txolops Chapter 231 The Wood Spirit's Strange Change
Chapter 231 The Wood Spirit's Strange Change
The surface of the cyan sphere of light fluctuated violently, constantly being eroded and consumed by the flashing golden flames, emitting a hissing sound, and its volume was slowly but steadily shrinking. That was the purest wood spirit essence being forcibly refined!
Luo Ming, watching from the outside, felt a pang of pain in his heart. This was consuming the very foundation of his future Wood Spirit Body!
"Quickly finish the battle and avoid excessive depletion of its resources!" Luo Ming ordered in a deep voice.
Upon receiving the command, the Zhiyang bird let out an even higher and sharper cry, and flapped its wings violently!
The situation inside the cauldron changed again! The golden flames that filled the cauldron seemed to have gained life and will, and suddenly contracted and rotated inward, and then divided into dozens of miniature fat sun birds, each only the size of a mosquito and made entirely of condensed flames!
These fiery birds were incredibly agile, emitting a dense "chirp chirp" sound. From all directions, like a school of piranhas that had smelled blood, they fiercely pounced on the blue orb of light that was struggling to hold on in the sea of fire!
"Hiss hiss hiss—!"
The fiery birds' claws and beaks were formed from the purest yang fire, achieving an extreme level of restraint over the wood element's essence. They frantically pounced, pecked, and tore at the surface of the cyan orb.
Under such a dense and targeted attack, the cyan orb's defenses quickly became riddled with holes, and its spiritual light dimmed rapidly. Taking advantage of this opportunity, several of the most ferocious firebirds suddenly darted into the orb's interior!
"Eee...ya..." The wood spirit's mournful cry instantly weakened, filled with despair.
What followed appeared to outsiders as a fierce clash and devouring of the fire and wood spirit essences. Under the envelopment and internal invasion of the golden flames, the cyan sphere began to undergo a strange color change, gradually transforming from its original pure cyan to an unstable golden-cyan hue, as if two forces were frantically clashing and merging within it.
Luo Ming held his breath and focused intently on every change within the cauldron. He could sense that the Wood Spirit's faint resistance was rapidly dissipating under the burning and devouring power of the Fat Sun Bird's natal spirit fire.
A moment later.
The golden-blue orb that had been trembling and struggling suddenly stopped moving and floated quietly in the golden flames. No more spiritual fluctuations were emitted. Only the pure and enormous wood spirit energy remained, along with a trace of the residual Yang energy of the Zhiyang Bird's Yang Flame, which strangely merged with it.
"Success?" Luo Ming was overjoyed. It seemed that the spirit's soul and consciousness had been completely erased. He then ordered the Zhiyang Bird to quickly withdraw its supernatural powers.
As instructed, the Zhiyang Bird opened its beak and inhaled. The golden flames burning fiercely inside the cauldron, like rivers flowing into the sea, quickly detached from the sphere of light, rolled back, and disappeared into the Zhiyang Bird's mouth. The temperature inside the cauldron rapidly returned to normal.
However, when the flames dissipated and the ball of light was fully revealed in Luo Ming's consciousness, the joy on his face instantly froze, turning into surprise and doubt.
The sphere of light was about the size of an egg, its entire body displaying a warm, lustrous cyan color, resembling the finest jade. But strangely, within this cyan core and on its surface, one could clearly see fine, hair-like, meandering golden lines! These golden lines were not merely attached to the surface, but deeply embedded within the sphere of light, intricately intertwined with the cyan wood spirit's essence, forming a mysterious pattern that emanated a strange fluctuation that was both full of vitality and carried a faint sense of burning.
This... is definitely not something that has been burned or contaminated. The essence of the wood spirit seems undamaged; on the contrary, because of the incorporation of these golden patterns, it has become somewhat... different.
"This..." Luo Ming frowned, a sense of foreboding creeping into his heart. "Could there have been a problem with the refining process? Has the flames of the Fat Sun Bird undergone some unknown fusion or mutation with the Wood Spirit essence? Is this still considered pure Wood Spirit essence? If this is refined..."
Looking at the shimmering, golden-patterned cyan bead in his palm, Luo Ming was filled with astonishment and uncertainty. The illusory figure of the Heavenly Mirror Hermit also drifted to the side, carefully probing the strange, scorching energy within the bead with his divine sense.
"Strange, truly strange..." Tianjing Sanren pondered for a long while before slowly speaking, his tone filled with uncertainty, "These golden patterns are undoubtedly the origin of the supreme Yang fire, originating from the natal spirit fire of your Fat Yang Bird. Logically speaking, the wood spirit origin is pure and most afraid of being burned by Yang fire; the two should be incompatible like water and fire. But in the current situation, this fire origin is not only not rejected, but it also merges with the wood spirit origin like water, interlocking with each other to form a... rather stable state of balanced symbiosis. I have never heard of such a change before."
He paused, then looked at Luo Ming: "If it were an ordinary wood spirit source, after you refined it, you would most likely awaken a fairly pure wood-attribute spirit body, which would be of great benefit to wood-type techniques, supernatural abilities, and even the cultivation of spiritual herbs. But now, with fire patterns entwined, and wood and fire complementing and opposing each other... I can hardly predict what kind of physique will ultimately be created, whether it will be a blessing or a curse."
Upon hearing this, Luo Ming's heart skipped a beat, and a somewhat absurd thought flashed through his mind. He blurted out, "Could it be... that I can awaken a 'fire-attribute wood spirit body'?" After saying that, he laughed at himself, shaking his head and chuckling, "What's going on here? A fire-attribute wood spirit body, is it primarily fire or primarily wood? It sounds contradictory."
However, after laughing, he remembered that there were indeed some special spiritual trees in the cultivation world. They were originally wood, but they contained or were close to the fire attribute, such as Blood Phoenix Wood, Fire Paulownia Wood, and Crimson Sun Spiritual Wood. They were all naturally unique species, often possessing some characteristics of both attributes.
"Whatever!" Luo Ming quickly banished his distracting thoughts, a resolute look appearing in his eyes. With such an opportunity before him, how could he shrink back because of a sliver of uncertainty? Besides, cultivating this Wood Spirit Origin to this point had already consumed a great deal of effort and resources. "What's meant to be will be. I'll cultivate it to its current limit first, then refine it! Whatever kind of spirit it is, it won't do any harm."
Without further hesitation, he placed the cyan bead back in the center of the Spirit Gathering Cauldron, and then took out a large number of wood-attribute spirit stones from his storage bag, piling them around the bead until they almost covered the bottom of the Spirit Gathering Cauldron.
Immediately, he sat cross-legged in front of the cauldron, opened his mouth and spewed out alchemical fire, and began to carefully activate the Spirit Gathering Cauldron formation, controlling the fire power to gently and continuously temper and stimulate the wood spiritual energy in the spirit stone, allowing it to slowly seep into the round bead.
The cultivation process was calm and lengthy. As pure wood spirit energy was continuously injected, the cyan bead indeed became deeper in color, and the wood spirit essence within it became more and more pure and powerful, radiating a vitality that was refreshing.
However, just as Luo Ming observed the strange phenomenon, the winding golden patterns inside the bead did not dim or fade due to the growth of the wood spirit's origin. Instead, they grew and spread in sync, becoming clearer and more complex, like a fine golden network deeply rooted in the wood's origin. They even seemed to be actively absorbing and transforming some of the wood spirit's energy to nourish themselves.