Chapter 1557 – Thorough Mastery

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…n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

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“Let me show you what true fire is.”

Xiao Moxian spread out her hands and ghostly black flames leapt between them, beating like a heart and peacefully burning. Although these flames didn’t seem too hot, the surrounding void began to distort because of these flames, showing just how hot they were.

Chifeng’s complexion changed as he saw this. “You’ve already approached the seventh level Concept, to bring Virtual Fire into reality!”

These flames contained virtual flames and true flames. Once these flames reached the limit in their fusion, the Concept of Fire would enter into the seventh level!

Currently, Xiao Moxian had yet to step into the true seventh level Concept, but even so, this was an extremely exaggerated accomplishment. There were many fire-attribute cultivation method World Kings that couldn’t compare with Xiao Moxian.

Kacha!

Chifeng’s icy armor was blown away by Xiao Moxian’s black flames, with half of his body being charred black in the process. However, he still struggled to the end. He reached out, wanting to pull another divine runic symbol from his spatial ring and bet his life, but at this time, the grandmist space came shrouding down over him, locking down his movements once more.

Meanwhile, Xiao Moxian’s whip vanished into dozens of afterimages that formed a cone as they came slashing down!

“Ahh!”

Chifeng was frightened out of his mind. He desperately tried to summon true essence to break free from Lin Ming’s force field shackles, but beneath the phantoms of these dozens of whip attacks his protective true essence instantly collapsed as dozens of bloody holes were pierced through him!

And at this time, only then was Chifeng able to pull out a second set of divine runic symbols from his spatial ring. But then, his face paled and he fell downwards with a scream!

Beneath the joint attacks of Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian, the originally far weaker Chifeng simply didn’t have the ability to resist. The ending to this battle had already been doomed to be one-sided from the start.

In terms of strength, Chifeng was still slightly worse than the completely exhausted Torchriver.

“Take him away!”

Lin Ming indifferently said. Xiao Moxian flicked her hand and her whip tightly wrapped around Chifeng.

“What do you want to do with all these followers?” Xiao Moxian asked as an afterthought.

Lin Ming replied, “Don’t bother with them. If they can’t tell right from wrong then there will be no future for them in the Asura Road. They will all die sooner or later.”

As Lin Ming spoke, his body turned into a beam of light that hurtled into the skies, with Xiao Moxian following right behind.

This was the second divine runic master they had captured: the sixth grade divine runic master, seventh grade alchemist Chifeng!

Although this person was weaker than the cruel and sinful sex fiend Torchriver, in terms of sinisterness, he actually far surpassed him. He had secretly killed his own master in a mystic realm for mere treasures. This sort of heartless decision was almost the same as Tian Mingzi killing the old Verdant Feather World King; this was something Lin Ming hated the most.

And even worse was that after his master had died, Chifeng had married his master’s daughter in order to consolidate authority around him. As her heart had been breaking over the death of her father, Chifeng had appeared and comforted her, even propping up the sect by himself. In this sort of situation, it was simple for Chifeng to capture the heart of his master’s daughter.

Afterwards, Chifeng had made up all sorts of lies to trick the people and establish his own religion, absorbing the power of faith from his followers to cultivate his devil arts. Although these were heinous actions, they weren’t comparable to what he had done before.

In short, this person was deserving of death!

And most important was that killing Chifeng wasn’t difficult at all. This sort of genius actually wanted to establish his own sect and had refused all outside help. On this alone, Lin Ming greatly admired Heaven’s Secret. For them to have such accurate information was truly remarkable. Lin Ming even suspected that perhaps the cultivation method manual that they used to gather information was on the level of a transcendent divine might.

Lin Ming quickly exterminated Chifeng’s soul and erased his spirit mark. Then, he swallowed down Chifeng’s soul.

Chifeng wasn’t too old. In terms of total amount of memories, he had far less than Torchriver, so it was easier for Lin Ming to absorb them. In Primordius Heavenly Palace’s time enchantment, Lin Ming used only a single month to absorb all of these memories.

The reason that Chifeng was able to become a sixth grade divine runic master at the peak Holy Lord realm was all due to his own outstanding talent. However, in terms of the experiences he had accumulated, he was inferior to Torchriver. Even so, Chifeng had many unique ideas and a very wide range of thoughts that provided a great deal of inspirations to Lin Ming.

After Lin Ming killed Chifeng, he had killed two of the three divine runic masters that Heaven’s Secret had told him about.

And, the last one was the simplest one.

This person was only a fifth grade divine runic master with an early Holy Lord cultivation. Killing him was extremely easy.

This person had originally been given a death sentence by a Divine Kingdom from the outer Ausra Road. To avoid being hunted down, he had fled into the inner Asura Road. He was a solitary person with a strange and eccentric personality. He was cruel and diabolical, and didn’t join any influence, not even the Divine Runic Masters Guild.

Lin Ming flew another 500,000 miles to the southwest. He placed the young girls that had been tortured by Torchriver in a mortal city, and then flew for several more hours before he found the third divine runic master.

There wasn’t any difficulty in finding this person and Lin Ming also easily cut him down. Like this, the memories of three divine runic masters had been gathered up by Lin Ming!

Then, Lin Ming used three months within Primordius Heavenly Palace’s time enchantment to complete a thorough mastery of all three divine runic masters’ memories!

The divine runic arts and inscription technique were essentially the same thing, but the divine runic arts were far more complex.

Moreover, the uses of the divine runic arts were far wider than those of inscription technique!

The function of inscription technique was divided into four types: one was object inscription symbols that increased the power of weapons and armors, one was medicinal inscription symbols that increased the efficacy of pills, one was body inscription symbols that increased the might of the body, and the last were soul inscription symbols that increased the intensity of the soul.

Of these four inscription symbols, Lin Ming had only seen the first three; he had never studied the last kind.

However, divine runic arts not only had all the effects of inscription technique but their usage far outstripped it.

To turn stone into gold, water into oil, all of this was changing the structure of matter. Even changing the shape of a life form could be accomplished by the divine runic arts. A seventh grade divine runic master could even produce divine runic symbols that transformed a martial artist into a pig or dog.

In the Divine Runic Masters Guild, there was a type of punishment where one was transformed into a pig or dog for a thousand years. The martial artist being punished would even retain their original intelligence the entire time.

To have the intelligence of a sentient being while having the body of a pig or dog, this was a truly sickening experience.

In addition, divine runic symbols could even be used in battle.

For instance, Torchriver and Chifeng had both used divine runic symbols to create barriers. They could have even formed offensive fireballs, wind blades, ice arrows, and so forth.

The divine runic symbols produced by a grandmaster could even be used multiple times as long as one poured enough true essence into them.

The divine runic arts were extremely broad in their use; this was because they were the manifestation of the Asura Heavenly Dao Laws.

“Xian’er, I must close up for a period of time to practice my divine runic arts and alchemy. Let’s return to Divine Runic City first!”

After Lin Ming killed the three divine runic masters he had also obtained their spatial rings. These divine runic masters were considerably wealthy to begin with, and this was especially true for Chifeng; he had accumulated a great deal of wealth through his religion.

Origin energy runes were useful, but the most important thing was that these spatial rings held a massive amount of alchemy materials and divine runic arts materials. These materials were perfectly suited for Lin Ming to practice.

However, the grade of these materials was a bit high for the current Lin Ming. Lin Ming had to start practicing with the most basic of materials before he advanced, and these materials were easily found in the bustling Divine Rune City.

Lin Ming controlled Primordius Heavenly Palace to immediately fly back to Divine Rune City.

Divine Rune City had markets that were dedicated to selling divine runic arts materials. But, if one wished to purchase a massive amount of divine runic arts and alchemy materials, the Divine Runic Masters Guild was the most convenient place to do so.

If one was a divine runic master that was registered to the Divine Runic Masters Guild then they could receive a 10% discount. However, Lin Ming wasn’t registered.

As Lin Ming was purchasing materials at the Divine Runic Masters Guild, he pulled out a long list of materials he needed and then bumped into someone he had met before.

A fat old man in white robes with black patterns rounded the corner, wearing a strange eight-cornered hat.

“Uh…”

Lin Ming’s expression stiffened and he subconsciously turned away. However, the old man had caught sight of him. The old man had extremely good memory and was able to instantly recognize Lin Ming.

This old man was the spiritas divine runic master vendor who had sold Lin Ming the broken jade during the first time he had come to the Divine Runic Masters Guild.

The spiritas vendor was extremely knowledgeable and shrewd, someone that could squeeze oil from sand. But, he had still been robbed blind by Lin Ming. That broken jade was far too special; besides Lin Ming himself, no one would have been able to recognize it.

As Lin Ming saw this old man, he was a bit suspicious. “This old geezer, he shouldn’t have noticed something strange afterwards, right…?”

The truth was that the transaction had already been completed, and even if the old man regretted it there was nothing he could do. Moreover, Lin Ming was strong in his own right and didn’t fear this old man.

“Oh, it’s you!”

The spiritas old man smiled at Lin Ming. From his expression, Lin Ming couldn’t tell whether or not he had regretted selling that broken jade.

“So it’s Senior, this is such a coincidence.”

Lin Ming hollowly laughed, pretending he had just seen this old man.

“Are you buying materials…?”

The spiritas old man glanced at the list in Lin Ming’s hand. He could make out the massive amount of low level materials. These were things that only low level inscription masters, apprentice divine runic masters, and low level alchemists would use.

Normally, when one first started out as a divine runic master, inscription master, or alchemist, they would buy these materials to practice. Of course, these materials were all relatively expensive, and without certain finances, it was impossible to afford them.

The materials on Lin Ming’s list alone were worth several hundred million origin energy runes. Although many of these materials were used by novices, they were still considerably expensive. They weren’t something that an ordinary divine runic arts apprentice would use. But, Lin Ming didn’t care about this. What he cared about the most was their effects in helping him practice, and whether or not they could help him quickly raise his skill in divine runic arts and alchemy. Price was a secondary consideration.

The spiritas old man thoughtfully traced his chin. Then, he recalled the words that Lin Ming had said before, that he had wanted to become a divine runic master. The old man chuckled.

“You want to study divine runic arts and alchemy? Commendable spirit, commendable!”

A strange color appeared on Lin Ming’s face. No matter how he heard it, these words were clearly ironic…

In particular, this spiritas old man was smiling so brightly that it appeared far too self-satisfied. Anyone who saw this would think his heart wasn’t matching his words, and he was simply joking about…