The five jade boxes sat in a neat row, each one a Pandora's Box of immense power and potential danger. Feng Jiuge knew that helping Xiao Yixian refine even one of these Fifth Tier Beast Flames was a perilous task. She was a Dou Master; the raw, untamed energy of a Dou King-level beast could incinerate her from the inside out with the slightest mistake.
He chose the Miteer Family's specially constructed alchemy chamber for the procedure. It was a subterranean room, its walls inscribed with dense arrays designed to contain potent energy fluctuations and prevent any aura from leaking out.
"Are you ready, Yixian?" Feng Jiuge asked, his voice calm and steady in the enclosed space. The air was cool and still.
Xiao Yixian, dressed in simple training clothes, took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded. Her face was pale, but her eyes held a core of unwavering determination. This was her chance, her only chance, to seize control of her destiny.
"I'm ready," she affirmed.
"Good. We'll start with the flame-attribute one first. The Purple Amethyst Lion Flame." He opened one of the jade boxes. A sphere of swirling purple fire, no larger than a fist, floated up, radiating an intense heat and a palpable, regal pressure. "Its energy is fierce, but its core is stable. The key is not to fight it. You must yield, guide, and accept. My Dou Qi will create a protective channel through your meridians. Your only job is to focus your mind, attune yourself to the flame's nature, and pull it into the vessel I create. Do not let your own Dou Qi make direct contact with the raw flame."
She sat cross-legged, and Feng Jiuge placed his palms on her back. He closed his eyes, his own immense spiritual energy enveloping them both. He began to circulate his Tri-Unity Genesis Art, but he didn't absorb it himself. Instead, he projected a refined, controlled stream of his tri-colored Dou Qi into her body.
It was a delicate, intricate process. He carefully wove a protective sheath around her primary meridians, a flexible but incredibly resilient barrier forged from the harmony of his three elements.
"Now, Yixian," he commanded softly. "Reach out with your spirit. Coax the flame."
Xiao Yixian focused her will. Hesitantly, she extended her spiritual energy towards the floating purple flame. The moment her mind touched it, a mental roar, filled with the pride and fury of a lion king, slammed into her consciousness. She cried out, her body trembling.
"Stay focused!" Feng Jiuge's voice was a firm anchor in the storm. "Don't fear its pride! Acknowledge it! Show it you are worthy of wielding its power, not just a thief trying to steal it!"
His words cut through her fear. She gritted her teeth, steadied her mind, and instead of cowering, she projected a feeling of respect, of aspiration. The mental roar subsided into a low, rumbling growl. Slowly, she guided a tiny wisp of the purple flame towards her.
The moment it entered her body, even within Feng Jiuge's protective channel, a searing, unbearable heat spread through her. It felt like swallowing lava. She screamed, her muscles spasming.
"Endure it!" Feng Jiuge's voice was right by her ear. "This is the tempering! Your body must adapt!"
He increased the output of his own Dou Qi, reinforcing the channels, his tri-colored energy acting like a cooling agent and a containment field simultaneously. As his Dou Qi worked, a curious side effect began to occur. The Purple Amethyst Lion Flame contained the life's essence of a Fifth Class beast. A portion of this pure, potent energy, stripped of its feral will by Feng Jiuge's mediating Dou Qi, began to seep into Xiao Yixian's own system.
Her Dou Qi, which was only at the 3-star Dou Master level, began to churn and boil. It was being nourished by an energy source far beyond its own grade. Her aura began to climb at a visible, terrifying rate.
The process felt like an eternity. Xiao Yixian lost all track of time, her entire existence reduced to the struggle against the searing pain and the sound of Feng Jiuge's calm, guiding voice.
Finally, after hours of torment, the last wisp of the purple flame was drawn into her Dantian. It settled there, a proud, purple seed of fire, now docile and under her command.
Xiao Yixian collapsed forward, gasping for breath, her entire body drenched in sweat. She felt exhausted, but also... powerful. Incredibly powerful. The energy surging through her was on a completely different level. She checked her own cultivation and her eyes flew open in disbelief.
4-star Dou Master. 5-star. 6-star! The influx of refined Dou King energy had propelled her up by three entire stars.
"You did well," Feng Jiuge said, his own face a little pale from the exertion. "Rest. We will refine the wood-attribute flame tomorrow."
The next day, the process was repeated with the Jade Spirit Vine Flame. This time, it was far easier. The gentle, life-filled nature of the wood flame was not aggressive. Furthermore, Xiao Yixian's body, already tempered by the lion flame and her cultivation base significantly higher, accepted it with far less resistance.
The vibrant, vine-like flame merged with the purple flame in her Dantian, the two coiling around each other in a stable, symbiotic balance. The nourishing energy of the wood flame pushed her cultivation even further. When the process was complete, she had broken through again, her aura settling at the absolute peak of the Dou Master realm, a 9-star expert.
While Xiao Yixian recovered and familiarized herself with her newfound power, Feng Jiuge took his turn. He had no need for a protector. His Tri-Unity Genesis Art was designed for this. He sat in the center of the chamber and opened the remaining three boxes. The Crimson Earth-Core Flame, the Scorching Sunbird Flame, and the Verdant Heartwood Flame floated before him.
He didn't coax them. He commanded them.
His cultivation art erupted, a tri-colored vortex that pulled all three flames in at once. His internal crucible, the complex network he had forged through a year of pain, roared to life. The proud, the stubborn, the gentle—all three flames were thrown into the grinder of his will, their feral instincts stripped away, their pure energy devoured.
His own Dou Crystal pulsed violently, absorbing the immense influx of power. The energy of three Dou King-level beasts surged through him.
His aura skyrocketed. 4-star Dou Grandmaster... 5-star... 6-star... 7-star!
He stopped there, his body thrumming with power. He had advanced three full stars in a single sitting. The remaining energy was stored, waiting to fuel his next push. The three Beast Flames now resided within him, tamed and subservient to his tri-colored Dou Crystal.
'Now,' he thought, a confident smile on his face. 'Now I have the fire for true alchemy.'
The next month was dedicated to Xiao Yixian's dream. Every day, they would be in the courtyard, a simple cauldron before her.
"Alchemy is not just about heat and ingredients, Yixian," Feng Jiuge instructed, his tone that of a patient, seasoned master. "It is about spirit. Your Spiritual Strength is the hand that stirs the pot. Feel the essence of the herbs. Don't just crush them; get them to release their power."
Xiao Yixian, for the first time, could summon a flame. At her command, a gentle green fire, the Jade Spirit Vine Flame, would blossom in her palm. Under Feng Jiuge's guidance, she learned to control its temperature, to spread it evenly through the cauldron.
Qing Lin became their indispensable assistant. She would sit nearby, diligently grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle. When they ran low on a common ingredient, she would happily run to the market to fetch it. Often, she would quietly prepare meals for them, ensuring they didn't forget to eat in their focused state. Her presence was a quiet, constant support that grounded them both.
"No, Yixian, your spiritual thread is too thick. You're bruising the essence of the Moonpetal Flower," Feng Jiuge would correct. "Be gentler. Imagine you are stroking a butterfly's wing."
Slowly, she got the hang of it. Her first few attempts at a First Tier Qi Gathering Pill ended in plumes of black smoke. But on the fifth try, a single, slightly lopsided, but undeniably successful pill rolled out of the cauldron.
Xiao Yixian stared at it, her eyes welling up with tears. She picked it up, her hands trembling. All her life, she had been a healer, using her knowledge to help others. But the sacred art of alchemy, the path of creating miracles from scratch, had been forever closed to her. Until now.
"I... I did it," she choked out, tears of pure joy streaming down her face. "I'm... an alchemist."
She turned to Feng Jiuge, her gratitude overwhelming. This boy, this enigma who had burst into her life, had not just saved her from a terrible fate; he had given her the one dream she thought she could never have. He had changed her world forever.
Feng Jiuge simply smiled. "This is only the first step, Yixian. You have the potential for much more."
While she practiced, he pursued his own project. He now had three powerful Beast Flames, but using them individually was inefficient. He wanted to fuse them.
It was, as he expected, incredibly difficult. The stubborn, heavy nature of the Crimson Earth-Core Flame clashed violently with the proud, airy purity of the Scorching Sunbird Flame. The gentle Verdant Heartwood Flame was constantly being suppressed by the other two.
He spent a full week in seclusion, his Tri-Unity Genesis Art working at its peak. It acted as the ultimate mediator, a crucible forcing the three warring flames into a state of balance. The wood, fire, and lightning aspects of his own Dou Qi resonated with the three flames, creating a bridge between them.
Finally, after countless failed attempts that left him mentally and spiritually exhausted, he succeeded. The three distinct flames swirled together, merging into a single, terrifyingly potent entity. It was a deep, dark crimson flame, with a golden-white core and faint, vibrant green patterns that writhed on its surface like living things. It felt heavy and destructive like the earth, burned with the pure intensity of the sun, and pulsed with an undercurrent of inexhaustible life.
'A name,' he thought, observing his creation. 'It is born of three beasts, a trinity of power forged by my will. An Asura is a demigod of conflict and power. This fits.' He named it the Asura Trinity Flame.
With this new, powerful tool at his disposal, his alchemy leaped to another level. Refining the ingredients for Fourth Tier pills, once a challenging task, became laughably easy. The Asura Trinity Flame could perfectly modulate its properties, using its earthy core aspect to gently draw out essences, its fiery core to purify them, and its wood aspect to stabilize them.
He even began a new, audacious form of practice. He set up ten cauldrons in a circle and attempted to refine ten pills at once. He would sit in the center, his Spiritual Strength splitting into ten distinct threads, each one controlling a cauldron. It was monstrously draining. After a single successful session, he would be completely exhausted for the rest of the day, but it proved that his spiritual control was reaching a truly terrifying level.
The remaining four months until the Alchemist Grand Meeting passed in a flash of intense training and alchemical fire.
Feng Jiuge's cultivation, fueled by his remaining beast cores and his perfected absorption method, soared from 7-star to the peak of 9-star Dou Grandmaster. He stood at the very precipice of the Dou King realm. His alchemy skills, pushed by his constant practice and the power of the Asura Trinity Flame, had reached the absolute peak of the Fourth Tier. He could now concoct any pill below the Fifth Tier with a high success rate.
Xiao Yixian's progress was equally stunning. With her new flames and Feng Jiuge's guidance, she broke through the Dou Master bottleneck, reaching the level of a 2-star Dou Grandmaster. Her alchemy, while far behind his, had progressed to the point where she could now, with great difficulty and a low success rate, concoct a simple Third Tier pill. She was a true alchemist.
Qing Lin, not to be left behind, had also broken through, her "Silent Gale Scripture" guiding her smoothly into the 1-star Dou Grandmaster realm. The timid girl from Rock Desert City was now a powerful expert in her own right.
The day of departure arrived. Two magnificent griffins, mounts provided by the Miteer family, stood waiting in the courtyard. They were powerful Second Class beasts, their wings strong and their eyes intelligent.
Ya Fei was there to see them off, though she would be joining them on the journey. She looked radiant, her usual seductive charm now mixed with a palpable excitement for the coming event.
"All of Wu Tan City is buzzing," she said to Feng Jiuge as he mounted one of the griffins with Qing Lin. Xiao Yixian took the other. "They know the Miteer family is sending a representative to the Grand Meeting. No one knows it is you."
Feng Jiuge simply nodded. "That's for the best."
With a powerful cry, the griffins leaped into the air, their massive wings catching the wind. They soared high above Wu Tan City, heading northeast, towards Yan City, the glorious capital of the Jia Ma Empire. The Alchemist Grand Meeting, and a confrontation with the geniuses of an entire generation, awaited them.