Su Bai had no time to be shocked.

The Dao Fire had been eaten. That alone was already unreasonable.

But before Su Bai could decide whether to ignite another spark, something even more unreasonable happened.

The Ashen-Frost Blight Flame moved again.

It did not return to silence. Instead, the pale ashen flame trembled once.

Then it began to devour his Qi.

Su Bai’s expression changed inwardly.

The Qi inside his Dantian was pulled toward the flame. The nine Gateway Qi Reservoirs shook. The Yin-Crystal Asteroid Dao Pedestal released cold light, as if it had been startled awake by something touching its food.

The Ashen-Frost Blight Flame did not care. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

It swallowed.

Again. And again.

The flame that had eaten his Dao Fire suddenly became like a bottomless mouth.

Su Bai immediately reacted.

He could not let it directly drain his foundation.

Outside, he activated Devouring Maw. The surrounding High-Grade Spirit Stones trembled.

Pure spiritual energy entered Su Bai like rivers entering a dark sea.

He circulated the Void-Sunflower Supreme Method at once, refining the incoming Qi before guiding it toward the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame.

The flame swallowed greedily.

Su Bai reached for a Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill and swallowed it.

His spirit root overclocked again.

The crystalline Sapling Wood Root trembled violently, and Su Bai’s control over the internal flow became much clearer.

The Ashen-Frost Blight Flame continued devouring Qi.

...

Outside the formation, the Peak Masters watched solemnly.

Peak Master Yao Ding frowned.

"Why is his Qi consumption so high?"

Lu Canghai’s eyes narrowed.

"Something inside him is feeding."

Yao Ding’s expression became worse.

"Feeding?"

Lu Canghai said nothing.

His gaze remained fixed on Su Bai.

...

Inside the Dantian, the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame finally slowed.

Then it became still.

Su Bai stared at it.

A faint chill rose in his heart.

He remembered something.

Fire Root cultivators had an advantage during Golden Core condensation because they could use their own fire to refine the Dao Pedestal.

Heavenly Flames were even more special.

But the problem is...

His flame was cold.

How was a cold flame supposed to melt a Dao Pedestal?

Before he could finish that thought, the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame, acting as the canopy of his Sapling Root, detonated.

Flash!

A pale-grey supernova bloomed inside his Void Dantian.

The entire void lit up. Cold light swept outward in every direction.

Su Bai’s consciousness shook.

The freezing explosion struck the Yin-Crystal Asteroid Dao Pedestal.

But it did not melt it. It hammered it.

Su Bai froze.

Flash!

Another pale-grey supernova erupted.

The shockwave slammed into the Dao Pedestal again.

The Yin-Crystal Asteroid trembled. Its surface did not soften. It compacted.

Flash!

A third explosion bloomed.

The cold was terrifying. It was the kind of cold that made movement slow, sound vanish, and thought feel like it had to pass through frozen glass.

Su Bai finally understood.

The Ashen-Frost Blight Flame was not melting the Dao Pedestal.

It was... Cold-Forging it.

The extreme cold acted like a blacksmith’s hammer.

Again and again, the pale-grey supernova struck the Yin-Crystal Asteroid, compressing it inward.

Su Bai almost laughed from disbelief.

He had prepared to melt the Dao Pedestal.

His own flame had chosen to Cold-Forge it instead.

The cold explosions continued. Each detonation struck the Dao Pedestal. Each strike forced the Yin-Crystal Asteroid to become smaller, denser, and more solid.

Around it, the liquid Qi inside the Dantian was shattered by the shockwaves.

It broke into countless needle-like fragments of condensed, solid Qi.

They began to orbit the Dao Pedestal at high speed, forming a violent asteroid belt of razor-sharp spiritual fragments.

The temperature inside the Dantian dropped sharply.

The void seemed to collapse into silence.

It was as if the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame had created a temperature vacuum.

Su Bai’s face remained calm outside.

Inside, he wanted to respectfully ask his flame whether it had considered notifying him before changing the entire breakthrough method.

But there was no time.

The process was already moving.

He could only adapt.

Again.

...

Outside, the sky suddenly rumbled.

Dark clouds began gathering above the main peak.

At first, they were thin. Then they thickened.

Layer after layer formed, swallowing the sunlight above the training ground.

Purple light flickered inside the clouds.

Peak Master Yao Ding’s expression changed.

"So soon? He only just started!"

Another Peak Master looked upward, his face solemn.

"The Golden Core has not even formed yet."

Lu Canghai’s gaze turned ugly.

"The heavens noticed him too early."

Sect Master Li Xuanzong looked up at the clouds.

His expression remained calm, but his eyes became deep.

"Prepare."

The Peak Masters immediately moved.

Formation flags rose.

Golden light flowed through the training ground.

The protective dome above Su Bai brightened, layer after layer stacking together like transparent shields.

Li Xuanzong said, "Do not interfere unless the tribulation descends early. If we interfere too much, the heavens may count us as part of the tribulation."

...

Inside Su Bai’s spiritual sea, the cold-forging continued.

Flash!

The Dao Pedestal compressed again.

Flash!

The surrounding Qi needles spun faster.

Flash!

The Yin-Crystal Asteroid grew smaller, but its presence became heavier.

It was still not a Golden Core.

It was more like the Dao Pedestal had been hammered into a core-shaped embryo.

A frozen embryo.

The first good news was that no Inner Demon Tribulation had appeared.

Su Bai’s preparations had clearly helped.

Even when the Ashen-Frost Blight Flame began rewriting his breakthrough path without permission, Su Bai’s Dao Heart did not shake too badly.

The second good news was that the crystal root bridge had not collapsed.

The bad news came immediately after.

The three bridge roots began to move.

At first, they only trembled at the first cold explosions.

Then they split.

One became ten. Ten became a hundred. A hundred became thousands.

The crystalline roots splintered into countless micro-threads that shot across the boundary of the Dantian and spread into Su Bai’s physical body.

The original three anchors became the foundation of an entire network.

Su Bai’s body and Dantian were no longer connected by three thin roots.

They were being stitched together by countless invisible crystal threads.

The bridge had become better. Terrifyingly better.

Because now, his physical body could sense the cold-forging process clearly.

The moment the pale-grey supernova detonated again, the extreme cold traveled through the countless crystal threads.

Su Bai’s physical body felt it.

Every blood vessel chilled. Every bone rang faintly. Every organ tightened.

The pure Yang in his body reacted at once.

It surged. Not because Su Bai commanded it, but because the body instinctively wanted to save itself.

A wave of pure Yang vitality rushed down through the crystal root network toward the frozen Dantian.

At the same time, the compressed Yin cold from the Dantian surged upward through the roots to cool the burning body.

Cold and heat met inside the bridge.

Su Bai’s pupils shrank inwardly.

This was dangerous.

If Yin and Yang clashed directly, they could annihilate each other.

If the bridge failed, his Dantian and body might both collapse.

The two forces rushed toward each other. Pure Yang from the body. Pure Yin from the Dantian.

They collided in the crystal root network.

Su Bai braced himself for the backlash.

But then...

His Reversal Body activated unexpectedly.

It activated like something had looked at the word "explosion" and decided that the meaning was inconvenient.

The collision twisted. The annihilation command reversed. And the two energies... slipped past each other.

Seamlessly.

The Yang heat plunged into the frozen Dantian.

The Yin cold poured into the burning body.

Neither stopped. Neither broke. They passed, curved, and returned.

A loop formed. Then another. Then another.

Within Su Bai, Yin and Yang began chasing each other through the crystal root network.

The Dantian sent cold into the body. The body sent heat into the Dantian.

The heat lit up the frozen core embryo. The cold cooled the overheated flesh.

The more they moved, the smoother the path became.

The more they circulated, the more the crystal roots stabilized.

Su Bai felt his entire existence become a rotating circulation.

His Dantian was no longer merely the center.

His body was no longer merely the vessel.

The two had become opposite poles of one vast cycle.

A Taiji.

But not inside the Dantian.

Around him.

Through him.

As him.

...

Outside, the phenomenon appeared.

At first, it was faint.

A wisp of black-white mist emerged around Su Bai.

Then it widened.

Cold and heat circulated around his body.

A massive Taiji symbol slowly formed beneath him, created by the motion of his own energies.

One side cold like moonless winter. One side warm like buried sunlight.

The two halves rotated slowly, and the crystal aura between them shimmered like roots under ice.

The Peak Masters stared.

Peak Master Hou Yan’s eyes widened.

"This is..."

Yao Ding stopped breathing for a moment.

"He did not form the Taiji inside the core."

Peak Master Jian Wushuang said in disbelief, "The Taiji is outside him."

"No," Hou Yan said slowly. "Not outside."

His voice became dry.

"He became the Taiji."

Lu Canghai pressed his fingers between his brows.

He had lived many years.

He had seen people condense strange Golden Cores. He had even seen cultivators form cores with sword intent, pill fire, poison, and beast souls.

But this?

Normally, one needed to refine Yin and Yang together so that the Golden Core became a balanced inner universe.

Su Bai had not done that.

The motion between the two had become the balance.

How could he put Taiji into the Golden Core when the Taiji was already his entire body and Dantian circulation?

Lu Canghai felt a headache forming.

This disciple was not walking an unusual path.

He was taking the map, folding it into a paper crane, and asking why the road had wings.

Above the training ground, the sky rumbled again.

This time, the sound was much louder.

The dark clouds thickened further.

Purple-white lightning crawled through the layers like heavenly veins.

The tribulation had not descended yet.

But it was looking.

Everyone present felt it.