"After advancing to Morning Star, profession development is no longer slowly pushed forward by relying primarily on Body Refining Techniques and Meditation Techniques; instead, it requires refining fire."
"Refining fire?" Su Chen waited quietly for it to continue.
The Residual Spirit continued, "That’s right, refining Morning Star Fire. Three strands or fewer classify as a Lower Morning Star, four to six strands as a Middle Morning Star, and seven to nine strands as an Upper Morning Star.
"Every time a strand of Morning Fire is refined, one’s body undergoes a massive enhancement."
"How do you refine fire?" Su Chen pressed, as this was truly his first time hearing such information.
The Residual Spirit replied, "Refining fire requires specific Magic Techniques, which differ for each profession. I possessed Qin Yun’s body before; the Refining Technique he used was incredibly crude and incomplete."
"That’s not right..." Su Chen pondered for a moment before suddenly realizing something. "If that’s the case, how were the various Ancient Kings born? They definitely needed to become Upper Morning Stars before they could advance to Moonlight, right?"
"I’m guessing it should be through the proxy wielding of illusory fire."
Without waiting for Su Chen to ask, it provided the answer. It had said the exact same thing to Qin Yun once before. "The Moonlights here will choose a successor before they die. They use themselves to influence the Moonlight Spirit, then decompose the Moonlight Fire to spawn illusory fire, allowing the successor to wield it as a proxy.
"This method also exists in the Abyss Realm. The price is the life of the Moonlight. That’s why the Moonlights here are replaced so quickly—once every two or three thousand years. This is far from the lifespan limit of the Moonlight Tier."
Su Chen suddenly understood. It turned out they were creating another Moonlight at the cost of a Moonlight’s life. This made him think of many things, prompting him to ask, "The rate of refining fire shouldn’t be the same for everyone, right? Can Talent affect the speed of refining fire?"
"Of course it can," the Residual Spirit replied.
Hearing this, Su Chen breathed a sigh of relief. If Talent couldn’t influence this so-called fire refining speed, then there would be no need for him to continue stacking it. Who knew where the limit of his Talent lay anyway?
The Residual Spirit continued, "What affects the speed of refining fire is not just Talent, but also the grade of the Refining Technique and the number of Holy Professions. The higher the tier of the Refining Technique, and the more numerous and powerful the Holy Professions, the faster the refining speed."
Su Chen raised an eyebrow. The grade of the Refining Technique was likely a matter of quality, which wasn’t hard to understand. But the number of Holy Professions could actually affect it too? He fell into thought. Compared to the Abyss Realm, the Dust Star Sea was clearly lagging behind in many aspects. Because of this, unless it was about a specific matter, he didn’t even know where to begin asking.
Su Chen probed a bit deeper. The Residual Spirit was well aware of these basic pieces of information, but when it came to more specific details, it became vague again, maintaining that it couldn’t remember.
"F*ck, it got bigger!"
At that moment, Su Chen’s eyelids twitched as a wave of searing heat washed over his face. The fireball had expanded another cycle, already burning through more than half of the main building. The surrounding temperature had skyrocketed, and flames began to ignite. Even from a great distance away, it was quite conspicuous.
"This... this fireball..." A noise suddenly came from nearby. It was Lin Langtian, who hadn’t been gone for long. He had doubled back. Staring at the massive fireball in front of him, he frowned deeply. "Why does this fire look so much like..." As his thoughts spun, he turned his head. Amidst the rolling winds, a figure descended—it was Qing Cang.
"What’s going on with this fire?" Qing Cang asked. Walking closer, his expression was solemn. Staring at the fireball, a flash of suspicion crossed his eyes. He wondered why this fire looked so much like the scene of a Morning Star transforming into fire. Upon learning that the Energy fluctuations on Su Chen’s Floating Island were extremely violent, he had rushed over immediately. Right now, absolutely nothing could be allowed to happen to this kid.
"That was fast," Su Chen muttered to the side, not bothering to answer Qing Cang’s question.
After a brief moment of thought, Qing Cang waved his hand. Rings of pale green Flowing Light snaked out from the void like spirit snakes, gently yet Swiftly coiling around the perimeter of the fireball. The Qing Feng flowed like water, condensing into a protective barrier that isolated the high temperatures and heatwaves. Turning around, he looked at Lin Langtian. "Lin Zoushou, I still need you to return and hold the fort at Dubhe. I’m afraid you can’t stay in Copper Heart for too long."
This was clearly a sign that he had things to say to Su Chen privately. Lin Langtian gave a wry smile. "Understood. I will head back as soon as possible." The relationship between Copper Heart and these chairmen was actually quite delicate. On one hand, Copper Heart needed them to guard the external territories; on the other hand, it had to prevent their factions from expanding too much and suppressing Copper Heart’s prestige.
After watching Lin Langtian leave, Qing Cang looked at the giant sphere wrapped in the flowing wind. The sphere had already stopped expanding. He suddenly asked, "Is that Qin Yun inside?"
It wasn’t hard to guess. Su Chen nodded honestly. "Yeah."
"What did you do to him?" Qing Cang was also unsure. Qin Yun was clearly dead, so it should have been impossible for him to transform into fire again, yet the scene before him looked exactly like a fire transformation in progress.
Su Chen hesitated. "Recycling waste..."
"Recycling waste?" Qing Cang shot him a glance. This kid couldn’t even be bothered to make up a lie anymore. In the past, whenever he did something, he would at least come up with an excuse.
"Watch out!" Suddenly, Qing Cang’s expression shifted. Pressing a hand on Su Chen’s shoulder, he pulled them far back. The wrapping wind current was suddenly torn open by a fissure, and billowing flames spewed out.
"Its Power isn’t small," Qing Cang muttered to himself as a surge of strength swept through Su Chen’s entire body. "Nothing out of the ordinary." He couldn’t help but feel surprised. Su Chen’s physical condition wasn’t much different from a normal Tier Seven, other than his physical toughness being somewhat higher. He couldn’t quite figure out how this kid had managed to withstand a strike from Qin Yun. However, at least there was no aura of a Deceitful God, nor were there any other abnormalities. Qin Yun’s dying words flashed briefly through his mind.
Watching Qing Cang retract his hand, Su Chen was secretly speechless. Old Qing’s acting skills really weren’t that great. But he didn’t make a fuss about it. Instead, he brought up a new topic. "By the way, Senior Brother, does the Sect have any Deceitful God’s Power in stock? I want to requisition some."
"Requisitioning Deceitful God’s Power again?" Qing Cang frowned slightly. "We do have some Deceitful God’s Power, but not much." Compared to the uses of Divine Blood and Faith Essence, the conventional uses for Deceitful God’s Power were not many—in fact, they were extremely rare. Aside from the power that practically delivered itself to their doorstep, neither the Bronze Sect nor the other major Sects would deliberately go out of their way to collect it.
"I’ll take however much there is, then," Su Chen said, acting as if he were settling for less.
"Take however much there is?" Qing Cang nearly laughed out of anger. He snapped, "Although this stuff doesn’t have many applications, the Sect still needs to keep some in reserve."
"Fine, I’ll see what I can do. I definitely won’t hollow out the reserves," Su Chen said nonchalantly.
Qing Cang stared at him for a long time before looking away. "You already know what happened in the Royal Court, right?"
"Lin Zoushou already told me," Su Chen nodded.
"Zhou Lingtian..." Qing Cang seemed to sigh with emotion. "To think it actually fell upon the Royal Court’s head."
"What do you mean?" Su Chen didn’t understand.
Qing Cang’s gaze turned profound. "A while ago, I went out to investigate matters regarding the Deceitful Gods. Although the order was issued by Chu Lingyuan, the clues were actually provided by Zhou Lingtian."
"Oh?"
Su Chen couldn’t help but be surprised. "This Zhou Lingtian is playing the arsonist and the firefighter."
Qing Cang hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. "Perhaps not. For someone like him, it’s highly likely he was just taking advantage of the situation.
"Several Great Deceitful Gods banded together and were definitely plotting something. It was probably a makeshift response that ended up falling on the Royal Court. You could say the Royal Court made a contribution to the Dust Star Sea; otherwise, who knows where the bomb would have dropped."
Su Chen said, "But Fog Ashes was only corrupted, not stolen."
"Only?" Qing Cang felt a twinge of exasperation. If targeted by Fog Ashes, no matter who it was, they wouldn’t be able to say the word "only"—yet the one person qualified to say it was standing right in front of him. He shook his head and said, "Zhou Lingtian definitely wanted to steal the Moonlight Spirituality, but the Deceitful Gods had no need to steal it. Stealing it might exact a much heavier price. Once entangled by Fog Ashes, under normal circumstances, corruption is only a matter of time anyway.
"However, after this ordeal, those Great Deceitful Gods can probably confirm that the Hanhai Emperor and those Ancient Kings are currently unable to exert any influence on the outside world."
Qing Cang sighed. "This is not a good thing. Moving forward, we might very well see the true bodies of Great Deceitful Gods descending upon the world." With the Royal Court suffering such massive losses, Qing Cang was naturally happy to see it happen, but he also sniffed out a crisis from the situation. But his gaze shifted, landing on Su Chen. "For us, however, there might be profit to be made."