Dong Li seemed very excited.

The Beast Spirit Incantation the Dong Clan members practiced was a special incantation that allowed people to refine beast spirits into themselves and improve their battle prowess with the beast spirits’ strength.

However, the beast spirit would usually lose a large amount of soul power before merging with people. Therefore, the might of the beast spirit could almost never achieve the same level as when they had been alive.

Powerful experts from the Dong Clan would only attempt to strengthen their beast spirit after advancing to the Worldly realm, when they possessed soul power.

Even so, knowing how important and precious their soul power was to them, they usually wouldn’t waste it on their beast spirits.

Because of that, it was almost certain that beast spirits wouldn’t grow stronger after they were refined and merged with their owners.

That said, it was impossible for Dong Li, who was only at the Greater Heaven stage and didn’t possess soul power, to strengthen her black phoenix on her own.

Upon learning that the Spirit Pearl was able to gather and refine Specters and discarnate souls, she was instantly intrigued.

Her overjoyed and warm attitude made Nie Tian slightly uncomfortable.

He reach out his arm and handed the Spirit Pearl to her, saying, “Here. Have a try if you want.”

Dong Li seemed confused. “What?”

“See if you can extract soul power from it and use it to strengthen your black phoenix,” Nie Tian said.

With a quick glance at the Spirit Pearl, Dong Li shook her head repeatedly and said, “I don’t have the ability to refine these discarnate souls yet.”

“Well, it’s not that easy for me to refine discarnate souls either.” Gazing into the Spirit Pearl, Nie Tian discovered that the two wisps of discarnate souls from Jiang Bo and Lu Shen were swimming within it, but they still seemed to contain the negative emotions and broken memories of their past lives. Therefore, they couldn’t be channeled directly into his mind yet.

Furthermore, he had a feeling that there were still things about the Spirit Pearl he didn’t know yet.

Even though he assumed it would be safe to keep it before it gathered too many discarnate souls, he felt that changes would occur when it had gathered enough discarnate souls and Specters.

Therefore, he deemed this mysterious treasure forged by the Phantasms to be a potential problem, which could put him in trouble someday.

“Don’t let people see it. Now put it away!” Dong Li urged.

A mere glance at the Spirit Pearl, which was emanating misty, cyan light, made her uneasy. She couldn’t help but recall the horrifying illusions of mountains of corpses and seas of blood it had put into her mind when she had approached the center of the lake.

If it hadn’t been for Nie Tian, she would have lost her senses and ended up as another discarnate soul in the Spirit Pearl.

“Alright.” Nie Tian put the Spirit Pearl away.

Dong Li let out a sigh of relief and said, “I meant, next time you refine the discarnate souls within it, maybe you can share some with me.”

Nie Tian nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”

Moments later, the Flame Dragon Armor suddenly shot out of the mouth of the volcano like a streak of flames.

Dragging a tail of flames behind it, it rapidly returned to Nie Tian’s bracelet of holding.

“That’s it?” Dong Li seemed surprised. “That volcano is still spewing lava and flames. Don’t tell me that the Flame Dragon Armor has absorbed enough flame power already.”

Eyes narrowed, Nie Tian examined the Flame Dragon Armor with his mind before saying, “It seems that the Flame Dragon Armor has only absorbed earthflame essence from the heart of this volcano. Earthflame essence was what it truly needed to replenish its flame power.”

“Earthflame essence?!” Dong Li’s expression flickered slightly.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Nie Tian asked.

Dong Li didn’t answer him right away. Instead, she scanned the volcano with her psychic awareness, and then said, “You’re right. It has only absorbed the earthflame essence within this volcano. But I bet you don’t know that once a volcano is loses its earthflame essence, it will soon go extinct. Plus, without earthflame essence, a volcano will lose its ability to gather flame power from its surroundings. Therefore, it will never become active again.”

Nie Tian nodded slowly. “I see.”

When the Earth Flame Beast had ravaged the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range in the Realm of Flame Heaven, he had learned something about flame crystals, earthflame essence, and Earthflame Crystal Strings.

Earthflame essence existed only in the absolute centers of volcanoes, and it was capable of attracting and gathering flame power from the vicinity.

The flame power it had gathered would congeal into flame crystals due to the extreme environment. Through tens of thousands of years of change, earthflame essence could become Earthflame Crystal Strings.

Earthflame Crystal Strings were crystallized earthflame essence, inside of which was branded the profound truths of flame power.

Due to the escape of the Earth Flame Beast, the structure of the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range had gone through destructive changes. The Flame Dragon Armor had taken the opportunity to gather large amounts of earthflame essence and a few Earthflame Crystal Strings.

It was at that time that the Flame Dragon Armor had accumulated copious amounts of flame power and gained a strong boost in its strength.

Since both the scale and age of the volcano in front of Nie Tian’s eyes were limited, the earthflame essence in it hadn’t formed Earthflame Crystal Strings.

Therefore, the Flame Dragon Armor had only absorbed its limited amount of earthflame essence, and flown out looking unsatisfied.

Dong Li smiled bitterly and said, “Without earthflame essence, this short volcano will soon lose its glory and become extinct. The Tool Sect allows foreign Qi warriors to use the volcanoes in the Realm of Unbounded Desolation to forge spiritual tools. But they don’t allow people to take earthflame essence from the volcanoes, which will ruin them completely.

“The Tool Sect needs the volcanoes in the Realm of Unbounded Desolation to cultivate prominent equipment forgers. They need all the volcanoes so that, during the assessment assembly, the participating equipment forgers will be able to use them to forge spiritual tools.

“If anyone dares to takes away the earthflame essence and ruin their volcanoes, the Tool Sect will definitely get to the bottom of it and rain their wrath on those who are responsible!”

Upon hearing Dong Li’s explanation, Nie Tian understood her concerns, and thus said, “Let’s get out of here then!”

The Realm of Unbounded Desolation was filled with volcanoes. As powerful as the Tool Sect was, they couldn’t guard every single one of them.

The Tool Sect had ruled the Realm of Unbounded Desolation for thousands of years now, and would probably continue to do so in the thousands of years to come.

Therefore, in their eyes, the unexplored volcanoes were precious equipment forging resources they had reserved for their future disciples.

Even though they couldn’t use so many volcanoes now, as their sect expanded and the explored volcanoes ran dry, they would eventually need the unexplored ones.

The Flame Dragon Armor had just ruined a volcano for the Tool Sect by absorbing all of its earthflame essence.

Undoubtedly, the Tool Sect wouldn’t let that go.

Dong Li’s expression grew grim as she blurted, “Yeah! Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible! As far as I know, the Tool Sect has marked every single volcano, including the ones that haven’t been explored yet. They allow people to use these volcanoes, but they don’t allow people to take the earthflame essence. I bet the Tool Sect will soon learn about what has happened to this volcano, so we need to leave now.”

Realizing the unfavorable situation, the two of them rapidly marched towards the deepest parts of this desolate land, getting as far away from this volcano as possible.

One day later, they encountered the old man who was nearing the end of his lifespan again, in a place where the ground was almost filled with rivers of flowing lava.

With a numb expression on his face, the old man marched on at a slow pace. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He would stop from time to time to examine the auras in his surroundings. Only after discovering nothing noteworthy would he resume his march.

Apparently, every time he stopped, he did so to scan his surroundings for wood power, hoping to discover the legendary place.

The reason why Nie Tian and Dong Li were able to catch up to him within a day was because he didn’t focus on marching forward, but rather spent large amounts of time searching the land he had covered.

The old man seemed rather surprised upon seeing them again. “It’s you again.”

When he had heard the loud rumble from the volcano earlier, he had noticed the tension between them and Lu Shen as well. However, he had been bent on finding that promised land, and thus hadn’t wanted to meddle in others’ business.

It hadn’t mattered to him which of them was killed. Battles like this took place every minute in the Domain of the Falling Stars. Since his priority was his lifespan, he naturally hadn’t paid any attention to them.

However, what surprised him was that Nie Tian and Dong Li managed to survive.

He had assumed that Lu Shen and Jiang Bo, who had higher cultivation bases, would have prevailed.

However, upon seeing the old man, Dong Li only nodded briefly at him before marching past him with Nie Tian.

At the same time, Wu Ling descended in the Rainbow Lightning by the mouth of the short volcano.

He tossed a glowing dark-red sphere into the mouth of the volcano. When it reached the heart of the volcano, his face fell as he said to the person beside him, “Someone has indeed taken the earthflame essence!”

“Everyone here knows about our rule. Every equipment forger and fire-wielding Qi warrior that comes to the Realm of Unbounded Desolation knows about our rule! Who would so daringly take the earthflame essence without our authorization!?”

Wu Ling gazed off into the distance, fuming with rage.