The confidence Ren had felt after his breakthrough to Rank 26 evaporated the moment he set foot on the Anvil of the Firmament. It was a world of crushing, oppressive power, a place that did not welcome life, but merely tolerated its fleeting presence. He stood on the humming black Fulminite, the air so thick with raw Aether it felt like breathing water, and understood the vast difference between a garden and a forge.
He made his first mistake almost immediately. Believing the principles of cultivation were universal, he sat on the warm, vibrating stone, closed his eyes, and attempted to draw in the ambient energy as he had on Aerion's Rest.
The result was a violent rejection. The raw, super-charged lightning Aether of the Anvil was too chaotic, too untamed. It slammed into his spiritual channels not as a nurturing stream, but as a spike of pure, disruptive force. A jolt of agonizing pain shot through him, and his own Aetheric core recoiled, instinctively sealing itself off. He was thrown from his meditative state, gasping, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"The mountain does not bow to the traveler," Zephyrion's voice stated, his spectral form shimmering in the oppressive atmosphere. The spirit looked down at Ren not with scorn, but with the stern patience of a master craftsman observing a foolish apprentice. "You cannot passively drink from a tidal wave. This power must be taken, earned, and subjugated. You will not find your next rank sitting on the ground. You will find it in the heart of the storm."
With a grim resolve, Ren pushed himself to his feet. He recalled the spirit's terrifying instruction: he was to absorb a direct lightning strike. Recalling his previous, catastrophic failure when his Aegis had shattered, he knew a different approach was needed. He wouldn't try to block it this time. He would try to breathe it.
He summoned his Phantom Wings of the Storm and launched himself back into the churning, black clouds. The world became a maelstrom of wind and pressure. He saw the charge build in the air around him, a prelude to the storm's fury. A bolt of wild, white-hot lightning tore through the cloud.
This time, Ren did not summon his Aegis as a shield. He began to enact the Tempest Breathing Method. He tried to sync his Aetheric circulation with the rhythm of the storm, opening his channels on the "in-breath" just before the strike, hoping to guide the energy.
He got the timing wrong.
His spiritual "in-breath" was a fraction of a second too late. The bolt struck him, and while he absorbed a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of its power, the vast majority of its chaotic energy splashed against his spiritual defenses like a physical blow. The pain was immense, and he was thrown from the sky once more, his armor smoking, his channels screaming in protest.
For hours, this became his new reality. It was a brutal, humiliating dance of failure. He would fly into the clouds, attempt the Tempest Breathing Method, misjudge the timing or the intensity of the storm's rhythm, and be swatted from the sky like an insignificant insect. He was forced to use Raijin's Flash as a panic button, a desperate, last-second teleport to evade a bolt he knew he couldn't handle, each use a significant drain on his already strained reserves.
The environment was a relentless, god-like foe. It did not adapt. It simply was. Ren was the one who had to change. He realized, after a dozen painful failures, that he could not force his own rhythm onto the storm. He had to perfectly, absolutely, match its own.
Battered, bruised, and frustrated, he retreated to the surface of the Anvil. He sat on the humming Fulminite, not in meditation, but in quiet observation. He closed his eyes and simply listened, his Aetheric senses extended. He had been trying to listen to the entire orchestra at once—the wind, the pressure, the chaotic discharge of the clouds. It was too vast, too complex. He needed a single instrument to tune himself to.
He remembered his duel with Joric, how he had found the core frequency beneath the chaos of the hunter's stealth art. He applied the same principle now. He filtered out the noise of the sky and focused his senses downward, on the island itself.
He found it. A deep, steady, powerful keynote. The Anvil of the Firmament was not a passive stage for the storm; it was the heart of it. It hummed with a baseline frequency, a resonant thrum that anchored the entire chaotic spectacle. It was the rhythm section of the symphony of destruction.
A fierce, determined grin spread across Ren's face. He had the keynote.
He flew back into the sky, his wings beating with a new purpose. He ignored the howling wind and the shifting pressure. He closed his eyes and focused his entire being on a single task: synchronizing the circulation of his own Aetheric core with the deep, steady hum of the island beneath him. He matched its rhythm, its pulse, its steady, powerful song.
A smaller, arcing bolt of lightning shot from a nearby cloud, aimed directly at him.
Anchored by the island's keynote, Ren enacted the Tempest Breathing Method. His timing was perfect. He "breathed in" with his soul, and a tiny, hair-thin filament of the lightning's raw power flowed harmlessly through his spiritual defenses and directly into his channels.
The energy was agonizingly potent, a single drop of pure, distilled power that was worth more than an hour of gentle cultivation on the lower island. But it was not a backlash. It was not poison. It was pure, glorious fuel.
He hovered in the sky, his armor scorched, his body aching, but his eyes were blazing with a triumphant, fanatical light. He had not gained a rank. He had not absorbed even a single full bolt. But he had discovered the method. He had found the key that would allow him to unlock the forge of the sky. The long, painful, and glorious climb to Rank 27 had just taken its first, crucial step.