Crystalline Flame Fruit

In the middle of the largest reserved forest of the Green Giant, there was a mountain range. These mountains were home to many flying beasts. The tallest one among them was not just a mountain.

It was an old volcano that went dormant hundreds of years ago. Due to its height which touched the clouds, locals started to call it Clouds Peak. Before it went inactive the forest range was not as big as its present state. But after it went inactive the forest started to expand and shallowed the whole mountain range. That showed off the fertility of the planet Green Giant.

Even though it was tall there were clear footpaths to reach the top of the mountain. Most of the herb gatherers target Clouds Peak due to rare herbs that grow at the top. As an old volcano, there was a lot of excessive yang energy and fire elements surrounding the mountain range. Many yang-attributed herbs and fruits were produced there.

There was a common grading system for all the plants, herbs, and fruits within the three realms. The lowest and most common ones have been grade one. From that all the way up to grade nine. Each of these grades was directly connected to the qi energy concentration of the environment. Qi energy of Mid Plane of Lower Mortal Realm could only produce grade one and two quality plants. Even a grade two plant encountered due to luck.

One of the plants Cloud's Peak gave birth to was Flame fruits. As a yang attributed fruit, it can greatly benefit to a person who practices a yang-quality cultivation method. It was also used to cure yin energy based ailments and injuries. So there was a huge demand for Flame fruits within the Jewel Stellar Kingdom which was constantly in conflict with Ice Palace.

One specialty of the Flame fruits was that their grade can be identified by their colour. Starting from grade one upwards, they were six colours for six grades. yellow, orange, red, cyan, blue, and violet. Flame fruit had only six grades because when it became a grade seven it would be evolved into yellow coloured Vermillion fruit. Grade eight was a red coloured Vermillion fruit and legendary grade nine was said to be a purple coloured Vermillion fruit.

Most of the Flame fruits that came from Cloud's Peak were yellow coloured. There were a few times an orange fruit was found. Each time a blood bath followed. One such fruit could change a person's life. And greed has no ends.

What Kayson was trying to acquire from Cloud's Peak was not a yellow or orange fruit. It's something special. A chance encounter he came across at a later time in his past life. But this time he was determined to collect it early.

Kayson was heading uphill on a footpath. After the long journey, the fatigue was getting to him. It was hard for a third-level body tempering expert to run that long in a few hours.

Kayson reached the top. He was tired and panting like a dog. Observing the area, he remembered how once he ran all the way up the mountain to get away from Shi Chao and his goons. But later he was caught and beaten half dead and thrown into the volcano vent.

'There's the start of the crater. From here it's all downhill.' He smirked at his thought.

In front of him, there was a dark tunnel that led into the volcano mountain. The whole crater was nearly fifty miles in diameter. He halted near the edge of the tunnel and then walked along the edge of the crater observing the vent. After confirming something he nodded.

According to his memories, he was thrown into the vent around this area. He thought about how insignificant was his life around that time. He just had to depend on his luck to survive. Just the thought of how he didn't have his life under his control made him upset.

He shook his thoughts away and took a few steps back from the crater. He suddenly raced and jumped in.

"Woo…"

He heard the sound of his body cutting through the air. Fluttering of his torn robe. He held tightly to his bow and arrows. His knife was already secured under the robe. He was swallowed by the darkness. He couldn't see anything.

There was no sound except for the wind and from his robe. Just straightly falling down to an unknown fate. But he wasn't afraid or anxious at all. He had full confidence in his calculations.

Within a few seconds, he started to hear the sound of flowing water directly below. He got ready and held his breath in.

"Splash…!" He fell into some water body. Due to the speed of the impact, he submerged. But the water source was deep enough to dampen his speed. Even he submerged he didn't try to swim to the surface. Just then the undercurrents of the water canal dragged him away and he let them. When he felt undercurrents were fading away he swam up. Even from underneath the water surface he could see light outside the water surface.

"Splash." He broke through the surface. His breath was a bit loud after holding his breath for a while. Then he saw a breathtaking scene. The Last time he was wounded and struggling between life and death so he couldn't enjoy it but not this time.

He was floating in the middle of a huge water lake within an enormous underground cave. Three sides of the lake were blocked by the cave walls. Directly in front of him was the only shore of the lake. And it was illuminated with bright yellow and orange colours. The whole shore was covered with Flame fruit plants. Yellow and Orange flame fruits were scattered all over the lakeshore.

Kayson slowly swam to the shore and got out of the water. Just as he got out he felt the high temperature around the shore. He sat down in comfort.

"Sigh… Feels nice." He looked around. There were so many Flame fruits. If the outside world knew about this, it would create chaos across the whole Jewel stellar kingdom. But now as the first comer, Kayson was going to grab each and every one of them.

Afterward, he got up and walked into the flame fruit field. There were numerous flame fruit plants and deep into the flame fruit garden almost all of the fruits were orange. But he was not aiming for any of them. It was the pile of ash at the far end of the garden.

"It's here!" He beamed while kneeling beside the ash pile.

He pushed his hand into the pile and took out a palm-sized flame fruit. What was special about this fruit, was its glowing red colour. The red flame fruit's surface seemed to be shining like jade. One careful look was enough to discern the fruit had not only just ripened it was also crystallized.

Aside from its grade, there was another way that a value of a flame fruit could increase. That was crystallization. At the end of its life span, the flame fruit plant would burn itself to ashes. But on a rare occasion where there was a ripened fruit on the tree, the flame fruit would burn itself while absorbing all the vital energy of the dying tree and get crystallized. Since it has additional vital energy, a crystalized fruit would be even more valuable than a ripened flame fruit of the next grade.

He looked around and realized, it could be the excessive amount of yang energy and fire elemental qi energy around the area that caused the plant to bared a red flame fruit. If not within mid plane it was nearly impossible which has low qi energy.

In his past life, he only ate one orange fruit. At that moment, he didn't even know there was a crystalline state for flame fruits.

He found out about it later, when he visited afterward taking revenge on the Shi family.

He recalled, that just with an orange flame fruit he managed to unlock his spirit root and advanced in two levels of cultivation to the fifth level in the Elementary realm, even with an inferior cultivation art. He wondered what he could achieve with a crystalline fruit this time.

He put aside his weapons, sat down, and crushed the crystalline fruit holding over his mouth. A hot red liquid flowed into his stomach. He felt a burning sensation flow down his throat and spread all over his body. The qi energy inside his body suddenly started to stir up. Henceforth he started cultivating.