Chapter 191 : Failed Capture
After swimming in the magma pool, the white tiger no longer feared the high temperature of magma. But ordinary magma and magma enhanced by strange fire were clearly two different matters. She wasn't afraid of soaking in the magma pool, yet even from a great distance, she could feel the terrifying heat of the magma walls.
The white tiger's eyes widened, her heartbeat quickening along with her pace.
Even the system was startled by this display of power. Seeing the host's movements, it hurriedly called out: "Host, Host, what are you doing? The temperature over there is too high! You can't go over—you'll get hurt!"
Even ordinary strange fires possessed tremendous power, like the one Bai Xu had tamed, which could even serve as a trump card. The one in this magma pool was clearly more formidable, having cultivated for who knows how many years in the depths until developing consciousness. Not just an Nascent Soul realm tiger cub, but even if her cultivation were one or two realms higher, she would still need to exercise extreme caution when facing such a strange fire.
More importantly, the white tiger had metal attributes, and fire overcomes metal—strange fire and white tiger were naturally incompatible elements.
But the white tiger clearly wouldn't be deterred, completely ignoring the system's words as her pace never faltered. However, the system's voice at least reminded the white tiger of its existence, so while running, she urgently said: "System, didn't you say the mall has something for capturing strange fire? Buy it for me quickly—any amount of points is fine!"
The system, originally worried, immediately became excited at these words: "Host, the One-time Strange Fire Capture Cage guarantees 100% capture rate, with a mall refund guarantee if capture fails. Would 20,000 points be acceptable?"
This was the largest sale the system had pushed so far, enough to completely clear out all the points Jiang Mo had accumulated doing small tasks over this period.
Jiang Mo, who found earning points difficult, was extremely frugal with them. Apart from the storage bag and space she had purchased previously for storing dragon bones, she almost never spent points. Just minutes ago, when the system mentioned having tools to capture strange fire, she had refused without a second thought. But now she agreed just as quickly: "Buy it, buy it, bring it over immediately."
Pleased by her decisiveness, the system immediately cleared the host's points and placed the order. The system mall's delivery was remarkably swift—within just a breath or two, a small golden cage appeared before the white tiger.
The white tiger had no time to examine its material. Grabbing it while running, she asked: "How do I use it?"
The system answered with utmost brevity: "Just throw it at the strange fire."
Hearing this, the white tiger immediately looked up, her gaze fixed on the surging magma walls—during the time she had been talking with the system and buying the cage, the magma walls had completely descended upon Yun Qingyue. However, Senior Sister was clearly resisting; the descending magma had stalled midway, as if two invisible forces were colliding and canceling each other out. Even from a distance, one could feel the hot wind blowing past.
Yun Qingyue's years of cultivation were not for nothing. Just as she could strike and wound the strange fire with her sword, she could naturally protect herself from the strange fire's attacks. Facing the ferociously pressing magma walls, she still showed no panic.
One sword strike still carried frost; though unable to directly cleave through the magma wall, it successfully halted its downward pressure.
But the strange fire that had launched the attack clearly wouldn't give up so easily. Manipulating from within the magma pool was insufficient, so it simply directly entered the magma wall. Yun Qingyue suddenly felt the temperature of the magma wall before her rise again. Despite possessing ice spiritual roots that made her impervious to heat, during this brief confrontation, beads of sweat slowly slid down her cheeks. But before those drops could fall into the magma pool, they had already evaporated.
Yun Qingyue's sleeves had been burned through in two small places by the sparks. Her gaze darkened slightly; this was the first time she had encountered such a situation. After all, she was wearing a legal robe impervious to water and fire, and now even that had been damaged—the consequences of having these magma walls press down on her body were unimaginable.
But dangerous as the situation was, facing this nearly irresistible high temperature and the special environment of the magma pool, Yun Qingyue, who had previously known nothing about her enemy, suddenly formed a vague guess.
Then she felt somewhat regretful—if only Zhong Heng were here. With his innate fire, strange fires would naturally favor him, making taming one much easier. Or perhaps if Senior Brother Bai Xu had fallen down here instead, that would be good too. He had already tamed one strange fire; if he were present now, capturing and consuming another would certainly benefit him greatly. Even if he couldn't capture it, he could at least scare away this troublemaking strange fire.
Unfortunately, neither Zhong Heng nor Bai Xu was present, so the ice spiritual root cultivator had no choice but to gather her energy and endure.
The white tiger, arriving at this scene, felt somewhat relieved. Holding the cage purchased at enormous cost, she fixed her gaze on the magma wall, finally confirming with the system: "System, the strange fire is in the magma wall right now, correct?"
Though it supposedly had a 100% capture rate, failing due to targeting the wrong object from the start would be the normal outcome. Such failures caused by the host's operational errors were not counted in the system mall's probability calculations. Similarly, such human-caused errors were not covered by the mall's refund guarantee, so it was necessary to have the system help confirm the target from the beginning.
The system was counting its newly acquired commission in the database, but hearing this, it didn't delay in the slightest. After quickly scanning the active energy, it gave a definitive answer: "That's right, Host. It's in the magma wall. Just throw the cage over there."
With the system's confirmation, the white tiger naturally didn't hesitate, raising her paw to throw the golden cage.
༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺
The strange fire hiding in the magma wall wasn't seriously injured. It had been nurtured in the earth's depths for thousands of years, and with the abundant spiritual energy in the secret realm, it was inherently stronger than outside strange fires. After thousands more years, it had developed consciousness in its confusion and learned to cultivate, rapidly growing stronger by borrowing the power of the underground magma.
It could be said that it was already a high-grade strange fire—not exactly capable of burning everything to ashes, but not easily harmed either.
Yun Qingyue's sword intent was formidable, allowing her to break through the magma puppets and injure the strange fire hidden within. But how could ice condensed by a cultivator compare to strange fire nurtured by heaven and earth?
When struck by the ice, the strange fire was indeed in pain, with some of its flames extinguished momentarily. But immediately afterward, the ice was melted by its high temperature, and it was thoroughly enraged by this annoying ice—it had only been lonely and wanted to play with the sudden visitors, but that didn't mean they could take advantage and even try to usurp its position.
It decided it would definitely burn to death this cultivator who dared to attack it, preferably until not even bone fragments remained!
The strange fire repeatedly increased its temperature and pressure, looking at the struggling Yun Qingyue as if watching an ant. It wasn't that it couldn't raise the temperature further; it just wanted to watch its opponent's desperate and pathetic struggle.
However, just as the previous game of hide-and-seek couldn't continue, this cat-and-mouse game couldn't either.
As the strange fire was confronting Yun Qingyue, it suddenly sensed a crisis—strange fires, as spiritual entities nurtured by heaven and earth, were also highly sensitive to danger. An immense anxiety suddenly swept over it. Combined with its previous careless injury and the sudden sense of crisis, it immediately developed thoughts of retreat and escape.
So the moment the golden cage left the white tiger's paw, the strange fire fled.
This was a magma pool, hot everywhere, and everywhere was a potential shelter for the strange fire. Escaping was quite easy for it. The strange fire had no doubts about this—although it had never encountered anyone since its birth, it was very confident in its innate abilities.
But this time it miscalculated. Just as it was about to escape back to the magma pool below through the magma wall, it felt a slight restriction. Even though this sensation wasn't strong—like paper that could be pierced with a poke—it instinctively knew it couldn't pierce through or escape... It became inexplicably flustered, rushing left and right trying to find a breakthrough, but the system mall's products obviously didn't have such obvious vulnerabilities.
Up, down, left, right—the strange fire tried every direction but couldn't find a way out. It seemed trapped in a small space. Looking back, it saw a small golden cage descending toward it.
The strange fire didn't recognize the cage, but that didn't prevent it from sensing danger, nor did it miss the change in the white tiger's gaze...
She was trying to save someone!
The strange fire, with its early-awakened consciousness, immediately understood. Already full of unexpressed rage, it now felt boundless resentment. It abruptly turned—since it couldn't return to the magma pool, it might as well lunge at Yun Qingyue, who had not yet escaped.
Yun Qingyue, still trapped within the magma wall and attempting to break free, suddenly saw several points of light emerge from the wall before her. These points rapidly converged, forming a bright, intensely hot small flame. She hardly needed to think to guess its identity—it must be the strange fire that had been hiding in the shadows.
But why had the strange fire suddenly been forced out?!
Yun Qingyue couldn't figure it out because there was no time to think. Earlier, the magma wall merely controlled by the strange fire had already reached temperatures requiring her full effort to resist; now that it had personally appeared, the temperature would naturally be even higher.
In an instant, Yun Qingyue's fair hands holding the sword were baked red, and the Fuxue Sword rapidly heated to the point where it was almost too hot to hold. But she dared not relax in the slightest, concentrating all her ice spiritual energy into a strike against the strange fire—through the magma wall, she couldn't see what the white tiger was doing, but from the strange fire's reaction, she guessed the other must have done something to force it into this desperate move. At this moment, she didn't need to do anything special; she just needed to delay for a moment, and everything would be settled.
It must be said that the human and tiger, having spent so much time together, had developed considerable tacit understanding. But the strange fire clearly had no intention of cooperating. Ignoring Yun Qingyue's descending sword intent, it broke through the obstacles in a desperate gamble, continuing to lunge toward her.
Yun Qingyue watched as the flame diminished in size, and her expression finally changed dramatically. She retreated backward, not even minding the scorching heat of the magma wall behind her.
However, the space here was already confined, and the strange fire had already been extremely close. This sudden attack was as fast as lightning. It was already remarkable that Yun Qingyue could raise her sword to block it once—how could she easily evade a second time?
She could only watch helplessly as the strange fire entered her body, then penetrated her meridians and dantian.
At the same time, both Jiang Mo and the system received the item feedback—Strange Fire Capture Failed!