Su Bai mentally opened his system storage and quickly checked the description of his new reward.

[Verdant-Ember Origin Flame]

[Description: An orthodox Heavenly Fire born from the burning sap of ancient spirit trees. It burns with a gentle, nurturing warmth rather than violent heat. If an alchemist makes a mistake with herbs, the flame will gently attempt to stabilize the cauldron, acting as a natural fail-safe to reduce the chance of an explosion.]

Su Bai stared at the description. His corporate heart skipped a beat.

’It’s an automated error-correction software!’ he realized. If he used this flame, his chances of successfully forging the highly complex Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pills would skyrocket. He wouldn’t have to worry about the cauldron blowing up in his face during his first week on the job.

However, absorbing a Heavenly Fire required absolute focus.

"Junior Sister Meng," Su Bai stopped walking. "Before we begin, is there a private chamber I could borrow? I need to... stabilize something within my foundation."

Liu Meng gasped softly. To a cultivator, suddenly needing to "stabilize" something usually meant a sudden burst of Daoist enlightenment.

"Of course, Senior Brother!" she whispered, not wanting to disturb his mystical flow state. "Right this way!"

She quickly led him to a secluded refinement room at the back of the hall. She bowed and stepped outside, then sealed the heavy stone doors to give him absolute silence.

Once he was alone, Su Bai sat cross-legged on the designated meditation mat. With a thought, he retrieved the Verdant-Ember Origin Flame from his system inventory.

A small, emerald-green flame materialized in the palm of his hand. Su Bai immediately felt its warmth. It wasn’t the harsh, blistering heat of a normal fire. It was deeply soothing like a ray of morning sunlight filtering through a forest canopy.

Because the Verdant-Ember was a "nurturing" flame, it possessed zero hostility. It didn’t rage or attempt to burn him like the aggressive, higher-ranked Heavenly Fires that cultivators normally had to fight to the death to subdue.

Without hesitating, Su Bai opened his mouth and swallowed the emerald flame.

Instead of feeling like he had just swallowed a live grenade, the sensation was incredibly pleasant. It felt exactly like drinking a perfectly brewed cup of warm chamomile tea. The gentle warmth slid down his throat and settled comfortably into his Dantian.

’Well, that was easy,’ Su Bai smiled.

And then, the anomaly occurred.

"Ugh!" Su Bai suddenly doubled over. He clutched his stomach as a blinding, unimaginable pain tore through his meridians.

The green flame’s core instinct was to "nurture flora." The moment it settled into his Dantian, it immediately noticed Su Bai’s weird spiritual root. A withered, decaying, absolutely lifeless piece of Dead Wood.

Acting like an overzealous, hyperactive paramedic, the Verdant-Ember Flame immediately tried to perform CPR on the corpse. It surged. It wrapped tightly around the Dead Wood root and aggressively pumped it full of pure, warm, Yang life-force in a desperate attempt to revive it.

Su Bai gritted his teeth as cold sweat poured down his face.

He hadn’t expected this at all. His Reversal Body usually activated instantly to protect him.

The flame had tasted "delicious," so he hadn’t perceived it as a threat.

He had assumed that, as ridiculous as his Reversal Body was, it couldn’t possibly alter the core nature of a legendary Heavenly Treasure.

But he was completely wrong.

A Heavenly Fire wasn’t a simple, consumable pill. Naturally, it would act differently within him.

It was only when the extreme Yang energy began to actively "revive" his root that his body finally reacted.

’Reverse it! Reverse it now!’ Su Bai commanded internally, forcibly meditating to check his internal status.

The moment the Yang overload reached critical mass, Su Bai’s Reversal Body finally kicked in.

It didn’t violently fight the flame. It didn’t even try to extinguish it. Instead, the Reversal Body acted like a flawless, crystalline prism.

As the green life-force passed through the filter of his Dead Wood root, the energy was quietly and violently refracted.

Su Bai watched in awe as the internal changes took place.

The warm, emerald-green glow smoothly and silently drained away. It was completely overwritten by a pale, freezing, ash-grey mist.

The most bizarre part was the flame’s reaction. Because the Verdant-Ember was fundamentally a gentle, compliant entity, it didn’t even realize its core programming had been maliciously corrupted.

It simply accepted its new "Ashen-Frost" nature without a fight, settling peacefully into the center of his Dantian and resting softly against his Dead Wood Root like a contented, freezing ghost.

The excruciating pain finally vanished. It was replaced by a wave of absolute, bone-chilling comfort.

Su Bai let out a long breath. He stared at the ash-grey mist now swirling in his palm. He was extremely shocked because the reversed flame looked incredibly familiar. He had read about it in the Grand Archives’ index of Heavenly Treasures.

He immediately pulled out his leather-bound corporate notebook and began writing down his findings like a bug report.

’The Verdant-Ember has been completely overwritten,’ Su Bai noted. ’It exactly looks like the Heavenly Fire Rank 98.’

[Item: Ashen-Frost Blight Flame]

[Description: A mutated Yin flame born from the violent inversion of pure vitality. Instead of emitting heat, it burns with a freezing, ghostly ash-grey mist that instantly consumes the life-force of any flora it touches.]

Su Bai scratched his head with his pen. In terms of raw firepower, Rank 99 and Rank 98 were practically equal. The Ashen-Frost was just ranked higher because it was a bizarre, unnatural mutation that was exceedingly rare. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

’So this is how the Ashen-Frost is actually created,’ Su Bai realized. He just uncovered a massive piece of cultivation lore. ’It isn’t born naturally. It’s the corrupted, inverted mirror of the Verdant-Ember.’

He closed his notebook with a heavy sigh.

This new freezing flame would instantly rot any medicinal herb it touched, which meant it was the absolute perfect, automated tool for mass-producing the toxic pill dregs his body craved.

But as a former corporate manager, a twinge of professional guilt washed over him.

If he used this flame for every single batch, he would have a 100% failure rate. He would be purposefully wasting the sect’s expensive raw materials just to feed himself. That wasn’t just poor performance, it was gross mismanagement of company resources.

’I can’t just be a parasite,’ Su Bai decided firmly as his work ethic shone through. ’I need to actually learn standard alchemy so I can forge the Oblivion Pills properly.’

He formulated a new strategy. For legitimate alchemy practice, he would rely on the Alchemy Hall’s standard Earth Fire arrays.

He would only deploy his new Ashen-Frost Blight Flame occasionally, writing off the resulting toxic dregs as "natural novice mistakes" and "acceptable loss margins."

Satisfied with his operational roadmap, Su Bai stood up, smoothed his pristine white robes, and opened the heavy stone doors.

Liu Meng was waiting right outside. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.

"Did you successfully stabilize your epiphany, Senior Brother?" she asked eagerly.

"I did, Junior Sister," Su Bai smiled warmly, feeling the freezing, comfortable ash-grey flame resting in his Dantian. "My hardware is fully updated. Let us begin the training."