Tristan and Yue were walking together down the sect's corridor.

Yue thought about how people reacted to him. She noticed that he drew quite a bit of attention, and since she was walking with him, she was also attracting that attention. Several faces turned to her with confusion, then to him, some people looked at him with disdain, others with fear. This made her realize something.

‘That must be why I've never seen him around anyone else in the last few months. I thought it was just his usual solitary behavior, but it seems like people are avoiding being near him. Why? What happened?’

“Hey, Dusk, um, why are people acting that way around you?” She decided not to bring up Mei and Ning’s comments about him.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at the people around them.

“Oh, that? It must be because of what happened when I joined the Second Flying Dao.”

He shrugged and continued.

“I had some issues with the older apprentices, nothing major.”

She looked at him suspiciously, and a small frown appeared on her face, but since it seemed he didn't want to talk about it, she decided to let it go.

“Well, whatever. So, have you learned anything new?” she asked him. She knew Dusk wasn’t the type who liked to talk, but martial arts and magic were subjects he seemed capable of discussing like a normal person.

Tristan’s eyes narrowed slightly, and an angry expression almost crossed his face. He sighed and said:

“I still haven’t been able to create any movement techniques, nor have I learned any new ones.”

She shook her head, clicked her tongue, and said, “I told you that you should have asked Jian for help. He’s a Darkness cultivator like you. Asking for help once won't kill you, you know?”

He rolled his eyes and didn’t reply.

Then, his lips curved slightly upward, and his eyes subtly brightened.

“But I did discover something cool. Want to see?”

image [https://i.imgur.com/CJALaUN.png]

Tristan took her to a small storage room where the cleaning supplies were kept.

He put his hand inside his shirt and started searching for something, then he pulled out a prism-shaped blue crystal about the size of his palm.

Yue’s hair stood on end, and her stomach churned with memories of the monstrous ants they had encountered months ago. She took a step back and said:

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What do you need that for?”

“Watch.”

He closed his eyes and gripped the crystal tightly.

Yue saw black mist and white fire emanating from his body, the power of his strong aura made her shrink back a bit.

The white fire and black mist moved towards Tristan’s right hand, which held the blue crystal. The two swirled around his hand as if they were trying to merge. Then, suddenly, the black and white light they emitted began to dim, growing weaker over time as if they were about to disappear.

Yue frowned and looked at it, not understanding the purpose of what he was doing. In her mind, this seemed pointless.

“Why is he weakening the elements? Wouldn't it be better to try to make them stronger?”

The black mist and white fire vanished, turning into orange energy.

‘Now comes the hardest part,’ Tristan thought.

He clenched his teeth tightly.

The orange essence in his hand began to change color, the air around the blue crystal started to move violently, and the light from the candles in the room began to flicker, growing stronger and weaker with each passing second.

Yue’s mind was captivated by these phenomena, and she couldn't take her eyes off what was happening. Suddenly, she saw something that made her mouth drop open in shock.

The essence around the blue crystal condensed, turning into small white lightning bolts.

Tristan opened his eyes, smiling slightly. Then he reached his limit and dispelled the lightning, sighing with exhaustion.

“What the hell was that?” she asked excitedly.

“How can you do that? Do you also cultivate Lightning? Since when can you do that? This should be impossible! Are you a triple cultivator now? Can you teach me how to do that? Please!” She stared at him intently, a sparkle in her eyes.

“Calm down first,” he said while calming his breath.

“This isn’t a new cultivation. What you saw is called Qi Transmutation.”

“Oh, Qi Transmutation! That sounds cool.”

“It’s a type of sorcery widely used by alchemists in the eastern region. This kind of thing has always existed, but they were the first to find a good explanation for this phenomenon. They’re the best at it as far as I know.”

Yue listened to what Tristan said attentively.

“The principle behind it is simple. You just need to project your vital energy outside your body, but instead of transforming it into a technique, you need to try to ‘cleanse’ the energy of the element you’re using and return it to its pure form, then you transform that pure energy into another element.”

“Wait! So, you’re telling me it’s possible to use techniques from any Element?” Yue asked.

Tristan nodded and said, “Theoretically, yes, it’s possible to use techniques from any Element.”

After thinking for a bit, he continued speaking.

“The problem is that each step of this is extremely difficult.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, one of the great discoveries the alchemists made is that to make this possible, not only is it necessary to have very high essence control, but your understanding of the elements also influences the success. Basically, you need to know what an Element is and how it influences the world, and that’s not simple at all.”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“Um… I heard stories about someone who could use two different elements, water and blood. Since then, I’ve been curious about how that could be possible, so I started researching it.”

“That’s so cool… Do you think I can learn this too?”

Tristan shrugged.

‘I already know how electricity works, so trying to transmute my vital energy into the Lightning element should be easier, but even with my knowledge of physics and chemistry, it took me months to create simple sparks.’

“I’m not sure. After I started practicing, I realized just how much cultivation techniques make our lives easier by creating a connection with the Elements. Trying to do this on my own was quite complicated.”

Yue looked disappointed.

“Hey, you just learned your first technique. You should focus on mastering one element first before trying to learn another.”

“My progress in my main elements is slow, so I have time for side projects.”