Evolution of the Ice and Fire Source

Salamandhys smiled evilly. “Nian Bing, boy, don’t you get tired from doing something as easy as just making food? I’m helping you train your brain so that, in the future, you won’t be lazy and refuse to make me food. A mage training the body, en, that’s a pretty good choice. However, what I said was true; I’m definitely not lying to you. Wahaha, the mighty Salamandhys is really brilliant! My delicacies! I will have them!”

Salamandhys waved at the pile of treasures within the cave and, with a flash of light, Nian Bing was tossed over three hundred meters into the air. However, Nian Bing only felt his body tense up. He wasn’t able to figure out what was going on, even when he reached the apex of his trajectory, until he appeared outside of the cave. As soon as the outside world greeted his eyes, crisp air assaulted his face. Seeing that he was about land, Nian Bing quickly used his knife to lessen the impact when he did. When he looked up, he saw the outside world before him. Finally, he was no longer being punished by only being able to gaze up at the sky from the bottom of the well.

Salamandhys casually tossed a space ring around in his hands as he chuckled. “Now we can go. Don’t worry, you’ll only need to focus on walking. You won’t need to make me any food.”

As Nian Bing looked at the vast mountains before him, he smiled bitterly. “You’re really going to make me carry this knife? Mighty Salamandhys, will this method really be helpful to my magic cultivation?”

Salamandhys immediately adopted a stern expression. “Of course it will! I, the mighty Salamandhys, would not spot lies!”

Nian Bing hesitated. “If it’s really as you say, shouldn’t warriors be more suited to cultivating magic? But magic warriors are very rare among humans!”

Salamandhys snorted. “You understand ass. Warriors cultivate qi. While qi and magic do have certain similarities, both their cultivation methods and their applications in battle are vastly different. One is an internal cultivation, while the other is an external connection. When you cultivate qi, your body’s perception of magic elements will greatly change. Even if you forcefully cultivate both, you won’t achieve much. Of course, we dragons are strong existences that are an exception to this, but you humans can’t reach such a level. Thus, I said you would train your body, not that you would cultivate warrior skills.

When Nian Bing looked at the extremely heavy Holy Light Knife in his hands, an expression of agony appeared on his face. Carrying something that weighed over a hundred jin through the mountains would definitely not be easy! However, Salamandhys’ face was wooden. He waved his right hand at a large tree on the mountain top, immediately causing a sturdy looking branch to snap off. He grabbed the branch with his right hand, then swung it as if it were a whip. “Boy, if you wish to learn magic from me, it won’t be easy. I’ll teach you well, so don’t think that you’ll be able to slack off for even a single moment. If you do, I won’t show mercy with this branch.” When he finished saying this, he adopted a striking pose.

“But, Mighty Salamandhys, what if I’m incapable of doing it?” However, in the end, Nian Bing could only tell himself that it was all for the sake of his magic cultivation. He forcefully picked up the Holy Light Knife, then began his trek along the craggy mountain path, which was extremely hard to navigate. Lifting up 128 jin once was nothing to Nian Bing, but for him to carry such a weight while travelling on such a road was definitely not such an easy thing.

Perhaps the fire dragon people had already been notified by Salamandhys, as they didn’t appear while they were walking. As they continued on their journey, Nian Bing discovered that Salamandhys’ branch wasn’t just something that forced him to go forward, it was also his lifesaver. The mountain path was extremely precipitous, and Nian Bing was carrying the 128 jin Holy Dawn Knife. He’d lost his footing more than once because of the heavy weight. Whenever that happened, the supple branch would naturally wrap around him and would pull him from the brink of danger.

Salamandhys, contrary to Nian Bing, seemed like he was simply on a scenic tour as he walked behind Nian Bing. However, after being saved several times, Nian Bing suddenly felt that he didn’t loathe Salamandhys all that much. Right now, he had much more confidence in what he’d said before he’d begun the trip: his strength had been over exhausted, and his rough clothes had long-since turned to rags. However, he didn’t have the energy to care about such things.

Two hours after they’d left the mountain peak, Salamandhys finally said to Nian Bing, who was trudging forward, “Alright, it’s been two hours. We can take a short break.”

When he heard this, Nian Bing’s first reaction was to immediately slide to the ground. The Holy Light Knife fell next to him, but he didn’t have the energy to care. He simply lay flat on his back and gasped for air.

“Pah.” A crisp sound rang out. Nian Bing, who’d been lying flat on the ground, snapped to and immediately sat up amidst the pain. He angrily said, “Do you want me to die?! Didn’t you say we were resting?”

Salamandhys squatted down next to Nian Bing and chuckled. He took something about the size of child’s fist out, then stuffed it into Nian Bing’s mouth. Nian Bing felt a strong stench his nostrils when Salamandhys did so, but as soon as he thought about spitting it out, his whole body suddenly felt scorchingly hot, which caused him to subconsciously close his mouth. Salamandhys then patted him on the back, which caused the blazing-hot black object to slide down his throat with a burning sensation.

Nian Bing looked at Salamandhys in surprise. “What did you just make me eat?” However, as soon as he said this, his stomach began to churn, which caused a vile sensation to overcome him. Despite this, Salamandhys’ ability prevented him from throwing it back up.

Salamandhys leisurely replied, “It was poison of course. Do you think really think that I’d give you something good to eat?” While saying this, he removed the pressure on Nian Bing’s body since the black object had already been digested.

“Fuck.” Nian Bing gave Salamandhys the middle finger. Despite his actions, he knew that Salamandhys wouldn’t be willing to kill him. “Poison is poison. Anyway, since you’re with me, I’ll be killed by your games sooner or later. It’d be better if I died because of poison. However, I’m gonna sleep first, even if I’m gonna die.” When he finished speaking, he immediately laid back down on the ground and was about to rest, when all of a sudden intense pain overcame him.

“Aiyo!” Nian Bing immediately sat back up and looked at the branch that had already returned to Salamandhys’ hands. His voice full of anger, he said, “What’re you hitting me for, didn’t I eat the poison?”

Salamandhys swallowed slowly. “I just wanted to help you raise your magic. Right now is the best time as, since your body’s overly exhausted, it’ll be easier to concentrate your spirit. Do you remember what I said earlier? ‘Sense the mysteries of magic from smallest of places.’ However, if you dare to lie down again, I won’t just whip you once.” An evil smile hung on his face as he continuously cracked the branch in the air.

After listening to Salamandhys, Nian Bing finally understood what Salamandhys meant. His mind immediately became clear, as if it had been anointed with the purest cream. He gazed at Salamandhys with heavy eyes, then slowly pulled his body into a lotus position. He tried to forget his exhaustion as much as possible as he focused all of his spirit onto the magic within him. Just like Salamandhys had said earlier, if he slowly absorbed the magic element in the air while using his spiritual power to focus on the fine details of his magic power, he could sense their mysteries. As soon as he entered a focused state, Nian Bing’s heart leapt. He’d suddenly gotten an idea.

Salamandhys lazily sat down next to Nian Bing while watching him. He secretly thought, This boy has some talent at least. It looks like he’s not as dumb as I thought after all. With some good practice, and that Ice and Fire Source as his foundation, he might really be able to grasp the mimicry ability after some time. If that happens, he definitely won’t have to worry about being able to make all sorts of dishes. En, a seven-attributed mage is definitely the most suited to cooking with every element. It would be hard to taste the same thing twice, haha.

Salamandhys couldn’t stop himself from smiling when he thought of this. As he smiled, his gaze towards Nian Bing became akin to as if he were already looking at a pile of delicious dishes.

At that moment, two streams of red and blue light rose up from Nian Bing. The two streams proceeded to wrap around him in a lazy vortex. Although the gathered magic element wasn’t strong, the shape of the vortex was an exact copy of his inner Ice and Fire Source, though the speed at which it revolved was much quicker. Salamandhys was unconcerned when he saw this, but he suddenly felt the two revolving streams begin to slow down. When he was about to wake Nian Bing up, the revolving magic suddenly screeched to a stop. They then coalesced into two separate, dazzling balls of red and blue light on either side of him.

“No good, the boy’s gone mad.” Salamandhys flashed in front of Nian Bing, then lifted both of his hands at the same time. When he did so, the red ball of light split into two portions above Nian Bing’s body, one of which moved to the other side of his body, next to the unmoving blue ball of light. Salamandhys really didn’t understand what Nian Bing was attempting. Why had he stopped his magic power that had been spinning so well? Wasn’t this equivalent to suicide?!

When he sensed the magic inside of Nian Bing, he found that he hadn’t gone mad from meditation. Rather, Nian Bing was doing this consciously. Did he want to die? No, that wasn’t possible!

Salamandhys immediately vanquished the thought and continued to carefully manipulate the opposing magic within Nian Bing’s body. He didn’t believe that Nian Bing would choose death.

However, right now, even someone as strong as him didn’t have a solution to the present situation. Salamandhys knew that, if he took away the energy he was using to support Nian Bing, Nian Bing’s Ice and Fire Source would have a violent collision. If that happened, Nian Bing’s body would be completely destroyed. Not to mention his mimicry rank 9 light and water dual-attributed magic, even it were a rank 12 super forbidden magic, it still wouldn’t be able to mend a body that had been destroyed.

For the sake of his gourmet food, he could only continue manipulating Nian Bing’s body. As he did so, his mind continuously churned. He was trying to think of any feasible course of action.

Time continued to pass, moment by moment. At this point, Salamandhys had been thinking for close to four hours. Although maintaining control over Nian Bing’s inner energy wasn’t exhausting to him, it was boring. He grew impatient, as, in these four hours, he’d gone through so many possibilities. However, even though he was the Fire Dragon King, he still didn’t have much knowledge about humans’ Fire and Ice Source magic. He wanted to try to recover Nian Bing’s magic vortex, but he didn’t have any idea what would happen when the two opposing elements came into contact with each other.

Salamandhys was truly unwilling to let Nian Bing die like this. Even though they’d only been together for several days, Nian Bing’s achievements in culinary arts had made him extremely pleased. It wouldn’t be easy for him to find another specialized chef, much less one that was delivered right to door. Thus, even though Salamandhys was impatient, he still didn’t have any intentions of giving up on Nian Bing. As such, he could only choose to hold onto the two portions of energy within Nian Bing’s body. Salamandhys found that Nian Bing’s spirit power had seemingly abandoned his magic control, and was instead completely concentrated on his head. Salamandhys had no idea what Nian Bing was thinking. Perhaps, he was also thinking of a way to get out of his current predicament.

What was Nian Bing doing? He, of course, had no reason to kill himself. The reason he’d stopped his Ice and Fire Source’s rotation and forced himself into this impasse was part of an idea he’d come up with. He’d cultivated magic for many years, the Ice and Fire Source growing with him. However, he’d known that what he had wasn’t the true Ice and Fire Source. The ice and fire elements simply existed in a mysterious balance. After using it for a while, he’d gained some understanding of its special characteristics, but in the end, he still hadn’t been able to get rid of the underlying danger between the fire and ice.

Nian Bing had thought about how to solve this problem when he was cultivating the most. From Long Zhi and Hei Ye’s pointers, as well as the knowledge from the magic materials he’d read, he had a theory as to how he could succeed. With the added pointers he’d received from Salamandhys over the past several days, Nian Bing had become even more certain about his theory.

This was extremely dangerous for him, but at the moment, he had dragon king protecting him. This was naturally the most optimum situation to test out his theory. Nian Bing gambled that Salamandhys would hate letting him die, so he a small measure of certainty. Thus, as soon as he’d begun cultivating, he’d used his tyrannical spirit power to directly begin the separation of his ice and fire elements.

Was Nian Bing really driving out his magic power though? Of course not. Even though he’d abandoned the majority of his magic control, he’d left a single particle of the fire element and ice element in his glabella. At first, when he was researching how to resolve the issues of the Ice and Fire Source, he’d thought that the biggest obstacle would be how to implement it. However, when he Salamandhys had said to start small, by sensing a single particle, Nian Bing’s eyes were opened. He’d currently focused his spirit power into his brain as he wholeheartedly sensed both the differences and similarities between the ice and fire elements.

Over six hours had passed since he’d begun cultivating. They’d left the cave at noon. Nian Bing had been continuously alert the entire time, with both his awareness and perception of ice and fire magic elements becoming stronger as time passed. It was hard for such a situation to appear normally as, during normal cultivation, thousands if not millions of particles are absorbed and released as the magic elements constantly circle the cultivator.

Even though Nian Bing was incredibly focused, it was impossible for him to only study a single magic particle. He let go of his magic power, and entered his current situation. He felt a mysterious sensation as he was studying the particle, and began to alter the ice and fire elements. He discovered that ice and fire particles were the same simple particles, they just had different properties. They were opposites in that ice was a steady element, while fire was more lively and continuously moving.