Secret Art of Success

Moments later, wisps of flame slowly rose around the Man in Black.

The flames were an ethereal, ghostly blue, like a cloud of cyan smoke, slowly swallowing the Man in Black and enveloping him within.

Several breaths later.

The flames gradually grew more intense.

The Man in Black had become the core of the fire. His black robes were burned away, and his entire body turned a pale gold.

The swaying blue flames danced like a maiden, gracefully swaying her lithe figure.

In the instant the flames reached their peak.

All the hair on the Man in Black's body was incinerated in a flash.

His skin was scorched a charred black, and the moisture within his body evaporated bit by bit until nothing remained.

The Man in Black was enduring unimaginable agony. His body convulsed violently as he desperately endured the excruciating pain of being burned alive.

Yi Feng took all of this in.

At this moment, his heart felt as if it were being twisted by a knife, yet he was powerless to help. He could only wait quietly for the right moment to activate the secret art.

This feeling of helplessness made Yi Feng's suffering even worse.

Forcing himself through the severe pain of the burning, the Man in Black struggled to leave his final instructions.

"Boss, after this is done, I might temporarily lose my memories. Don't worry about it."

"Also, my state of existence will need to be sustained by spiritual energy. Please, Boss, provide me with some spiritual energy to absorb every now and then."

Yi Feng watched helplessly as his brother turned into a ball of fire. His eyes were bloodshot, and his jaw was tightly clenched.

Tears welled up in his eyes. He wiped them away with his sleeve and clenched his fists tightly.

"Rest assured, leave it to me!"

Yi Feng's voice was trembling, but the Man in Black could hear the unwavering resolve within it.

As the flames grew even hotter, the Man in Black's muscles, meridians, and blood vessels were all reduced to flying ash.

Yet before this ash could scatter, it was absorbed into the golden light.

As the Man in Black's figure gradually melted away, a massive pillar of fire shot into the sky.

He was like a wick, madly burning away his own flesh, essence blood, and destiny.

A massive surge of energy was suppressed at the center of the flames, compressed within the golden light surrounding the Man in Black.

That was the Man in Black's destiny and essence blood, unexpectedly enveloped within the core of the blue flames.

It looked as if some bizarre sacrificial ritual was taking place.

Yi Feng watched this suffocating scene carefully, the heaviness in his heart easing just a fraction.

It seemed that the Man in Black's secret art might actually work.

But he did not relax his guard for a single moment, nor did he let go of his worry.

Yi Feng's body couldn't stop trembling. The monstrous flames distorted the void before his eyes.

He could feel the terrifying heat.

Although he could not physically experience the pain, the torment in his heart burned ever more fiercely alongside the flames.

Watching the Man in Black's flesh and blood gradually disappear until only a humanoid skeletal frame remained, Yi Feng felt as though his breathing had stopped.

Fighting back the sorrow in his heart, he decisively chanted the incantation and triggered the secret art.

Just as Yi Feng chanted the incantation.

The golden light surrounding the Man in Black slowly drilled into the eerie white skeleton.

Then.

The blue flames gradually weakened, gathering into the skeletal frame as if compressing this burst of essence blood and destiny.

The entire time spent activating the secret art was not long, nor was the process complicated.

Yet to Yi Feng, it felt like years were passing by.

Even after the incantation was finished, Yi Feng's heart remained tightly clenched with extreme worry.

He feared the secret art would be ineffective; he feared the Man in Black would perish entirely.

Yi Feng waited nervously, anticipating the Man in Black's transformation.

He watched as the golden light gradually merged into the skeleton, causing a faint, almost imperceptible golden gleam to flash across the bones.

At that very moment.

The skeletal frame looked as though it had been coated in layers of golden paint.

As the blue flames slowly receded into the bones, the skeleton seemed to undergo a subtle, wondrous change.

Clack, clack, clack!

The skeleton slowly twisted its neck, emitting crisp cracking sounds.

It first stiffly turned its head to the left, and then looked toward the right.

There was no light in its pitch-black eye sockets. It merely gazed around blankly, appearing completely bewildered.

Seeing this, Yi Feng was instantly overjoyed, even weeping tears of happiness.

It succeeded!

The Man in Black's secret art had actually worked!

To Yi Feng, this was truly a monumental surprise.

It was like a drowning man catching a piece of driftwood, or finding a water source in a barren desert.

Yi Feng had a thousand words in his heart, but they all converged into a simple, unadorned word.

"Brother!"

Yi Feng shouted, choked with pleasant surprise.

But seeing the skeleton's current state, his expression turned solemn once more.

Yi Feng decisively cast aside his distracting thoughts and asked anxiously, "Brother, how do you feel right now?"

Unexpectedly, the skeleton merely stared blankly at Yi Feng with those hollow eyes.

Its jaws opened and closed as if trying to speak, but it only let out hoarse babbling sounds.

Yi Feng felt a surge of tension. He quickly stepped forward to help the skeleton up.

He noticed that the skeleton's frame seemed smaller, not as tall and robust as the Man in Black used to be.

At this point, Yi Feng didn't care about any of that.

He only prayed that the Man in Black could survive, no matter in what form!

"Master, aba aba aba..."

The skeleton opened its mouth and slowly spat out these words as a red glow gradually lit up within its eyes.

Its life force and destiny were quietly circulating, flowing through the entire skeleton.

Yi Feng wept tears of joy once more, the sorrow in his heart instantly diminishing by a great deal.

He could feel the skeleton's vitality.

He grabbed the skeletal frame in a tight embrace and said deeply, "Don't worry, I will definitely find your body for you and restore you to how you were!"

"Thank... you... Master," the skeleton slowly uttered.

Even as he was held tightly by Yi Feng, he slowly raised his own hand, examining his skeletal shell, looking utterly lost and bewildered.

"Enter my sea of consciousness space first and get some good rest!"

"As you command... Master."

Yi Feng stored the skeleton into his sea of consciousness space.

A new streak of white light appeared in his mind, right between the green and brown lights.

Before Yi Feng could even check the information within this white light.

He suddenly realized that an earth-shattering transformation was taking place within his sea of consciousness space.

This space was expanding at an unbelievable speed.

Landmasses, oceans, mountains, and rivers rose from the ground and flowed within the space alongside this expansion.

The laws governing the entire space seemed to be filled in by some mystical power.

This world gradually became complete, boasting magnificent landscapes and brimming with rich vitality.

And that was not all.

Bang, bang, bang.

Explosive sounds echoed within Yi Feng's sea of consciousness, ringing in his ears.

Beyond this heaven and earth, the sun, moon, and stars unexpectedly came into being.

The solar star, the lunar star, and all kinds of celestial bodies slowly materialized, emitting scorching light and shining brilliantly.

The entire sea of consciousness space had actually evolved into a planet.

And beyond this planet lay an even more vast and boundless starry sky.

At this moment.

Yi Feng felt a sudden inspiration in his heart.

He immediately sat down cross-legged in mid-air and entered a state of enlightenment.

A ring of invisible and intangible power of laws enveloped his entire body.

This energy circulated madly around him, making him seem as though he were immune to all laws and magic.

At this moment, it seemed that Yi Feng could shatter this chaos with a mere raise of his hand.

Boundless vitality surged through his limbs and bones. Yi Feng felt like a withered tree greeting the spring, or a parched land receiving a sweet downpour.

The energy within his body was multiplying wildly at an incredible speed.

The explosive sounds that echoed earlier were apparently not caused by the expansion of space.

Instead, it was the hum of his cells shattering and then being reborn.

This process of rebirth was still ongoing.

His meridians, flesh and blood, and his entire skeletal structure were transforming.

This newly awakened power seemed to be cleansing his mortal vessel, as if forging him into a supreme deity.

Within the array, various attacks continued to sweep wildly, viciously crashing down upon him.

Yet, these strikes could not even put a dent in the formidable energy enveloping Yi Feng!

Like an ancient monk in deep meditation, Yi Feng had entered a profound and deeply mystical state...