Chapter 1556 - Collecting the Heart-Refining Flame

The man Liu Wuxie had saved looked at him with gratitude, lingering fear still written all over his face. By the time they finished delivering the first batch of spiritual herbs, another half a day had slipped away.

They were severely exhausted. After dragging themselves back to their room, everyone collapsed on the spot and fell asleep at once.

"My name is Li San. Thank you for saving me back there. How can I address you?" Li San asked as he came over to introduce himself in a low voice.

"Wu Xie," Liu Wuxie replied, giving Li San a look and gesturing for him not to be so formal.

Just like that, the two sat facing each other. Li San let his guard down around Liu Wuxie and shared his story.

From his explanation, Liu Wuxie learned that he came from a poor family and worked as an alchemy apprentice. The moment he had heard someone was recruiting alchemists with generous pay, he had taken the bait without any hesitation.

He had an elderly mother and a young child to feed at home. After getting trapped there, panic was gnawing at his heart, and a moment's distraction had led to the mistake earlier, nearly killing him. But thankfully, Liu Wuxie had saved him.

"Brother Wu, I'll be honest with you. I don't want to stay here for another day. Do you have a way out of this place?" Li San asked.

Liu Wuxie sympathized with Li San. If he weren't here to uncover the truth, he wouldn't want to spend even one extra day in this place either. This wasn't an alchemy workshop—it was hell.

The Emperor Refinement Cauldron released terrifying flames day after day that eroded their meridians. At this rate, their meridians would shrivel up completely within a few months, and they would end up as cripples.

"Escaping isn't that hard. We only have to topple the Emperor Refinement Cauldron and turn this place into a sea of fire; we can take the opportunity of the chaos to escape," Liu Wuxie said, lowering his voice to Li San. The others had already fallen asleep, and no one paid them any attention.

Li San replied with a slow shake of his head, "It won't be easy. The Emperor Refinement Cauldron is a quasi-immortal artifact, terrifyingly powerful that ordinary people can't get close to." Those who fanned the fire couldn't even get close to ten meters of the cauldron, much less topple it.

"There's Heart-Refining Flame in the depths of the Emperor Refinement Cauldron. As long as we extinguish that fire, we'll be able to topple it," Liu Wuxie continued in a steady voice.

The Heart-Refining Flame was a rare fire born in nature. Its might wasn't any inferior compared to the True Samadhi Fire, and it contained a powerful Great Dao of Fire's fragment. Liu Wuxie had located it long ago, relying on Ghost Pupil.

As long as he refined the Heart-Refining Flame, he would absorb the Great Dao of Fire's fragment and make his breakthrough to the sixth-level Earth Immortal Realm. He even had a feeling that he would be able to manipulate the Heavenly Deity Monument once he reached the seventh-level Earth Immortal Realm.

At that time, he could even kill a powerhouse at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm with a single crush from the Heavenly Deity Monument.

"Brother Wu, do you know how to extinguish the Heart-Refining Flame?" Li San asked, his eyes lighting up.

"I'm just talking about it casually. The Heart-Refining Flame isn't that easy to extinguish," Liu Wuxie replied, sweeping a glance around, yawning, and then shutting his eyes.

Not long ago, he had caught a faint sound coming from outside the stone chamber. The entire underground world swarmed with experts, and someone kept an eye on them to prevent anyone from causing trouble.

Liu Wuxie already had a direction to extract the Heart-Refining Flame. The real problem wasn't extinguishing the Heart-Refining Flame, but toppling the Emperor Refinement Cauldron because that was the key. The Emperor Refinement Cauldron was massive, and if it fell, it would destroy the entire underground world and create an opening for them to escape.

Otherwise, even if Liu Wuxie refined the Heart-Refining Flame, he still wouldn't be able to escape if the cauldron didn't topple.

After two hours of rest, Old Lai came in and ordered everyone back to work. They began moving spiritual herbs in batches. Someone had restocked them while they rested.

When everyone filed out of the stone chamber, they all kept their heads low while the next batch of alchemists entered the stone chamber to rest. Just like the previous day, everyone repeated the same routine. In a single day, several more people died while feeding the flame.

"I can't take it anymore!" a young man suddenly screamed as he broke down and jumped into the Emperor Refinement Cauldron, choosing his own death over the torment.

Everyone clenched their fists as they watched a companion die, yet none of them could do anything. After another full day of labor, everyone returned to the stone chamber again.

"Brother Wu, I contacted those people feeding the flames below. I know some of them, and we're willing to help topple the Emperor Refinement Cauldron," Li San said in a secret voice transmission.

"Can they be trusted?" Liu Wuxie asked carefully. They couldn't afford mistakes, so they had to finish everything in one go. He would extract the Heart-Refining Flame while they toppled the cauldron.

"No problem. They have actually been planning for a while now. They didn't dare to move because they couldn't get close to the cauldron," Li San said excitedly. The real problem now lay in how to extract the Heart-Refining Flame from the cauldron.

Liu Wuxie replied, giving a small shake of his hand, "We don't have enough people. Try to get more people." The cauldron was massive, and a few people wouldn't be enough even to jolt it.

After extracting the Heart-Refining Flame, Liu Wuxie could enter the Heavenly Deity Monument at once and make his breakthrough to the sixth-level Earth Immortal Realm while the others toppled the cauldron. Once he broke through, he would be in a better position to help everyone escape.

"I'll find a way," Li San said, rubbing his hands together.

Everyone had a fixed area of activity. They only handled dumping spiritual herbs into the cauldron, and they weren't allowed to enter the other zones, which meant they had completely cut off contact with the other groups. Every segment ran flawlessly, and that alone proved the mastermind wasn't simple.

Since they couldn't talk openly, they could only communicate through their divine senses or with gestures. After they rested long enough, they returned to dumping spiritual herbs into the cauldron again.

......

Li Huang and the others waited in mounting anxiety as ten days passed, yet Liu Wuxie still hadn't obtained any leads.

Suddenly, Zhen Yiming's soul sea stirred as Liu Wuxie contacted Zhen Yiming through the Pool of Faith.

Zhen Yiming glanced at Su Ming and Zhang Zhe and notified, "Master has replied."

"Do we have a lead now?" Su Ling asked anxiously.

The counterfeit pills continued to spread on a wider scale, and no one went for the Soul Pills sold by the Skyward Gate anymore. Most importantly, cultivators who consumed the counterfeit pills vented their anger on the Skyward Gate. In the past few days, many people had gone to the Skyward Gate to cause trouble.

"Master told us to wait for his signal to attack that building. It's best if we can draw a large crowd of cultivators over," Zhen Yiming said truthfully, even though he had no idea what his master meant.

"We just have to do as he instructed," Li Huang replied. He had no idea, and since it was Liu Wuxie's instructions, they would do it.

"I'll be responsible for gathering a crowd," Zhang Zhe said after a brief thought. He knew some people in Kaya City and felt confident he could gather a large crowd in the shortest time possible.

Li San's mood brightened noticeably. Every time he fed spiritual herbs into the cauldron, he made strange hand signs because the surrounding restrictions severed their divine senses, making direct communication impossible. Even so, nothing stopped them from speaking with gestures.

Coincidentally, one of the men assigned to feed the flame had grown up with Li San. The two had even traveled to Three Realm Island together, and they could read each other's hand signs without difficulty.

"Brother Wu, we have rallied about fifty people," Li San informed.

Liu Wuxie's eyes lit up at the number.

Fifty people weren't a large number, but it wasn't small either. Once someone took the lead, more would follow like the sheep in the flock.

"Very good. Once we topple the cauldron, we'll strike from inside and out, tear this building apart, and expose the vile actions here to everyone," Liu Wuxie replied with a cold smirk.

It didn't matter how airtight the mastermind's scheme was. They couldn't have accounted for Liu Wuxie infiltrating their internal operations.

Even if no one toppled the Emperor Refinement Cauldron, Liu Wuxie still had a way out, and he could resort to the Heavenly Deity Monument in the worst-case scenario. But he didn't want that outcome because his goal was to expose their vile actions to the public.

Only then would cultivators in the Spirit Martial Astral Domain understand that the Soul Pills they consumed carried blood in them. They swiftly set their plan into motion because batches of spiritual herbs arrived every month, and the next shipment would come in two days.

That was also the moment a large group of experts would head to the main hall to collect the spiritual herbs, and their defenses would loosen at that exact time.

In just one day, Zhang Zhe rallied hundreds of people and gathered them outside the building, all of them wearing confused expressions. The sudden appearance of such a crowd drew immediate attention. Everyone could sense something big was about to happen, and the crowd continued to snowball as more and more people arrived. Some came purely out of curiosity, looking around at each other and still unable to comprehend what was happening.

In secret, Su Ling had contacted the Skyward Gate to dispatch experts over, and they all concealed their identities while waiting for Liu Wuxie's order. As a cultivator at the Heaven Gaze Realm, Zhen Yiming had built his own network of connections over the years, and he summoned them as well.

"Brother Wu, they are occupied elsewhere," Li San informed as he dumped the spiritual herbs into the Emperor Refinement Cauldron.

A large number of guards had gone to collect the incoming spiritual herbs, and that meant their chance had finally arrived.

Liu Wuxie nodded and quietly summoned the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, sending it into the flame like a meteorite. The Heart-Refining Flame lay deep within the Emperor Refinement Cauldron, and collecting it would never be easy.

If it were anyone else, the flame would burn them to death on the spot. But with the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, Liu Wuxie could pierce through the Emperor Refinement Cauldron and reach the Heart-Refining Flame without difficulty.

Ever since he had refined the Divine Devouring Pythonbeast, the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron had undergone a drastic transformation.

Liu Wuxie exclaimed in shock.

What a powerful Heart-Refining Flame!

He could sense the terrifying Great Dao of Fire's fragment within the Heart-Refining Flame.

The Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron continued expanding until it swallowed the Heart-Refining Flame whole. The entire process went smoothly because the Emperor Refinement Cauldron didn't possess an artifact spirit like the Universal Gourd.

If the Emperor Refinement Cauldron truly possessed an artifact spirit, how could it tolerate being reduced to an ordinary refining tool, producing endless pills day after day?

"Devour!" Liu Wuxie roared as the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron wrapped around the Heart-Refining Flame. The instant the Heart-Refining Flame vanished, the flame around the Emperor Refinement Cauldron weakened. The fire no longer burned with the same intensity as before, and the alchemists feeding the fire immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed toward the cauldron.

"Brother Li, I'll leave the rest to you," Liu Wuxie said, and he vanished into the Heavenly Deity Monument. Before he disappeared, he contacted Zhen Yiming and signaled them to attack the mysterious gate.

With so many experts at the higher levels of the Heaven Gaze Realm present, they wouldn't need more than a minute to tear down the mysterious gate.

The moment Liu Wuxie entered the Heavenly Deity Monument, he sat down while the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron returned to the desolate world. The Great Dao of Fire's fragment was extracted and fused into the desolate world.

The volcano in the desolate world began to rise, and terrifying fire-attribute energy flooded in.

Liu Wuxie was already one step away from the sixth-level Earth Immortal Realm. After refining the Heart-Refining Flame and the Great Dao of Fire's fragment, he only needed a few breaths to summon the gateway to the sixth-level Earth Immortal Realm.