“Meow.”

“Long Tian Yaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!!!”

****

“Are you sure you made the right decision back there?” Yaomu Shou asked Long Di.

“It was never my plan to stay in the Demon region. Now that I have a good reason to leave, I might as well take it and go,” Long Di explained.

They were currently going down one of the many lesser lit caverns atop Cavern Flame Mountain. Where they were was a tunnel of sorts that led deep into the mountain itself.

As soon as they entered one of the many caverns, the veins on the beast skin lit up. As of now, there was a small burning rune on the beast skin that was traversing the vein-like pattern. It was this rune that allowed a novice like Long Di to navigate the labyrinth-like innards of the mountain.

Even with this, there was a pall that hung over the heads of the group. This came from the news Yaomu Shou received.

She advised Long Di that the royal family deemed him a criminal of the highest calibre. The urgency of his capture and preferred death rivalled that of any confirmed sightings of an Abyss Ghost.

Though Long Di’s expression remained the same, everybody else wore serious expressions.

Long Di looked back at Xiannu Liang before asking, “Are you sure you want to continue the journey with me?”

A shield of spiritual qi covered her body to protect her from the heat. It was a fair distance from her body since Long Di’s spiritual qi was lightning attributed and would harm her if it came in contact with her.

“It’s fine. I’m not necessarily a person who’s welcome wherever I go myself, so I’ll… stick with you,” Xiannu Liang replied.

He then turned his gaze to Shen Ling, who replied with, “Don’t even think about it.”

He nodded within understanding, “And that’s that.”

This was all that there was of their group at the moment. Jia Yan was accompanied by Zi Yu to cultivate in the caverns atop Cavern Flame Mountain, so he didn’t follow along with the rest. Long Di wanted him to focus on getting stronger since his strength wasn’t of much help to him.

“So, what’s your next move?” Shen Ling decided to ask.

Long Di composed his thoughts before answering, “Well, I’ll leave the Demon region, pass through the human region, since they shouldn’t be so hostile… hopefully. Then, after I get some details from them regarding the location of Emerald Forest, I’ll Uber along Xiannu Liang to drop her off and then be on my way to Saber Mountain for further training, maybe pick up some alchemy along the way. But before any of that, I need to get myself that earth flame.”

“About that,” Yaomu Shou spoke up. “I said nothing about it since you seemed prepared when you heard of the Earth Flame. However, those things aren’t easy to acquire. If you want to gain an Earth Flame with your own strength, I heard ‌you need to be at the peak of the Star Creation Stage at the very least, and that’s for the weakest Earth Flame at that. I’m aware of some tools that can allow you to take it in, but it isn’t without risks.”

“Oh, I have none of those things,” confessed Long Di.

Yaomu Shou stopped walking and stared at the back of Long Di’s head in shock. One had to be aware that an Earth flame was a treasure that was one of the purest manifestations of the Heavens and the Earth.

Its strength wasn’t something to be taken lightly, and it couldn’t be counted how many had lost their lives in the pursuit of such a thing in the rare moments when they were discovered.

Yaomu Shou fished around in her storage and took out a palm-sized block that was dull grey in appearance.

“Wait a minute!” She ran after Long Di when she realised the latter didn’t even stop. He really was too hateful!

Hearing her shout, Long Di turned around, wondering what the issue was.

When she finally arrived, she held her hand out and the dull-grey block lay there. Long Di didn’t move to take it, but inspected it for a moment when the knowledge of what this was came to him.

“Is this really what I think this is?” He finally took it up to feel the weight of it in his own hands.

When Long Di retrieved it, Yaomu Shou revealed a pained expression, but it was fleeting and thus it went unnoticed.

“Yeah, that’s an unrefined space stone,” she advised.

“I heard these were priceless,” Long Di commented.

“What’s a space stone?” Shen Ling asked. Her curiosity got the better of her.

Yaomu Shou gave a wry smile and answered, “It’s what they use to make things like storage rings.”

Xiannu Liang stuck her head out from the back to take a peek before asking, “is it really that valuable? It just looks like a block of metal.”

“I’ve only heard it was valuable,” Long Di admitted. “I don’t know what makes it valuable myself.”

“It can allow one to grasp the laws of space much more easily through studying it. Of course, the space stone exists in small amounts and it’s unbelievably rare, and small amounts like what you find in storage rings can’t help in that regard so much. However, when it’s as large as this, that changes, and comprehension of space becomes much easier. I wanted to use it for something like that later on, but this dimwit…!” Yaomu Shou glared at Long Di as she said this.

“Will need something that will be able to contain the destructive energy of an Earth Flame. So here…” she sighed as she looked at Long Di.

Long Di looked at the space stone in his hand and then at Yaomu Shou, then back at the space stone before settling on Yaomu Shou. He placed the space stone in her hand and closed her hands around it with his. “Hold on to this for a while, I already have a plan… ish.”

“Ish!? This is no time for ish! Ish can go screw itself! You could die!” Yaomu Shou explained with flailing arms.

“Just… trust me. I mean, you kinda told me why you’re accompanying me for the most part and with this kind of collaboration, trust is kind of necessary,” he explained to her before taking back out the beast skin to continue their journey.

Yaomu Shou stared down at the space stone with a complicated look before revealing a satisfied smile. She put the space stone away in a small bag hidden in her sash before running off to catch up with Long Di and the others.

Even though Long Di was reading the map, where they were now was a tunnel that seemed to go lower and lower. The heat here was sweltering, and Long Di felt like he wanted to activate his spiritual qi to stave off the heat.

However, thinking that there was more fire-attributed spiritual energy, he thought it would be a good idea to run the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art to cultivate his physical body since he didn’t reach the Earth Flame yet.

Vrrrm!

His body trembled as he compelled the somatic essence to circulate.

“Ack!”

A mouthful of blood erupted from his mouth as he fell to his knees.

“Di!” Shen Ling rushed to his side, followed by Yaomu Shou.

“Ah!” Suddenly, a cry of pain sounded from behind and both Yaomu Shou and Shen Ling looked behind them to see Xiannu Liang kneeling on the ground as well in pain.

“W-What’s happening!?” Shen Ling asked, her face dotted with worry.

“H-Hold on,” Long Di gently moved them to the side so that he could see Xiannu Liang.

Holding his hand up, he circulated his spiritual qi to erect the qi shield for her once more.

“Ack!”

Another mouthful of blood was coughed up, this time even pieces of flesh could be seen accompanying it.

“Long Di, stop it! Whatever you’re doing, just stop it!” Shen Ling was on the verge of ripping out her own hair in a panic! She didn’t know what was happening, but Long Di was on the verge of coughing up a lung.

Yaomu Shou made her way over to Xiannu Liang and could see faint burn marks appearing on the latter’s skin.

“Your kind is really weak to fire, aren’t they?” Yaomu Shou said with concern.

As of now, Xiannu Liang was doing her best to keep her moans as quiet as possible. Whatever it was that Long Di was going through seemed to be much worse than her at the moment.

Long Di at the moment wanted to bonk himself on the head. He knew what was causing his injuries, but his earlier flustered state caused him to make the same mistake when he heard Xiannu Liang’s cries of pain.

Seeing where acting on impulse got him, he took a deep breath. After this, carefully circulated his spiritual qi, and could feel it running through his meridians.

Shen Ling felt this and naturally became flustered once more, “Long Di!”

“It’s okay,” Long Di said, with a stream of blood seeping from his mouth.

Whoosh!

A large shield of spiritual qi covered the entire group. When the shield was summoned, Long Di let loose a breath of relief.

“So that’s what happened,” he said to himself.

“What was that?” Yaomu Shou asked, not complaining about the immediate relief the qi shield brought them from the heat.

“I didn’t realise it before, but it seems to be an effect of circulating both my somatic essence and spiritual qi,” he said deadpan.

“Oh,” Yaomu Shou said, nodding to herself, seemingly in understanding.

“Huh!?”

“Haagh!?”

Several cries were blurted out from the void, compelling Long Di to look around in confusion, trying to locate the source.

“Hold on…” Yaomu Shou then stopped and looked back at Long Di in horror. “What did you just…?”

It was during this moment that Yaomu Shou, Shen Ling, and even Xiannu Liang really took in what Long Di just said. The hamster in their head had finished its break and went back on its wheel for them to process his words.

Yaomu Shou then held up trembling fingers in Long Di’s direction, even her lips trembled as she struggled to get the words out, “D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Did you-”

Boom!

Before she could fail her language any further, a massive explosion came from further down the tunnel.

“Hold that thought,” Long Di said calmly, not realising that he shocked not just his group but the existences watching him from within the void.

He double-layered his spiritual qi shield before triple-layering it. While he decided between quadruple-layering it or not, someone’s hand was rubbing his chest before it made its way up to his face.

The hand rubbed his cheek, eyes, nose, nostrils, and ears and even tried to get in his mouth.

“What kinky crap are you tr- mmphf…!?” Long Di asked before the hand fell in his mouth, cutting off what he was about to ask.

Yaomu Shou didn’t even care that her hand was in Long Di’s mouth. She just stared at him in a dazed manner, as she used her other hand to make sure he was real.

“D-D-D-D-D-Did you j-j-j-j-ju…” Talking still posed a challenge even at this moment.

Fwhoosh!

Suddenly, The darkness of the tunnel before them lit up before a massive wall of red flames came barrelling toward them!

Not having a choice, Long Di just shrugged his shoulders and sat down with the hand in his mouth all the same and quadruple-layered his qi shield to await the wall of flame.