Chapter 100: Five Finger Pattern Seed Technique

Xu Xiaoshou thought to himself, what’s there to explain? It’s just Lian Dan!

But he absolutely couldn’t say that out loud. The old man was in a rage, and who knew how much reason he had left. The most urgent thing was to calm him down first.

“Stay calm…”

Xu Xiaoshou gently pushed his hand forward a bit, but Sang Lao’s eyelids twitched wildly, making his heart nearly stop. He quickly added, “I succeeded!”

Sang Lao was stunned. “Succeeded at what?”

Whew, he’d managed to bluff him…

Xu Xiaoshou let out a light breath. If what had appeared earlier was “Huo Yan Jing Tong,” he could have confidently said, “I succeeded in compressing the fire seed.”

But that darned “Chu Yi Jing Tong”…

Ah, don’t even mention it—talking about it just brings tears.

“Take a look!”

Xu Xiaoshou wasn’t entirely sure himself. He spread his hand, and in his palm appeared Jin Zhao Tian Yan.

Whoosh!

A subtle feeling emerged, as if…

He could sense the flame in his palm leaping with excitement?

“It’s a bit different!” Xu Xiaoshou’s heart stirred, and he thought back to the initial scorching heat in the illusion world.

Chu Yi Jing Tong…

Burning fire for cooking?

Fire?

Thinking about it that way, it seemed like it really could have some connection to flames.

Xu Xiaoshou’s mouth twitched. That might be true, but it still felt a little mismatched…

“Just this?” Sang Lao looked at his palm, raising an eyebrow.

Xu Xiaoshou gave him a “hold on” glance and focused intently. The flame in his palm shrank.

Whoosh!

A spherical flame spun rapidly, causing a slight distortion in the space around it, with waves of heat rushing out.

Sang Lao said nothing. After all, Xu Xiaoshou had only been away for a short while and being able to compress it to this extent was already quite impressive.

But if it was just this, the earlier explosion still couldn’t be explained.

He glanced at Xu Xiaoshou, signaling him to continue.

Sweat beaded on Xu Xiaoshou’s forehead again. He could feel a faint, inexplicable connection between himself and the spherical flame, but it was only to this degree…

Not enough!

In his mind, he still had over five thousand passive points left.

“All in?”

Xu Xiaoshou hesitated. If “Chu Yi Jing Tong” was a combat-type mastery passive skill, he definitely wouldn’t put it all in. Instead, he’d cap the level tightly, like he did with “Jian Shu Jing Tong.”

He knew all too well how poor his aptitude was. If he relied on learning other spiritual techniques, he’d probably be stuck with just “Bai Yun Jian Fa” for his whole life.

But if a skill upgraded during combat, all that sudden knowledge could coalesce into a sword move under intense pressure.

Like “Bo Jian Shi” and “Ba Jian Shi”—that’s how they came about.

This was the path to creating his own spiritual techniques that he’d figured out from mastery passive skills. It was a bit of a cheat, but undeniably effective.

With such lousy talent, creating a few skills was all he could do.

However, “Chu Yi Jing Tong”…

From the name, it didn’t seem like a combat skill at all!

He had no idea if his shortcut method would even work…

Glancing at Sang Lao’s stern and gloomy face, Xu Xiaoshou seriously doubted that if he couldn’t get past this hurdle, his future might be in jeopardy.

“Oh, well!”

After thinking it over, he exchanged all his passive points into skill points and added them to “Chu Yi Jing Tong.”

“Chu Yi Jing Tong (Acquired Lv.6).”

In an instant, a flood of knowledge surged into his mind. Upgrading a mastery passive skill by five levels at once was a first for him, and he clearly felt overwhelmed.

His head throbbed painfully!

Even the fireball in his palm wavered, making Sang Lao’s face twitch.

“Can’t even control it at this level?”

Xu Xiaoshou didn’t respond. His mind was suddenly filled with information on ingredients, recipes, and ways to control heat.

“That’s it!” His eyes lit up.

Gentle heat for simmering, low heat for baking, high heat for stir-frying…

All sorts of strange knowledge flooded in, but that didn’t matter!

What was important was that he clearly felt the connection between himself and the flame in his hand grow much stronger, as if it were something he’d mastered for years.

Pure mastery!

Xu Xiaoshou chuckled and held his hand out to Sang Lao. The old man hadn’t even had time to look puzzled when the fireball in his palm suddenly surged, growing to the size of something you could encircle with both arms.

The flames flickered wildly, and a surging wave of heat blasted Sang Lao’s straw hat away, making Xu Xiaoshou’s clothes flap noisily.

Sang Lao was shocked. How had Xu Xiaoshou gained such proficiency with “Jin Zhao Tian Yan” in such a short time?

But…

“I told you to compress it inward— what’s the point of making it bigger!”

“What on earth is this thing?” he grumbled irritably. “Can this refine pills? It’d probably melt even the sturdiest cauldron!”

Xu Xiaoshou shook his head. “You don’t get it—this is the technique of high heat cooking!”

He chuckled, clenched his hand, and the massive fireball vanished in an instant, leaving only a quietly resting fire seed in his palm.

There was no wild energy, no agitation—its power was extremely stable, like a tamed beast lying still in his hand.

This time, Xu Xiaoshou didn’t even need to use the “Breathing Method.” He completed the previously failed operation effortlessly, just with the heat control technique.

Hmm…

The gentle heat simmering technique!

Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the same time.

He’d thought “Chu Yi Jing Tong” would be useless, but after setting aside all that miscellaneous knowledge, the heat control technique alone was pretty much enough to handle everything he’d dreamed of in “Huo Yan Jing Tong.”

On second thought…

It seemed “Chu Yi Jing Tong” was even more impressive than “Huo Yan Jing Tong.” At least, when he had free time, he could try his hand at cooking…

Xu Xiaoshou felt a toothache coming on. This was just too weird!

Sang Lao stared in astonishment. He’d only been gone for a little while, and Xu Xiaoshou had actually managed to compress the fire seed?

From the sound of the explosions, it had only taken three tries!

Back in the day, even he had taken a full day and night to refine it, and he’d ended up charred inside and out from the blasts.

Now, looking at Xu Xiaoshou…

He was fine, but Ling Zang Ge had taken the hit…

“This…”

Sang Lao composed himself and said slowly, “So, that final explosion earlier—was that really your doing?”

Even if this kid had mastered compressing the fire seed in such a short time, he still didn’t believe a mere Refining Spirit Ninth Realm cultivator could cause that much damage, enough to overwhelm Ling Zang Ge.

Xu Xiaoshou was getting anxious.

Of course, Ling Zang Ge wasn’t his doing, but there was no way he could spill everything about the illusion world.

He slightly loosened his control over the fire seed, and it immediately trembled unstably.

“I was just testing my new move— the Small Fireball Technique!”

“Small Fireball Technique?” A hint of suspicion flashed in Sang Lao’s eyes.

The power of the fire seed in front of him was obvious—it could probably blast through a protective barrier, but how could it shatter windows?

“Suspected, Passive Points +1.”

As expected…

Xu Xiaoshou didn’t even glance at the old man and continued on his own, “But that’s just the prelude.”

“Oh?” Sang Lao picked up his straw hat from the ground and said, “Could it be you’ve come up with something even more powerful in this short time?”

“That’s right!”

Xu Xiaoshou smiled confidently and said seriously, “The Five Finger Imprint Technique!”