Atomization and Soul Furnace

"What if?..."

Meng Tian's Soul inside his consciousness space was staring at the bottle of recovery serum in its hands. He knew that his Soul could interact with any item in this space. He only used this interaction ability to open and read books till now. But this time, he remembered how his Soul would devour compressed Qi every time he leveled up his Water Talent.

He opened the cap of the bottle and saw the green recovery serum inside it. He took a small breath and poured the contents into his mouth. As the green liquid flowed out of the bottle and entered the mouth of his Soul, it disappeared completely.

Immediately he felt a searing pain coming from the depths of his Soul, and he instantly lost consciousness.

By the time he opened his eyes, he was still sitting near the vending machine. He checked the time and about ten minutes had passed after his Soul swallowed the serum. His entire body was covered in cold sweat and he was bewildered by what had happened.

"How... What... happened!? I remember my Soul swallowing the serum and then a searing pain knocked me out..." His vision was a little blurry but he could see several blue pop-up screens in front of his eyes.

[Consumption Criteria not met... Switching to Atomization...]

[Atomization Complete... Initiating Soul Furnace...]

[Elemental Conversion Complete...]

[Talent Unlocked: Elemental Wood Affinity]

[Energy Points +1000]

Meng Tian was completely dumbfounded by the prompts. He promptly looked into his consciousness space and found that his Soul was sitting in a meditative position as usual. But there was a small change... The Soul was now cyan in color... A mixture of blue and green.

Meng Tian's Soul body closed his eyes and started to feel the elemental energy around him. He could feel an intelligible connection with two different types of energy, one much stronger than the other. He felt just like a little child cradled in the embrace of his mother.

He opened his eyes a couple of seconds later and started to think back to his experiment. He tried drinking the recovery serums as he remembered how his Soul could swallow the compressed Elemental Qi. But this step only came after he had unlocked his Water Talent. He forgot about this...

As he was thinking, Meng Tian stood up and bought a bottle of water from the vending machine nearby. He directly put the bottle in his consciousness space, hesitated for a moment and used his Soul to directly consume the water. But this time, there was no pain what-so-ever.

[Consumption Criteria not met... Switching to Atomization...]

[Atomization Complete... Initiating Soul Furnace...]

[Elemental Conversion Complete...]

[Energy Points +1]

From this experience, he naturally figured out certain conditions for using the Soul to directly absorb items. Meng Tian's Soul could only directly absorb pure elemental qi... But the prerequisite was the elemental talent to do so.

Anything else swallowed by it would not meet the 'Consumption Criteria'. He already possessed the Water talent, but still had to go through the process of 'Atomization' and 'Soul Furnace', to convert the swallowed water into its Elemental Qi.

This confirmed his theory... If his Soul wants to swallow anything, the associated talent should already be unlocked. Otherwise, a dangerous process of 'Atomization' and 'Soul Furnace' would take place, that was absolutely out of his control.

Cold Sweat trickled down his back as he thought back to the searing pain from his Soul.

Meng Tian did not entirely understand the kind of danger he was in. The Soul Furnace is a process by which the materials swallowed by the Soul would be converted into their respective Elemental essences. This process required for the Soul itself to act as a Furnace.

If his Soul was not strong enough, this would have probably lead to his Soul burning out resulting in his existence being completely wiped out.

"I was lucky that I had leveled up my cultivation and my water talent, which increased my Soul Strength and Soul Quality respectively. Otherwise, this Soul Furnace process would have probably burnt my Soul completely leaving nothing behind..."

"But, I also obtained a new way to acquire talents. If I have sufficient soul strength, I can swallow different elements to unlock their respective talents... The prospects are too wide, I have to experiment slowly..."

"I can directly consume the recovery serums using my soul now. 'Wood Talent' huh... It might be that these serums can only be produced by those who have a talent in wood. If that is the case, I can probably make my own serums once I get the recipes and the materials. Hmm... That's too far away though."

Meng Tian had many thoughts scroll through his mind in just a couple of seconds, but he stopped thinking and looked at the hundreds of recovery serums inside his consciousness space.

"I need more strength..."

Like a hungry beast, he started drinking up the recovery serums as if there was no tomorrow. If anybody saw Meng Tian now, they'd only see him resting on the chair. Within 15 minutes, he drank up 500 bottles of this recovery serum and got a total of 500,000 Energy Points.

He did not rush to use them up immediately. He stood up from the chair and walked towards one of the toilets nearby. By the time he reached the toilet, it had already been more than half an hour since his meeting with Principal Ren and his six camp mates.

"Time to Level up"

10,000 Energy Points spent... [Foundation Establishment Lv.2 (0/2000)]

As he added the huge amount of Energy Points at once, the golden platform inside his dantian shook a little. The blue runic markings on the platform began to glow with a resplendent holy light... It seemed as though it was trying to summon and form a connection with something.

The twelve meridians inside his body starting responding to this summoning, and a new extraordinary meridian started connecting these meridians to the golden platform inside his dantian. This meridian was previously invisible, and only now after the golden platform called for it, did it show up.

Once the connection was established, this extraordinary meridian started sucking in large amounts of Qi that filled the dantian. This process lasted for a couple of seconds and finally when it felt like it had enough, the meridian stopped devouring the Qi.

Immediately, the dantian was once again filled with Qi out of nowhere, and began to gradually congeal into an identical but smaller golden platform, with green runic markings all over its faces. The center of this golden platform also fashioned a green runic lotus.

Meng Tian observed the entire process with a very keen eye. He was not privy to any information about what was happening inside his body. The only realm that he clearly knew how he had progressed was the Body Forging Realm (Martial Apprentice), as he had the manual for the same form his Master.

But for Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment, he had completely relied on his system, which probably was forging the best path for him. "This new meridian, the different colored runic markings, the lotuses,... All of these things are completely alien to my understanding. I have to find more cultivation manuals sooner rather than later. I have to understand what is going on."

Once the platform was completely formed, the dantian came to peace once again. Two golden platforms placed on top of each other, each glowing with different colored runic markings were quietly floating there. Meng Tian observed for a few more seconds to spot any other changes. He then added more Energy Points to complete the second level of Foundation Establishment.

20,000 Energy Points spent... [Foundation Establishment Lv.3 (0/3000)]

Similar to what happened before, the two-layered square platform started shaking and summoning another new extraordinary meridian from his body. A brand new meridian once again showed up answering the summons. It acted like a bridge connecting the twelve meridians to the second level of his Foundation Platform.

The second extraordinary meridian started devouring Qi and filled itself up. The Qi inside the dantian then began to congeal into a new golden platform with red runic markings, and a red runic lotus at its center. Meng Tian's dantian now possessed a three-layer square foundation platform exuding an ancient regal aura.

Meng Tian continued leveling up his cultivation...

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Author Notes:

Atomization: Breaking up something into its constituent particles.