

His tone was relaxed, even somewhat joking.

Clearly, he didn't believe this person could change anything—maintaining a remnant soul state for hundreds of years was already a miracle. Resurrection? That was just a legendary pipe dream.

Su Baichen did not respond.

His gaze fell upon Yao Tianhuo's soul form, a silvery-white light flickering in his deep eyes, as if piercing through all illusion. After a moment, he slowly spoke:

"No, that's not what I'm discussing."

Yao Tianhuo was taken aback.

Su Baichen looked at him and said, word by word:

"What I'm discussing is resurrection."

The air in the cave seemed to have frozen.

The sounds of flowing lava and burning flames faded away at that moment. Yaotianhuo's transparent body rippled violently, like the surface of a lake tossed with pebbles.

"Resurrection...?"

Chapter 173 Revenge!

"Resurrection...?"

He repeated those two words, his voice so soft it was almost inaudible.

In those illusory eyes, the flame that had been extinguished for three hundred years reignited at this moment, a faint yet incredibly resolute light.

Su Baichen held the Soul Nourishing Stone in his hand and could feel the fluctuations of the remnant soul of the Radiant Heavenly Fire active within it.

"Yes, resurrection!"

"I possess the method of resurrection, and a complete one at that. How about it, interested?"

When Su Baichen's words echoed at the bottom of the Heavenly Flame Refining Tower, Yao Tianhuo's illusory figure visibly trembled.

Years of imprisonment and the gradual erosion of his soul power had long since made him dare not hope for "rebirth." But when Su Baichen uttered the words "complete resurrection," something long extinguished rekindled deep within his soul.

"Interested? Of course I'm interested." Yao Tianhuo's voice trembled with disbelief, and his frantic nodding made his already illusory figure even more blurry.

Who would want to die if they could live? "It's better to live a miserable life than to die a good death"—this proverb had long been the obsession that kept him from completely fading away during his long years of imprisonment.

"Okay, then come with me!" Su Baichen took out a warm and smooth Soul Nourishing Stone from his storage ring. Its surface was covered with a light blue halo, and fine nourishing runes could be vaguely seen.

Without the slightest hesitation, Yao Tianhuo's remnant soul transformed into a wisp of green smoke and swiftly merged into the Soul Nourishing Stone. The instant it entered, he let out a soft, contented sigh.

"Wow, this Soul Nourishing Stone is really something else. It's exceptionally effective at nurturing the soul." Yao Tianhuo's voice came through the Soul Nourishing Stone, filled with undisguised delight.

"It's a thousand times better than me barely surviving under the magma!"

Su Baichen put away the Soul-Nourishing Stone and walked outside. However, Yaotianhuo was clearly frustrated by hundreds of years of solitude, and his words erupted like magma.

"Brother, how much has the outside world changed? What's this academy up there like?"

Does anyone still remember me?

"Dude, are you an alchemist? I sensed it just now. Your mental strength is ridiculously strong, comparable to many high-level alchemists back in the day."

"By the way, how old are you this year? What is your cultivation level? Can you tell me what I need to prepare for resurrection?"

From the Heavenly Flame Refining Tower to his own courtyard, Yao Tianhuo's mouth never stopped moving during this journey, which was neither too long nor too short.

He seemed to want to say everything he hadn't been able to say for hundreds of years in one breath, asking one question after another, from the situation on the mainland to alchemy techniques, from the ranking of different flames to the current power rankings.

Su Baichen initially managed to give a few perfunctory replies, but quickly realized it was a mistake—each answer only led to more questions.

Yaotianhuo is like a child who has just learned to speak, full of curiosity about everything, or rather, full of enthusiasm for re-existing in this world.

Back in his room, the moment he closed the door, Su Baichen finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"Stop talking, just focus on resting your soul!"

He activated the sealing runes on the Soul Nourishing Stone, and a layer of light blue light instantly enveloped the inside of the Soul Nourishing Stone, causing Yaotianhuo's voice to stop abruptly.

"Phew, finally it's quiet!" Su Baichen breathed a sigh of relief, placed the Soul Nourishing Stone on the table, and rubbed his temples.

"This guy is really annoying."

He poured himself a cup of tea, sipped it slowly, and pondered how to deal with this talkative, lingering soul.