Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Scorching Sun Blaze

The other “big shot” was the Gold-Devouring Divine Beast.

No one knew how it had ended up in the little li realm, but it had arrived carrying an entire secret realm stuffed with ore—like a baby bottle filled to the brim. It, too, had contracted Hu Qing, linking its mineral nest to the space in her sea of consciousness.

Later, for reasons Hu Qing still didn’t understand, the Gold-Devouring Divine Beast took an interest in Hu Nuan. It hid its name, followed Hu Nuan away, and forbade Hu Qing from revealing its identity or their connection.

In other words, Hu Qing was carrying two ancestors on her back.

If either little ancestor so much as sneezed wrong, Hu Qing would suffer for it. So when they demanded things, she couldn’t refuse.

Going to the Immortal Realm was an order from the Gold-Devouring Divine Beast. That was why she had come to Heaven’s Grace to scout ahead.

Fortunately, the two rarely interfered. Hu Qing could almost pretend they weren’t there. The egg and the beast didn’t need feeding, either—far easier than Hu Nuan had been as a child.

Still, tempting as that perfect hemispherical lakebed was, Hu Qing hadn’t forgotten her real goal.

The Spiritfire.

She sank beneath the lake and pulled out a high-grade earth-escape talisman, driving downward. No resistance. She slipped through sand, soil, then rock, spreading her divine sense in every direction as she searched.

Deeper and deeper—no roots, no life, only clean layers of earth.

And no Spiritfire.

Hu Qing tore through the underground beneath the lake like a frantic gopher, digging and probing until she lost track of how deep she’d gone.

Nothing.

At last she shot back up, wiped her face, and glared at the sky. “Did the heavens prank me?”

Little Bu replied with brutal fairness. “The heavens probably don’t have the time. They don’t think that highly of you.”

Hu Qing: “….”

With Little Bu around, she would never get full of herself.

“So if it’s not underground…” Hu Qing lifted her face toward the light. “Is it in the sky? Another layer? Another space?”

Her gaze moved between the sun, the lake, and the forest.

Cloudshadow Aurora was born from sun essence fused with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Spiritual energy aside, its very existence meant the sun essence here was unbelievably dense.

Earlier, in the lake, the sunlight had felt fiercer—almost hotter.

A sphere could gather light.

Fine. But where did that gathered light go?

Hu Qing gritted her teeth, suddenly furious at her past self. Her physics had been garbage. Who would’ve thought knowledge useless in modern life would matter in a cultivation world?

If she could do it over, she’d start studying the moment she could crawl.

“Little Bu,” she said, “help me find traces of spatial distortion.”

“I’m a storage item,” Little Bu said with a sigh. “Ask the heavens again. Maybe they’ll point you where you want to go.”

Hu Qing dropped to her knees without hesitation, hands sliding as her forehead hit the ground. “Father.”

Little Bu fell silent, stunned by the sheer smoothness of it.

Hu Qing stayed like that for about a minute—then sprang up as if powered by lightning, eyes bright. “It’s right in the center of the lake.”

Little Bu jolted. “The Heavenly Dao really told you? Kneeling works that well?”

“What are you talking about?” Hu Qing shot him a look. “My fire spirit power sensed it.”

Little Bu snorted. “You couldn’t sense it underground, but you can sense it now? And that female immortal didn’t notice?”

So yes. The heavens were still opening her eyes.

Hu Qing pressed her palms together and looked up devoutly. “Thank you, Father.”

Then she dove straight down again.

She stopped at the Spiritfire’s location—open water, no surface in reach, no bottom underfoot.

The Spiritfire was here. In another space.

“Thunder Dragon Arm.”

Lightning raced over her right arm. Scales formed. The limb thickened into something brutal and powerful, her hand turning into a claw with razor talons.

She slashed at the clear, empty water.

Lightning and golden fire spirit power crashed forward in a savage arc.

At her Nascent Soul Stage, with no control over space, she couldn’t truly tear open reality. This wasn’t skill.

It was a gamble.

A bet that the heavens wouldn’t make a liar of themselves.

The space in front of her suddenly went hollow.

Behind her, the lake’s weight surged like a mountain collapsing. Hu Qing was shoved forward, helpless, tumbling through—

The blue-green water vanished.

Brilliant yellow swallowed her whole.

Light. Fire.

“Scorching Sun Blaze!” Little Bu shouted, voice sharp with shock. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he cursed. “You really might be the heavens’ own daughter.”

Hu Qing clapped both hands over her eyes. “Ah—my eyes! I’m blind—!”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. The moment she entered, the brightness was so intense it felt like it was melting her eyeballs.

Terror seized her.

Was she supposed to cultivate as a blind woman?

She spun her back to the light and poured spiritual power into repairing the damage. Energy rushed through her meridians, fed into the fine channels around her eyes—

And was instantly burned away by the overwhelming glare.

Little Bu yelped. “I forgot! Hurry—cultivate Clear Sight!”

A technique slammed into her mind, complete with diagrams. Little Bu urged her to assume the posture in the illustrations.

Hu Qing complied at once, twisting into a strange, upward-stretched stance as if she were trying to launch into the sky. Then she tried to read the text—and her face went dark.

“I can’t read this.”

It wasn’t because she was illiterate. She had learned the little li realm’s writing long ago, but after a million years of exile, culture had drifted. Script changed. That was normal.

The characters flashed.

Then shifted into the little li realm script she recognized.

“I adjusted it for you,” Little Bu said. “But you need to learn Immortal Realm writing fast. You can’t reach the Immortal Realm and still need me to translate a menu.”

Hu Qing nodded, already sinking into the technique.

Clear Sight was an art meant specifically to refine the eyes.

The body was the best vessel. No artifact, not even a life artifact, was as delicate, miraculous, and complete as the flesh itself. And the body carried both soul and cultivation—unless someone was truly cornered, who would ever abandon it?

Most people tempered the body through body cultivation.

But there were also specialized techniques that strengthened a single sense—like a herb gatherer’s smell, or a beast tamer’s hearing.

In the little li realm, such techniques were niche. The versions available there weren’t truly top-tier, and most spell cultivators gained far more by simply raising cultivation.

Hu Qing had never cared.

But now she stood in the blaze of Scorching Sun Blaze.

And Little Bu had remembered exactly what kind of opportunity that meant.