The Crucible of Ascent
Time, under the lash of relentless discipline, ceased to be days and became a seamless flow of effort, exhaustion, and incremental growth. For Yao Xuan, life fell into a rhythm as precise as a master blacksmith's hammer strike.
School days were a triad of trials: morning combat drills under Wu Zhangkong's glacial gaze, where the air grew sharp with focused intent; afternoons immersed in the dense theory of soul power manipulation and tactical history, his mind a sponge absorbing centuries of distilled knowledge; and evenings in the advanced arena, a nightly crucible where he, Gu Yue, Xie Xie, and Tang Wulin learned the brutal poetry of coordinated combat against their teacher's unforgiving prowess.
Weekends offered a different forge. Alongside Tang Wulin, he would walk to the Blacksmiths' Association, the shift from combat gear to leather apron feeling like a change of skin. Here, the roar of the furnace and the song of hammer on metal were a meditation, a grounding counterpoint to the ethereal struggles of the soul. The Federal Coins earned from Hundred-Refining commissions were a practical reward, but the true currency was the steady accumulation of experience in his hands and soul.
And so, two and a half months bled away, each sunrise etching its lessons into his being.
His soul power, cultivated by the profound Creation Soul Forging Technique, had swelled to the very precipice of a major realm. He stood at Level 19, a staggering 99.5% completion. The final 0.5% was a gulf wider than the sum of the previous levels, a testament to the qualitative leap from Soul Master to Great Soul Master. One more focused cultivation session would bridge it.
His mental strength, honed by the same god-level technique, had grown with metronomic steadiness, gaining over a point per week. It now stood at 207, firmly anchoring him in the mid-stage of the Spirit Connection Realm. His perception of the world was increasingly layered, allowing him to sense the flow of soul power in others and the subtle stresses in metal with ever-greater clarity.
The Ancestral Dragon Bloodline, the deep wellspring of his power, had drunk deeply from the constant battles. Though the Golden Evolution Points awarded per fight had diminished as he adapted—from ten to a still-significant five—the twice-daily clashes provided a relentless drip-feed. Nearly a thousand points over this period had been invested without hesitation, pushing his bloodline concentration from 11.7% to 14.5%. He could feel the approach of a threshold—15%—where a second cycle of Qi and Blood would awaken within him, promising another explosive surge in his foundational might.
Even without that second cycle, his physical power was now monstrous. Three thousand kilograms of raw strength resided in his untransformed body. With his martial soul manifested, it leapt to four and a half thousand. And when he invoked the Right Claw Dragon Transformation, a terrifying force nearing seven thousand kilograms could be unleashed, a power that made Wu Zhangkong himself subtly adjust his suppression from early to mid-stage Great Soul Master levels to maintain the necessary pressure.
In the forging room, under Mu Chen's watchful eye, his hands had learned a deeper language. The master's notes were cryptic maps to higher understanding, and through trial, error, and flashes of insight, Yao Xuan's success rate for Second Grade Thousand Refined metal now approached one in five. The perfect, singing clarity of First Grade—the gateway to Level 4 Blacksmith and the mysteries of Spirit Forging—was no longer a distant dream, but a visible peak on the horizon.
And there was the team. The four of them—Yao Xuan, Gu Yue, Xie Xie, and Tang Wulin—had been hammered into a single unit by Wu Zhangkong's relentless tests. Their movements interlocked; a defensive shift from Tang Wulin would create an opening for Xie Xie's darting strike, which Gu Yue would exploit with a precisely timed elemental lockdown. Yet, the most seamless symphony existed between Yao Xuan and Gu Yue. It was a connection that operated on a level beyond strategy, a wordless, instinctual dance where a glance dictated a feint, and a shift in stance signaled a combined assault. Xie Xie and Tang Wulin would often joke, with a mixture of awe and chagrin, about Yao Xuan's "prioritization," teasing him for the unspoken harmony he shared with their silver-haired teammate.
Yet, for all their synchronicity, the personal distance between Yao Xuan and Gu Yue remained, a careful, deliberate space. Yao Xuan could feel the pull—the same magnetic draw he had felt with Na'er, now tempered by Gu Yue' regal reserve and sharp intelligence. He sensed her efforts to be near him, to converse, to train alongside him, yet always with a veil of self-control.
'Is she wary?' he wondered during quiet moments. 'Does she fear that moving too quickly will shatter the careful persona she's built, or make her intentions too obvious?' He understood her caution. The aura of the Ancestral Dragon was a siren call to her draconic essence, a pull she must consciously restrain to maintain her human guise and her own formidable pride.
The night of his planned breakthrough arrived. This was not a step to be taken in a noisy dormitory. At his request, Mu Chen had granted him access to a private cultivation chamber within the Association—a room reserved for masters seeking ascension.
The chamber was a sphere of serene power. Soul-gathering arrays etched into the walls in platinum and mithril glowed with a soft, persistent light, pulling ambient energy into a dense, tranquil fog. But the true luxury scented the air: the subtle, spicy-sweet fragrance of Soul-Calming Incense, crafted from millennia-old spiritual herbs. A single stick cost a fortune in Federal Credits, a priceless aid for breaching major realms. Mu Chen's gift of it was a silent shout of belief.
Seated in the lotus position at the chamber's center, Yao Xuan closed his eyes. The scale necklace resting against his chest felt warm, a tiny anchor to his purpose. He thought of Na'er's trusting smile, of Gu Yue's proud, guarded amethyst eyes, of the vast, unseen threats that lurked in the future's shadow.
He took a deep breath, drawing in the incense-laden air. It cooled his mind, sharpening his focus to a razor's edge.
Then, he began.
The Creation Soul Forging Technique activated not with a roar, but with a deep, internal hum. It was as if a divine furnace had ignited within his dantian. The enriched spiritual energy in the room responded instantly, flowing towards him not in a wild rush, but in disciplined, powerful streams visible as faint, shimmering currents in the air.
He guided this incoming torrent, his enhanced meridians—fortified by dragon blood—channeling the colossal energy without strain. Within his dantian, the already dense sea of his soul power began to churn. The technique compressed, purified, and integrated the new energy, each cycle adding a drop to an ocean that was now at capacity.
The bottleneck between Level 19 and 20—the gate to Great Soul Master—loomed not as a wall, but as a final, taut membrane holding back a tidal wave.
Yao Xuan's consciousness became the hammer. His will became the anvil.
With immense, controlled pressure, he directed the burgeoning power within him, cycle after cycle of the technique, and slammed it against that inner barrier.
CRACK.
A sound heard only in the soul. A fissure of light in the darkness of limitation.
He did not relent. He poured everything into the next surge—the refined soul power, the resonance of his bloodline, the disciplined strength of his spirit, and the unwavering image of those he fought for.
The membrane held for a breathtaking moment of supreme tension.
Then, it shattered.
A silent, golden explosion bloomed from his core, filling every cell with radiant, triumphant power. The spiritual energy in the room vortexed around him, drawn into the vacuum of his expansion before settling into a new, profound equilibrium.
Yao Xuan's eyes snapped open. They blazed with captured sunlight for an instant before the light receded, leaving them deeper, calmer, infinitely more potent.
He was now a Level 20 Soul Master.
A Great Soul Master.
The path ahead stretched further, the challenges greater, but in this quiet chamber, perfumed by priceless incense and the scent of his own triumph, Yao Xuan took the first, firm step onto that new, exalted plateau. The Ancestral Dragon had begun its true ascent.