The Eternal Saint of Alchemy

After a night of settling, the jade talisman was no longer its previous bluish-gold color, but rather a soft white-gold color, exuding a righteous and peaceful aura.

The walls inside the tower were slowly healing, and tiny cracks were closing up. Xiao Fan reached out and touched the nearest crack, feeling a warmth on his fingertips, as if the entire tower had come back to life.

By the afternoon, he had completed the runes on the second layer.

Another low rumble came from inside the tower, even louder than yesterday, causing the ground to tremble slightly. Xiao Fan stepped out of the tower and felt the tremor beneath his feet before he felt relieved.

"It's faster than expected," he said to Gu Yuan. "The third level suffered the least damage and will only take half a day. By noon tomorrow, the tower will be 70-80% repaired."

Gu Yuan put down his talisman brush, shook his slightly sore wrist, and suddenly remembered something: "By the way, last night when I was repairing the runes, I discovered a faint pulse beneath the tower's base, which is somewhat different from the tower's aura. If you have time, you can go take a look."

Xiao Fan's heart skipped a beat. He knew that the Ancient Abyss Lord must have discovered the Creation Flame beneath the pagoda. "Let's repair the pagoda first."

In the afternoon, Han Fei ran back from the eastern guard post, his face beaming with excitement. "Brother Xiao, I just saw a flash of blue light on the western ridge. Could it be a trap that person set?"

Xiao Fan looked in the direction Han Fei was pointing. The western mountain ridge was shrouded in thick fog, and nothing could be seen.

"Blue light?" A thought struck him. The monk Gu Yuan stroked his chin and said, "Ordinary talismans are either red, gold, or blue. Isn't that girl cultivating black flames? Where would she get blue light?"

Xiao Fan pondered for a moment and said, "It might not be him. Since the Black Fire Sect has existed for a hundred years, there can't possibly be only one person inside. Perhaps there will be others coming this time."

He looked at Yun Ruoxi and said, "Tonight, you will keep watch with Elder Gu. Han Fei, it's just the two of us. If that blue light appears again, don't rush to chase it. Remember its location."

As night fell, Xiao Fan did not rest immediately. He went alone to the southeast corner of the tower base, squatted down, and carefully observed the crack.

The moonlight was shrouded in thick fog, making it impossible to see one's hand in front of one's face. But when he closed his eyes and probed the crack with his divine sense, he could clearly feel that the red light was still pulsating slightly, and was brighter than during the day.

It seems that the repair of the jade talisman inside the tower has made it more active.

He cautiously probed a wisp of his divine sense into the ball of light. This time, the heatwave was still fierce, but Xu Que had already used the Qiankun Refining God Technique to form a protective shield of true essence around his body, isolating his divine sense from the outside.

His divine sense penetrated the protective shield of true essence before he could barely touch the edge of that ball of light.

A surge of pure fire-elemental spiritual energy flowed from his divine sense into his sea of ​​consciousness, and a few sentences from the "Fire Control Chapter" of the Supreme Alchemy Scripture suddenly became clear.

"The fire of creation, born at the beginning of heaven and earth, is hidden beneath the nine netherworlds. When it encounters a destined person, it can be collected into a cauldron and nourished with divine consciousness. The outer fire becomes the inner fire, and it will exist forever."

Xiao Fan suddenly opened his eyes, his heart skipping a beat.

He suddenly had a bold idea: what would happen if he put this Creation Fire into the Creation Cauldron of Heaven and Earth?

However, he refrained from doing so. The pagoda was still under repair, and rashly igniting the underground fire might affect the stability of the seal on the pagoda's foundation.

He suppressed the agitation in his heart, slowly stood up, and returned to the tower.

Xiao Fan and Han Fei took turns on duty in the latter half of the night.

The fog remained thick, and the surroundings were deathly silent. Xiao Fan sat on a boulder in front of the tower gate, closed his eyes, and circulated the Qiankun Refining God Technique.

After midnight, another surge of spiritual energy came from the northwest.

The people who came this time were much more powerful and far more secretive than those who came last night. Xiao Fan opened his eyes, moved swiftly, and headed northwest through the mist.

After walking seventy or eighty feet, he stopped. In the mist, beside an ancient pine tree, a blurry figure stood facing the tower.

The woman was a head taller than the scout from yesterday, and stood much straighter, looking like a young girl.

Xiao Fan held his breath and focused his mind, minimizing his aura.

The man seemed to sense something and suddenly turned around.

Through layers of white mist, Xiao Fan could not see the person's face clearly, but could vaguely make out a pair of extremely bright eyes that gleamed with a ghostly blue light in the darkness.

Those eyes glanced in the direction of Xiao Fan, and then the figure vanished into the mist like a wisp of smoke, disappearing without a trace.

Xiao Fan stood there for a while, making sure the person was really gone, before slowly walking back to the tower.

Han Fei noticed the man's unusual expression and asked in a low voice, "What's wrong?"

Xiao Fan shook his head and said no more. However, he knew very well that the man's cultivation was far superior to that of the previous scout, and those deep blue eyes... vaguely reminded him of the words left by the Grandmaster of the Void on the jade slip:

"The black flame isn't a single flame, but a blue flame. Be careful if you encounter someone with different colored eyes."

The thick fog only began to dissipate slightly the next morning.

The outline of the mountain ridge was faintly visible in the mist, and sunlight shone through the layers of mist onto the tower, giving it a faint golden glow.

Master Gu Yuan, full of vigor and confidence, walked towards the west of the tower with his talisman brush in hand. He slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "Today, I will definitely complete the third level! I feel better than ever before!"

Xiao Fan smiled without saying a word, his gaze fixed on the crack in the southeast corner of the tower base. After a night of contemplation, he finally made up his mind.

Once the seal on the tower was completely repaired, he attempted to draw out the Creation Fire from the ground and place it into the Creation Cauldron.

The repair work in the morning went surprisingly smoothly. The third floor was indeed the least damaged, and Gu Yuan completed the repair in less than an hour.

As the final stroke was made, the tower trembled violently, and the tiles on the top layer made a crisp sound. The entire tower seemed to awaken from a long slumber, emitting a long hum.

The gap in the tower gate began to close slowly, gradually narrowing from half a finger's width until it was only a hair-thin slit. Golden light shone through the gap, illuminating the open space in front of the tower.

"It's done!" A thought flashed through his mind. Gu Yuan put down the talisman brush in his hand and sighed, "At least these two days of hard work weren't in vain."

Xiao Fan walked to the tower gate, placed his hand on the cold stone slab, and scanned it with his divine sense, immediately knowing what was inside.