Ayame thought aloud as if she were talking to herself.

A sudden idea popped up in her head, "Oh yeah! That's right."

"Imagine a fire created by qi..." She said as she tried to guide her qi to create a small fire, but she was unsuccessful.

"Didn't work... hmm..." Ayame muttered to herself.

"Uhh... fire should be a result of combustion. If I remember correctly, the necessary factors for combustion are fuel, heat, and oxygen..."

She focused and gathered her qi, trying again to produce a flame, "There's no need for oxygen, so the only thing I need is fuel and heat. Fuel huh, hmm, Like gasoline and diesel, perhaps?"

She tried again, but it failed.

"(Sighs) It failed again. How about hydrogen, then? Hydrogen is flammable, right? If I could recall, it was what caused the Hindenburg disaster." Ayame remembered something she had read in history class many years ago.

She tried once more.

This time she managed to ignite a medium-sized ball of gas.

"Ohhhh!!! It worked!!! But how?" Ayame wondered.

"Well, whatever. The important thing now is to keep preventing myself from dying from starvation," Ayame smiled as she watched the flames dancing.

She took the bats and cooked them over the fire. She ate all of the bats in 10 minutes.

"It would be nice to have some bat soup... too bad I left my cooking utensils at the camp..." After finishing her meal, she spent the rest of the night cultivating.

She noticed the flame took half of her total qi reserves. "To think activating Iron Skin and Hydrogen Flame simultaneously could use up that much qi... I wonder how much qi that man used to power those smoke-like objects."

Ayame decided to clear her head from unnecessary thoughts and began cultivating.

Surprisingly, she was able to gather qi much faster than last time.

After an unknown number of days, Ayame broke through and reached the Spirit Transformation Realm.

"Finally!" She shouted as she raised both arms above her head with excitement.

Ayame opened her eyes wide and looked around.

Her vision blurred slightly due to lack of sleep and hunger.

Ayame sat upright, rubbed her sleepy face, and then stood up slowly as she stretched her limbs.

"That guy should be gone by now." Ayame jumped back into the river and exited the cave.

She swam downstream far from where she jumped, just in case the golden-haired man sent someone to monitor the waterfall.

Ayame checked the area and saw no one was there. She decided to catch fish with her Meikyō Shisui.

Eventually, she spotted a familiar trail and headed toward her camp. Thankfully it hadn't been discovered or attacked by anyone else yet.

Ayame took her cooking utensils and began cooking the fish.

As she cooked, she started thinking back to what had happened.

Everything seemed fine, besides being hungry and weak, and she had a headache from using the Divine Origin qi gathering technique.

However, Ayame still felt uneasy because of the strange behavior of the golden-haired man. He was acting so weird. He could've chased her all the way into the waterfall.

Stolen story; please report.

After eating, she decided to begin using Asura Warpath Sutra.

"Interesting..." She said as she discovered what Asura Warpath Sutra contained. Unlike the Divine Origin Manual, which only had one technique, Asura Warpath Sutra contained two techniques, a qi utilization technique and a qi refinement technique.

According to the book, the qi utilization technique enhances the output power by 300%. Unfortunately, it can only use the Asura Warpath Qi, a type of qi created by the refinement technique within the Asura Warpath Sutra. It converts other types of qi inside the cultivator's body into Asura Warpath Qi.

"This is great, I can use this..." said Ayame, smiling from ear to ear as she wanted to fight that golden-haired man again.

Ayame began using Asura Warpath Sutra.

She clenched her teeth, and her whole body began shaking, "Fuck..! That fucking hurts!" She groaned.

It felt like something was drilling over her body while a burning hot magma was inside her skin.

She closed her eyes and focused on controlling her mind and body to push through the pain, "Calm down... calm down... control... Control!!"

She focused on maintaining control as she tried to suppress the painful feeling.

She gritted her teeth even harder. She was panting heavily at this point. Her entire body felt like it was burning up.

After a few more moments, the intense agony intensified, and her body started feeling even worse.

An unknown time had passed, but the pain was searing hot now, and she knew she couldn't take it any longer. Her eyes were popping out of their sockets, and her fingertips felt like they were on fire. Her teeth had begun breaking from the pressure of clenching, the sensation of shattering glass and splintering wood stabbing into her gums. Her hands were bleeding profusely, and her fingernails dug furrows into her palms. Her heart was beating violently in her chest, and she could taste the blood in her throat. She was going to lose herself to the pain.

Crimson-red dots appeared on her face like a rash spreading as the pressure built up in her skull. She accidentally bit down hard on her tongue, causing blood to come out of her mouth. She tried focusing her focus on stopping the pain as much as possible.

She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping it would stop.

After several agonizing seconds, the excruciating pain stopped, but only for a second, as her muscles began cramping.

Her whole body was crumbling from the pain, but it soon stopped. She had broken through the intermedial stage of the Spirit Transformation Realm.

For a few moments, she remained standing there as she recovered from the pain. Her legs trembled. She held her side in pain. Sweat dripped down her face as she continued breathing heavily, trying to regulate her breathing and recover from the intense pain.

She opened her eyes and scrutinized her physical condition.

She was breathing heavily from all that exertion as she was exhausted. Her entire body felt drained, but she didn't feel weak.

Her throat felt dry.

She coughed and spat some blood.

The blood had stained her clothes.

She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth as she took another sip from her canteen. She drank the water greedily before gulping it down.

Lin Feng's words, "It will accelerate your cultivation, but only if you can endure the excruciating pain that comes along with it. This process cannot be undone once started.", ran through her mind.

She thought the 'excruciating pain' referred to the side effects of Divine Origin Qi Gathering, but its side effects were like an ant bite compared to Asura Warpath Sutra's side effects.

She decided to go inside her sleeping bag. She felt as though she could fall asleep immediately. Her whole body hurt, but she felt a sense of relief after she was finally comfortable.

She stared at the ceiling of the tent and closed her eyes.

She hoped she could find some rest for a short while.

A pair of grandmother and grandson stood on an unknown island in the pacific.

"Granny Xiang, was it really fine giving Asura Warpath Sutra on that little girl? I've seen what it did to people who tried to use it. It was not a pretty sight. Didn't our ancestors seal that book five hundred years ago because it's very hazardous?" Lin Feng asked worriedly.

"Lin Feng, you're right. Asura Warpath Sutra is a dangerous technique, but it's that dangerous only for people who can't control it. That young lady had decent talent, and most importantly, she had vast experience. She is one of the most talented kids I've seen in my life." Granny Xiang stated.

"But granny, Asura Warpath Sutra is a rank nine scriptures. Even the ten families that control the Cultivator Bureau only had six." Lin Feng reminded her.

"Asura Warpath Sutra is different from the other rank nine scriptures. It doesn't require a high level of cultivation but rather helps build an unshakeable foundation. It's useless to those with high cultivation. And," Granny Xiang explained before sighing.

"I told you before that I could see the future in exchange for my lifespan, right? Trust me. Ayame will bring us to the goal we've been striving for." Granny Xiang stated while gritting her teeth, "We will make the Ma clan pay, even if we have to sell our souls to the devil."

Lin Feng frowned. Hearing the old granny's speech, he was not sure at all that the decision was correct. But this was not a decision that he could make, so he nodded and said, "I understand."

Meanwhile, on the other part of the forest,

"Boss! We found the tent she's in." One guard reported at the golden-haired man.

"I knew she was alive but to think she was this close to us... Alright, we'll head there. Follow my lead." The golden-haired man commanded. "I'll rip off her skin with my bare hands and make her pay for humiliating us..." The golden-haired man said with malice palpable beneath his tone.