The Three Realms Thief Chapter 56

Time–

Flashback to half an hour ago.

The countdown begins again!

“30:00”

“29:59”

“29:58”

Xu Yuan breathed heavily, exhausted, and walked out of the equipment storage room. He quickened his pace and found a seat in the stands.

He popped another Spirit Replenishment Pill and a Body Healing Pill.

Frankly speaking.

It was fortunate that he awakened the “Competition” ability.

Otherwise.

Facing three ghosts at once, he would have no chance of survival!

Xu Yuan wolfed down the pills in his mouth, then took out his phone. He turned it on, then used one hand to steady the other, slowly tapping the screen.

He tapped wrong, had to delete, and start over.

After several attempts.

The call finally went through!

“Beep… beep…”

“Why are you calling? I’m getting food.”

Zhao Afei’s voice sounded.

“Come to the gym, buddy, I have something important to tell you immediately,” Xu Yuan said.

“…Okay.”

The call ended.

Plop.

He couldn’t hold his phone steady anymore, and it fell to the ground.

There was nothing he could do.

This was the consequence of overusing his hands.

Xu Yuan ignored his phone, just desperately circulated his cultivation technique, catalyzing the medicinal power.

–But this time, the recovery of spiritual power also slowed down.

Because two consecutive high-intensity battles had already pushed his body to its limit, almost unable to bear it.

If this continued.

Not only would his hands be useless.

His spiritual power would also not fully recover.

But there was still one more ghost.

What to do?

As Xu Yuan was thinking, Zhao Afei appeared at the gym entrance and jogged in.

“What’s wrong—damn it, weren’t you going to eat with me? Why are you exercising here?”

Zhao Afei asked in surprise.

Xu Yuan was drenched in sweat, his clothes clinging to him. He looked like he had just been pulled out of the water.

“I’m doing secret training.”

Xu Yuan said.

–He absolutely couldn’t involve Zhao Afei.

He couldn’t see ghosts.

Once attacked by a ghost, it would be a dead end.

“Get to the point, buddy, I’ve hit a bottleneck in my cultivation and want to borrow your alchemy furnace,” Xu Yuan said.

“Damn it, is that all? Take it!”

Zhao Afei clapped his storage bag, and with a “clang,” he released the ancestral Four-Symbol Eight-Trigram Furnace.

“Good buddy, you’re awesome. Let me borrow your storage bag too.”

Xu Yuan said.

“Stop complimenting me—are you refining pills or having a secret affair?” Zhao Afei asked while unzipping his storage bag.

“How can this be a secret affair?” Xu Yuan asked in surprise.

“My great-grandfather used to have secret affairs in the alchemy furnace when he was dating, got caught, and was hung up and beaten,” Zhao Afei said with a wistful expression.

“You can’t use ‘secret affair’ for dating, can you?” Xu Yuan said, crossing his arms and discussing seriously.

“Don’t you think it’s more exciting?” Zhao Afei smirked.

“That’s true.”

Xu Yuan glanced at the time and said, “I’ll use the storage bag and alchemy furnace for now, I’ll treat you to a meal later.”

“Don’t tell me it’s you treating me to rice and me treating you to dishes again—what exactly do you want the alchemy furnace for?”

“To learn a Secret Art.”

A Secret Art is a technique that cannot be passed on to others.

Generally speaking, everyone will subconsciously avoid mentioning it, lest others misunderstand.

“Got it, see you later!”

Zhao Afei waved at him and turned to run.

—The good food in the canteen wouldn’t wait for anyone. If he went late, it would be gone!

He left.

Only Xu Yuan remained, sitting in the empty gym.

Time passed by second by second.

Xu Yuan sighed, lowering his head to look at his hands.

Zhao Afei’s family’s pills really worked.

His hands no longer trembled.

But that was all.

Trying to fight a high-intensity battle in this state was simply wishful thinking.

As for spiritual power—

It had recovered about fifty percent.

He glanced at the time.

“03:15”

“03:14”

“03:13”

“…”

Three minutes.

Something big was about to happen!

Xu Yuan stood up from the stands, swaying, and walked to the alchemy furnace, putting it into his storage bag.

No.

This should be a storage pouch.

Looking at the texture of the pouch and the patterns on its surface, it seemed to be a luxury item.

It was actually pretty nice to have a true brother who was a “dog rich man.”

In short.

After tidying up his belongings, Xu Yuan returned to the equipment storage room and locked the door.

—It was midday, and there were no classes.

Even if students came to the gym to train, they wouldn’t come to the equipment storage room.

Because they didn’t have keys, and there were no teachers, they couldn’t open the door or the cabinets.

Only the window was open.

“02:14”

Two minutes!

Xu Yuan sat on the rattan chair in the storage room and rested for a full minute.

“01:14”

He stood up, his hand on the storage bag.

The alchemy furnace was immediately released.

—But the alchemy furnace was lying sideways.

Looking at it this way, it was like a gourd.

In fact, the shape of the alchemy furnace was indeed taken from a gourd, symbolizing heaven and earth, with two circles stacked on top of each other; it could melt the creative power of heaven and earth, perfectly complete, and integrate into the meaning of a “gourd” (furnace).

Xu Yuan opened the lid, crawled in, and lay in the concave section.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale—

This was already the best he could be at the moment.

He raised his hand, gritting his teeth, enduring the pain, and slowly curled his fingers, beginning to cast the spell seal.

Come on.

This spell must succeed.

At such a critical moment, he couldn’t afford to mess up.

He chanted silently in his mind.

His fingers seemed to understand his words, and despite the excruciating pain and soreness, they finally fell into place to form the spell seal.

Only his left index finger—

This finger was stiff and straight, completely unable to bend into the shape of a spell seal.

Xu Yuan moved it forcefully, and an agonizing soreness immediately erupted from his fingertip, spreading throughout his body.

All ten fingers are connected to the heart.

Tsk.

So troublesome.

He lay on his side, with his feet against two corners, “wedging” himself into the curved indentation of the alchemy furnace.

Then—

He leaned back, pressed his hand against the furnace wall, and with all his strength, pushed down—

Click.

The distinctive crisp sound of bone.

Intense pain engulfed his entire body, Xu Yuan sucked in a cold breath, his legs twitched a few times, and then he slowly recovered.

The last finger curled.

The hand seal was formed!

—Spirit Communication Technique.

Now, with a surge of spiritual power, the spell would be complete.

Xu Yuan maintained a rhythmic breath, maintained the hand seal, and maintained the circulation of spiritual power until he felt ready. Then he glanced at the void.

“00:31”

“00:30”

“00:29”

No time left!

He channeled his spiritual power, resonating with the spell seal.

Boundless cold mist surged from the void, filling the entire alchemy furnace.

The Spirit Communication Technique was successfully cast!

And Xu Yuan still lay motionless against the cool metal inner wall of the alchemy furnace.

This created a situation—

The entire void inside the gourd was enveloped in mist, connecting to the “Underworld Realm.”

But because Xu Yuan didn’t move and was “at one” with the alchemy furnace, he could now be considered part of the alchemy furnace.

—So he was still in the normal world, in the state of “lying in the alchemy furnace.”

“00:20”

“00:19”

“00:18”

Time is running out.

Xu Yuan drew his Qiongxia Sword and cut long strips of cloth from his clothes, quickly wrapping them around his hand.

—His fingers were stiff and sore.

In this state, he couldn’t fight at full strength.

Even in battle, due to the intense struggle, the sword could slip from his hand at any time.

He had to prevent this situation now.

—Xu Yuan wrapped the cloth strips around his right hand, binding them tightly to the hilt of the sword, wrapping them over and over again, finally tying a slipknot.

This way, the sword wouldn’t fall out of his hand.

Unless he needed to use the sword in another way.

He had just finished preparing when he looked up.

“00:02”

“00:01”

“00:00”

Here it comes!

A grey centipede with a human head, over three meters long, crawled in through the window of the equipment storage room.

Although it had a human head, it had no eyes, ears, or nose.

The centipede looked around, a natural ghostly pattern appearing on its face. It opened its barbed mouth and spoke in human language:

“Alchemy furnace? Ha, humans are truly pathetic and ridiculous food…”

It crawled around the alchemy furnace a few times, tentatively touching the outer wall of the furnace, and immediately discovered the hardness of this Four-Symbol Eight-Trigram Furnace.

That’s right.

The food was inside.

“Such a shell… never mind, your soul will shed all its innocence and naiveté, and become a part of me.”

“I’ll just put in a little effort.”

The centipede’s body expanded rapidly, and suddenly, it spewed out streams of acidic liquid from its mouth.

These liquids sprayed into the alchemy furnace, continuing for a full seven or eight breaths before stopping.

Occasionally, some pale green drops landed outside the gourd, immediately corroding smoking holes in the ground with sizzling sounds.

“It should have melted… I’ll gladly take your soul.”

The centipede said excitedly.

There was no movement inside the alchemy furnace.

—From the opening of the alchemy furnace to its entire interior, everything was within the scope of the “Underworld Realm.”

Those toxins falling on the desert could even corrode the grayish-white sand into dust.

But that was it.

They couldn’t land on Xu Yuan.

Because Xu Yuan was in the Human Realm!

The centipede lingered at the mouth of the alchemy furnace for a few breaths, but saw no soul emerge. It couldn’t help but sneer:

“Are you afraid to come out and face your final destiny?”

“Why bother.”

There was no response.

The alchemy furnace remained silent.

Xu Yuan certainly heard it, but he stayed quiet, merely closing his eyes to adjust his breathing.

—This centipede was quite chatty.

But the powerful energy fluctuations emanating from its body made him unwilling to engage in conversation with it.

He only wanted to kill it!

The centipede waited for a few breaths, but finally couldn’t help itself and climbed to the mouth of the alchemy furnace, diving straight in.

At that very instant.

Xu Yuan suddenly opened his eyes and thrust his longsword upwards.

This was not a sword technique, just a very simple “stab,” but he put all his strength into it!

The snowy flash appeared and disappeared.

Clang.

The longsword retracted, and because his arm trembled relentlessly, he couldn’t hold it steady. It struck the wall of the alchemy furnace at an angle, bouncing once before settling.

The sword strike was complete.

Xu Yuan’s clothes were soaked with sweat, and he gasped for breath, using his left hand to massage his right arm, trying to alleviate the throbbing pain.

Drip.

Drip.

Crimson drops fell from the snowy blade, landing on the alchemy furnace with a barely perceptible sound.

That sword strike just now hit its mark!