"Golden true fire!" Xu Fu exclaimed in surprise.
He fished out an ancient volume and opened it to read.
Ye Chen glimpsed at it recording the colors and shapes of various true fires.
"No record?" Xu Fu checked the volume and looked at Ye Chen"s true fire, whispering, "It"s my first time to see a golden true fire. The Fire Encyclopedia doesn"t record it."
"The encyclopedia can"t cover all the fires bred between the heavens and the earth."
"But your golden fire looks extraordinary."
Xu Fu looked the fire up and down and murmured for a long time.
He stretched his hand and grabbed the fire to see it more clearly.
However, a weird scene happened.
With spiritualism, the true fire resisted brutally and burned madly the second it was grasped by Xu Fu.
Ouch!
Xu Fu loosened his grip in intense pain and his palm burned black.
The true fire bounced back into Ye Chen"s body like golden light, which stunned Xiong"er.
"Your fire has spiritual intelligence." Xu Fu ignored the pain in astonishment.
"Sect elder, don"t the fires bred between the heavens and the earth all have spiritual intelligence?" Puzzled, Xiong"er asked.
"Who told you so?" Xu Fu glanced at Xiong"er, and stroked his moustache, explaining, "All the fires possess spiritualism. But spiritual intelligence differs from spiritualism and ranks high."
"So…it is!" Xiong"er rubbed head.
"Sect elder, how to cla.s.sify their ranks?" Ye Chen asked. He knew about that when he melted the witchcraft spell for the elder in purple in the Ghost Black Market. But the elder did not tell him the details.
"It"s hard to say!" Xu Fu stroked his moustache, "Some are ranked by spiritualism, some by the flame power and even others by the time of their appearances. I still can"t tell how to define their ranks according to my experience."
Alas!
Xu Fu sighed, "I intend to borrow your true fire, integrate it with my body and return it to you after my death. Now, the method doesn"t work."
"Why?" Both Ye Chen and Xiong"er asked in a chorus.
"Your true fire is born with spiritual intelligence and mastered by you. If I force it to integrate with my body, I"ll be consumed by it. It has chosen you, I can"t change it."
Ye Chen relieved.
Doubtlessly, Xu Fu gave up Ye Chen"s true fire,
"But I want your rewards." Xu Fu coughed.
"As sect elder orders."
"Help me to refine cores."
"Refine…cores?" Surprised, Ye Chen laughed in embarra.s.sment, "Sect elder, I can refine spirit liquid, but know nothing about core refinement."
"I can instruct you!"
At night, Ye Chen walked out of the Spirit Core Pavilion and would return here to help Xu Fu refine cores in three days.
He was silent all the way.
He survived in the disaster due to good luck, frightened when thinking of the Renyang and Diyang Peaks along with the Regulation Hall plotting against him. If Xu Fu had not rushed to save him at the critical moment, he must have lost his life.
It was easy to escape from the traps on the surface but not the schemes hidden.
He was certain he might be killed even protected by Xu Fu.
The viciousness within a sect was penetrated.
"I"m too weak." He mumbled and roared with fists clenched, "I will be strong and protect the people I care about."
After going back to the little spiritual garden, he stood outside Zhang Fengnian"s room for a long while.
He kneeled down abruptly when recalling the old man tried to save him even sacrificing his dignity and life.
"Sir, it"s my fault to make you humiliated. I"ll ask those who bullied you to pay a great price. I swear!"