Chapter 350: Leaping Over the Dragon Gate?

The Liang Duke's Manor's retaliation against Hua Changxi was not limited to the Hua family; more than a dozen Shennong Hall pharmacies under her name were also affected.

Of course, the people from the Liang Duke's Manor did not do much; they simply sent a group of thugs to stand outside the pharmacies, and no one dared to enter to buy pills.

With the pills unsellable, Pu Cao, Yu Gui, and the others were not particularly worried; pills would not spoil in the short term. What they worried about was Hua Changxi, who had yet to appear.

"Sister Changxi must have been severely injured by the Liang Duke. That Liang Duke is something else, actually striking first and demanding compensation from Sister Changxi. These nobles are simply shameless."

"In the capital, there are still rules preventing cultivators from using force. In other places, when powerful people covet something, they simply seize it by force."

"This world is becoming increasingly chaotic."

"Sister Changxi must recover quickly."

Meanwhile, at the location of the Nine Heavens Fire Spring, on the massive rock where the waterfall fell with the greatest volume and the loudest roar, Hua Changxi, who had been sitting cross-legged allowing the cascade to scour her body, suddenly opened her eyes. In the next instant, like an arrow leaving the bowstring, she surged upward against the tremendous impact force of the fire spring.

Surging upward against the current was undoubtedly difficult, yet Hua Changxi gritted her teeth and endured stubbornly.

This was a body-tempering method she had painstakingly discovered; surging upward against the fire spring waterfall yielded a tempering effect several times stronger than merely letting the cascade scour one's body.

Whenever Hua Changxi circulated the techniques from the sixth chapter, the Zang-Fu chapter, of the "Nine Transformations Mysterious Art" while surging upward against the current, a very clear roaring sound would emanate from within her body.

Initially, the roaring sound from her internal organs was not on the same frequency as the roar of the waterfall, but as the number of upward surges increased, Hua Changxi gradually managed to tune the roaring of her organs to match the frequency of the cascade.

With the added effect of the waterfall's sound, the vibration and tempering of her internal organs became increasingly refined and profound.

After a hundred upward surges against the current, the roaring sound emanating from her internal organs, to Hua Changxi's ears, had reached the intensity of thousands of horses galloping.

"Slap~"

Although the tempering of her internal organs had shown results, after surging upward for several thousand meters, Hua Changxi was still ruthlessly slapped down by the fire spring waterfall, crashing heavily onto the massive rock in the center of the pool where the cascade fell.

"Hiss~"

Lying on the massive rock, Hua Changxi gasped sharply for air. After quite a while, she gritted her teeth and sat up, then, enduring pain as if her entire body were falling apart, she leaped away from the center of the pool, landing on the left bank of the fire spring waterfall.

As soon as she reached shore, she rushed toward the Fire Ganoderma growing by the water's edge, plucked one, and quickly stuffed it into her mouth.

Both banks of the fire spring waterfall were covered in Fire Ganoderma.

If the grade of the Xuanhuang Fruit was determined by the patterns growing on it, then the grade of the Fire Ganoderma was determined by the number of its caps.

A first-grade Fire Ganoderma had only one cap; a second-grade had two, and so on...

In terms of body-tempering efficacy, while the Xuanhuang Fruit could break the shackles of the physical body and the Fire Ganoderma lacked this specific effect, it was nevertheless a rare body-tempering spiritual medicine capable of rapidly repairing and nourishing the flesh and quickly restoring stamina.

Hua Changxi consumed sixth-grade Ganoderma; as the Fire Ganoderma entered her stomach, streams of warm energy began circulating within her body, rapidly nourishing her flesh, while her depleted stamina gradually recovered.

After absorbing and refining six sixth-grade Fire Ganoderma, Hua Changxi was full of vigor once again. Immediately, she redoubled her efforts and continued to surge against the fire spring, moving upward against the current.

After finding the Nine Heavens Fire Spring, except for the first few days, she had been surging upward against the current continuously; she had lost count of how many times she had attempted the ascent.

Although each time she was beaten down by the fire spring she landed in a daze, her physical body became tougher with every fall.

She had progressed from initially being able to surge upward only a few hundred meters to now being able to ascend over ten thousand meters.

The reason she grew more courageous despite setbacks was that each time she surged upward against the current, she felt as though a fish were leaping over the Dragon Gate.

This feeling was remarkably vivid, as if a Dragon Gate truly awaited her above the fire spring.

Sitting cross-legged on the massive rock in the center of the pool, Hua Changxi gathered her strength while looking up at the fire spring waterfall, whose end was invisible to the eye; in her heart, she actually felt somewhat uncertain.

She did not know whether her repeated surges upward were worth persisting in, nor did she know if the 'Dragon Gate' she imagined actually existed.

Hua Changxi thought that if her physical body were not truly growing stronger, she would not have been able to persist.

"Whoosh~"

Having gathered her strength, she surged upward.

"Slap~"

Her stamina exhausted, she fell.

"Whoosh~"

"Slap~"

"Whoosh~"

"Slap~"

Time and again she surged upward against the current, only to be slapped down time and again.

The higher she went, the stronger the impact force of the waterfall became; with each surge, the difficulty increased.

Hua Changxi's longing for the 'Dragon Gate' had shifted from her initial determination and relentless advance to now harboring thoughts of retreat.

Perhaps the fire spring truly fell from the heavens; no matter how hard she tried, she could not surge upward against it to reach the sky.

Hua Changxi glanced at the left bank of the waterfall; the sixth-grade Fire Ganoderma there had nearly been eaten by her, with only a few dozen flowers remaining.

Now that the sixth chapter, the Zang-Fu chapter, of the "Nine Transformations Mysterious Art" had been cultivated to perfection, continuing to surge up the fire spring and consume more Fire Ganoderma would yield no further effect on her physical body; she did not wish to waste any more time.

Yet, giving up just like that still left her somewhat unwilling.

"Once all the sixth-grade Fire Ganoderma on the left bank is consumed, I will leave this place."

Hua Changxi prepared to make a few final desperate attempts; the height of the fire spring she was currently surging was already incalculable, and perhaps, just perhaps, if she went up a little further, she might see the 'Dragon Gate'.

In the subsequent surges against the current, Hua Changxi treated each one as her last attempt.

"Pop~"

During one full-speed surge toward the upper reaches of the fire spring, Hua Changxi clearly felt herself pass through an invisible barrier; however, before she could investigate, she was slapped down by the fire spring again.

"Thud~"

This landing was remarkably swift; there was no sense of weightlessness or loss of control associated with falling from a height of tens of thousands of meters, nor did the impact leave her feeling as though her body were falling apart.

Hua Changxi soon discovered that the place where she lay was no longer the massive rock in the center of the fire spring pool, but rather she was floating in a crystal-clear red pool of water.

Behind her, the fire spring waterfall continued to crash downward with a roar; Hua Changxi looked up along the flow of the fire spring and was soon stunned by the scenery within her sight.

The firmament was within arm's reach, as if she could touch the sky simply by raising her hand.

Beneath the celestial dome lay layer upon layer of clouds and mist, flat as level ground.

Within the clouds and mist, magnificent and vast palaces appeared and disappeared.

And the Fire Spring flowed down from the lowest layer of clouds and mist.

"One, two... nine."

Hua Changxi silently counted the layers of clouds and mist; upon confirming there were exactly nine, her heart surged with uncontrollable excitement.

Could those nine layers of clouds and mist be the legendary Nine Heavens?

Stunned for quite a while, Hua Changxi finally came to her senses and quickly rose to her feet.

Then, a fresh wave of novelty washed over her.

Though her feet clearly stood upon spring water, she remained as steady as if on solid ground.

Hua Changxi tried walking a circle across the water's surface; once certain she would not sink, she began to look around.

The pool where she stood lay at the very bottom; above it hovered twelve crystal-bright, resplendent red islands, from each of which cascaded Fire Spring waterfalls of varying sizes, converging into the pool beneath her feet.

"This doesn't seem to be the Dragon Gate."

Hua Changxi leaped away from the pool, flying straight toward the highest and largest central island.

Upon the island stood a magnificent palace, brilliant and red-glowing.

The moment Hua Changxi landed on the island, she found herself beneath an archway crafted from red jade, upon which were boldly carved three large characters: Fire Spring Palace.