The compressed fire seed in Xu Xiaoshou's hand disappeared as he dropped the line, and another one, which was even more raging, sparked above his thumb instead.

A strange look appeared in Elder Sang's eyes. The energy contained within that one was like an unbridled stallion. It was so incredibly restless that for a while it looked like it might explode at any moment, making it far more terrifying than the one from before.

​​

Yet, Xu Xiaoshou seemed to have an unusually firm hand on it somehow, which managed to prevent it from actually exploding.

Elder Sang knew that Xu Xiaoshou was a genius, but he didn't know the kid was that much of a genius.

He was so impressive that he'd managed to conjure a compressed fire seed, and, the way the elder saw it, being able to control it to such an extent would be rather insane.

"Seeds on All Five Fingers."

But judging by the name, there had to be more to it than that, no?

Swoop!

While the elder was still mulling this over, yet another spark lit up on Xu Xiaoshou's index finger. The distance between the two flames was but that of the crevice between his two fingers. Being in such close proximity brought the flames near the point of violent explosion.

Xu Xiaoshou quickly turned the heat down, enabling the two flames to quiet down.

The elder was evidently impressed. "Not bad. Go on."

Xu Xiaoshou wiped the sweat off of his brow and erected his middle finger next, causing yet another spark to light.

Fzzz.

There was a magnetic pull between the three seeds, which made them unimaginably far more terrifying. Despite having turned down the heat at the moment, he still struggled a little to keep them in line.

The seeds violently fluctuated, drawing black lines on top of his fingernails.

Elder Sang was intrigued by what he was seeing, and he started to believe that Xu Xiaoshou's "Seeds on All Five Fingers" technique was indeed capable of blasting the library's windows apart.

While there were only three of those things, the effect they had on each other brought their energy level to the point of surpassing most other spiritual techniques. One could only imagine what would happen if one were to throw those into someone else's mouth.

The elder was about to tell his disciple to stop, but he kept his mouth shut after seeing how focused the kid was.

Initially, Xu Xiaoshou had actually thought of just bluffing, but his epiphany had actually turned out to be quite formidable instead.

He'd gotten the inspiration from seeing the two seeds cross and explode earlier, but he hadn't expected their potential damage to be so exponentially increased when pulling at each other at such an infinitely close distance.

"Okay, could try being a little wild," he thought. "The old man is here. Shouldn't be much of a problem.

He took a peek at Elder Sang with his Sense, noting that the old man was quite interested, and immediately made his decision.

He figured that if he were to be able to finish researching this skill, it would become far more powerful than the "Lesser Fireball."

He figured that he'd be able to make it his most powerful technique.

Fourth one!

He focused and conjured yet another seed on his wobbling ring finger.

"Yes!"

He took a good look and found that the compressed seed was noticeably smaller, so much so that its power was far weaker than that of the other three.

What happened?

He was baffled and felt his body become weak. It was only then that he realized that his spiritual source was getting depleted.

"Sh**!" he thought. "I totally forgot about this!"

The next second, he found to his horror that the appearance of this unstable factor had severely wrecked the balance between the previous three.

All four bits of flames on his fingertips rampaged at the same time, shuddering violently and emanating a terrifying aura of destruction.

"F**!"

He immediately shuddered and instinctively made to throw all those things out the window, but he found Elder Sang in his way, very intrigued by them.

All four sparks might as well have been plastered on the old man's face.

Huh?

Cursed, Passive Points +1.

The elder had been having a good time studying the flames, being very impressed by the kid's ideas.

He'd noted this move developed from alchemy was indeed fresh and new, and it had completely absorbed him, causing him to look forward to the kid conjuring the fifth one.

Yet, said kid had instead thrown the four seeds at him without warning.

It wasn't that he was afraid of the flames, but the kid could've warned him first.

"What the h*ll are you doing now?" he thought.

"Are you trying to ambush me?

"Are you trying to kill your teacher?"

Elder Sang immediately leaned backward, causing his hat to flip into the air. The three seeds that were flying higher shot through the hat and out the window.

It took mere seconds for the entire hat to be reduced to nothing.

The remaining one with lower energy, which was flying lower, coincidentally shot into Elder Sang's nostril.

What the…?

Cursed, Passive Points +1.

He was enraged at that moment, but he didn't explode with anger right away.

His life still mattered more, after all.

While the situation was dire, it wasn't unsalvageable.

He too was of the line capable of general Infernal Heavenly Flames, which meant that he would be completely fine, so long as he could internalize that flame.

On the other hand.

Xu Xiaoshou saw that the bit of flames had shot into his master's nostril, and he became all flustered.

"Elder Sang didn't manage to evade them?" he thought. "Sh**, that's unexpected. What was that old man doing?

"Was he spacing out?

"Even I didn't dare to space out when I was testing my moves, and here he was actually spacing out instead?"

However, he had no time to mull over any of these thoughts. He took a deep breath before the seed was able to get too deep inside his nostril.

"So long as I'm quick enough," he thought, "The seed won't...

"D*mn, what's that smell!?

"It stinks!

"Urrgghh."

He barfed, and saw the elder's body shudder all of a sudden, and a stifled rumble was heard from the elder's stomach.

It blew?

Both of them looked at each other, and there was only silence between them.

Xu Xiaoshou saw the old man's cheeks puff up slightly before returning to normal, yet the sound of the old man's tonsils moving was unmistakably clear.

"Sh**!" he thought. "Is he bleeding?"

Xu Xiaoshou was filled with disbelief, unable to process the fact that he had actually managed to hurt the elder.

Elder Sang was shaking all over.

But he wasn't shaking from pain. He was shaking from anger.

He'd thought his level of powers would enable him to instantly internalize the flames, even if it got into his stomach.

Yet, Xu Xiaoshou the devil had actually sucked it out, which had messed up all the spiritual sources in his body so much that they'd gone out of control. While this had only taken place in the span of a second, he had nonetheless missed his window of opportunity to internalize the flames.

If it hadn't been for the fact that he had trained his body as well, the Tiansang Spirit Palace might have actually lost its vice dean from then on out.

"Are you hurt?" Xu Xiaoshou was in shock.

Elder Sang took a deep breath to stop his body from shaking and suppressed his rage.

There was nothing else he could do.

He had to suppress it.

Masters who'd almost ended up being killed by their disciples during their first meeting were virtually unheard of, after all. Exploding with rage would only mean that he was of inferior quality as a master.

He quietly turned around and took out a new hat from his ring before slowly putting it on.

"Nonsense. Stop running your mouth."

A breeze blew in from outside the window as soon as the elder spoke, and Xu Xiaoshou was able to smell blood.

The scene was incredibly awkward, and Xu Xiaoshou wasn't bold enough to blow his master's cover. He deemed it wise to just let the wound heal itself.

Better a person in pain than two persons in pain. Opening up the wound like that would probably get him in trouble...

Hehe. Xu Xiaoshou forced a grin, trying to make the atmosphere less awkward.

Hehe. Elder Sang then grinned in response, seemingly trying to save face.

The air was silent, which made the atmosphere…

Even more awkward.

The corners of Xu Xiaoshou's eyelids twitched, yet he was still unable to say anything.

While it was usually easy for him to badmouth other people in their faces, he was still unable to muster the gall to do so with the elder.

Yeah, at times when he subconsciously got in way over his head, scenes like this would happen…

"What was that?" Elder Sang didn't turn around.

Xu Xiaoshou was restless, and he wondered if the old man was aware of the Breathing Technique.

"Some kind of technique," he answered ambiguously.

"Oh, technique, huh…" Elder Sang was quiet again.

Xu Xiaoshou almost burst out laughing, noting that the old man was trying to make the atmosphere less awkward as well, which meant that the old man wasn't actually interested in his Breathing Technique. Xu Xiaoshou then probed, "So, should I start to extract the essence?"

"Yeah, extracts…"

"…" Xu Xiaoshou didn't know what else to say.

Elder Sang finally came to his senses and no longer stood with his back facing his disciple. He turned around and added, "Forget extraction for now. There's yet another important thing I need to tell you."