Chapter 133 - 68: Mangzhong: Fire Tree and Silver Flowers, Minor Success

Chapter 133: Chapter 68: Mangzhong: Fire Tree and Silver Flowers, Minor Success

Haaah...

In that battle, Jiang Xuan did not activate Winter Solstice. Instead, from the very beginning, he went all out, ravenously devouring the surrounding Spiritual Qi.

Then, having released his Five Viscera Shackles, he forcibly used his Five Viscera to refine the Spiritual Qi and merge it all together.

Such a brutish method was undoubtedly harmful to his body, but Jiang Xuan didn’t care at all at the time.

’Harmful to my body? What a joke. I’m going to explode in thirty seconds. No matter how grievous the injury, could it possibly outrun my death?’

With this thought in mind, Jiang Xuan took in what was, for him, a veritable ocean of Spiritual Qi.

"???"

This terrifying scene stunned the battle-hungry Su Xingying, and for the first time, she stopped in her tracks.

The pressure emanating from Jiang Xuan was so dangerous it made her heart pound with fear; it felt as if he would explode in the next second.

"Are you insane?!"

While Su Xingying was stunned, shocked, and in disbelief, the aura around Jiang Xuan grew stronger and stronger, but his condition also became more and more wretched.

Blood continuously streamed from his seven orifices. His body was swelling, and his skin was splitting apart inch by inch.

Through the cracks in his splitting skin, Su Xingying could see Spiritual Qi, shimmering with five-colored light, surging within Jiang Xuan’s body.

At this moment, Jiang Xuan looked as if his life was flickering out, like a lamp running out of oil.

But even sensing this, Jiang Xuan remained unconcerned.

His expression unchanged, he burned everything he had and compressed it into a single seed—a Sword Seed of the Innate Qi Sword.

Once it was done, Jiang Xuan, blood streaming from his seven orifices, gave Su Xingying a smile.

Due to his Weakness, his smile was feeble, but Su Xingying was so terrified that the hairs on her body stood on end.

And for the first time, she wasn’t advancing. Instead, she retreated, backing away frantically.

Unfortunately, she was still a little too late.

"..."

As his smile faded, Jiang Xuan’s aura first fell silent for a moment. In the next instant, with a BANG!, a heaven-shaking roar suddenly erupted from where he had been standing.

Jiang Xuan had exploded—literally. His flesh and bone were blasted apart, scattering in all directions.

However, the explosion wasn’t particularly gruesome—at the moment of detonation, a spark of fire suddenly appeared from his Heart.

In an instant, this spark grew into a raging inferno, suddenly bursting with light.

It wasn’t growing chaotically, either. Guided by Jiang Xuan’s final, lingering will, the wisp of fire was like a small sapling: it quickly sprouted, grew, branched out, unfurled leaves, and bloomed!

In almost the blink of an eye, a seven-meter-tall Heaven-Reaching Fire Tree appeared where Jiang Xuan had been.

Because the fire tree grew so quickly, it caught up to his scattered flesh and incinerated it completely.

This Fire Tree and Silver Flowers was the finishing blow Jiang Xuan had created by sacrificing himself and burning everything he had.

But the formation of the fire tree was not the end.

In less than an instant, the fire tree’s trunk and branches burned away to nothing, but the silver flowers on the tree, having absorbed its nutrients, grew ever more brilliant and dazzling.

"This is bad!"

Su Xingying sensed the danger from the dazzling silver flowers. Unfortunately, sometimes sensing danger doesn’t mean you can dodge it.

BOOM!

With a flash of light, over a dozen brilliant, gorgeous streams of light, like bolts of Thunder, suddenly appeared before Su Xingying.

’No, they don’t just look like Thunder—they *are* Thunder! This is the move Jiang Xuan used to defeat me the first time!’

That’s right. These dozen or so streams of light were all Innate Qi Swords, and their power had been doubled by the empowerment of the Bloom Dao Rhyme.

Using the concepts of Mangzhong, Bloom, and harvest.

After reaching Minor Success in *Mangzhong: Fire Tree and Silver Flowers*, gaining much enlightenment, and having his Spirituality greatly enhanced under the empowerment of the Memory Palace - Scripture Pavilion, Jiang Xuan had planted the Innate Qi Sword as a seed and cultivated over a dozen Sword Seeds.

Of course, seeds need nutrients to sprout and grow.

And since Jiang Xuan couldn’t manipulate the Five Elements Spiritual Qi externally, he used himself as a sacrifice, nourishing this special Fire Tree and Silver Flowers with his own qi, blood, Magical Power, and Soul Spirit.

The latter did not disappoint him.

BANG! BANG! BANG!...

Over a dozen Innate Qi Swords, burning with the power to incinerate everything, brutally shattered all of Su Xingying’s defenses and blasted her body to pieces.

Thus, the battle concluded with the two of them taking each other down.

Haaah...

Reviving once again, even though Jiang Xuan’s Soul Spirit had already reached the Spirit Core Late Stage, he felt so mentally drained that he didn’t even want to lift a finger.

On the other side, Su Xingying had lost her initial composure. After more than ten grueling battles, she was panting heavily, drenched in sweat.

However, more so than her mental fatigue, it was the look in her eyes as she gazed at Jiang Xuan that was far more complex.

’His strength has increased again.’

Although they had taken each other down in the last fight—and one could even argue that since Jiang Xuan self-destructed first, he had died first, marking his first defeat of the day—that wasn’t how things were reckoned.

In their previous battles, Su Xingying had actually been holding back against Jiang Xuan.

Unlike the original Fire Tree and Silver Flowers, Jiang Xuan’s Frost Silver Ancient Tree could exist for a long time due to its Ice Attribute, but it also had two flaws.

One was that it needed time for Growth; the other was that as a physical entity of ice, and a massive one at that, it moved very slowly.

For Su Xingying, if she weren’t seeking a trial but only victory, she could have attacked first and killed Jiang Xuan before he could even form the Frost Silver Ancient Tree—or rather, if she had initiated the attack earlier, Jiang Xuan wouldn’t have had the energy to sustain the Frost Silver Ancient Tree’s Growth at all.

Without that ancient tree, Jiang Xuan would naturally be no match for Su Xingying, who had awakened a Divine Power Seed.

And even if Jiang Xuan had managed to form the Frost Silver Ancient Tree ahead of time, its slow movement meant Su Xingying could have retreated to a distance and attacked with Sword Qi.

If she had stalled like that, the final victor would have remained uncertain.

All these factors indicated that for the stronger Su Xingying, achieving victory wouldn’t have been that difficult if that was all she pursued.

The same was true of their duel three days ago; if she had just stalled for time, she could have worn Jiang Xuan down to his death.

It was just that her temperament and pride would not allow her to do so.

’Compared to Jiang Xuan, I come from a privileged background and have endless resources. If I have all these advantages and still don’t dare to face him in a life-or-death battle, then what’s the point of practicing the sword at all?’

’Besides, I didn’t come to the Martial Arts Arena for some hollow victory record. I genuinely want to improve myself, and a life-or-death duel with Jiang Xuan is the best way to hone my Sword Intent.’

Although she hadn’t done that, it was undeniable that if she had just set aside her pride, the Jiang Xuan from a few moments ago, even after burning everything he had, would not have been able to touch her—the gap in their raw power was simply that vast.

But with that final sword strike, things changed. At that moment, she had already sensed the fatal crisis in advance and had instinctively retreated to dodge.

Yet, the Innate Qi Swords that Jiang Xuan had "planted" using *Mangzhong: Fire Tree and Silver Flowers* still managed to kill her in a direct frontal assault.

That was the first time Jiang Xuan possessed the ability to take her down with him.

Of course, a move like this—sacrificing himself and burning everything—was something Jiang Xuan only dared to unleash for a moment of glory within the Mirage Mirror. He would never dare use it in reality.

"Burning everything you have, using your own body as a sacrifice... this move is truly insane... But its core principles have a lot that can be learned from."

"Since I can’t separate and control the Five Elements Spiritual Qi outside my body, then I’ll just absorb it all inside and use my Five Viscera as a furnace for Refinement... Activating it at full power is extremely damaging to the body, but if I could deduce a weakened version, many of these problems could be easily solved."

"At that point, although the power of this finishing strike would be diminished, I wouldn’t end up dead. At worst, my Five Viscera would be injured, and I’d fall into a state of Weakness for a period of time."

As his thoughts reached this point, a flash of inspiration struck Jiang Xuan, and a new idea suddenly formed in his mind: "In the Cultivation Techniques of Four Seasons Valley, the Autumn Lord is about harvesting results, and the Spring Lord is about the revival of Vitality... The Secret Techniques from these two valleys might just be able to eliminate the lingering Weakness left after I use this move."