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Seven days flew by in an instant.
The eruption of magma in the lava volcano zone had ceased, and the ash soared into the sky amidst the raging winds, forming thick clouds. The lava flowed, intertwining and converging in the gorges between the volcanoes.
It was like a scene from doomsday.
Amidst the lava, some golden, red, and silver crystalline ores emerged, emitting a scorching aura of fire elemental energy. They shimmered faintly under the reflection of the lava's fiery light.
Buzz—
The ground near the lava volcano trembled. Countless beasts and birds flew from afar, some with flames, others emitting fiery light. They arrived at the lava zone where the volcanic eruption had ended, either digging into the semi-solidified lava with their claws or picking up crystals with their beaks. Each displayed its unique abilities.
At this moment, even though there existed a predator-prey relationship among the soul beasts, there were no conflicts. They focused on finding various ores to consume.
On the human side, they watched from a distance, waiting for the soul beasts to satisfy their hunger before taking action.
In a sense, these humans, who were pursuing volcanic minerals, were the earliest observers of the volcanic ecology on the Douluo Continent. Unfortunately, almost no one was interested in the connection between these soul beasts and the volcano. Their minds were focused on mining minerals and collecting soul beast excrement afterward.
Meanwhile, the soul beasts paid no attention to the bipedal creatures watching them from the sidelines. They were focused on finding energy-rich ores to enhance their cultivation.
During these seven days, Tang San and Huo Wu had already found a path leading deeper into the volcano, ignoring the century-old and millennium-old soul beasts, heading straight for the deeper regions of the lava volcano.
After advancing about five hundred miles, they encountered another volcano. It was about a kilometer high, and a deafening roar of beasts emanated from within, followed by a clear phoenix cry.
"What soul beasts are making those sounds?" Huo Wu asked.
"We're in luck." Tang San's spiritual power had already detected the appearance of the two kinds of soul beasts. With a smirk, he began climbing the volcano.
Huo Wu quickly followed suit.
Arriving at the edge of the volcano, the magma below was slowly receding, revealing fan-shaped platform-like black rocks, each with an area of over two hundred square meters.
On the rock walls, there were head-sized golden crystals, circulating with golden energy inside. The emanating waves froze the surrounding air.
"Based on the height of the building, this golden crystal is called the Sunstone. It exists on the inner walls of the volcano and is born from the nurturing of magma over thousands of years. It contains surging fire attribute energy, and its eruption is extremely powerful, like a sun falling to the earth."
Tang San explained, "Because it's difficult to harvest and prone to explosions, blacksmiths used to disdain this crystal. But with the establishment of the Soul Master City and the study of soul guide formations, this crystal has found a new use, serving as a power source for energy."
"However, harvesting it remains a big problem."
"Nevertheless, some fire-attributed soul beasts can directly consume these crystals to refine the energy inside and enhance their cultivation."
At this moment, two soul beasts were gathering and ingesting Sunstone crystals.
One of them was over twenty meters tall, resembling a gorilla, but with no hair on its body, instead covered in a lava-like outer shell emitting a faint red glow.
It grabbed the black rocks, swung its arms, and jumped continuously, collecting the Sunstone crystals. Occasionally, it roared at another giant bird made entirely of flames and light, seemingly asserting its dominance.
That bird was the Fire Cloud Phoenix.
It was seen pecking at the Sunstone crystals on the volcano wall while intermittently spewing fireballs at the Titan Flame Ape, as if trying to drive it away.
"Perfect, when two quarrel, the third wins." Huo Wu rejoiced, feeling lucky this time. "How old are they?"
"The cultivation age of the Titan Fire Ape can be judged based on its size, and depending on the situation, it's at least fifty thousand years old. As for the Flire Cloud Phoenix, its cultivation age is judged based on the phoenix feathers on its head. One feather grows for every ten thousand years, and this one has six feathers, putting it at the sixty-thousand-year level." Tang San discerned the cultivation ages of the two, then asked, "Have you decided which one to choose? The Titan Flre ape or the Fire Cloud Phoenix?"
The Titan Fire Ape was fire-attributed, with the ability to control gravity and possessing immense strength.
The Fire Cloud Phoenix had both light and fire attributes, floating naturally and seemingly composed entirely of energy.
"The Fire Cloud Phoenix. No matter how you look at it, it's more compatible with my Sun Goddess. Although I do prefer the feeling of direct combat, I also have to consider my martial soul." Huo Wu hesitated for a moment before ultimately choosing the Fire Cloud Phoenix.
"Alright, let's wait until they're both injured." Tang San looked down at the two giant beasts fighting below, and together with Huo Wu, they waited for the best time to strike.
Bang!
In a fit of anger, the Titan Fire Ape exerted a little force, crushing a black rock and losing its balance, tumbling down.
Fortunately, its arms were agile, and it slammed into the inner wall of the volcano, anchoring itself. But the wall suddenly shattered, revealing a huge hole.
The Titan Flre Ape sniffed, giving up the fight with the Fire Cloud Phoenix and ran into the hole without looking back.
Likewise, the Fire Cloud Phoenix seemed to have sensed something attracting it and flew in as well.
In the blink of an eye, they disappeared.
"What do we do now?" Huo Wu was shocked by the unexpected turn of events. The Titan Fire Ape actually broke through the barrier and found an opening.
"Let's go and take a look." Tang San decided to investigate and jumped into the volcano, leaping along the edge of the black rock platform towards the dark hole.
Huo Wu followed closely behind.
Arriving at the entrance of the hole, Huo Wu felt an extremely dense atmosphere of fire attribute energy mixed with light attribute, causing her Sun Goddess martial soul to tremble, urging her to hurry inside.
"There must be treasures inside with both light and fire attributes!" Tang San took out a soul-guided illumination device resembling a flashlight from his storage bracelet and entered with Huo Wu.
Following the footprints left by the Titan Fire Ape on the ground, the two quickly advanced. In just ten minutes, Tang San noticed that they were running down the inner wall of the volcano in a spiral.
There were spiral stairs within the volcano wall!
However, the entire volcano was conical, so with every ten meters of descent, the perimeter they needed to run increased. Fortunately, both of them were soul masters, and Tang San had already taught Huo Wu various skills during their journey to the lava volcano zone. They utilized the Wanderer's Windborne Walk, exhibiting the Skywalk Nine Steps Style, which was incredibly fast.
After about half an hour, they had circled around the spiral inner wall of the volcano and reached the exit, which was about a hundred meters high and fifty meters wide.
The entrance glowed with a rich red light, emitting a scorching breath.
Looking around, Tang San noticed several lava flows hanging down like waterfalls. However, instead of a magma pool below, there was a large area composed of Sunstone islands.
In the center of these Sunstone islands was a huge golden lotus-shaped plant, shining brightly under the reflection of the lava's light.
The Titan Flame Ape and the Fire Cloud Phoenix were running towards the lotus.
"What is that?" Huo Wu asked. "Is it similar to the precious herbs you brought back from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Eyes before?"
"Probably." Tang San nodded, but he wasn't sure what it was. He then focused his mind and asked the all-knowing in his mind.
"I'm really not omniscient." Electrolux complained, then carefully examined the lotus with his divine sense. He sighed, "I didn't expect such a thing to actually exist!"
"What is it?"
Tang San asked eagerly, "I can see that even soul masters who don't have both light and fire attributes can benefit greatly from this thing, even causing their martial souls to evolve towards the ultimate light and fire attributes."
"When I was still alive, I found some hidden information that mentioned similar lotus-shaped peculiar plants." Electrolux sat cross-legged in Tang San's upper dantian, supporting his chin, and slowly recounted what he knew, "It is said that each plane is an unawakened life, with the earth and oceans as its skin, the rocks as its muscles, the magma as its blood, and the core as its soul."
"And the creatures living on the earth and in the oceans, including humans, are just insignificant parasites, not even worthy of being called parasites."
"The true 'parasites' are beings that absorb its blood energy—"
"The Crystal Lotus."
"A peculiar plant that feeds on magma energy."
"Places where this plant grows usually have large-scale volcanic clusters, which are the means by which the will of the plane removes it from the 'blood'······"
"This Crystal Lotus should have been in a deeper position in the magma, but because of this volcanic eruption, it was pushed to the outer layer of the earth."
"Now I believe that this is true, and it's similar to what you told Huo Wu before about creatures adapting to the environment, like fish unable to leave the water, or fire snakes unable to adapt to the air environment. This Crystal Lotus cannot survive in an environment without magma."
"Originally, this Crystal Lotus should have been ejected and then withered and died in the air. But this one was lucky to be blocked by magma and not directly ejected from the crater. However, the temperature here is much lower than in the inner magma, equivalent to a person suddenly moving from room temperature to a temperature of minus ten degrees Celsius."
"It's estimated that this has caused great damage to the Crystal Lotus, and it will take three hundred years to recover. This also explains the legend outside the lava city about this lava world."
When Electrolux finished speaking, the Titan Fire Ape and the Flame Cloud Phoenix had already approached the Crystal Lotus······
(End of this chapter)