The Heart of Fire cultivation formula had 10 levels, each required a specific level of flame and each had a different cultivation pathway to guide the fire qi through.
Red was quietly practicing practicing the Heart of Fire and the others were watching him to see what exactly was he trying to do because he wasn't taking out any treasure. Suddenly they noticed something that caused them to be shocked. The walls around they were starting to become cooler.
The heat in the cave began concentrating under Red's legs and slowly entering his body. He could feel the fire qi gushing in and directing it along the pathway. The cave was indeed emitting a first level flame essence which had heated up the cave, but now Red was madly absorbing it all. The fire qi circled his body along the cycle and then slowly diffused into his cells, slowly increasing his fire affinity for the level 1 flame.
The four saw that all the heat was gathering under the clown and the clown was actually starting to glow because of the heat, but his body didn't take any visible damage. "Does he have an affinity for the fire element?" Lana wondered.
Red kept absorbing the level 1 fire essence the cave emitted, but the cave wasn't stopping emitting heat. So a bizarre tug of war was going on where the cave kept heating and cooling.
Red on the other hand was blind to this tug of war he was subconsciously playing with this cave. When he absorbed the fire qi, he found that the Heart of Fire has many more benefits that just being untouched by flames. His body was actually getting stronger from the injection of the fire qi and he was even able to detect a small strain of fire qi in the air, but it was too thin to have any visible effect on Red.
This tug of war continued on and on, meanwhile the other four were looking for clues so that they could escape this sealed cave. Then one of them discovered a small scroll hidden in the drawers in one of the sheds. The scroll was unfortunately written in a language the four didn't know. But Lana felt that she had seen such symbols before. They knew this was probably their only clue to escape here, and so tried deciphering it.
Meanwhile Red was continuing to absorb the level 1 fire qi and he began to feel like he was half full. This was just like what the Heart of Fire described. When he would be completely full, he would have gained affinity with the first level flame.
After two hours Red was finally done absorbing the fire essence emitted by the cave. He felt completely full and was sure now that his affinity with the first level flame was completed. Yet the cave continued to inject heat from within its walls. He saw that the other four were huddled together discussing something. Red decided to try to exercise for the second level flame but it didn't work. On a whim, he continued absorbing the fire qi using the first exercise. The qi entered his body, but his cells were filled to the brim and couldn't be stuffed any more.
Suddenly, the domineering berserk qi that his seven chakra points constantly absorbed to strengthen his body began fusing with the fire qi that had nowhere to go. The fire qi suddenly developed into a kind of raging flame qi. Red got scared that he would be hurt by this chaotic flame qi, but instead the qi gathered together near his heart into a tiny seed.
Flame seed! Red realized. Flame seed was an innate organ like object that certain fire affinity creatures were known to sometimes have. The flame seed suddenly started pulling the flame qi and the Asura qi together on it's own along the Heart of Fire's pathway and swallowing it. It gradually became more and more faster and Red didn't even have to cultivate anymore, the seed was absorbing the flame qi on its own. After a few minutes, its rate of absorption became faster than that of the cave's ability to heat up and the temperature began cooling down.
The four noticed that to room was now cooling down despite the walls glowing as if they were about to melt. They saw the man with the clown mask walk up to them. "Any hints how we can leave this place?"
One of the four sneered. He said. "While you were busy lazing we turned this place upside down and finally found this scroll. We'll eventually find a way when we decipher it."
"Decipher it? Is it a puzzle of some sort?" Red asked, ignoring the snub by that sneering man.
"It is written in a language or code we have not learnt. Although I have the nagging feeling that the symbols look familiar somehow." Lana said.
"Oh, mind if I have a look?" Red asked.
"What's the point of showing you? The four of us are from conferred kingdoms and don't know it, how would a hillbilly clown like you understand?" The guy retorted again. He seemed to have an agenda against Red, however Red wasn't one to take nonsense for too long.
"Why don't you shut up before I slap you to death, huh?" He coldly said to that man, releasing a wisp of the slaughter qi that he had developed from facing the scabbard. The man was immediately entranced by the trace of slaughter intent and his mind was sent dizzy. He suddenly woke up with fear and sat down quietly, not bothering the clown again. He had noticed that the clown was only at qi condensation earlier, yet when Lana was showing him a favor he got displeased and had decided to vent out on him, but the slaughter intent shut him up.
Red looked at Lana with his hand out. "May I?" Lana nodded, surprised at the exchange that took place. That young man just now was peak of Foundation Establishment, just like all of the others here, but had been scared to death by one look from this qi condensation stage Clown. He had even swindled someone's talisman to get in here, which made Lana think that this clown was very mysterious.
Red took a look at the scroll and gazed through it once. He was in a daze for a second before he snapped out. Then he simply commented, "Oh, it was so simple, I was dumb to not have realized it earlier." He returned the scroll to Lana and began walking towards a wall.
"Did you figure out what was on the scroll?" Lana asked.
"Figure out? Oh, the instructions were pretty direct, I just had to read it to find out." The clown spoke nonchalantly and then touched a particular spot in the wall and the wall crumbled to create a doorway. It led to the next location through a long corridor.
"You just read it? So you know what language it is?" Lana asked, genuinely curious. She always kept feeling that the symbols were ones she had seen somewhere.
"It's an Asura Language." The clown said nonchalantly and with that realization dawned on her. "Indeed, I have seen some of these symbols on Asura warships and weapon engravings. You can read the Asura language?"
"Yes. I happen to be good with languages." Red said as he walked into the long corridor. "By the way, would you know someone called Senior Flame Tribulation?"
"Senior Flame Tribulation?That name is unknown to me." Lana said and the other three shook their heads as well.
"Oh, never mind then." Red said.