Sage Monarch

Yang Qi was currently in the first transformation, making him a Blood-Form Legendary. He was incredibly durable and strong, and could easily punch through mountains or destroy rivers.

However, to higher-level Legendaries, he was weak. And if he actually fought the Crown Prince, it would definitely end in his death.

In fact, even if he fought experts beneath the Crown Prince, such as Old Man Superdestruction, a Yin-Yang Legendary, he would have to focus solely on defense, or possibly escape. And that would be with the help of the Grand Emperor's Pagoda.

If he ended up fighting Huang Hou or Blightczar Manyrivers without the Grand Emperor's Pagoda, he would be powerless against them. After all, the attacks of Space-Void Legendaries could be made from alternate dimensions, and how could he defend against that?

Without a magical treasure that gave him the ability to defend against extra-dimensional attacks, it wouldn’t matter how strong he was, he would still die.

Right now, the most important task at hand was to reach the second transformation, and become a Spirit-Soul Legendary. By tempering his spirit and soul to the highest degree, and honing his psychic powers, he would be able to sense spatial coordinates, and eventually, when his fleshly body was strong enough, open rifts in space itself.

The first two transformations were about the fundamentals.

After the Blood-Form Transformation and the Spirit-Soul Transformation were complete, and the spirit and flesh became one, it would be possible to attack space itself with psychic tempests, and pierce between planes.

Ordinary Space-Void Legendaries could create minor ripples in space, small-scale spatial spell formations. Psychic and fleshly body power were inherently limited, and thus, enlightenment of the five phases and yin and yang were required. Then, one could create a personal domain, and truly be powerful enough to brave the dangers of inter-planar travel.

But Yang Qi was different.

With his godly-class energy art, he was on a higher level. Every time he increased in level, heaven-shaking, earth-toppling transformations would occur. For him, the Energy Arts level and Lifeseizing level were all about establishing a foundation. They counted for almost nothing, and in ancient times, such practitioners weren’t even qualified to be called energy warriors. However, everything was different in the Legendary level. The advancements he would make in that level would be very dramatic. For example, when he reached the second Legendary transformation, he wouldn’t need to use true energy or his fleshly body at all. He would be able to form psychic tempests that could level mountains in the blink of an eye.

By combining his soul and physical body, he could unleash truly incredible power, and then casually tear rifts into space itself, holes which he could then travel through. At that point, braving spatial tempests would be an easy thing to do.

Yang Qi’s Space-Void Transformation would be very different from the ordinary version. After all, connecting with hell was not something that could be done lightly.

And not even he had any idea of what he would be able to do with the Grand Emperor's Pagoda at that point.

But he was certain of one thing; reaching the next level would not be easy. Although he now had a huge collection of spirit stones of various grades, that would only help a bit. In the Legendary level, enlightenment was more important than raw power. Worse, breaking through the barriers of levels with a godly-class energy art was far more difficult, and involved numerous powerful bottlenecks.

Now, he was considering using these five phases treasures to try to break through his current bottleneck, and at the same time, figuring out exactly what Young Master Shroud-Heaven was up to.

Perhaps Hua Tianxiong couldn’t discern the truth, but with the God Legion Seal, Yang Qi was confident that he would be fine.

Within the Hellfire Crucible, the lamp, dagger-axe, shoot, sand, and water were all beginning to tremble.

As true energy poured into the treasures, Yang Qi’s keen senses passed over them. For one thing, he noticed that someone had used powerful magic to imprint each object with a spatial nexus, which allowed pure quintessence energy of the five phases to pour into them freely from another location.

The five phases quintessence energy from the Rich-Lush Continent was actually heterogeneous and impure. Practicing cultivation with it was not only very difficult, it was also a huge waste of time. However, it was often a necessary evil. For example, if someone cultivated a fire-type energy art, they would absolutely require the quintessence energy of the fire element. Sometimes, refining and purifying it would take dozens of years or even more than a hundred.

But these five phases spatial nexuses were drawing in incredibly pure versions of the five phases elements. Yang Qi was even able to sense that the spatial nexuses in the five objects led to five, enormous worlds.

They were unique planes of their own, each of which were the ultimate expressions of the metal element, wood element, water element, fire element and earth element.

Sadly, Yang Qi had not reached the Space-Void Transformation, much less the Personal-Domain Transformation. Therefore, he couldn’t possibly use the spatial coordinates to actually travel to those planes.

Instead of absorbing the items directly, or trying to extract the five phases quintessence energy, he was simply melting them in the Hellfire Crucible, and hoping that something would come of it.

However, even after three days and three nights, nothing special seemed to be happening. The five phases treasures looked exactly the same, and even glittered brightly within the flames.

Hua Fengfeng sat cross-legged off to the side, watching in amazement. What Yang Qi was doing was something that most Legendary elders couldn’t do.

Meanwhile, deep in the Sun Moon Institute’s Minorbrilliance World, a man and woman were watching a projection of Yang Qi sitting there with Hua Fengfeng. They were none other than Hua Tianxiong and his wife Yan Chenxing. [1]

Yan Chenxing was Hua Fengfeng’s mother, and was also a powerful Never-Dying Legendary. Although she couldn’t compare to preeminent individuals like Hua Tianxiong and the Crown Prince, she was still very powerful, and also profoundly beautiful. Furthermore, she was a descendant of the Sun Moon Institute’s current head of academics, Yan Wuya.

“What do you think of him, my dear?” Hua Tianxiong said, a slight smile on his face. “Our high-and-mighty daughter actually found a genius of a man. Seems we can finally rest our hearts at ease.”

“This Yang Qi is barely twenty, and he's already a Legendary?” Yan Chenxing said. She sounded very pleased. “Extraordinary. Although, what type of energy art does he cultivate? I can’t tell. On the outside, he seems holy and pure, but on a substructural level, there seems to be pressure from hell. It’s actually provoking a reaction from my soul.”

Hua Tianxiong nodded in agreement. “That crucible is very unique. From what I can tell, its fire resembles something mentioned in the most ancient records, Cleansing Flame of the Heavenly World. However, I would have to do more research to confirm. What is he doing, exactly? Sacrificing those five phases treasures? It's been three days and three nights, and he still hasn't absorbed them. What’s going on?”

“Maybe he suspects they’ve been tampered with.”

Hua Tianxiong shook his head. “Impossible. I checked them thoroughly with our institute's Radiant Paradise God-Eye. They’re five phases treasures without a hint of demon energy. Although, he's a very meticulous kid. He doesn’t trust anybody when it comes to his own personal safety. I’d say he's the perfect person to keep Fengfeng safe. He’s definitely superior to all the other young elites that we considered in the past. He's even superior to the holy neophytes here in the Sun Moon Institute.”

“Very true! If the two of us fail to reach the Great Sage level, and fade away into nothing, then at least we’ve found the ideal husband to take care of Fengfeng. This world is as vicious and dangerous as a gale from the Nine Serenities underworld, but at least we have him to keep her safe. Ai!”

RUMBLE!

Even as Hua Fengfeng’s parents looked on sighing, an enormous gate appeared behind Yang Qi down on the mountain. Instantly, boundlessly evil devil energy erupted out into the open, and it was just barely possible to see countless devil-ghosts, spirit bodies, vengeful souls emerging from hell, screaming as they then shot toward the Hellfire Crucible.

Instantly, the flames there leapt higher.

The entities emerging from the gate were literally acting as fuel for the Hellfire Crucible, causing it to burn ten times as hot as before.

In his current level, Yang Qi was finally able to work more properly with the Hell Portal. He could now use it to summon devil-ghosts, spirit bodies, and vengeful souls from some of the nearest hellish locations.

Because he was not yet in the Space-Void Transformation, he could not summon physical entities, only spirit creatures. But they were still very powerful. In fact, if he was simply summoning them out into the open, then before long, everything for thousands of kilometers would transform into a kingdom of devil-ghosts. It would quickly transform into a place like the Blackcorpse or Fiendcorpse Mountains.

“What is he doing?” Hua Tianxiong murmured in shock. “Is that some sort of consummate devil art? Although it's not common to see summoning techniques, it is possible to break the limits of matter and space to bring living entities from other worlds.”

Yan Chenxing’s face drained of blood. “You’re right. That's a powerful devil art, a summoning technique. Look, there are even Lifeseizing-level devil-ghosts coming out of that portal. How could he possibly be summoning things like that?” 

“He’s using those devil-ghosts as fuel for that crucible. I've never seen or even heard of such a thing.” Unsure of exactly what was happening, Hua Tianxiong continued to observe carefully.

Meanwhile, Yang Qi heard a voice speaking to him in Godtongue.

“The legion of gods uses devil-ghosts as sacrifices to the glory of the Lord. Burn them to provide radiance and heat….”

RUMBLE!

Immense heat surged from the Hellfire Crucible, which was now glowing with dazzling brightness. Divine light pulsed out, transforming into numerous angels with pure white wings, who then flew in a constant stream into the five phases treasures.

Then, a third eye appeared on Yang Qi’s forehead, casting such brilliance onto the treasures that it was impossible for anything to be hidden inside of them.

At that point, a green flicker could be seen in the depths of the treasures.

“A heaven-demon seed!” Hua Tianxiong blurted, his face falling.

1. Yan Chenxing: Yan means “smoke”. Chenxing means “morning star”. Yan is not usually used as a surname, but in this case I think it’s supposed to be taken that way.