“Do you know the place the Heaven Flame Ritual is held? It’s the Great Flame Mountain, where there is a huge crystal glazed cauldron that was personally refined by supreme sovereign Cang Yuan. It is specially used for the Heaven Flame Ritual, so it is called the Heaven Flame Cauldron.

“And to activate the Heaven Flame Cauldron requires 99 Heavenly Sun experts to instill Heavenly Sun Fire into it with all their strength. The Heaven Flame Cauldron will then strengthen the Heavenly Sun Flame, making the flame extraordinarily pure and mighty.

“Additionally, one’s body can’t enter the Heaven Flame Cauldron—only the spirit can—because the Heavenly Sun Flame inside the Heaven Flame Cauldron is too strong. If the body enters, it may be directly incinerated. Only the Spirit can avoid this.

“So, if you want to capture and collect the Heavenly Sun Flame in the Heaven Flame Cauldron, you will need to rely on the power of the Spirit.

“Although your Spirit is at the Transformative stage, your strength alone may not have much effect because it depends on everybody’s strength. After all, no matter how strong your Spirit is, you can’t beat hundreds of Spirits of the Corporeal stage right?

“So the best way to win a share of the Heavenly Sun Flame during the Heaven Flame Ritual is to use your Spirit of the Transformative stage as the core to coordinate and direct the Spirits of the other members of the Wind Pavilion. It will be as if you are the general and they are the soldiers.”

“---”

In the pavilion master building of the Wind Pavilion, Ye Qiushui was providing important information about the Heaven Flame Ritual to Zhou Yuan.

“I see.”

Zhou Yuan nodded. He could be said to have completely understood the mechanism of the Heaven Flame Ritual.

But it was somewhat different from what he thought. At the Heaven Flame Ritual, the strength of Genesis Qi didn’t matter; instead, the strength of the Spirit of everybody as a whole was the most important.

“But even if it depends on the power of the Spirit. Our Wind Pavilion is still considered to be last of the four pavilions. Do you know how much we won in the Heaven Flame Ritual last year?” Ye Bingling sighed, stood up and lifted one finger.

“Only 10% of the Heavenly Sun Flame.

“Last year the Heaven Flame Ritual was hosted by the Profound Crystal Clan. The Mountain Pavilion had a fixed 40% of the Heavenly Sun Flame, while the Fire Pavilion won 30% and the Forest Pavilion took 20%.”

“So even if the rules of this year’s Heaven Flame Ritual changed to a free competition between the contestants, given our ability, in the end, we will still win around 10%.”

Yi Qiushui shook her head. “There is no need to be so pessimistic. The Wind Pavilion performed poorly at the Heaven Flame Ritual in previous years because they didn’t have a pavilion master, just senior sister Ye and Chen Beifeng. Also, Chen Beifeng leaned towards the Fire Pavilion’s side, so the Wind Pavilion wasn’t united at that time and was considered to be like a tray of loose sand.

“This year we have Zhou Yuan as the pavilion master, and now all the people of Wind Pavilion have united together. If we all do our best, I think 20% of the Heavenly Sun Flame will be achievable.”

“Yes, we believe in the pavilion master’s ability!”

“If the pavilion master is here to guide us, our Wind Pavilion will certainly win 20% of the Heavenly Sun Flame!”

Xiao Hong and other pavilion leaders nodded one after another, looking at Zhou Yuan with awe and respect. In the past few months, the ability Zhou Yuan showed had subdued all the members of the Wind Pavilion and had made their confidence in him greatly rise.

Seeing everyone’s hopeful gazes, Zhou Yuan calmly said, “The Fire Pavilion has suffered such a big loss, they will definitely do something at the Heaven Flame Ritual.”

He pondered for a moment, then looked at Yi Qiushui and asked, “How many people in the Wind Pavilion have Spirits at the Corporeal stage?”

“There are two hundred and thirty-two people with Spirits at the Corporeal stage, but most of them are in the initial stage.”

Yi Qiushui thought for a moment and then added, “And on the Fire Pavilion’s side, Zhu Lian’s Spirit has reached the Transformative stage, and there are more than 500 people at the Corporeal stage.”

Zhou Yuan narrowed his eyes. Whether it was the Divine Dwelling experts of the Wind Pavilion or the Fire Pavilion, the majority hadn’t practiced the orthodox Spirit tempering method; it was just that as their Genesis Qi cultivation level grew, their Spirit also strengthened.

Generally speaking, as long as one’s Genesis Qi reached the Divine Dwelling stage, their spirit would also slowly break through to the Corporeal state.

There weren’t many young heaven prides like him who cultivated both Genesis Qi and Spirit and made such great progress in both. For example, although Zhu Lian’s Spirit was at the Transformative stage, if he were to fight against Zhou Yuan with only Genesis Qi, Zhou Yuan could easily kill him with one slap.

Another example was Lu Xiao. Although he possessed a stronger Genesis Qi foundation than Zhou Yuan, if they were to fight with only Spirit, then Zhou Yuan could burn Lu Xiao’s Spirit into nothingness with his Spirit Flame within a few seconds.

Of course, this comparison didn’t make much sense. Zhu Lian would never be that stupid to compete with him using Genesis Qi alone, and Lu Xiao wouldn’t be stupid enough to fight with him with only his Spirit. No one would choose to fight with their weaknesses and ignore their strengths.

Ye Bingling, Xiao Hong, Shang Xiaoling and the others’ expressions also became solemn. The difference in overall strength between the two sides was so great it made them feel great pressure.

The Fire Pavilion’s overall strength was far stronger than their Wind Pavilion’s. If the Fire Pavilion really wanted to target the Wind Pavilion, there indeed could be a lot of trouble.

When Zhou Yuan noticed the depressed atmosphere, he couldn’t help saying, “We will take appropriate measures when the situation calls for it. We don’t need to be too afraid. After all, no matter how bad it is, would this year be worse than previous years?”

Hearing his unusual words of comfort, everyone couldn’t help but laugh, and their expressions gradually relaxed. Indeed, the Wind Pavilion was already the worst in previous years, and no matter how miserable it will be this time, it can’t be any worse than before, right?

“For the next few days, the pavilion leaders must coordinate well with the members. Gather in front of the pavilion master building every morning. Before the great battle, we must train with some Spirit exercises to deal with what’s ahead of us,” Zhou Yuan commanded.

Zhou Yuan had never had the experience of commanding many Spirits before in a battle, so in order to prepare himself, he had to do some training exercises to enhance his experience.

The many pavilion leaders gave cupped fist salutes and then turned away.

Watching them leave, Zhou Yuan’s relaxed expression gradually turned serious. The free fight in the Heaven Flame Ritual was an opportunity that his senior sister Chi Jing had obtained for him, so of course he wouldn’t be satisfied with not doing worse than previous years as he had previously told everyone.

He even thought that 20% was too little!

The battle for the chief pavilion master position was near, and the Heaven Flame Ritual was a great opportunity for him. If he grasped it well, he could even gain the strength to compete with Lu Xiao.

But the overall Spirit strength of the Wind Pavilion was indeed much inferior to the Fire Pavilion’s.

Zhou Yuan knitted his brows in a deep frown. With such a huge difference in strength, the Wind Pavilion wouldn’t be able to get much benefits, so he, the pavilion master, also wouldn’t gain much.

The Heaven Flame Ritual this time was very important to him.

And Lu Xiao most likely had already guessed this. The Fire Pavilion had already suffered losses in the several battles before, so if Zhou Yuan were Lu Xiao, he also wouldn’t underestimate him and would gather all the strength of the Fire Pavilion to completely suppress him.

Zhou Yuan gradually closed his eyes and muttered to himself.

“It seems that I have to think of a way to deal with this.”