Chapter 178: Purple Sea
Ye Wuchen saw the changes in his expressions so he slightly smiled and said, “Thanks for your concern, brother Nangong, but I have a very important task to complete that involves a trip to the Heavenly Fire Volcano.” He took a glimpse at Ning Xue whose face was very red and did not want to delay longer, “We shall leave now.”
Nodding his head towards Nangong Zhen, Ye Wuchen and Tong Xin walked quickly as they left. Nangong Zhen turned around, somehow baffled while looking at their figures from behind, “Will they be going to get the Heavenly Fire Dragon Fruit?”
Aside from the Heavenly Fire Dragon Fruit, he could not think of any other reason that would make them want to go to the Heavenly Fire Volcano regardless of any warnings.
“The Heavenly Fire Dragon Fruit is the legendary object from the brightest and hottest place under the heaven and earth. Eating it can greatly increase one’s power to control of the element of fire. But this legend might possibly a fake. No person had been able to get it, so how would people know it’s efficacy?” Looking at the direction they left in, Nangong Zhen talked to himself. After shaking his head, he headed towards the direction of the Nangong Residence. In the Nangong Family, he was the youngest son also the most industrious one. The magical martial influential families were unlike those families within the army and government whose members fought and schemed against each other. Each one of them became martial and magical experts being influenced by their elders and environment, they would fight for the highest position in the family for fear of falling short.
Away from Nangong Zhen’s sight, Ye Wuchen used his eyes to hint to Tong Xin and they accelerated to their fastest speed. Within this torrid environment, his physical strength should quickly decrease, but he felt that his powers were automatically recovering much faster than normal. His relaxed his mind and finally the slightest bit of nervousness had also disappeared. Heavenly Fire Volcano, he had came to the right place. Everything was according to what he had expected.
As he form of the mountain grew nearer and nearer, the temperature became higher and higher. After ten minutes, Ye Wuchen finally stopped, Tong Xin followed him as he stopped and used inquiring eyes looking at him. Their distance from the Heavenly Fire Volcano was still a considerable.
Ning Xue was gasping and the air she breathed out was so frighteningly hot. Ye Wuchen’s heart clenched with pain, increasingly regretting allowing her to come here. He grabbed Ning Xue tightly in his arms, plucked a finger on his left hand where a white light flickered, and a very huge piece of ice appeared before their eyes. It was the ice that he had asked Tong Xin to cut off from the South Heaven River.
“Tong Xin, cut it apart.” Ye Wuchen yelled out while was touching Ning Xue’s face.
Tong Xin acknowledged him and stood there without moving, she stretched out her right hand, slashed through the empty air from top to bottom. An ash black light emitted, noiselessly cutting the huge ice into two equal sized pieces. At the same time, she separated the two halves a meter apart.
Two pieces of huge ice started to melt, reducing the temperature of their surroundings, releasing the cool air. Ye Wuchen carried Ning Xue over to the middle of these two ice pieces, and suddenly fresh and cool air came, immediately clearing her mind. Her rapacious breath was cooler than a while ago, and two small hands pressed onto the ice wall, enjoying the coldness.
The reason Ye Wuchen had brought this large piece of ice from the South Heaven River was as a precaution for this situation. He briefly sighed in relief, bent his body and said, “Xue-er, you and Tong Xin just wait here, I’ll go ahead and take a look.”
“Ah? But…” Hearing that he would leave was almost like a conditioned reflex as Ning Xue tensed up.
“Don’t worry, it’s unlikely that something will happen. Did you forget that I am not afraid of fire and heat? Xue-er, this is the farthest that you can take, if I take you along, I wouldn’t be able to go up.” Ye Wuchen said.
Hearing that she would slow him down, Ning Xue gave up her insistence and anxiously said, “Then brother you must return soon.”
Ye Wuchen nodded with a smile, firmly agreed, then said to Tong Xin, “Protect Ning Xue well, if the ice dissolves faster, then you must take her away.”
After speaking, he did not delay and rushed ahead using his fastest speed. Without Ning Xue, his speed was faster. The main reason he permitted Ning Xue to come with him to such dangerous place was that he was worried that some unknown accident might occur at home. If he needed Tong Xin’s protection, bringing along Tong Xin meant that he must also bring Ning Xue, because he was more scared that Ning Xue might meet some accidents.
If everything was just as he had expected without any hindrance or changes, after exploring the Heavenly Fire Volcano, he would immediately leave and return to Yan Long City with Ning Xue and Tong Xin, then make necessary arrangements to head back here all by himself.
After a minute, he was dragging along his long shadow when he arrived at the foot of the Heavenly Fire Volcano. Glancing at the mountain top, then he incessantly strode to climb up the precipitous mountain. Vaguely, he felt a pair of eyes watching him. They were likely Tong Xin’s eyes, since only she had the ability to look this far a distance.
The Heavenly Fire Volcano was not that high, within a hundred meters, but the area it occupied was very large. The bare mountain was red through and through, with no weeds and even more unlikely to have any other living things. Only flames covered up almost the entire body of the volcano. Ye Wuchen stepped onto the flames as he proceeded upward, but he was not injured in any way.
After a short while, he finally arrived at the top. He bent down to look and suddenly, his heart was overwhelmed with shock. Although there were a lot of powerful people in the Heavenly Star Continent, those with the power to protect themselves enough to reach this point was not few. He believed that, whoever it will be, the first feeling the person will have after arriving here would be astonishment.
Before his eyes was a sinister purple color. The concentrated purple liquid was widespread up to a few hundred meters ahead, like a deep purple sea that shockingly appeared before his eyes.
The color of flames had corresponding intensity of heat. The most common fire was yellow, a little bit stronger and it would be yellow orange, then red. Flame more powerful than red flames was blue, then one more powerful than blue was purple. Based on the legends, there was a kind white flame which was more dreadful than purple flames.
The purple colored lava was a dreadful level beyond words. When a piece of metal was thrown inside, it would instantly melt away and became a part of the sea, what more if it was a person who stepped inside? The purple colored lava should not have existed, because reaching such high temperature, will not create lava, but directly vaporize everything, transforming them into floating ash as they disappeared without a trace. During the time when Lin Yan had exerted his full strength to produce purple flames that caused the competition stage made of marble to disintegrate, even the ground had greatly receded. It may be assumed that there must be some mysterious power that created this purple sea, causing the mountain not to evaporate under such high temperatures.
In the terribly high temperature, the air was also terribly thin that even the empty space had trembled due to the awfully high temperature, causing the view in front of Ye Wuchen’s eyes to be distorted.
Ye Wuchen deeply breathed in the air and slowly walked downwards. After more than ten steps he had arrived at the edge of the purple sea. He crouched down and extended his arms towards the middle.
His hand sank into the purple lava… If it was the hand of an ordinary person, it would disappear in an instant, but Ye Wuchen felt his hand being wrapped in a comfortable warmth. He did not test the temperature of the purple lava, but its stickiness instead. Getting the result, the corner of his mouth hooked up into a smile.
Standing up, he looked ahead. In the center of the vast purple sea, he saw an eye-catching red dot. It was as if the pretty and flirtatious red dot had a peculiar magical power. It was unexpectedly not being covered up by the purple sea, instead it was like an arrogant monarch situated in the center of the vast purpleness. Even though it was in a far distance, it was visible enough for people to easily discover it.
The Heavenly Fire Dragon Fruit!
Although its existence was very small, it was so eye-catching that people could not ignore it. Ye Wuchen mixed his powers and leaped up with his feet. His body lightly leaped forward, falling into the middle of purple sea, then stepping on purple lava of unknown depths as he walked forward. Although he was not able to walk on water, he could walk on the dense lava with some difficulty.
Walking along until he reached the center, he finally fully saw the Heavenly Fire Dragon Fruit. It was rooted to the bottom of this horrible purple sea, its long stem was purple in color, burning with flames. The only fruit on top of the stem was actually only the size of a fingernail, emitting a strange devilish red light, so dazzling that one would not be able to directly look at it. Such a small size of fruit still allowing people to be able to easily discover its presence even from a hundred meter distance in the middle of the vast purple sea. If it was regarded as something from the mundane world, who would ever believe it?
Ye Wuchen’s eyes did not focus on it for a very long time, because it was not the reason he came here in the first place. Judging by its condition, if he really plucked it, being away from its flame source might cause the fruit to gradually dissipate.
He maintained the lightest weight his body could be as he stood in center of the purple sea. Opening his arms he mumbled, “That’s right… This is this kind of feeling that my premonition gave me…”
The place where Ye Wuchen stood was the exact center of the Heavenly Fire Volcano. Within such a terrible zone, it must be surrounded by an extremely strong spirit of the heaven and earth. Using them was the only method to upgrade his spells.
The spirit of heaven and earth was everywhere. Even if Ye Wuchen was in the middle of sleeping, his body would automatically absorb the spiritual power, thereby upgrading his powers. But because the spiritual power was too thin, the speed was extremely slow. His spells from level one to level two originated from his seventeen years of automatic absorption and from the pure and unmixed inborn spiritual power from an egg of the heavenly beast. If he was to rely on automatic absorption to upgrade it to the third level, he did not know when it would be completed.
So he had hoped for a place the was densely packed with the spiritual power of the heaven and earth, for instance, the hottest area of the Heavenly Star Continent, the Heavenly Fire Volcano.
It did not go beyond his expectations. Under his body’s automatic absorption, the center of the Heavenly Fire Volcano was like a mysterious warm breath that crazily rushed forth into his body. Compared to his usual involuntary absorption, this was much faster. He actually clearly felt the relaxed comfort in his body and the internal power to be in high spirits. The power he needed to be able to float on the purple sea was clearly nothing compared to this recoverr speed.
The speed of spiritual power absorption was beyond his anticipation, but the speed needed for him to upgrade his spells was somehow greater than what he had expected. He closed his eyes, silently experiencing the amplification of his power. If he was able to maintain the speed, within three days, he would be able to make a breakthrough to the third level.
His heart felt grateful towards the Five Underworld Five Elements Holy Qilin that had given him the Holy Blessings of the Qilin that permitted him to obtain a body that was not afraid of the five elements. With it he could freely stand in the middle of this purple sea. Without it he he would only feel powerless and incompetent.
The originally calm purple sea formed small waves because of his presence, this was an indication of the absorption gradually intensifying. After a short while, Ye Wuchen glanced all around and prepared to leave. He had already achieved his goal for this journey. He also had not come across any changes that were beyond his expectations. Once he sent Ning Xue and Tong Xin back, he would come again to quietly stand here for three days.
Just when he took the first step to depart from this purple sea, a deep imposing voice echoed in his ears:
“Who is it… Who is absorbing the spiritual power of this place…”
Translated by:
• Fatty_Uncle
Edited by:
• seriouspotato
• patrick_father_of_dragons