"Show them, Lady Zara" Pef commanded as the breakfast came to an end.

Eyes turned curious towards the female Core Disciple, even the Saints seeming a bit curious. The Holy Son was always full of surprises or insight, and thus any lesson was precious.

Biting her lower lip, the woman stood up and raised her hands in front, then pushed out with her soul, forming a weak, but real Water Domain filling the kitchen.

"... Curious. I'm certain little Zara is merely an Emperor...yet she has a Domain. Is this your doing, Holy Son?" the Lake Saint asked softly, while raising an eyebrow on her serene face.

"Pef had a Domain as well, also in Emperor Realm. Perhaps it's not that difficult, with the right method." Rena spoke while focused on her own, genial son.

Sad smiles spread among the people at the table, all of them not so convinced of such theory.

The Saber Saint frowned, as if trying to understand something. He then just stood up and walked away, grabbing the broom by the door as he walked out.

In truth, it just pained him to be excluded from all the wonderous lessons given by the Holy Son, to everyone around except him. He knew it was petty, and perhaps even childish to feel that way, but feelings came by themselves, not on command. He would swipe the Outer Court grounds again, and meditate.

Pef just turned towards his grandpa, the Elder with the blue flames Skill. "Grandpa, I believe you can also achieve a Domain, want to try?" he asked in a mild voice.

The old man faltered for a second." I'm still in Sky Realm, Holy Son." he answered a bit hesitant.

"Exactly. It is precisely my point. Your strength has little to do with understanding the Dao. In fact, I believe you will achieve two Domains today." Pef mused out loud, after considering the other aids his grandpa had, the Icefire sprite in his core and the inner screen, plus the flames Skill.

"...Cough! I'd like to see this, if I can." the Lake Saint demanded in a respectful tone.

Beside her, the Fox Saint smiled a bit mischievously, although she abstained to giggle. She had to respect the stronger Saint, but the way the little blonde teacher maneuvered to entice the Lake Saint into helping was rather masterful.

Pef just glanced at her, then at his other disciple, Zhong Di. "Next week, I guess. If my theory is correct, then Lady Di will qualify for a Domain as well." he spoke in a categorical tone, making the Lake Saint and the younger Spirit Realm disciple stare at one another in confusion.

Lady Zara shifted a dozen faces, before settling on terrified horror. "She would melt..." she muttered in a low voice, eyes wide as she recalled the insane fires inside the test room.

Even an Emperor would melt, if they didn't achieve their Domain fast enough.

Pef just waved the objections away, with a careless gesture. "Nobody has ever died in the testing array."

The Fox Saint blinked at the words, and wisely abstained at adding 'Yet' to that statement.

A couple of hours later, while locked in the metal array room, Elder Gonxian sweated bullets as infernal flames began melting through his Ice Barrier.

'I will melt soon! Lady Zara was right...' he cried inward.

'Stop whining, old man. Just look at your inner screen! Do you see?' the Icefire Avatar spoke in a level tone.

Indeed, on his internal screen vital functions and mental scans showed only a mild discomfort, plus a couple of 'panic' and 'claustrophobia' markers.

'Oh wait! I have my own flames...' the Novice Alchemist muttered inward while closing his eyes, as his blue flames sprang out to cover his body.

At the same time, the big Icefire was rapidly shifting runes as it modified the inner screen formation, and updated its sensory abilities even more. 'Just a little more. Hold on, little user! The Dao connection should be somewhere in these lines of code...' the Icefire mumbled inward, trying to catch the moment a Domain formed.

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And indeed, less than a minute later, a few lines of runes whirled by themselves, just as Elder Gonxian began pushing out his own Water Domain to counter the incoming flames.

'We found it! It was well hidden, but a Domain appearing had changed them. Denser runes, and longer, but we marked the code section. You were right once more, little user.' Pef's Icefire sprite exulted as it projected the marked section of code inside Pef's mind.

'Good! Now, let's find a second Domain marker.' Pef said in a relaxed tone, as he began preparing the artificial Domain array to project a Water Domain instead.

"Rest for a minute, grandpa. Next one is Water." the blonde boy spoke via the Sound Arrays of the test chamber, making the old man inside cringe a little.

"Can I get a Fire Domain as well?" Lady Zara asked in a more confident voice, now that she saw the experiment was progressing well. If a mere Sky Realm cultivator could gain two Domains, there wasn't any reason she couldn't do it too. Right?

Pef opened a curious eye and glanced at his eager disciple. "My grandpa is rather special, Lady Zara. He also wields Icefire." he explained in a calm voice, just as he finished preparations of the new array.

To his side, the Fox Saint smiled softly, and pressed her palm on the qi absorption plate of the device. Maintaining a mild drain, as to not overwhelm the fragile cultivator inside the test room, she began pumping a constant stream of qi in the device, filling the 'capacitor banks' with energy for the array.

The Holy Son kept coming up with wild or strange names for the devices he invented, though how an array formation was in any was similar to the golden token of the Association was rather unknown. Those formation plates didn't store energy, only the identity and wealth of the user...

As a deluge of water and ice shards filled the metal room, Lady Zara began reconsidering her words.

The man inside had his own blue flames to protect himself, but she didn't have anything like that. Unless...

"Perhaps, I can also hold a tiny Icefire fragment..."she wondered in a slight daze.

"Perhaps you can, Lady Zara. Convincing the Sect Master to let you meet Icefire is a different problem though." Pef answered in a serious voice.

Anyways, the topic had to wait for now, as Grandpa Gonxian struggled inside the test room for his very life. Unlike the inborn Element Essence of any cultivator, be it Water or Air or any other, and thus constant practice with that Element, gaining a second Domain required a deep understanding of the Dao, especially if it was an opposite Element.

This was in fact the starting road for an Elder God Realm, that required complete understanding of two Opposite Daos, for example Ice and Fire.

The metal room of the array filled with an azure light, as the Sky Realm old man reached the limit of his qi reserves, and called upon the Icefire sprite to hold back the water deluge.

"I could say that's cheating...but there is no such thing on the road to cultivation. You win or you die." Pef remarked in a low tone as a Fire Domain appeared around his grandpa and pushed back the artificial Water Domain, while the azure glow vanished.

'You can bring the smart girl, little one. I want to test the new screen formation on someone new.' Icefire itself spoke inside Pef's mind, sounding rather excited for some reason.

Pef turned off the array and scratched at his cheek while nodding towards the Fox Saint. "I guess we'll go visit Icefire now."