Aurelia manifested out of thin air in front of him, her arms crossed and staring at the youth with a frown.

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

“I want to use the storm to power my Parting Storm formation.” Red said.

The woman’s eyes widened. “You want to break through right now?”

The youth nodded.

“I can’t tell whether you’re being stupid or courageous.” She shook her head. “What makes you think that you’re in the best condition to attempt this?”

“It’s a feeling. Nothing else.”

It was actually more than that. In truth, as Aurelia claimed, he wasn’t in the best condition, even after a night of sleep - not to mention the strange dream he underwent. However, the physical condition of his body mattered little for this task, and instead, what mattered were the circumstances he found himself in.

The imperials and who knows who else would be searching for him, meaning he would need to be far more capable to evade their pursuit. That in itself, however, went only second to the true reason he wanted to break through as soon as possible: that being his utter incapability of helping his companions when it truly mattered.

Red faced people much stronger than him in the past and came out on top. Yet, his victories then were a mixture of opportunism and luck, and the battle with the ghost made it clear that no cunning plan could cross the rift between a mortal and a powerful cultivator. He didn’t blame himself for the death of his companions, yet his pure helplessness to contribute to the fight on his own wore away at his mind.

If he opened his Spiritual Sea back then, maybe his master wouldn’t need to sacrifice himself to kill Rog. Maybe he would have been able to intercept the zombified hunter before he pierced Domeron. Those were two people he could have saved if he had crossed that rift before then, and even if their ultimate fate didn’t change, it was a possibility that Red couldn’t help but ponder about.

This feeling, above all else, made him keen to strive to open his Spiritual Sea as soon as possible.

“Right.” Aurelia nodded, massaging her temples. “There is, however, a big problem, isn’t there?”

This was, of course, the fact that the youth lacked the three aspect Spirit Stones to power the formation. Those were a Wind Spirit Stone, a Water Spirit Stone, and a Lightning Spirit Stone, each one far rarer than a common Spirit Stone.

“The elemental Spirit Stones.” Red nodded. “I have a plan, though-”

“I can guess what your plan is - you want to use the storm to replace the energy from the Elemental Spirit Stones, correct?”

The youth nodded again.

Aurelia sighed as if she was staring at a child. “Right, where do you want me to start about how many issues are with that plan?”

“I have some ideas as to what those are, but I would appreciate your insight.” Red said.

She scoffed. “First of all, in principle, your idea could work. A powerful storm would change the prevailing attributes of the surrounding Spiritual Energy, but that being said, this is over a huge area. You would need the total condensed energy of kilometers around you to have the equivalent of one Spirit Stone, not to mention dozens of them. Suffice it to say, I doubt you have such a method to accomplish this.”

“Maybe so, but there is something I could use - Spiritual Leylines.”

Much like the very air they breathed, the Spiritual Energy in the atmosphere of their world moved in certain patterns. Looking at it close by, one might only see chaotic streams of energy without rhyme or reason, but if one studied these movements in wider areas, they would notice the movement of large streams of energy was quite orderly and predictable.

Sects used this knowledge in the past to construct their Holy Sites in places where these streams of Spiritual Energy met with large density, the best places in the world to cultivate. Many other factions that came after tried to follow their example, though they had no choice but to get the second best options, a whole level below what the Sects had to themselves.

Some of these leylines, however, could still be found in the wild, too weak to attract the attention of any faction, but perhaps strong enough for Red’s purposes.

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“It’s good that you know that much, but that doesn’t make the problem any simpler.” Aurelia shook her head. “Even a leyline like this is rare in the forest, and if there is any nearby, there’s probably a strong beast making their lair there.”

“That might not be the case.” Red shook his head. “The monsters of this forest prefer their dens to wide open lairs. If they are searching for any gathering of energy, they will look for Spirit Vein.”

This term was, of course, not to be confused with the Spiritual Veins in a cultivator’s body, though they were similar in a lot of ways. Opposite to leylines, Spirit Veins ran beneath the earth in large interconnecting channels that spread all over the continent. Particularly strong gathering of these veins gave birth to Spirit Stone Mines and Spirit Springs, and many monster made their lair near such places.

The woman frowned. “You know more about these monsters than me, so I can take your word for it. However, even if that’s the case, how would you propose we find one of these leylines?”

“You can do it.” Red said, without hesitation.

This gave the woman pause. “… What makes you think that?”

“You absorbed a lot of energy from that woman. I don’t know how much of it you have assimilated or how strong that makes you, but detecting a gathering of energy strong enough for my purposes shouldn’t be much problem.”

This was, of course, more of a guess than anything, but Red didn’t think he was off base, and judging by the woman’s expression, he was right.

Aurelia grunted. “I can see you thought about this a lot. Yes, I can find something like that, but there’s no guarantee we can reach it before the storm is over.”

Red nodded, getting up. “Then we should get moving.”

“Wait!” She stopped him. “There’s still another issue. How are you planning on absorbing this energy into your formation?”

These words caused the youth to hesitate. “… I will make some modifications to the formation so it may absorb energy from our surroundings instead of from a Spirit Stone.”

She snorted. “You will modify it? You have never even built this formation in the first place, what makes you think you can modify it?”

“While I can’t assure my success, I know what I need to do in principle. It should be possible, and it’s something that I want to try.”

Aurelia squinted at him. “Alright, let’s suppose that I can find a strong enough leyline and you manage to modify your formation by some miracle. There will be plenty of wind and water energy from the rain and gusts, but not nearly enough lightning energy near the forest floor.”

“We will find a tall hill nearby so we can be closer to the lightning.” Red said.

“A tall hill? Are you stupid?” She glared at him. “Lightning happens kilometers above our head! Where will you find a hill that tall?”

The youth looked at her. “I will attract lightning to strike at the formation.”

“You… Do you want to die?”

“It should be fine. I will launch a projectile connected to a metal wire high enough to conduct lightning to strike it and flow into the formation.”

Aurelia looked baffled. “Do you even have enough wire for that?”

Red nodded. “I have a few hundred meters of it. It should be enough for what I’m doing if we pick a hill tall enough.”

Before leaving town, the youth had, of course, brought along all the materials to build his formation. One of the materials just so happened to be a copper wire, a conductive material meant to draw the lightning energy from the Aspect Spirit Stone into the main body of the formation. Now, it could be used for a different purpose.

“… How are you sure that will work?” She asked.

“The book my master gave me for crafting describes a similar method for attracting lightning energy.” Red said. “Though the method is a bit different, it should still work with a conductive metal in principle. After all, it’s from your sect, isn’t it?”

Aurelia frowned. “And how are you going to throw hundreds of meters of a copper wire straight up into the sky?”

“I have a pretty strong throw.”

There was a silence as the youth said that.

Aurelia was the one to break as she stared at him with bewilderment. “There is so much that can go wrong with this plan that I don’t know where to start.”

“Yet, if I play my parts right, it should work, correct?” Red asked.

“I would certainly like to see you try.” She shook her head. “Why do you need to do this now? Wasn’t it your plan to search for the Aspected Spirit Stones in the capital?”

“There is no guarantee that I will be able to find any, much less afford it.” Red said. “Besides, I need all the strength I can to disguise myself in that place.”

‘And I can’t wait any longer for this.’

Aurelia sighed. “You know that if you fail, it could be disastrous, right? Even if I find a leyline, even if you somehow manage to make the formation work, even if you don’t die from the lightning, there is simply no guarantee you will even be able to breakthrough on your first try. If you fail, then it’s very likely you will need to gather the materials for your formation all over again.”

“I know.” Red nodded. “Which is why I won’t fail.”

The youth was aware of the consequences, yet something changed in him after the confrontation at the sect. The willingness to take a risk, to put this enormous pressure on his back, it was what he needed to accomplish the impossible. It was what he always used to take a step forward and overcome overwhelming odds to come out on top.

It was how he thrived, and it was how he would always find success in this cultivation. The only difference, this time, is that this pressure was partially self-inflicted.

Aurelia stared at him, as if trying to see his true thoughts through his cold countenance. At the end of the day, though, she shook her head in defeat.

“You are a lunatic.” She said.

“Will you do it then?” Red asked.

“Sure.” She nodded. “Whether you succeed or you fail, it will be a sight worth seeing either way.”

Aurelia pointed at the blocked off entrance of the den. The sound of the storm hadn’t diminished since they started talking, and it seemed like it would last for a while still.

“Now let’s be on our way.” she said. “If we are doing this, then we are doing this right.”