On the dinner table, Xiao Yan glanced at Xue Yu opposite him, who was eating with a crunching sound of silver teeth, and his right hand fingers involuntarily touched his palm as he recalled the strange and wonderful feeling from before.

  Across from him, Xiao Yu, who had been staring fiercely at Xiao Yan, looked at his actions and her pretty face suddenly turned red again.

  Xun Er gazed at Xiao Yu with a strange look, then glanced at the nonchalant Xiao Yan beside her. She furrowed her brow in confusion, shook her head helplessly, and slowly swallowed the food in her mouth.

  His gaze skipped over Xiao Yu and landed on Xiao Ning beside her. At this moment, the guy was beaming with joy, his mouth curved into an arc that almost stretched across half of his face. He lightly tapped the edge of the table with his fingers. In his heart, Xiao Yan gloated: "This guy should have already obtained the Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid, right? But he seems to be unaware that the spirit liquid has little effect on Dou Qi above eight segments..."

  Smiling slyly, Xiao Yan shook his head and swept his gaze around the room with some boredom, looking at his father and others beside the table who were all smiling. He was full of puzzlement in his heart: "Family gatherings aren't usually held unless it's a holiday? What's there to celebrate today? Could it be that they spent a high price to buy the Foundation Establishment Elixir and it's worth celebrating?"

  Xiao Yan, who was lost in thought, naturally didn't know that this family dinner gathering was actually because of the sentence he casually said as the mysterious black-robed figure today about having an opportunity to cooperate.

  By cooperating with an alchemist of rank 2 or higher, the Xiao family will gain profits that will make many people jealous. Who knows, they might even be able to leapfrog over the other two major families. No wonder even Father, who is normally calm and composed, is so delighted. Those few elders are already grinning from ear to ear, their eyes narrowed with joy, apparently dazed by this windfall that has fallen from the sky.

  The dinner ended slowly in a festive atmosphere, and when he saw his father waving goodbye, Xiao Yan immediately jumped off the chair, rushed out of the hall first, and ran straight to his room without looking back.

  Not long after Xiao Yan left, Xiao Yu bit her teeth and chased out, but didn't see even a shadow of a person. In frustration, she could only stomp her feet in anger and leave with a belly full of rage.

  ……

  Back in his own room, having eaten and gained some insight, Xiao Yan did not ask Medicine Master to start refining the medicine immediately. After closing the doors and windows, he lazily rolled onto the couch and fell into a deep sleep.

  As the deep night fell, after all things had fallen asleep, Xiao Yan suddenly opened his eyes on the bed, agilely jumped down from the bed, took out the medicine hidden in the cabinet, carefully placed it on the table, then turned back, looked at the Medicine Old Man who was floating one foot above the ground like a ghost, and asked softly: "Teacher, is it okay now?"

  "You've finally learned to be more careful. Alchemy requires an extremely quiet environment, and if you're disturbed, the consequences can be severe. I won't suffer any backlash now, but in the future when you learn alchemy, if you remain so careless, it's likely that you'll lose your life sooner or later." The Medicine Old Man walked to the table, his illusory palm lightly touching various materials, nodding slightly, with a hint of severity in his tone.

  Xiao Yan nodded slightly, feeling a bit embarrassed.

  Looking at Xiao Yan's clever appearance, Yao Lao finally let out a slight sigh of relief, his palm spread out, slightly quiet, white flames slowly rising.

  The soul's perception continuously controlled the flame's temperature. Yao Lao took advantage of this brief pause and glanced at Xiao Yan, who was staring curiously at the flames in his palm. After a slight hesitation, he said softly, "Alchemists can generally distinguish their rank from the color of the flame."

  "Ordinary alchemists have flames that are light yellow in color. The higher the quality, the deeper the color and the stronger the power."

  Upon hearing this, Xiao Yan blinked his eyes and pointed at the flame in Yao Lao's hand, asking incredulously: "Then teacher's, how can it be white?"

  "Heh heh, what I said earlier was the common flame among alchemists, but in the circle of alchemists, apart from relying on the thickness of Dou Qi to catalyze the flame, there is another kind..." The Medicine Old Man smiled slightly, with a hint of pride in his smile.

  "That's it, borrow fire!"

  "'Borrowing fire?' wasn't an unfamiliar phrase, but the meaning it conveyed left Xiao Yan's face filled with confusion. Could alchemy flames also be borrowed?"

  "That's right, it's borrowing fire." The old pharmacist nodded heavily and smiled: "In this vast world, there exist some heavenly and earthly fires. Perhaps they are the sparks carried by the fallen meteorites, or perhaps they are the terrestrial fires deep in the volcanoes that have been smelted for thousands of years... These strange fires are more powerful than the flames produced by the catalysis of Dou Qi, and can also enhance the medicinal properties of Dan medicine when used to refine it. However, these heavenly and earthly fires are extremely violent, and it is rare to encounter them in daily life. Moreover, even if one encounters them, it is extremely difficult to harness them for one's own use."

  "Many alchemists have spent their entire lives searching for hetero-fire, but in the end, none of them have succeeded. After all, to control hetero-fire, one must introduce the flames into their own body, and hetero-fire is nothing but a destructive force that can't be contained. Even magic gold drill, a metal material known for its solidity, can't withstand the burning of hetero-fire, let alone human flesh... Such behavior is undoubtedly courting disaster. Therefore, only a handful of lucky individuals, under the coincidence of circumstances, are able to refine a small cluster of hetero-fire and cultivate it into their own fire species. And these people, without exception, are all the best in the alchemy world..."

  Dizzy and bewildered, after a while, Xiao Yan licked his lips, his eyes fixed tightly on the white flame in Yao Lao's hand, and carefully sensed that there seemed to be a cold illusion.

  "Teacher's flame is also a heterochromatic flame, right?" Xiao Yan asked tentatively.

  "Heh heh." With a flick of his sleeve, Yao Lao's face glowed slightly, his eyes burning with intensity as he said: "The Alchemist community of the Dou Qi continent has compiled a list of known anomalous flames, known as the 'Anomalous Flame List', which contains twenty-three types. My flame is ranked eleventh on this list, and is known as the 'Bone Spirit Cold Flame'. This anomalous flame can only be encountered in extremely cold and dark places, when the sun and moon are aligned, once every hundred years..."

  "Bone-chilling cold fire?"

  Staring unblinkingly at the surging white flames, Xiao Yan murmured softly.

  There's still one more period tonight, stretching out a hand for some votes...

  This book comes from