Chapter 30: Shatter the Darkness with Blazing Flames! Ignite the Sun in the City of Fading Light!

Lin Yi did not immediately examine the effects of his new skill. Instead, he glanced at how many skill points were required to upgrade the Tier 8 skill, Avatar of the Fire Spirit, to the next level.

[Tier 9 Forbidden Spell: Heaven-Falling Desolation]
[Advancement Requirement: 1 million skill points!]

Hiss...!
It doubled!
One million skill points—that was terrifying. Even for him, without considering spending money to accelerate the process, it would take nearly 12 days of idling to accumulate that amount.

However, Tier 9 meant it was a forbidden spell!
The small goal he had set for himself was actually within reach. At worst, he could just wait it out for 12 days to gather the million points.

Lin Yi then opened his skill bar to review the new skill he had just acquired.

[Supreme Sublimation, Avatar of the Fire Spirit]
[Type: Active Skill]
[Tier: Tier 8]
[Element: Fire]
[Cost: None]
[Cast Time: Instant]
[Cooldown: 3 days]
[Active Effect: Your understanding of fire elements has reached perfection. You may choose to fuse with the fire elements in the world, entering the state of Fire Spirit Sublimation.]
[Fire Spirit Sublimation: You become immune to all physical damage and fire-attribute damage, and gain the ability to fly.]
[In this state, when you cast fire-element skills, your critical hit rate increases by 100%, critical hit damage increases by 100%, and you ignore 50% of the target's magic resistance.]
[In this state, all spells requiring chanting become instant-cast and no longer consume mana.]
[The sublimation state lasts for 3 minutes. During this time, you may mobilize all fire elements within a vast area, amplifying the temperature to millions of degrees Celsius in an instant, triggering a terrifying explosion that deals massive fire damage.]
[Note: I am the flame!]

When Lin Yi first saw Avatar of the Fire Spirit, he suspected it might be a transformation-type skill, similar to a Kamen Rider-style transformation. As it turned out, his guess was mostly correct. The description and effects of this Tier 8 fire skill were so extensive they read like a short essay. After reading it, Lin Yi could only call it "insane" in his heart. This skill was incredibly broken!

It was a rare composite skill. On one hand, it dealt damage—in the sublimated state, he could trigger a massive explosion, which he estimated would have a range and destructive power far exceeding Dragon Breath of Heavenly Flames. At the same time, it granted him a status effect. This state allowed Lin Yi to transcend his mortal flesh and blood, sublimating into a pure elemental lifeform of fire. In this state, all fire spells were guaranteed critical hits, dealt bonus damage, were instant-cast, and cost no mana!

The bad news: This skill was a "stitch-up" of many abilities.
The good news: It stitched everything that mattered!

Lin Yi decided to test it out right there in the dungeon. Avatar of the Fire Spirit and Supreme Sublimation required no chanting and no mana. With just a flicker of his thought, a deep blue flame ignited at his fingertips. His human features—fingernails, bones, and flesh—vanished rapidly. The blue flames spread, and in the blink of an eye, Lin Yi felt his hands engulfed in a roaring blaze.

The experience of transforming from flesh and blood into pure elemental fire was subtle. It was not painful; on the contrary, it brought Lin Yi a great sense of novelty. His sublimation was faster than he had imagined. Almost instantly, he felt he had completed the metamorphosis of his life form. He was no longer a carbon-based lifeform, but an elemental one. In fact, he had become the flame itself!

Lin Yi could still feel his hands and feet, but they could extend infinitely and stretch at will. Moreover, he no longer felt the constraints of gravity; he felt as light as air. Simultaneously, the ground where he had been standing began to annihilate and vanish, leaving no trace. It turned out that when the temperature reached a certain point, all matter in the real world might skip the melting phase entirely, replaced by direct vaporization and annihilation. The countless Shadow Demons drawn by the Molten Flame Demon were perhaps too close to Lin Yi; they could not even let out a wail before being instantly evaporated. In the blink of an eye, a ten-meter vacuum zone appeared around Lin Yi.

Lin Yi's face and other human features dissolved into the blue flames. If anyone had been there to witness this, they would likely have trembled in terror. In his sublimated Fire Spirit state, Lin Yi remained the size of a normal human, but his presence was terrifying!

The moment Lin Yi completed the Supreme Sublimation, every Shadow Demon and shadow monster in the entire city of Phelicaine grew agitated. The temperature was rising sharply!

Lin Yi soared into the sky. The flight ability granted by the Fire Spirit state was no less than his Wings of Gale, perhaps even superior. From high above, he looked down at the entirety of Phelicaine. He hadn't expected the scale and size of this dungeon to be far greater than he had anticipated. The entire city was five or six times the size of Jiangcheng Base City.

Furthermore, with the [Eye of Omniscience], Lin Yi discovered a detail that other professionals might never know! Scattered among the ruins of Phelicaine were tiny points of light. Above each light hovered the name and level of a professional. If Lin Yi looked closely, he could discern even more information. The larger the light, the stronger the professional. He saw two or three larger lights gathered together, accompanied by dozens of smaller ones. Finally, in the southern corner of Phelicaine, there was another larger light that had stopped moving, its aura seemingly fading as if it had suffered grave injuries.

Good grief, this was a public dungeon! This meant that all professionals entering the dungeon were distributed to various corners of the city, making the chance of running into each other small—but certainly not zero!

...

In the central district of Phelicaine, fifty or sixty people were fighting off waves of Shadow Demons.

"We're only four or five people short of a full group. I checked via the Sky-Link; they must have been teleported to remote areas and can't make it here for now. They'll find their own shelters."
"Let's hurry to the Central Royal Court!"
"Everyone, keep up! Don't fall behind!"
Several teachers from the Skywater Academy, who were Tier 3 professionals, shouted to the students while slaying monsters.

"Huff! Huff! Huff!"
"Do you feel that? It's getting hot..."
"I was just about to say that. This place was freezing a moment ago, and now I'm sweating after just a few steps!"
"I can't take it, it's too hot! I can't move!"

A few seconds later, everyone felt as if the air they were breathing was scorching. Their skin felt as if it were being roasted under a blazing sun.

"My God...! Look up at the sky!"
"What is that!"