"Sacred Flame Token?" Old Eagle stared at the stone in his hand, stroked his chin, and nodded thoughtfully.
In the original story by Master Jin, the Sacred Flame Token is a pretty special thing. It looks plain as can be, but the three Persian envoys use it as a weapon. Tough as nails, super durable—so much so that even the Dragon-Slaying Saber can't leave a scratch on it. In all of Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, even the Heaven Sword can only break the Dragon-Slaying Saber, but nothing can damage the Sacred Flame Token. It's one of a kind.
Back when he read the novel, Yang Qi was super curious about where the Sacred Flame Token came from. The biggest mystery was: if it's so hard, how'd they carve the Old Man of the Mountain's martial arts onto it? Who would've thought, after all these years, he'd be holding a Sacred Flame Token himself, messing around with it for ages. Turns out, it's not just a weapon or gear—it can even work like a magical artifact.
So Old Eagle asked his second question: "How did you use the Sacred Flame Token to pull off that black-and-white phenomenon?"
Faye Bright hesitated—this was a seriously important secret.
But before she could decide whether to spill or not, Simone just blurted it out: "Heh, hiding something so trivial? It’s simple—you connect with the Sacred Flame Token and use the special energy stored inside instead of your own mental power. Then you use your spirit world to mess with reality. Nothing fancy! Old Eagle did way cooler stuff last time. Oh, and this kid made a black-and-white monotone world—guess she's really got some pent-up issues!"
"What!" Faye was both shocked and embarrassed, feeling totally exposed. Simone hadn’t shared any real tricks, but she’d laid out the whole principle. Who’d have thought the Sacred Flame Token’s secret would be seen through in a flash? And that Old Eagle’s sidekick—a mere demoness—would be this talented? Unbelievable.
"Hmm..." Old Eagle focused for a moment, and found Simone was right. Specialization matters—this half-step king from another martial arts world really is a pro, and their use of mental power is centuries ahead of this place.
If you pour your mental power into the Sacred Flame Token, you’ll discover a weird mechanism inside. It lets you use Faith Energy as fuel to boost your spirit’s power. And if you’ve got enough Faith Energy, strong enough, there’s even more potential to unlock. Actually, last time Yang Qi dove into the alternate dark realm, it was all thanks to the Sacred Flame Token too—but that was a different kind of application, not just a power-up.
He didn’t have time to study it slowly, so Old Eagle just cut to the chase: "Spill your secret technique. Saves us both time, and it’ll make up for you trying to assassinate me last time."
"Assassinate you?" A question mark popped up over Faye’s head, then—bam—a big exclamation mark. She’s smart, so she figured it out instantly. She shivered again at the thought of all the dark secrets swirling around, and her look at Old Eagle was suddenly full of awe.
Whatever she imagined, at least Faye decided to cooperate and explained how to use the Sacred Flame Token.
This time she was actually helpful, and explained everything in detail. Old Eagle tried it out a bit, but with his Faith Energy reserves so low, he couldn’t pull off any real secret techniques yet. Still, there was nothing wrong with Faye’s method.
Since she was cooperating well enough, Old Eagle figured it was time for the next step. He asked his third question: "Miss Faye, you’re the leader of the Manichaean Sect’s Central Plains branch, so you must know the Persian headquarters pretty well."
Faye was cautious, not giving a straight answer: "I know a little, I guess."
"Great." Old Eagle pulled out a scroll and snapped it open: "Tell me, where is this?"
On it was a map.
"This is..." The map was pretty vague, just a rough region, but it was drawn with amazing detail. You could see mountains, valleys, deserts, and lonely cities—the angle was like a god’s-eye view from a real-time strategy game. Faye stared at the scroll, and her first thought was, "How am I supposed to know where this is?"
But after squinting and thinking for a bit, suddenly a lightbulb went off in her head and her eyes narrowed.
"Oh, so you do know after all." Old Eagle didn’t give her any chance to hide or stall, pressing her: "Go on, where is it?"