Red excused himself from the Palace for personal reasons for a few days. Yui was telling Red to return as soon as possible. However, the Queen Rin had now some ideas that Red wasn't simple. She was aware about the relic which opened and the conferred control which regimented the countries around Sakura Nation had been told to keep its existence under wraps.
As such Red suddenly leaving was too much of a coincidence and made her question his identity.
She remembered when she had mistakenly had him flogged and he hasn't spoken a word about it or made any sound. The event had made a tremendous impact on her.
Red made his way to the ruin after purchasing a digital mask. These were easily available in the black market, they were small gadgets attached to the ear that created a holographic image above the face and didn't obstruct sight.
As he neared the ruin he found that a lot of youth of his age group had already set up camp there. Red coolly walked into the crowd and they looked at him with weird eyes.
A group of four people were standing together when they suddenly saw a person with a clown face suddenly appear. They got weirded out.
One of the experts in charge of group's security stopped the clown. "Who are you?" He grunted with a hostile voice. "Your momma." The clown replied.
When one of the four heard that she couldn't stop giggling. She didn't recognize the clown, but he had recognized her. It was one of the people who had rescued him from Puratynt B's incident. Her name was Lana.
The expert got angry and was about the explode but someone interrupted. "The relic is opening!" People turned to look and a void suddenly appeared within the barrier and people began entering. Red waited until a few people got in, then took out his talisman to tear it.
An old man who was looking at the proceedings got surprised. "Roy, you gave one of our talismans to a clown?" The old man wasn't discreet when he asked that The man called Roy as well as everyone else turned to look at the man with the clown mask.
Roy suddenly screamed. "He is the thief! This bastard schemed by acting like an old expert in front of me and swindled me off the talisman! Catch him!"
Red cursed deeply in his heart." No wonder the old beggar told me to wear a mask. He is a heavenly swindler!" He tore the talisman and disappeared as he was teleported randomly into the relic. As he disappeared the clown actually showed his tongue.
"Swindler! Don't let me see you in the relic or you will meet your death!" The man called Roy cursed loudly in anger. However the old man with him threw water on his plans. "To be so gullible to think that a young man was an ancient expert, I was wrong to hand the talismans to you for safe keeping."
Another old person presiding asked what the talismans were. "They are teleportation talismans associated with this ruin. The ruin was discovered by their family after all, so they must've hidden the talismans from us all." Someone else grumbled.
Inside the Ruin, Red had suddenly appeared in what appeared to be a room. Taking a look around Red didn't find anything dangerous. It was simply a room with a table and chair. Red checked the cabinet and found a glass jar which contained three pills. He quickly swiped them into his ring. Finding nothing else of note, he exists the room, to realize that it was one of twenty such sheds in an underground cave. The sheds looked very old and dilapidated.
Red made his way to the other sheds and found similar glass jars with pills which he collected. He wasn't sure what the pills were, but he hoped he could at least sell it. With nothing else in the cave, Red walked towards the only way out, but then saw people coming his way, so he immediately hid himself in a corner.
Four people had come in. They were Lana and her group. They were chosen by a conferred kingdom to represent them in this ruin. The four carefully explored the ruin, looking for traps. After some time they were exasperated. "There's nothing here!"
Just then one of the guys saw what looked like a weird stone protruding out of the ground. "I wonder why this stone is like this?" He wondered. Red suddenly had a feeling as if they would die if the man touched the stone, so he yelled. "Don't!" But it was too late.
The man touched the stone and it suddenly closed the path the group had come from and the cave started becoming very hot. The four turned to see where the voice came from and found that it was the clown. "It's too late." he said. They frowned, because the temperature was rising too fast. The walls of the cave were starting to show hints of red, as if the cracks began glowing with magma.
Each of the four began taking out treasures they had brought out, from barriers to a liquid which cooled their bodies to a purple stone that Lana took out that reduced the temperature around her.
When Red saw that he started crying inside. "Old Beggar I'm going to kill you! Everyone here is prepared for the dangers of the ruin with information but you sent me in blind? Even if I boil to death I will become a ghost and haunt you!"
It was then Red was struck with something. I wonder if the Heart of Fire would work here. Lana and her group in the meantime, were looking for an exit, but they were truly sealed here. Lana saw that the clown didn't seem to have treasure to protect him from the sudden heat and she didn't feel any poor vibes from him, so she spoke to him. "Mr. Clown, if you don't have a protection of your own, you can stand with me, my treasure can shield both of us."
Red thanked her. "Thank you for your offer, I wish to try something first. If it fails I will take up your offer."
Then he sat down on the increasingly hotter floor which had almost begun to glow
His bottoms were scorching now, so he quickly practiced according to the cycle that the Heart of Fire demanded. The Heart of Fire wasn't a cultivation art that cultivated heaven's qi. Instead, it cultivated purely the fire element which would not be found in the heaven's qi. This is why it needed fire essence to cultivate. Practicing this art only absorbed fire element qi and slowly transformed the body. However, it still didn't allow a body to control fire at great completion, it allowed one to have affinity to it. One could control tame fires and be unhurt by flames.