The moment the Magical Artifact entered the flame, the restriction carved on it immediately erupted with a burst of golden light to resist the destructive power surging from the outside.
This was a metal-attribute Magical Artifact known for its indomitable power. But after being continuously blasted by the flame for fifty breaths, the golden light on it had already begun to dim.
This was without any manipulation, just relying on the pure high temperature of the flame drawn out.
Subsequently, Li Yan injected another stream of Spirit Power into the cyan jade coral. Another red light shot out from the front of the coral, this time hitting the palm of a dragon claw below the raised dragon head.
Instantly, the red-gold flame that was still gushing from the dragon's head was as if its throat had been choked. The flames abruptly vanished without a trace.
And the purple light on the "Amethyst Dragon's" entire body also dimmed and disappeared from each scale like extinguished candles.
After doing all this, Li Yan let out a long, hot breath.
The moment this hot breath left his mouth, it turned into a dark red arrow and flew straight forward.
After flying for a full three yards, it finally let out a crisp sound and dissipated. A tyrannical aura immediately spread throughout the room.
"What overbearing Fire Poison. In just a few dozen breaths, it has already seeped into my internal organs!"
As he exhaled this breath, Li Yan circulated his Spirit Power in his abdomen, and a refreshing feeling returned. He couldn't help but feel a greater sense of reverence for the Earth Fire here.
He reached out his hand, and the Magical Artifact flew back into his grasp. Li Yan immediately probed it with his Divine Sense.
A moment later, Li Yan's heart filled with joy. The originally intact Magical Artifact, after only fifty breaths of being burned, had twenty percent of its internal formation restrictions damaged.
From this point alone, one could see the power of Falling Star Valley's Earth Fire.
While burning the Magical Artifact, Li Yan's released Divine Sense was also carefully sensing every trace of power in the Earth Fire.
He was surprised to find that the heatwave carried by the Earth Fire here actually contained a trace of icy coolness.
Although it was extremely subtle, almost imperceptible, it was truly and continuously transmitted from the flame.
It was this trace of coolness that made the heatwave here lack the violent nature of the Flame Palace in the Northern Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda.
"The flame here has reached the point where extreme yang gives birth to yin. The grade of this Earth Fire Spirit Vein has actually reached such a level. This is beyond my expectations."
When Li Yan was in the Malevolent Spirit Sect, he had also been to Lord Lao Peak many times and had done some research on Earth Fire Spirit Veins.
Even compared to the several Earth Fire Spirit Veins in the Malevolent Spirit Sect, this "Shattered Star Fire Jade Vein" of Falling Star Valley could rank in the top four.
"All the effort was worth it. It wasn't a risk taken in vain!"
Li Yan's heart, which had been as still as an ancient well, unexpectedly rippled after finally confirming the grade of the "Shattered Star Fire Jade Vein."
He stood on the spot, and from the time he met Ping Tu in the secret realm, scenes flashed through his mind one after another.
He had been through life and death to refine the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike, and it all felt as if it were yesterday, within reach.
But he was no longer that ignorant and naive youth. Now, for the sake of returning to the Desolate Moon Continent, he would not let himself stop for a moment.
Just like that, Li Yan stood there for a full half-tea's time before his mood slowly returned to its original state.
With a flick of his green robe, Li Yan slowly sat down cross-legged ten yards opposite the dragon head.
Then, he slowly closed his eyes and silently circulated the True Scripture of Gui Water. The Spirit Power in his body began to slowly circulate through his meridians.
Li Yan sat in meditation for a whole day. When he opened his eyes again, his aura was almost non-existent, similar to that of a mortal, and his temperament had a touch of otherworldly flavor.
And his pupils had turned pitch black. This was the manifestation of having just finished cultivating the True Scripture of Gui Water to an extremely refined degree.
Li Yan swiped his right hand over his left wrist, and main and auxiliary materials of various colors flew out like raindrops, instantly piling up like a small mountain beside him.
He pointed a finger forward, and a fist-sized red stone radiating a scorching light flew up. It was the "Crimson Mother Essence" that Li Yan had obtained in the "Stone-Transformation Forest" of the Northern Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda.
After the red stone was suspended in mid-air, Li Yan once again summoned the cyan jade coral and suspended it in the air behind his head.
When a stream of fire-attribute Spirit Power was injected, a red light once again shot out and hit the dragon's giant mouth.
In an instant, a pillar of fire with a golden inner flame shot out, and the next moment, it hit the suspended Crimson Mother Essence directly.
The Crimson Mother Essence instantly looked as if it had been painted with red pigment, like the blood-red of a setting sun. As it emitted a buzzing sound, the stone trembled slightly in the flames.
Li Yan's body remained motionless as he quietly infused his Spirit Power. A hundred breaths passed quickly like this.
'It's just as recorded in the True Scripture of Gui Water. This thing is impervious to water and fire.'
The previously refined Magical Artifact had shown signs of formation damage after only fifty breaths in the flame.
But this Crimson Mother Essence stone was just a raw material, without the protection of a post-natal formation. Yet after being in the flame for a hundred breaths, besides becoming a more vivid blood-red, it showed no sign of melting.
Li Yan silently recited the refining incantations in his mind several times, then raised his hands with a calm expression. Then, a set of complicated hand seals changed at his fingertips. He either flicked them out with a bent finger or let them rise on their own like dandelions.
Black runes, large and small, radiating a chilling cold, drilled into the flames, rushing towards the Crimson Mother Essence like a tide.
The moment these pitch-black runes touched the Crimson Mother Essence, they firmly adhered to its surface, growing darker and more lacquer-like under the roasting of the flames.
Li Yan's movements did not stop. He continued to send out one cultivation manual after another. For a time, the stone room seemed to be filled with dense bats, circling and throwing themselves into the fire...
Just like that, after a full two hours had passed, the Crimson Mother Essence, covered in runes and pitch black, finally emitted a series of crisp cracking sounds.
But in Li Yan's Divine Sense, the Crimson Mother Essence wrapped in the black runes was still as red as blood, without a single crack on its surface, but it was a little smaller in size.
Li Yan's expression was as usual. He continued to form one hand seal after another. A large black cloud of runes had formed beside him, covering the sky and earth.
At this time, the power of the True Scripture of Gui Water began to show. Even after two hours of continuous consumption of Spirit Power, Li Yan still hadn't swallowed any Qi-replenishing pills, nor had he taken out any Spirit Stones to absorb.
The high temperature in the room was like a tide, yet not a single drop of sweat seeped from his forehead. His breathing was still long and deep.
Another two hours passed. When Li Yan's Spirit Power consumption reached more than forty percent, the size of the Crimson Mother Essence stone in his Divine Sense shrank again, now only about sixty percent of its original size.
Li Yan suddenly freed one hand and gently swept it. A cyan jade bottle on the ground flew into the air. The moment the stopper was opened, blue mist instantly emerged from the mouth of the bottle.
Even though the temperature in the stone room was enough to melt a piece of refined iron in an instant, it still couldn't stop the blue mist from rising from the bottle.
Li Yan's Divine Sense penetrated into the jade bottle. At the bottom of the bottle, there were eight separate, perfectly round water droplets rolling around, as round as crystal beads.
The eight water droplets were dark blue, each one emitting a bone-chilling cold. It was the Crystal Bone Water that ignored the power of the five elements.
Li Yan's Divine Sense directly locked onto three of the water droplets. They flew out of the bottle's mouth in a continuous stream, like a string of pearls, and then flew towards the flames in the air.
The three blue, water-droplet-like things showed no signs of damage even after flying into the towering flames. Even the evaporation that should have occurred when water and fire touched did not happen.
After entering the flame, the three blue water droplets fell onto the pitch-black Crimson Mother Essence without any hindrance.
Subsequently, the three drops of Crystal Bone Water immediately merged into it, smoothly entering the interior of the Crimson Mother Essence.
"As expected of a strange treasure of heaven and earth that ignores the five elements. The power of fire and metal is useless against it!"
This Crystal Bone Water simply ignored the existence of both the extremely dense fire-attribute Spirit Qi and the metal-attribute Crimson Mother Essence.
Seeing the Crystal Bone Water enter the interior of the Crimson Mother Essence, Li Yan's left hand's cultivation manual suddenly changed. His palm was held in a cupped shape, his five fingers gathered forward like a crane's beak.
Subsequently, five streams of spiritual light—black, green, red, yellow, and white—shot out from his thumb in sequence.
After leaving his fingertips by a yard, the five-colored spiritual light converged into a beam of five-colored light as thick as an arm and shot towards the Crimson Mother Essence in the flame.
Five Elements Quenching Fire, the unique artifact refining method of the Five Elements Sect.
At this point, Li Yan's other hand was already holding a mid-grade Spirit Stone, and he once again closed his eyes.
And this five-colored pillar of light continued to pour in, motionless...
A day later, Li Yan, who had been sitting with his eyes closed and an expressionless face, suddenly opened his eyes. At this moment, on the surface of the pitch-black layer of runes on the Crimson Mother Essence, which had been as still as a mountain, a patch of crimson water stains suddenly seeped out.
Then the pitch-black runes slowly softened, like paper unfolding on the surface of water, rapidly softening. The Crimson Mother Essence, which had been as tight as profoundly cold ice, began to melt...
Li Yan released the mid-grade Spirit Stone in his right hand, which had turned light gray. With a grasp of his large hand in the void, the Bitterness-Free Powder and seven other auxiliary materials flew towards the flames...
Following the return of its former Sect Master and the large amount of cultivation resources divided up from this great battle, Falling Star Valley flourished even more than before.
Not only were there more and more disciples entering the sect, but human rogue cultivators also continuously came to seek refuge.
A second-rate sect with a Pseudo-Nascent Soul, a Late-stage, and a Mid-stage Golden Core cultivator was already at the top of the second-rate sects.
If one day that Grand Elder of Falling Star Valley could take that final step and successfully form a Nascent Soul, then Falling Star Valley would immediately transform into a new first-rate major sect.
Now was the best time to join. Otherwise, when Falling Star Valley's power was established, it would be extremely picky if Foundation Establishment cultivators like them wanted to join.
It was just that Xing Ming's methods were much more seasoned than Lin Xinghe's. Any rogue Foundation Establishment cultivator who wanted to join the sect had to go through layers of screening set up by him.
Especially the "Star Illusion Nightmare Path" that he personally cast. Anyone who entered would experience a confrontation with their most terrifying inner demons.
Those with weaker Divine Sense would reveal their entire ancestry for ten generations within three breaths of entering.
After Xing Ming successively killed fifteen spies who tried to infiltrate Falling Star Valley, no one with ill intentions came to seek refuge anymore.
Those forces that were originally hostile to Falling Star Valley also temporarily quieted down.
Although the former Sect Master Lin Xinghe was in seclusion due to serious injuries from the great battle, the re-emerged Xing Ming's cultivation was even more formidable, not to mention the unfathomable Tianxingzi.
Although some people said that Tianxingzi was also seriously injured, someone saw him flying up to send off Qingyu of the "Green Wind Sect," looking as calm as a cloud and as light as the wind.
In addition, their relationship with the "Green Wind Sect" and the "Six Plates Hall" was also exposed. These three forces had already suppressed the area for nearly three hundred thousand li, and no one dared to raise their heads in opposition.
They dared not easily show any hostility. There was also another piece of news that made other forces even more worried that had spread.
Two first-rate human sects, the "Heaven-Burning Sect" and the "Unity Sect," both had the intention of bringing "Falling Star Valley" and the "Green Wind Sect" into their sphere of influence.
If that were the case, even before these two sects produced a Nascent Soul cultivator, they would have a powerful backing, making them even more difficult to deal with than before.
For a time, as the outside world changed, the various clamors had slowly subsided.