Chapter 100: Five Finger Pattern Techniques

"Explain..."Xu Xiaoshou thought, what explanation is there? It's just alchemy! But he knew he couldn't possibly say that. With the old man in a fit of rage, there was no telling how much sense he still retained. The immediate priority was to calm him down.

"Calm down..." Xu Xiaoshou gently extended his hand, but Elder Sang's eyelids twitched so violently that it nearly stopped Xu Xiaoshou's heart. He quickly added, "I succeeded!"

Elder Sang was indeed momentarily stunned. "Succeeded at what?"Phew, he had successfully bluffed him. Xu Xiaoshou let out a soft breath. If the skill he had just acquired was "Fire Mastery," he could have confidently declared, "I successfully compressed the fire seed." But that cursed "Cooking Mastery"... Ah, it was a long and painful story.

"Take a look!" Xu Xiaoshou felt uncertain, but he opened his palm, and the Ashen Heavenly Flame appeared. A subtle sensation emerged; he could almost feel the flame in his palm quivering with excitement. "It's a bit different!" Xu Xiaoshou's heart stirred, recalling the initial scorching heat of the illusionary world. *Cooking Mastery...* Lighting fires for cooking? Fire? When he thought about it that way, perhaps there was a connection to flames after all. Xu Xiaoshou's mouth twitched. While that might be true, it felt a bit mismatched.

"That's it?" Elder Sang raised an eyebrow, looking at his palm. Xu Xiaoshou gave him a look that said, "Don't rush," then concentrated, and the flame in his palm contracted. *Poof!* A spherical flame spun rapidly, subtly distorting the space around it and radiating a wave of heat. Elder Sang remained silent. For Xu Xiaoshou to be able to compress the flame to this degree in such a short time since he'd left was quite impressive. However, if this was all he had, it still didn't explain the earlier explosion. He looked at Xu Xiaoshou, gesturing for him to continue.

Sweat beaded on Xu Xiaoshou's forehead again. He could feel an inexplicable connection between himself and the spherical flame, but this level alone was not enough! In his mind, he still had over five thousand passive points. "Should I spend them all?" Xu Xiaoshou hesitated. If "Cooking Mastery" were a combat-oriented passive mastery skill, he certainly wouldn't invest all his points into it. Instead, he would cap its level strictly, just like he did with "Sword Mastery." Heaven knew how poor his aptitude was; if he relied on learning other spirit techniques, he'd probably only ever master one form of "White Cloud Sword Art" in his entire life. However, by leveling up skills during combat, the sudden influx of knowledge could, under intense pressure, coalesce into a single sword move. Techniques like "Sword Parry" and "Sword Draw" were developed this way. This was a tricky yet undeniably effective path to self-created spirit techniques that he had devised from passive mastery skills. With such poor talent, he had no choice but to rely on creating his own skills.

However, "Cooking Mastery"... The name itself didn't suggest it was a combat skill! He wondered if his opportunistic method would even work here. He glanced at Elder Sang's extremely sullen face again and seriously doubted that if he couldn't pass this test, his future might be in jeopardy. "Fine!" he thought. After a moment of consideration, he converted all his passive points into skill points and invested them into "Cooking Mastery." "Cooking Mastery (Post-natal Lv.6)." In an instant, a flood of knowledge surged into his mind. This was Xu Xiaoshou's first time leveling a passive mastery skill five times at once, and he clearly felt overwhelmed. His head throbbed intensely! Even the fireball in his palm wavered, causing Elder Sang's face to twitch. "You can't even control it to this extent?"

Xu Xiaoshou didn't reply. In that instant, his mind was flooded with information about ingredients, recipes, and the art of heat control. "This is it!" His eyes lit up. Simmering, slow baking, high-heat cooking... All sorts of peculiar knowledge appeared, but none of that mattered! What mattered was that he distinctly felt a much closer connection between himself and the flame in his hand. It no longer felt like a newly comprehended technique, but rather something he had mastered over many years. It was perfection.

Xu Xiaoshou chuckled and put his hand in front of Elder Sang. Before the old man could even react with confusion, the fireball in Xu Xiaoshou's palm suddenly expanded with a "whoosh" to the size of two embracing hands. As the flames flickered, a powerful heat wave directly blew off the old man's straw hat, and Xu Xiaoshou's clothes flapped noisily. Elder Sang was shocked. How much time had passed for Xu Xiaoshou to gain such proficient control over the Ashen Heavenly Flame? But... "I told you to compress it, what's the point of making it bigger!" Elder Sang grumbled. "What on earth is this? Can it be used for alchemy? It would probably melt even the sturdiest cauldron!"

Xu Xiaoshou shook his head. "You don't understand this, do you? This is the Great Jade..." He cleared his throat. "Ahem, the Art of High-Heat Cooking!" He chuckled, then with a squeeze of his hand, the massive fireball vanished instantly, leaving only a small fire seed quietly resting in his palm. There was no wildness, no restlessness; its energy was incredibly stable, like a tamed beast lying still. This time, Xu Xiaoshou didn't even need to coordinate with the "Breathing Method." He simply relied on his heat control technique to successfully perform the difficult operation he had repeatedly failed at before. Hmm... The Art of Simmering!

Thinking of this, he felt a mix of amusement and helplessness. He had thought "Cooking Mastery" would be useless, but unexpectedly, after discarding all the miscellaneous knowledge, the heat control technique alone could accomplish almost everything he had dreamed of achieving with "Fire Mastery." When he thought about it that way, "Cooking Mastery" seemed much more formidable than "Fire Mastery." At least when he had nothing else to do, he could even cook... Xu Xiaoshou felt a headache. Damn, how utterly bizarre was this!

Elder Sang watched, dumbfounded. He had only been gone for a short while, and Xu Xiaoshou had actually managed to compress the fire seed? And he had only heard three explosions! He knew that even when he had condensed this item years ago, it had taken him a full day and night, during which he had been blown up so badly he was "crispy on the outside, tender on the inside." And look at Xu Xiaoshou... he was perfectly fine, while the Spirit Library had suffered.

"This..." Elder Sang composed himself and slowly asked, "So, was that final explosion really caused by you?" Even though this kid had mastered fire seed compression in such a short time, Elder Sang still didn't believe that someone at mere Spirit Refining Stage Nine could unleash such destructive power that even the Spirit Library couldn't contain it.

Xu Xiaoshou felt a bit anxious. He certainly hadn't blown up the Spirit Library, but it was clearly impossible to reveal everything about the illusionary realm. He slightly loosened his control, and the compressed fire seed immediately began to tremble unsteadily. "I was just experimenting with my newly created ultimate move, the Art of the Small Fireball!"

"The Art of the Small Fireball?" Suspicion flashed in Elder Sang's eyes. The power of the fire seed before him was clearly visible; it would be impressive if it could even blow out the protective barrier, let alone shatter the windows. "Suspected, Passive Points, +1." As expected... Xu Xiaoshou didn't even look at the old man, continuing as if to himself, "But this was just a prelude."

"Oh?" Elder Sang picked up his straw hat from the ground and said, "Could it be that in this short time, you've also developed an even more powerful technique?" "Indeed!" Xu Xiaoshou smiled confidently and said gravely, "The Art of the Five-Finger Seed Imprint!"