The Long Journey to Immortality

“That’s a bit of a pity,” Mo Zhehan didn’t think of himself as a “bastard” or a “freak” at all. On the contrary, he was proud of his origin. “I always thought that the cultivator born from the fusion of bloodline between the True Spirit and the cultivator was the strongest cultivator.”

"Whether it's me or the other two elders in the palace who possess true spirit bloodlines, we all have the ability to fight two cultivators of the same realm at once."

"Since you have never fought against a cultivator with true spiritual bloodline before, I will broaden your horizons and make this trip worthwhile."

Huang Ziqiang was slightly surprised. He had been worrying about how to proceed, forcing Mo Zhehan to use his True Spirit transformation ability in the battle, thus employing Han Lu's small suggestion. Unexpectedly, Mo Zhehan actually volunteered to fight him in the form of a True Spirit.

This saved him a lot of trouble.

"Then I'll wait and see."

After exchanging a few words, the referee, seeing that the two had no intention of continuing the conversation, activated the formation and announced that the match was about to begin.

As soon as the countdown ended, Mo Zhehan began to use his semi-real spirit transformation technique.

A roar erupted from his mouth, followed by a loud bang as his upper clothes ripped open.

Naked, with his muscular upper body exposed, many female spectators in the stands stared wide-eyed, completely captivated by the sight.

An astonishing aura erupted from Mo Zhehan, and then a dragon tattoo burning with gray flames appeared across his shoulder, on his chest and back.

Huang Ziqiang cooperated quite well, not taking advantage of the situation, but watching from a distance, observing this scene that had never been seen before in the Central Plains.

The candle dragon tattoo burned for a moment, then transformed into countless black scales covering Mo Zhehan's exposed upper body.

Finally, accompanied by a dragon's roar, Mo Zhehan grew dragon horns on his head, and his hair turned gray, as if it were burning with flames.

His body, already far stronger than that of an ordinary cultivator, swelled up even more as if it had been inflated.

When Mo Zhehan, who was nearly two and a half meters tall, stood on the arena with dragon horns on his head and covered in dark scales, he had finally completed his transformation into a semi-true spirit.

Seeing this scene, Fu Tianqiao, who was sitting in the lounge, couldn't help but shift her gaze between Mo Zhehan on the jade screen and Han Lu beside her, lost in thought, feeling that she might have discovered some incredible secret.

Just then, Han Lu wanted to chat with Fu Tianqiao about the matter, but as she turned around, she met Fu Tianqiao's meaningful gaze.

Being stared at like that, Han Lu couldn't help but feel a little uneasy, as if her biggest secret had been exposed.

She pretended to be nonchalant and joked, "What, do you think Mo Zhehan has a good physique and you've taken a liking to him?"

Han Lu was met with two gentle punches from Fu Tianqiao, along with her criteria for choosing a partner: "I prefer a refined gentleman to a muscular brute."

Joking aside, Fu Tianqiao's thoughts were not disrupted by Han Lu's words, nor did she forget her previous guesses.

However, she didn't ask the question directly as she usually would.

She had a premonition that if Han Lu and Mo Zhehan faced off in the ring, her suspicions would likely be confirmed.

Just as the onlookers were getting excited about what was happening on the stage, the two fighters on the stage finally showed signs of making a move.

"Fellow Daoist Huang," Mo Zhehan's voice was much deeper than before, with a slight reverberation, "Are you ready?"

He swung his fist twice into the air, producing two astonishing sonic booms that made people imagine the power of his punches.

Huang Ziqiang patted his storage bag and summoned a full eighteen spirit swords, saying, "Come on, please enlighten me, Fellow Daoist Mo."

Although learning from Han Lu that using magic or Five Elements magic weapons might be more effective against Mo Zhehan, who possesses the bloodline of the Candle Dragon.

However, as a passionate fan of the Spirit Sword, Huang Ziqiang still wanted to fight in his own way first, to see if he could defeat Mo Zhehan, who had become a half-dragon and half-human, using his strongest methods.

Under Huang Ziqiang's control, the eighteen spirit swords were divided into three groups, each forming a simple sword formation, and attacked Mo Zhehan from three directions.

Seeing that it was just an ordinary sword formation, and the spiritual swords that made up the formation were only mid-grade magic weapons, Mo Zhehan did not take Huang Ziqiang's attack seriously.

He snorted coldly, and his aura surged three points higher. His originally dark scales turned pitch black and spread further, completely protecting his neck.

With his arms outstretched and aiming at the direction from which the spirit sword was coming, Mo Zhehan's long arms seemed to transform into two spears, and he actually began to fight the spirit sword head-on with his flesh and blood.

All that could be heard was a "clinking" sound. The scales seemed to be made of metal used to forge magical artifacts, and the sound they made when they collided with the spirit sword was quite pleasant.

Mo Zhehan, however, relied on his brute strength and sturdy scales to remain unscathed despite being surrounded by eighteen spirit swords.

Is that all?

With another loud shout, the dark flames that were burning on Mo Zhehan's hair spread outwards, igniting half of Huang Ziqiang's spirit sword in the blink of an eye.

The flames of the Candle Dragon are similar to Han Lu's True Fire Phoenix Flame, and seem to be quite adept at dealing with magical treasures.

In an instant, the once radiant spirit swords were shrouded in darkness, became uncontrollable, and soon lost their spirit, falling onto the arena.

Noticing that several of the spirit swords were damaged, Huang Ziqiang quickly used his sword to retrieve the remaining ten spirit swords to his side.

Staring at the black flames burning on the surface of the spirit sword that was still lying on the ground, Huang Ziqiang couldn't help but think of the crimson flames that Han Lu had used to deal with the puppets.

"What a strange move. Could it be that the flames Han Lu used are some kind of divine power?"

After a brief distraction, Huang Ziqiang refocused his attention on the battle.

Mo Zhehan took a deep breath, swallowed the remaining candle flame on the ground, and then said, "Fellow Daoist Huang, is this all you have to offer? If so, you've disappointed me greatly."

Chapter 617 A Powerful Strike

The damage to his eight spirit swords, tainted by the flames of the Candle Dragon, caused him great distress.

A spire suddenly appeared in Huang Ziqiang's hands.

As the spire emitted a faint light, the ten spirit swords that had been surrounding him slowly shrank and plunged into the spire's window.

Meanwhile, those spirit swords that had lost their spirituality and suffered considerable damage, summoned by the spire, temporarily obeyed Huang Ziqiang's command once more, flying into the spire and receiving its nurturing and cleansing to restore their spirituality.

After finishing all this and putting away the magic weapon, Huang Ziqiang slowly replied, "Fellow Daoist Mo's flames are indeed powerful. The Candle Dragon bloodline is indeed a true spirit bloodline. Just one move has opened my eyes."

Huang Ziqiang was not a "racist" and did not harbor any ill will towards mixed-race human cultivators.

However, he still attributed Mo Zhehan's brilliant performance to the power of his True Spirit Bloodline, rather than to any great ability Mo Zhehan, a cultivator from the Extreme Heaven Palace, possessed.

There was a barb in those words, and even the straightforward Mo Zhehan could tell it in a moment.

He had heard these words countless times from the defeated during his battles at the Celestial Palace.

In his early years, he would be moved by the situation, and even try to defend himself, deliberately avoiding using his true spiritual abilities to defeat the opponent.

But now that he can truly and completely transform into the Candle Dragon as a human cultivator, utilizing his true spiritual bloodline, he no longer feels anything special about such words.

Upon hearing Huang Ziqiang's reply, Mo Zhehan could only feel disappointment.

Disappointed that the opponent he had been looking forward to was not as powerful as he had imagined, and disappointed that Huang Ziqiang, a cultivator from the Central Plains, was just like the "mediocre people" in the Jitian Palace.

However, mindful of maintaining harmonious relations between the East and West, Mo Zhehan, as the disciple of the Celestial Venerable, would not say anything impolite at this moment.

Since his opponent was so "incompetent" and "disappointing" to him, he made up his mind to end this battle as soon as possible, which was of little significance to this warlike cultivator.

Pushing the cultivation technique compatible with the Zhulong bloodline to its limit, bursts of dragon roars emanated from Mo Zhehan's chest, a heart-stirring sound as if roared from the very heart.

Although the dragon's roar did not contain any element of spiritual attack, it still gave Huang Ziqiang a chilling feeling.

He realized that his words had unexpectedly angered Mo Zhehan.

"Perfect, let's test whether the spell is really effective against the Candle Dragon cultivators whose bodies are so strong they seem invulnerable."

Thinking this, Huang Ziqiang took out another magical artifact from his storage bag.

An abacus made of jade and spirit stones.

The abacus is carved from a single piece of jade, while the beads on it are made of various colored spirit stones.

It took forty-nine high-grade spirit stones of the Five Elements to make this abacus.

Such quality is at least top-grade, but spirit stones containing the spiritual power of the five elements are not easy to find.

This makes this already high-grade magic weapon even more expensive, and on the market, it could fetch at least four thousand spirit stones.

Huang Ziqiang took out the abacus, placed his left hand horizontally, using his forearm as a table under the abacus, while his right hand quickly moved the various colored beads on the abacus.

As the abacus beads moved up and down, under Huang Ziqiang's precise control, the Five Elements techniques appeared in a generating sequence, with various techniques being released outward from the abacus as the center.

Each spell cast using the abacus as a medium can be performed without chanting incantations, and its power is comparable to the full-force attack of a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator. This is the remarkable feature of the five-colored abacus.

Like a thunderstorm, Huang Ziqiang's attack was like a sudden downpour. A large amount of spiritual power was poured into the abacus magic weapon, which was transformed into numerous spells and attacked Mo Zhehan not far away.

While the scales of the Candle Dragon are indeed weak against magic, this does not mean that Mo Zhehan would be afraid of magic attacks and would simply dodge and avoid them.

On the contrary, seeing Huang Ziqiang show off his skills, Mo Zhehan felt his fighting spirit burning brightly, and he found a bit of fun in this battle that he thought would be boring.

“Okay, okay,” Mo Zhehan thought to himself, “Then let me test your magic.”

The next second, gray-black mist emerged from the gaps in the scales on Mo Zhehan's upper body, enveloping his entire body.

Protected by this fog of unknown composition, the numerous spells aimed at Mo Zhehan vanished without a trace once they disappeared into the gray fog, as if they had sunk into the sea.

Seeing this, Huang Ziqiang was stunned, thinking to himself, "What kind of trick is this? It doesn't seem to be recorded in that booklet."

With his rich combat experience, Huang Ziqiang realized that the many spells he had cast with the abacus seemed to be ineffective, so he immediately stopped activating the magic weapon and stopped wasting his energy.

Seeing that the rainstorm had stopped, Mo Zhehan emerged from the black mist and revealed his true form once again.

His facial features, which were originally rated seven and a half points, have lost their human form, and the skin on his face has been replaced by scales. This time, he looks even more like a dragon than before.

"Heh heh," Mo Zhehan spoke again, "Fellow Daoist Huang, you seem to have fought against Zhulong before?"

Having reviewed the opponent's information before the match was somewhat like cheating in this situation, and Huang Ziqiang didn't want to lie, so he simply responded with silence.

"Very well, then Fellow Daoist Huang should know that my fists are hard. Would you like to try it yourself?" Mo Zhehan clenched his right fist, stretched out his arm, and pointed at Huang Ziqiang.

Before Huang Ziqiang could answer, Mo Zhehan seemed to have learned teleportation, taking a swift step and covering fifty meters to arrive in front of Huang Ziqiang, throwing a backhand punch.

As the punch pierced the air, Huang Ziqiang and all the spectators present could clearly hear a faint dragon's roar.

Before the fist even arrived, the wind from it carried a dark, scorching heat that rushed straight to Huang Ziqiang's nostrils.

Having been through countless battles, Mo Zhehan's sudden attack did not leave Huang Ziqiang dumbfounded and at a loss for how to respond.

On the contrary, almost the instant Mo Zhehan threw a punch, Huang Ziqiang responded with his usual methods for dealing with cultivators skilled in external martial arts.

A light-colored light screen suddenly appeared in front of Huang Ziqiang.

Immediately afterwards, three more talismans flew out of the storage bag, forming a simple array that protected Huang Ziqiang's front.

Finally, the mid-grade magic armor that Huang Ziqiang had been wearing shone brightly, maximizing his ability to resist external attacks.

With three layers of defense in place, Huang Ziqiang felt confident that everything was in place, and began to prepare to respond with magic at extremely close range as Mo Zhehan launched his heavy punch.

However, what happened next was completely unexpected.

[Author's Note] I can't help but want to engage in ambiguous relationships and... well, you know.