Jin Nanqing felt excited, for he had found an opportunity to make contributions and get promotions. On the other hand, Junior Leopard was full of tension.
Because as he went deeper and deeper, the temperature became higher and higher, as did the Spiritual Energy of Fire.
It should have been nothing for those who practiced the Fire Way Method. This was a holy place for practicing. The place was so valuable that delight should have filled all his heart.
But as he went deeper, he found that something wrong. The unusual feeling came from not him but the black flame inside his Dantian.
Now, this black flame had already blended with his Internal Qi and transformed his Internal Qi of Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Ninth Dragon, which was totally unrecognizable. Although the Internal Qi still had the shape of the Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon, its power was greatly strengthened. Junior Leopard dared not to use it randomly in case he was exposed when he met someone experienced.
But with the change of that Spiritual Energy of Fire, the Mysterious Fire became agitated. It absorbed the pure original energy of fire by itself without Junior Leopard's operation. Previously this Mysterious Fire had divided into two parts, one blended with Junior Leopard's Punching Spirit and the other entered into his External Elixir.
In a sense, it suffered some wear and tear, but of course, it was recovering due to Junior Leopard's Internal Qi. As the amount of Junior Leopard's Internal Qi was increasing, the Mysterious Fire recovered faster and faster thanks to Junior Leopoard entering into Level Three. Though it was still not as fresh as it was in the beginning.
However, with the spewing of Spiritual Energy of Fire around, it kept absorbing and infusing pure pneuma and should get back to peak form in few minutes.
More than this, as it got closer to peak form, it absorbed the pneuma faster, like an endless black hole. And it also drove the Internal Qi inside Junior Leopard's body to absorb Spiritual Energy of Fire. The Blaze Technique of the Heavenly Nine Dragon was operating slowly now.
As soon as Junior Leopard noticed the operation
of his Internal Qi, he had felt something wrong. He began to clamp down his Internal Qi forcibly. Though he achieved some progress in the beginning, it was harder and harder for him to do so as he walked down, because the pneuma became denser, and the Mysterious Fire in his Dantian absorbed faster. The faster it absorbed, the more it affected Junior Leopard.
"Hey guy, what are you doing? Operating in such circumstances, you wanna die?"
Wang She was the first one to detect this situation. Though he walked in the forefront, he paid great attention to changes of pneuma around. Just now he found that all of the Spiritual Energy of Fire around gathered towards Junior Leopard. His subtle instincts reminded him of the fact that Junior Leopard was operating to absorb Spiritual Energy of Fire. Being shocked, he couldn't help to warn Junior Leopard.
Junior Leopard could say nothing but smile bitterly as he heard what Wang She said. He jumped to the front with the operating Internal Qi.
"How dare you?"
The Military Camp had its rules, and so did the Jianghu.
For the reason of the first-class merit he made in recapturing Zhonghejun City and being paid special regard by the general Li Yuan, together with the fact that he had achieved Level Three, he could follow Zhao Ting to enter this place with no one competing with him.
Therefore the people in the Military Camp could not stop him when he followed Zhao Ting with a group of the Wu's disciples.
But now, he jumped over not only Zhao Ting but also the four Bone-Forging Realm experts of Mingyi School's and Tian Long Taoism's, that must be unreasonable. The four Bone-Forging Realm experts wouldn't allow such a child to challenge their authority, so they attacked Junior Leopard at almost the same time.
How powerful should these Bone-Forging Realm experts be! They were about to attack this assuming bloke with mighty power when Wang She held them back with a cold hum.
"Stop!"
Four hands stopped in the air and then were taken back while Junior Leopard had flashed to Wang She.
"Yes, Chief!"
"It is me who asked him to come," said Wang She. "As the paths of the underground fire vein are complicated, I need someone to explore the way for me. You walk ahead and notify me if you find anything special."
"Yes." Junior Leopard nodded his head in a rush. He knew Wang She was seeking an excuse to let him leave alone and solve the problem. He sped up and disappeared in few leaps without lingering.
Both Jin Nanqing and Zhao Ting wanted to prevent him but they had no right to say anything.
The only one who could make decisions at this moment was Wang She. And Wang She was a rare Level Eight expert. They dared not to doubt whether this decision made by Wang She could lead Junior Leopard to death.
Junior Leopard disappeared in few leaps. He was so fast and that they could only do wishes for him and pray for his luck and fortune saving him out of the underground fire vein.
On the other hand, Junior Leopard jumped out alone and giddapped. This underground fire vein in a general was a huge underground passageway that led to underground lava directly. This passageway was a natural formation. There was possibly an active volcano tens or even hundreds of thousands years ago. Thus the passageway was formed.
But this passageway had always been covered by the city above ground for the past thousand years. Somehow the Sect of Flame had found this place and turned it on.
Likewise, no one knew how long this passageway was and how deep it led to. In addition, they were afraid of being ambushed, so they moved slowly and cautiously. The Sect of Flame had been here for half a month and it was possible for them to arrange tight dragnets with such long time.
But Junior Leopard was not afraid of this. Even if there were some traps, they were not arranged for him. Furthermore, he was jumping out to solve the problem
the problem inside his body and not to explore the way as what Wang She had said.
Except for this main passageway of which the thickest part was 100 feet and the slimmest part was 20 to 30 feet and the highest part was 30 feet, there were lots of branch passageways. These passageways seemed like small doors opened in the main passageway and lead to unknown destinations. But Junior Leopard was sure that all of these passageways must lead to the underground lava in the end.
These passageways were indeed very narrow and most of them only allowed one person to pass at a time. Only a few big passageways could allow two to three people to pass at the same time. And some smaller passageways didn't allow any adult to pass at all.
Those who could enter Zhonghe City alive were smart enough and they wouldn't go into such small passageways. If so, they could do nothing but wait when they got in trouble. How terrible!
Junior Leopard's target was those small caves. For this main passageway went down in a spiral way. And that was the point which confused Junior Leopard a lot. The magma must flow in a straight way, there was no reason for a crater which had formed tens of thousands of years ago to be in a spiral like this. How could this crater be as spiral as spiral escalators in a skyscraper?
This passageway was surely not a spiral escalator. But it gave Junior Leopard the chance to get rid of those people. When Junior Leopard was sure to not be seen, he entered into a small branch passageway with a flash.
Though this passageway couldn't match with the main one, it is width reached 10 feet and it's height reached two meters. Junior Leopard was only a young man, this width and height were big enough for him to move if he got into troubles.
This passageway was the same as the main which crooked with a radian. And in the cave wall around there were also many smaller branch passageways, some of them could allow Junior Leopard to get in.
Surely Junior Leopard wouldn't be foolish enough to get in one of those small passageways. Who knew whether he would lose his way if he kept turning? He ran further into this passageway for nearly three to four miles. Suddenly, the Internal Qi inside his body operated faster and faster as if it was stimulated, so he stopped here to regulate his breathing without hesitation. At the time, he opened his Fiery Eyes just in case.
The temperature around was really high. According to the standard in his previous life, the temperature here was almost 60℃, which he couldn't stand on all accounts previously, but now was now.
As soon as he sat down to regulate his breathing, the Mysterious Fire in the deep Dantian beat with excitement and its speed in absorbing Spiritual Energy of Fire was accelerated by several times.
"Oh, god! No! If it continues absorbing like this, my Dantian will be blown up! "
The more Spiritual Energy of Fire it absorbed, the more inflated his Dantian became, like a balloon that was filled with gas. It seemed as though it would blow up soon.
But Junior Leopard couldn't control that Mysterious Fire's independent operation. At the same time, Junior Leopard found that his External Elixir was absorbing the Spiritual Energy of Fire too. But the latter was not as obvious as the former.
"I'm undone!"
Junior Leopard's Dantian became more and more inflated. He felt as if something wanted to be drained. He couldn't maintain his sitting position anymore. He jumped up suddenly and shook his arms and a dark red breath was shot out. Junior Leopard started to practice punching skills.
Under such circumstances, once the Thirteen Punches of Desolation was practiced, the powerful Spiritual Energy of Fire which caused great pressure on his body was drained out naturally. His Dantian got some relief.
However, this relief was impermanent. The Mysterious Fire moved faster and faster. The speed to drain out the extra Spiritual Energy of Fire with punching skills could hardly catch up with the speed it absorbed. The only thing Junior Leopard could do now was to accelerate his fist speed and his Internal Qi operating speed. While in this way, the passageway was overloaded. Not surprisingly, it collapsed in few breaths.
All the clay and stones were moved 20 feet away by Junior Leopard's punching skills. But Junior Leopard paid no attention to those. Little by little, as he became more and more concentrated and his punching skill became more and more fluent, the air around him appeared to undergo amazing changes. As the temperature grew higher, a black fireball appeared behind him gleamingly, emitting a baking-hot spirit like a black sun, which was uncanny and overbearing.