“Young man, you’ll— Don’t sit there, it’s hot!” the old woman cried out. She had to use her cultivation base to protect herself completely and was terrified that Alex would kill himself.

Alex, meanwhile, was fine. He sat on the hot ground, where he had to use his cultivation base, but only to protect his clothes.

“You can step back if it is uncomfortable, senior,” Alex said to the woman.

“I… what about you? I’m here to look after you,” she said. She would very much like to leave but seeing as she had to stay for his sake, she was conflicted.

“I will be fine. I will cultivate here for a while, and once I’m done, I will leave,” Alex said.

The woman frowned, thought for a bit, and finally nodded. “I will wait for you a little below then. Don’t do anything rash,” she said.

“I won’t,” Alex said and looked away from the woman.

Now, there was only one thing on his mind. The Flame Mastery Scripture’s 3rd level.

As he thought, the technique inside of it floated into his mind. The technique to improve one’s Fire Spiritual root.

He mentally prepared for a while. Once he was certain he could do it, he decided to start.

Alex checked his mind, body, and spirit one last time before taking out the many treasures he had gathered on the way up.

He spread them around him, and once there was enough Fire aura around him, he reached into himself and started cultivating the technique.

His dantian shuddered for a moment as the Qi inside of it escaped through one side of the dantian. In fact, it all escaped through the Fire Spiritual root, turning the Qi that escaped into fire Qi itself.

As it moved up, going through one of the 4 different branches of the spiritual roots, it slowly called for more Fire aura from within Alex.

There were few, once he had unintentionally gathered on his way up, but those were far too few for the Fire Qi. It wanted to grow more. Alex wanted to grow more.

So, his body reached far outside of its own scope and into the atmosphere around him, pulling the fire Qi outside into his body.

As it did, the fire Qi went into his meridians, pulled by his fire Qi and it got denser. It was too dense and hard for his meridians to control.

And it was at that point that the Qi did a complete circle, reaching his dantian again.

To enter the Dantian, however, the Qi had to be cleansed as it was far too dense for the Dantian itself to do so.

As such, as the Qi went into the dantian, it had to do so through the Fire Spiritual root, where the excess Fire aura was absorbed by the Spiritual root, growing it the slightest bit.

Alex felt uncomfortable, maybe even a little painful as his Spiritual Root wasn’t used to handling that much fire. However, since it helped it grow, he continued it.

This time when he pulled his Qi out from his dantian, he did so through the Spiritual root that was slightly better.

The Qi that came out was stronger by a little bit, but not enough for it to make much difference in the end.

Still, Alex continued the circulation of his Qi, pulling in more Fire aura that emanated from the treasures around him, and sent it back to his dantian through the other side. When he did that, the other Fire Spiritual root improved itself.

Once all the Qi was done, he brought out his Fire Qi again from the side that had just been improved.

He continued going back and forth between the two spiritual roots and felt it grow ever so slightly each time. There weren’t any massive improvements at once like when he had eaten the Earth Spiritual root improvement pill, not to even mention how his 3 major spiritual roots had perfected themselves.

Still, there was a sense of infinite growth with his technique. As long as he had enough aura, his spiritual root would continue to grow until it reached the Supreme stage.

So, Alex continued circulating his Qi, improving his spiritual roots while the treasures on the outside slowly lost their Fire aura.

It took Alex 5 hours of circulation before the treasures outside of him lost enough of their aura to make them useless.

His Fire Spiritual root, which was already quite good had improved much further, reaching close to Superior grade.

Still, Alex wasn’t done.

The old woman who stood a little away from Alex was surprised at how much Fire Qi he was sucking into his body while not letting the slightest bit out.

She could feel it disappear into him, but not a single one of it came back out.

‘What is he doing?’ she couldn’t help but be surprised. Her surprise only furthered when she sensed the Fire aura around the atmosphere started moving, slowly going towards Alex.

A massive area around his body was now under the effect of his Qi as the fire aura in it started being pulled towards him.

The old woman could see visible embers made up of the Qi move towards Alex.

He had become a vortex for everything fire and sucked it into the deep abyss that was his body.

The old woman tried to figure out what was happening, but there was simply no way for her to find out at all. All she could do was stand and watch the spectacle from afar.

Alex had lost all other sense inside of him, focusing solely on the gathering of Fire aura. He continuously improved his spiritual root and at some point, it had reached the Superior stage.

However, he wanted to go further. He continued gathering fire aura for another 6 hours before finally, he could gather no more.

It wasn’t that he could no longer gather fire Qi at all, but rather that the concentration of Fire aura that he naturally produced using his Fire Spiritual root had become the same or even exceeded the concentration of the fire aura outside of his body.

As such, he had reached the peak of what he could currently do with his Flame Mastery Scripture technique in this current place.

Alex stopped and opened his eyes. His senses drifted outward, searching for any location that might have a thicker fire aura, but he found none.

He sighed and looked into his own body again. His Fire spiritual root had either reached the same level as his Yin spiritual root or maybe even exceeded it.

However, it hadn’t entered the Supreme stage that was the peak of all spiritual roots.

He would need a lot better source of Fire aura to improve even further, and he knew he could. However, he couldn’t understand how much better of a Fire Aura he needed for his spiritual roots to enter the Supreme stage.

Even a ball of pure Yin Qi couldn’t help his Yin spiritual root reach the supreme level, so maybe he needed something better.

‘It doesn’t matter right now. I should just celebrate the fact that my Fire spiritual root has entered the Superior stage, and quite far into it too,’ Alex thought.

With this, his alchemy and even artifact forging would likely see some good improvements. However, the thing that would improve the most was definitely his fighting ability.

And with his True Fire Dao on his side, it was impossible to tell just how strong his attacks could become now.

The old woman went back up after seeing him get up from his seating position.

“Young man, are you alright?” she asked hurriedly. She sounded very worried after seeing him absorb so much of the Fire aura around them.

Alex turned around to see the old woman standing behind him. “Oh, senior. I’m fine,” he said. He dusted off his robes and started walking down.

“Are… are you truly okay? Young man, you took in so much of the Fire aura in the surrounding,” she said.

“Of course,” Alex said. “That was what I came here to do in the first place,” he said. “Now that I’m done, we should leave.”

The old woman wanted to say something, but Alex simply walked down from the volcano without even batting an eye.

In the end, she sighed and followed him, ignoring everything she had just seen. Compared to learning 8 dao in a single month, this was nothing in her eyes after all.

On his way down, Alex gathered a few more of the Fire treasures he could find. While he himself didn’t need it anymore, he intended to have Whisker use it when he entered the Saint realm himself.

By that point, however, Alex didn’t see himself remaining in the Northern continent anymore.

After all, in less than 7 years of time, the Demon realm would open up on the other side in the Western Continent, at which point he would be able to teleport back to the other side… hopefully.

If not, he would just have to become strong enough to fly over the entire ocean.

When he truly thought about it, if he went to the westernmost land of the Northern Continent, surely it wouldn’t be much of a journey to get to the Crimson Empire, right?

After coming down the volcanic mountain, Alex and the old woman used a script that was on the ground not far away to escape out of the mountain and into the valley surrounded by the 12 mountains.

Once they were out, the two of them returned back to the Blazing Earth sect.