Pain tore through Ethan's limbs like wildfire.
His back arched off the stone floor as spiritual energy flooded his body untamed, raw, and hungry. It wasn't like before. This wasn't a simple meridian opening.
This was a breakthrough.
Elena! Vane barked, panic tightening his voice. He's forcing open too many gates at once! His body isn't conditioned for this.
Elena moved swiftly, a jade box already open in her hands. She drew three Azure-Rooted Silver Needles, rare acupuncture tools infused with Spirit-Earth ore, and pierced them along Ethan's spine.
Triple-needle grounding technique, she murmured. Stabilize the Qi flow, slow the burn.
Ethan's body spasmed again. Light pulsed from his skin, veins glowing with gold-red hues the sign of a body transitioning from Energy Cultivation to the Foundation Phase.
He's awakening the Fire Vein, Vane muttered. That's impossible at his level.
The scroll spun nearby, golden ink rising off it like mist. Symbols rearranged themselves in mid-air.
Elena placed a small red pill beneath Ethan's tongue a Blood Coagulation Elixir, brewed from dragon root, cinnabar resin and phoenix fig.
Chew it, she whispered, even though he couldn't hear her. Or your organs will melt from inside out.
His body convulsed one final time and stilled.
Steam rose from his skin. The glow faded to a low, steady shimmer. Elena exhaled and checked his pulse.
It was strong and slower.
He survived, she said softly.
No, Vane corrected. He advanced.
Ethan stirred, eyes fluttering open. They were no longer just brown. Faint streaks of red like glowing threads lined his irises.
What just happened?
he groaned.
You ascended to the Foundation Phase, Vane said. And burned open two more meridians one of them your Fire Vein.
Elena helped him sit up, handing him a gourd of chilled herbal tonic laced with lotus-bark and frost-leaf to suppress the afterburn.
Ethan drank and nearly choked. Tastes like wet metal and poison.
It's both, she replied. Welcome to cultivation.
He flexed his fingers, stunned by the surge of power coiling beneath his skin. I feel different.
You should, Vane said. At Foundation Phase, you begin to shape energy not just absorb it. You can now store small reservoirs of spiritual Qi and release it as bursts attacks, defenses, even healing.
Elena pulled a satchel from her belt and handed it to him. Inside are four Qi Condensation Pills, an anti-inflammation salve brewed with shadow bark, and a flame-resistant talisman. You'll need all of them.
Ethan raised an eyebrow.
For what?
Vane nodded toward the window. The sky was red not with dawn, but with smoke.
The Crimson Altar just set fire to three healing sanctuaries across the region. They're declaring war on cultivators aligned with the Warden legacy.
Elena stood, her face a mask of steel. And your emergence just made you their next target.
A sudden pulse of spiritual energy surged from the scroll.
New words appeared branded in glowing scarlet ink.
The Eye opens. Tribulation begins.
Ethan looked up.
He didn't know what the Tribulator Level was.
But something told him
he'd have to survive long enough to reach it.