Enlightenment

Lei Mingxing's sweat ran down her face, falling on the burning furnace and disappearing with a sizzle. Steam rose from every part of her body that touched the hot metal.

Her skin was searing, her dress already painfully sticking to the open burn wounds because of the dissipating wound drainage and blood, not to mention the flesh that was clinging onto the furnace itself, all this told Lei Mingxing that the removal process later would be just as awful and painful as what she was experiencing right now.

But it wasn't like she had never experienced something like this, actually, this was almost a joke compared to some of the acid burns she had received in her previous life, it hadn't even reached the bones yet.

So, Lei Mingxing was able to mostly remain calm hugging the furnace, the thing that did make her nervous however, was her quickly draining Qi.

After thoroughly exhausting it during their escape last night, she simply didn't have enough time to recover enough naturally in the few hours until the competition and there was also no chance for Lei Mingxing to retreat somewhere secret to cultivate for a bit.

This meant that she had entered the competition with a little over two-thirds of her usual Qi and was currently hanging onto the quickly diminishing last spouts of energy. Her meridians were almost entirely drained at this point, but she still forced herself to concentrate and continue supplying the already crumbling furnace with a pale face.

The longer she kept this up and the emptier her Qi reserves became, the more her shaking body tensed. She could feel her dantian painfully rotating, trying to distribute Qi around her body that simply didn't exist, and her meridians screamed in turn.

It was like choking to death, like an asphyxiation so slow it became a form of torture in itself.

The worst part, it was her choice whether to stop it or not.

The only thing she needed to do was open her meridians and dantian to absorb the Qi around her.

That was what her body and mind screamed at her.

But she still resisted.

Lei Mingxing would rather die than reveal her Chaos Physique in front of the entirety of Dark Spirit Town.

Even if Jing Jiang had only just begun with the embedding process that put even more stress on the furnace and in turn, Lei Mingxing.

And no matter her perseverance and fine control, soon there was only a sliver of Qi left inside her.

Instinctually, a rush of adrenaline washed over Lei Mingxing, like the last bravo of a drowning person. Now, her body was practically begging her to let go of the godforsaken furnace, even her heart was banging hard against her chest, its hasty drumming reverberating throughout her mind and body.

Still, Lei Mingxing didn't give in.

And that's when it happened, along with her dwindling consciousness and strength, wrath much hotter than the furnace in front of her, more relentless than the sun in the very sky, swallowed any and all feelings of doubt, fear and hesitation she was experiencing, turning all thoughts of pain that distracted her into dust until there was nothing left other than pure, undiluted rage.

A rage that burned so intensely, it turned cold and still.

Gradually, slowly, in what felt like minutes but what was barely seconds, Lei Mingxing's heartbeat slowed, her hasty gasps calmed and she instinctually knew that what she was currently experiencing was the thing most cultivators would hunt for their entire life.

Enlightenment, the realization of an element or cultivation technique's Dao, its philosophy.

But, despite knowing how big of a deal it was to have an enlightenment, Lei Mingxing remained unnervingly calm, as if this was a natural occurrence that she had experienced countless times in the past.

Standing in her dark Spiritual Sea, Lei Mingxing quietly looked up.

Except for a small radius around her, everything was shrouded in darkness, even the surface on which she stood extended into endless darkness, like the depths of the Abyssal Sea that she was forced to admire moments before her death in her last life.

Lei Mingxing quickly evaded her eyes, feeling like something was lurking beneath she shouldn't lay her eyes on just yet.

Instead, she focused on an almost tiny, blue flame with a blood-red center flickering softly a few meters away from her, exuding heat so cold it made her heart pound with the purest ambition.

Fascinated by what she saw, the unknown danger underneath her feet was all but forgotten, and Lei Mingxing stretched out her figurative hand, wanting to touch the small flame, but just when her fingertips were a hair-width away from the flame, a blinding flash of violet illuminated her Spiritual Sea, forcing Lei Mingxing to close her eyes and almost bursting her eardrums with the deafening 'Ding!' that followed.

When Lei Mingxing finally opened her eyes again, the flame had disappeared without a trace.

Inexplicable loss rose in her heart, like a part of her had been snatched away from her.

It was an awful feeling, however one that only lasted about 10 seconds before Lei Mingxing unexpectedly realized that it was not something of her that was missing, but the emotion that had clouded her mind for an entire month without her even realizing it.

An almost irrational anger that flared up any time she felt even slightly irritated.

And only now, amidst this perfect clarity, Lei Mingxing noticed how different she had been acting the last few weeks and it all started from the moment she first awakened her fire element, only worsening the stronger she became.

It left her confused and slightly unnerved.

What was this?

She had never heard of anyone's personality changing because of cultivation...

Cutting her crisis short, was a sudden feeling of breathlessness, her mind became hazy and there was no time left to continue pondering what had happened because her consciousness was quickly being extracted from her Spiritual Sea with no telling when she would return again.

There was nothing she could do to prevent this, so Lei Mingxing just kept staring into the boundless darkness until even the last bit of her consciousness left her Spiritual Sea.

With the return of her consciousness to her physical body, her senses also recovered one after the other, starting with sound, then smell, sight, touch, it was a very uncomfortable switch from the incorporeal form of a spirit to the heavy burden that was a body of flesh and blood. A switch that caused Lei Mingxing to freeze in disorientation because of all the different sensations that were bombarding her at the same time.

It took a few seconds for her to become truly sober again.

But when she was finally able to process her surroundings without being overwhelmed, Lei Mingxing realized with a startle that beyond a pile of ashes and dirt in front of her, there was no hint of a furnace.

She looked around in confusion.

Only to find Jing Jiang almost crying from relief with a shining, and most importantly, finished shield in hand while looking at her.

He fell to his knees next to Lei Mingxing and pulled her into a tight hug, apologizing profusely into her ear, but Lei Mingxing didn't understand any of it.

The only thing she realized was that cool teardrops kept falling onto her nape and shoulder.

Which caused her heart to squeeze with sympathy, feeling regretful for telling him to keep forging now that she saw just how bad he felt because of it.

But this regret, there was also a euphoric sense of happiness that caused a wide smile to appear on her face.

She hugged him back tightly, patting his shoulder, telling him she was sorry too and that it was fine.

Not blinded by a constant rage anymore, Lei Mingxing for the first time realized just how much Jing Jiang actually cared for her and even more importantly, how much she cared for him.

Unfortunately, their hug was cut short by the sudden shout of the city lord.

"The two hours are over, it's time for the contestants to present their works."

Small Theater:

The other participants and crowd after witnessing Lei Mingxing and Jing Jiang's furnace break apart, disappear into thin air but them still being able to complete their fourth-rank artifact, before falling to their knees in a sentimental display of tears and apologies:... What the f*ck just happened?

Author: *wipes tear*

Author: A great display of character growth for my babies.