*“The Sovereign Ash Pill requires the sacrifice of an Azure Core… your father still has to die for you to make it,”* Old Master Gu hissed through the channels of Meng Ruohan’s skull.
Ruohan blinked grit and pond water from his eyelashes. No. Not after learning the truth of his father's curse. There had to be a loophole.
He pushed himself up, the cold earth clinging to his robes. Song Yueli remained cross-legged on the wet shale, Silent Frost balanced across her knees, gray eyes locked onto his.
“A simulated core,” Ruohan murmured. “A counterfeit potent enough to satisfy the cauldron, without carving out a man's spine.”
Gu spat a phlegmy rasp. *“Foolish brat! Purity and resonance demand living heritage, not some concocted paste!”*
“Unless the vessel matures on its own,” Ruohan countered, visualizing Fan Bo’s spirit beast—an overfed pangolin whose hide had absorbed stray formation shocks without cracking.
“Where is Fan Bo?” Ruohan asked, turning to Yueli. She pointed towards a small, overturned barrel in the distance, a faint, familiar snore rumbling from within.
Moments later, a groggy Fan Bo emerged, Pudge tucked under his arm, still half-asleep. “What’s happening, Boss? Is the world ending again?”
“We are turning Pudge into a walking crucible,” Ruohan said. “A living vessel to brew an artificial core substitute.”
Fan Bo blinked, then stared at Ruohan as if he’d grown a second head. “Pudge? My Pudge? But he only eats candied grubs and naps! He’ll pop!” Pudge, as if understanding, squeaked nervously and burrowed deeper into Fan Bo’s armpit.
“He will adapt,” Ruohan corrected. “We need a volatile catalyst he can digest and temper. The Scarlet Flame Lotus.”
Fan Bo’s round cheeks blanched. The Scarlet Flame Lotus was a third-rank cinder-bulb, so erratic that journeymen handled the petals with bone tongs. “Are you mad? That will bake him hollow!”
“Not if we introduce it gradually, balanced with neutralizing agents. And Pudge’s recent energy absorption makes him uniquely suited for this,” Ruohan explained, already calculating dosages in his mind. “It’s a risk, but it’s the only way to avoid… another death.” He didn't need to elaborate; Yueli's steady gaze confirmed she understood.
Reluctantly, Fan Bo agreed, his concern for his pet warring with his unwavering loyalty. Acquiring the lotuses proved surprisingly easy, thanks to Ruohan’s 'accidental' discovery of a forgotten stash in an abandoned storage room, conveniently guarded by a sleepy Elder Qin.
Back inside their drafty cell, Ruohan pared a translucent shaving from a scarlet petal, masking the sulfur heat with a paste of crushed jade-lichen. Pudge sniffled at the leaf.
“Come on, Pudge,” Fan Bo cajoled, holding it out. “Just a little bite. Good boy.”
Pudge, after a moment of intense contemplation, gobbled the sliver. Nothing happened. Then, a faint orange glow emanated from his scales. Moments later, he burped. A small, perfectly spherical fireball, no larger than a plum, shot from his mouth and sailed silently through the open window.
On the terrace below, Elder Qin strode toward his balcony rail, stroking a waist-length beard of pristine silver. The projectile struck dead center in the fringe. A sharp pop sounded, venting black soot and the stink of charred bristles.
“MY BEARD!” the elder wailed, clawing at blackened stubble as his neck flushed beet-red. “WHO DID THIS?!”
Shouts rippled across the flagstones as the elder mobilized the courtyard watch. Ruohan, Fan Bo, and the faintly radiant pangolin ducked behind buttresses, trailing Song Yueli as she carved open paths.
Her scabbard sheared a mooring cord, dumping a pyramid of empty drying racks across a colonnade to cut off two sentries. An instant later, a flick of her wrist launched a roof tile into an iron bell, ringing a false alarm that drew the patrol toward the southern gate.
“We need to thin the herd,” Ruohan muttered, observing a group of Meng clansmen — the same lackeys who had been bullying new recruits and suspiciously loitering near the Grand Crucible registration—stalking through the lower courtyards. They were clearly attempting to intimidate competitors and gather intelligence.
“Perfect targets,” Fan Bo grinned, Pudge still radiating a soft, pulsing warmth under his arm. “What’s the plan, Boss?”
Ruohan’s eyes gleamed. “A sticky situation, literally.”
Along the transit corridor, Ruohan laid three rapid snares: a discarded broom dipped in pitch-gum, a slick of buoyancy tincture spread over flagstones, and a chime rig engineered to aerosolize fast-curing tree sap.
The Meng clan lackeys, arrogant in their assumed authority, fell for every single one. One by one, they found themselves entangled, then slowly, inexorably, lifted from the ground by the upward-propelling gel, until they were glued, protesting loudly, to the stone ceiling of the main thoroughfare, suspended like grotesque, struggling ornaments. Their furious shouts and the bewildered expressions of passing disciples created a spectacle that made Ruohan’s lips twitch in a rare, genuine smile.
Meanwhile, three measured scraps of flame petal transformed the pangolin. The animal's hide thickened into interlocking slate tiles. When the creature wheezed, charcoal sparks scattered across the floor, its posture squat and steady.
Fan Bo dropped to his knees. “He didn't burst! Pudge, you look like a siege turtle!” He tapped the plates, which vibrated with a low, furnace hum. The beast’s gut had solidified into an authentic synthetic root.
[Azure Heart Flame Pangolin – Tier 4 Awakened Beast. Unique Property: Condensed Pyre-Matrix detected.]
Above the courtyard tiles, the midday blue cracked. Russet lightning scored the firmament, dragging down a vortex of churning, iron-gray squalls that rattled the pavilion's copper tiles.
The Heavenly Furnace Tribulation. Three days early.
Below his sleeves, Ruohan’s veins began to glow, a network of visible magma pulsing just beneath his skin.