Damien watched Zurat create ripples into the pond with the tears he shed. He was never put in this situation before but he knew he was being counted on to help. That was when Damien saw the water that was being pelted with tears return back to normal once Zurat wiped the tears off his face. He pointed at the pond, making Zurat shift his attention to it.
“See this pond here? No matter what it goes through it will always return back to normal. Doesn’t matter what’s going on inside of it or outside, it will always know what it is. You just need to remember who you are and I'm sure you will be okay!”
Zurat stopped crying all together and stared at the pond to find the meaning. After a few seconds he burst out laughing at the top of his lungs. His laughter reverberated throughout, making the birds perched on the trees fly away and the fish disappear into the depths of the pond. He tried to hold it in but it was impossible to stop it. Damien became confused as to what he was laughing at and it started to make him self conscious. Zurat had to force himself to stop so he could explain.
“Sorry you just sounded like some divining swindler in the city. Makes you sound like you're some old wise guy.”
Damien shifted his body uncomfortably while his face became beet red.
‘Did I really sound like that?’
He couldn’t help but feel embarrassed of what he said. He wanted to crawl in a hole and hide away. Zurat quickly noticed what was going on, so he quickly bit his tongue.
“I get what you mean, and I won’t let others change me so easily. I just don’t want to be like water. I’d rather burn brightly like a shooting star, where everyone has no choice but to witness my brilliance, albeit if it’s short!”
Damien took his words into consideration as he never considered life in that manner. He wanted to live his life in a different manner, however to make your mark in history wasn't so bad either.
“To burn brightly, huh? Burning instead of being like water. Wait… that could work! Zurat I have to go, but you can always come by and see me!”
Damien disappeared where he came from, rushing back to cultivate. Zurat was left in a considerably better mood as he stood up to leave.
“What a weird kid. Not a bad thing though.”
Damien arrived back at the Cultivation Chamber, so he could try something different. When Zurat talked about burning like a shooting star, it made him think about how he was trying to break through. He couldn’t go about it the normal way since he wasn’t practicing a normal technique. This was a cultivation technique meant for Phoenixes and their unique bodies.
“Making Mana Fluid is like making a drop of water, but that goes against the nature of a Phoenix. So instead of condensing the Mist into a drop, what if I burnt it away into something beyond that? It sounds wrong, but somehow it sounds right too.”
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Damien didn’t have much of an alternative since he had no other clues to go off on. If he couldn’t advance here then there was no way he’d even be able to participate in the tournament. He went into an extreme state of concentration and gathered all of his Mana Mist into the middle of his body where his Flame Core lives. He gathered it together into a dense globe where it felt like it was almost a solid object.
Instead of trying his hardest to bring all together into a single point that would turn into a drop of Mana Fluid, he let his Flame score activate. His once cold and lifeless core came to life tripling in size. Dancing with rapid unpredictability, it heated up his entire body where he could feel it heat up his outside body, along with the entire chamber. Steam rose out of his body and the heat waves dispersed outward, bringing everything to a hellish inferno. The Cultivation Chamber was able to resist for a while but the heat kept going up to the point where components were on the verge of burning down. Back inside his inner self, Damien was thinking of the next move.
‘It’s not doing anything like I expected. It’s not even causing any change to the Mana Mist. I need the fire to be more intense!’
As if the Flame Core reacted to his will, it automatically absorbed all of its released heat back into itself. It formed a red hot singularity that was the size of a fingernail. It was like a miniature sun spawned inside of him with a destructive heat. It caused ripples to form inside of his globe of Mana Mist, but with his strength he was able to keep it from dispersing. Damien held it together as it began sizzling and popping its energies inside. Damien felt indescribable pain like needles going through every inch of his body relentlessly. He wanted to give in but he had no choice but to see the end of this road.
‘The pain is excruciating, I can barely hold on. Maybe I should just let it happen all at once.’
No longer seeing the long road as an option, Damien opted to go through the pain all at once. The flame singularity began to make its way toward the condensed Mana Mist and entered directly into its midst. At first the mist covered the singularity completely, however in the next moment gran explosions occurred revealing rays of light beams coming out of every angle. The mist expanded with vigor and had its formation deformed in every which way. Damien had no words for the pain and could not even form a single thought. He wanted to hang on for a longer time but his mental strength failed him in what he believed to be the most vital moment.
After losing consciousness, there was no longer any will to guide these forces together. These forces did as they willed with their natural properties taking over. It only took a few seconds for a catastrophic event to occur as the Mist expanded outward with no care. The intensely burning Mana Mist was driven to every single crevice of his body. To his meridians, into his muscles, tendons, ligaments, and skeletal system. His body was like a hot air balloon, but everything was burnt and singed inside his body. Just like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption, from the inside out, Damien was cracking apart with molten magma brightly gleaming past them. He looked like a miniature Lava Golem that lived in areas such as volcanoes and the core of the earth.
Damien was long limped over on the floor and his state grew worse by the second. His body was dehydrated to the point where he was just a sack of bones. His breathing grew dimmer and as he took his final breath, the rampaging Mana Mist stopped its attack on its host. It swiftly reversed its flow heading directly where his Flame Core and singularity were. As if a miracle occurred, the reversing current of energies mended his body and rejuvenated his spirit. Everything that was burnt healed like new. Like a sword forged in a raging flame, Damien not only recovered but his body reached a higher purity. His newfound body glistened with strength along with what could not be seen on the inside. It was a qualitative change that occurred like a rebirth.
He was cleansed as the Mana Mist came back to his center, where bit by bit the singularity purified it as it arrived. The cleansed Mana Mist was absorbed into the singularity so that it could mold it into its shape. Slowly it repetitively went through the motions until everything was absorbed. The Flame Core came to a halt as it returned to its natural state. In contrast the dot that was a flame singularity roared with uncontrollable force. It wanted to break free from its cage, however no matter how much it shook it did not break. Eventually it had no other choice than to conform and unite into a single fluid point. Once that occurred it shined with golden rays, escaping its prison.
It was only a matter of an instant before everything died down and returned to normal. The Flame Core stood as it always did with its pure white flame. The only change was that there was no longer a vast amount of Mana Mist circulating about, but a single dot of blazing gold energy. It had the property of a fluid as tiny ripples moved about inside of it. Under its own will it went through a peculiar route through Damien’s Meridians, shining down onto the renewed structural walls. They were so pure like mirrors that allowed the light of the drop of Mana Fluid to bounce throughout his entire system. It shined everything so brightly that it enhanced and ushered new levels of power to every part of his body. Once it completed a full circulation it arrived back to the center where it stayed as its new home. Its power from that point was enough to emanate to every part and when the time came that more drops of Mana Fluid were made to create a flowing system through his meridians, his strength would evolve to new levels never seen before on the Zyres Continent. When Damien comes to, he would find he had finally surmounted the wall past the Earth Realm and into the Sky Realm.