Thunder and lightning coalesced above the mountain the cave was in. The wind howled and the beasts ran for cover. The sky was an ominous omen to a village 100 miles away. Dark clouds condensed rapidly and sent they natural energy of the world in a 200 mile radius around the mountain into a state of frenzy.
People fled to hide in their houses in fear, just hoping to survive the storm that was coming. Rain started to pour as if the flood gates of heaven had been opened completely. Zach, Cora and Dragora were completely oblivious to the world outside. They had first felt a foreboding aura coming from the cocoon and were completely transfixed on it.
As the tear in cocoon continued to open wider and wider all the energy in the cave was sucked into the tear that had been formed. Zach couldn’t tell that energy was now completely gone but he could sense the shock and slight fear radiating off of his companions. As the tear continued to widen one could faintly see a large body covered in scales.
The being in the cocoon started to wiggle around as a giant paw pushed out of the tear. Claws that were 1 foot long were attached to the large scaly foot. The being inside stretched its body and shredded the rest of the fleshy cocoon as it rolled over to stand up.
Gart emerged completely different. His body was now comparable to the size of Cora in her Dragon form. Scales covered his body in a smooth and elegant way. He still had a lion shaped head but it was slightly more reptilian now. No hair could be seen on his body at all and his tail was no longer like a scorpions. Instead it looked like a dragons tail that had a large poisonous spike that held a poison sac in the base of the tail. Large wings rested on his back and shuddered as he unfurled them.
Gart looked at Zach. “Hello father.” He said very childishly.
Zach was stunned. How could this behemoth be Gart? What had he become? It was amazing but scary at the same time. “Hello Gart. You have… grown?”
“Really that’s the best you got?” Cora huffed. “Hi Gart! You look SOOOO CUTE!”
“Thank you!” Gart chuckled.
Zach scratched his head awkwardly. “Sorry bud I just wasn’t very prepared to see this today. I mean you look amazing I’m just shocked at the change! Also what’s with the whole father thing?”
“Well after mama died you became my new dada. That’s what she told me.” He whispered as tears started to form in his eyes.
Before he could cry Zach ran up and gripped him around his neck to console him. Dragora and Cora were silently crying on either side of Gart. “I’ll never leave you Gart. I’ll always be here for you… but call me Zach ok?”
“Snif. OK Zach. Snif”
“So Gart what did you evolve into?” Zach said, trying to lighten the mood.
“No clue! Just big!” He exclaimed.
Dragor walked around Gart inspecting him all over. “Hmm. It seems like the main blood line is true dragon and is just slightly followed by the white tiger. Only one of your kind has existed before. Her name was Kar and she called herself a largon. She couldn’t be classified as an ancient demonic beast nor an original beast. She was an enigma from what I remember.” She said in awe. “I truly would have never believed that another would emerge.”
Gart gave a very toothy or fangy smile as he reveled in the fact that he was unique. “Cora take Gart and teach him to hunt, fly and anything else you can think of.”
“Yes mother.” She replied. Turning towards the cave entrance she went to leave. “Come on Gart, we have a lot to do.”
As they left Zach stood there wondering what life was going to be like for the little guy. Hopefully he would be able to shift into a human form as well, since he was way too large and conspicuous as he was right now. As he wondered Dragora turned to Zach.
“Time to do more training.”
With that they both left. Dragora led Zach further into the cave than he had ever been. After about 20 minutes of walking the air became noticeably hotter. “Where are we going he inquired?”
“You’ll see.” Was all she said.
After another 15 minutes the cave opened up. The new chamber was a glowing red and caused Zach to feel quite warm. At the very center was a pit of lava. Now Zach had a general idea of what was going to happen.
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“Um are you wanting me to go into that?”
She gave him a ‘What do you think?’ look. With ha heavy sigh Zach walked to the edge of the lava pit. All he could think was ‘Why didn’t I try this first?’ and ‘Will this kill me?’. He voiced his concerns to Dragora.
“Well because you completed the trial by fire you should be able to sit in this lava. Of course you could die I suppose.” She somberly replied. “Of course that would be your fault for being so weak. Now in ya go!” She chuckled as she kicked him in the back. He rocketed out and landed directly into the pit.
His body instantly began to catch on fire as he screamed. “AAhhh!”
“Stop being so weak!” Was all the consolation he got.
As he struggled to not die he continued to sink deeper and deeper into the pit of lava. Once his head submerged he held his breath and tried to swim to the surface. This only caused him to sink even deeper. The deeper he went the hotter it became.
The only thing he could do was try and circulate his Yang energy. This was easier said than done as he couldn’t focus enough to meditate. Inadvertently he opened his mouth and swallowed some lava. His insides were immediately scorched as the lava coursed through his organs.
As his skin was healed rapidly and tempered by the intense heat and pressure from the lava his organs also started to be hardened. This pool was a miracle in the body strengthening stage. It both completed the skin thickening and organ hardening. If such a method was given to the humans than many would follow what Dragora did and kick their disciples into a pit of lava.
The only flaw to this would be that at least 90 percent of disciples that went into the pit would never come out. Also the pit Zach was in was special. It contained a huge amount of pure Yang energy in it. This pit was practically made for Zach!
Zach’s Skin had quickly completed the skin thickening stage and he advanced into Organ hardening immediately. His skin was now as tough as tempered dark steel, which was easily 100 times stronger than normal steel. His organs slowly began to burn away and be replaced by new tougher organs thanks to his amazing regenerative ability.
The total time he had spent in the pit so far seemed to have taken only a couple seconds but really 3 days had passed. After the third day a couple things had happened. First Cora and Gart had returned from training. Gart had a light wound from attacking a colossus bear and needed a safe place to recover. Dragora had left to visit the true dragon clan and returned with some items to help Zach with the meridian opening, as well as travel items since he was leaving as soon as he passed that last hurdle. Zach had finished skin thickening and was roughly 1/3 of the way done with organ hardening.
Deep in the center of the pit Zach continued to swallow the lava. He had long since stopped being burned and damaged by the lava on his skin. Now he was able to notice the benefit it was doing to his organs.
10 days passed by in a flash. Cora took Gart out again for training and Zach was still in the pit. Oddly enough his body had some how adapted into converting true energy into life saving nutrients for his body, which enabled him to not need to breath. Zach had also developed an advanced form of meditation from trying to study the effects the lava had on his body. Now he was able to separate his conscious from his mind and let his body run on autopilot.
He inspected his body and was astonished by what he saw. His skin had fully finished the skin thickening stage and his organs were steadily being hardened. There was no way for him to know how far along he was in organ hardening but he guessed he was getting close to 50 percent. His body continued to advance as he watched on like he was in a dream observing someone else.
With every gulp of lava he went farther and farther down the path. His body was getting close to finishing the organ hardening. One last step was needed in order to finish this process. As his organs had all been burned away and reformed into structures with the same amount of resistance as his skin, he now had a lot of ash in his body that needed to be… cleansed. Honestly the only process that could do this was for his body to absorb the debris and excrete it through his bowels. Normally the impure particles would be sloughed off through the pores but they were far too large right now.
All Zach could think was that luckily he was in lava and he didn’t have to worry about anyone noticing. He was still shy about the normal bodily functions. Quickly and efficiently voiding his bowels he tried to leave the lava pit. Now that he was finished with organ hardening he needed to get out. He had no idea how long he had been down there so he was slightly excited to leave.
Unfortunately even though he had finished both skin thickening and organ hardening he still had no way of getting out of the lava and continued to sink as he tried to swim. ‘Fuck’ He thought. How was he going to get out? The only hope he had was to reach the bottom of the lava pit and try to find a wall to see if he could climb out.
Sadly our hero is an idiot. All he needed to do was start opening his meridians so he can start absorbing energy and then he would be able to escape! Seriously! You know I feel like I’ve been a good narrator here. I haven’t broken the 4th wall and have been telling the story as best as I can. Now Zach is in a predicament where he can advance even faster but noooo he has to be a big dummy and do things the hard way! I need a vacation.
Back to Zach I guess. As he continued to fall he finally realized that there was probably no bottom. Obviously that’s because lava is connected directly to the center of the world. So Zach, thankfully, decided to meditate and see if he could figure out a way to get out. By some stroke of luck, which is totally not me trying to speed up the story telling process, he started to sense tiny little lines that ran throughout his body. These lines started around his naval and connected to all his muscles and veins. They wrapped around his organs all the way up to his brain and covered his bones.
As he sat , well floated really, in deep meditation he felt his true Yang energy trying to move along these lines. With his will he tried to direct the energy along one of the lines to his heart. Some sort of resistance blocked the energy causing him to vomit a mouthful of blood from the backlash of the energy. I think he kinda deserved it. He tried harder and harder to force the energy along the line.
After hours of backlash after back lash he finally succeeded! The energy was much calmer now that it had a place to go. With a thought he could move it as he wished. Zach willed the energy to travel along the meridian and form into a platform for him to stand on.
Now he could not use this energy to fly and due to his lack of intelligence he didn’t realize that he was actually affecting the lava around him to form the platform. Of course Zach also couldn’t see this so he just continued to use the energy to form and push him upwards through the lava. He shot through the lava like a human shaped meteor towards the surface.