Spirit and Resonance
Lu Yuan moved into the isolation stone chamber next to the energy room.
"Too risky." Shen Moxin looked at the Mutated Source Seed in the metal box on the stone platform, her fingertips turning white. The chaotic light spot at the crystal core slowly rotated.
Lu Yuan didn't speak. The tearing sensation in his meridians was still there, but he couldn't wait. The monitoring data was right at hand, and the curve representing the pulsation frequency was climbing every day.
He closed his eyes to regulate his breathing, and after a moment opened them, a wisp of Soul Power condensing at his fingertips and probing towards the Source Seed. The pain was sharp and intense, flowing upstream along the wisp. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but his fingertips remained motionless.
It failed seven times.
The eighth time, when the Soul Power frequency was adjusted to a certain subtle band, that wisp of chaotic energy suddenly "softened." It obediently flowed into Lu Yuan's body along the Soul Power thread.
It's done.
Lu Yuan guided the energy into the improved Soul Power model. The meridians were flushed by the hot, pure liquid, the flow of Soul Power accelerated, and the stagnation was quietly broken open.
He named it "Primordial Qi".
The days that followed became monotonous repetition: guiding, absorbing, analyzing, optimizing. Failure remained the norm, and the occasional spasm caused by uncontrolled energy would leave him curled up on the ground.
The progress is real and tangible.
Half a month later, his Soul Power broke through a small bottleneck. At the end of the second month, Lu Yuan clearly felt that his Soul Power had crossed that threshold.
Soul Emperor.
There were no earth-shattering phenomena, only the Soul Power flowing ceaselessly through his meridians, solid as mercury. He raised his hand, and a Blue Silver Grass unfurled from his palm.
The leaves turned a deep, dark green with a faint golden sheen at the edges, nearly doubling in width. The veins, like inlaid gold threads, exuded a warm and resilient vitality as infused with Soul Power. It swayed gently, creating a subtle and harmonious resonance with the ancient energy field of the ruins.
Lu Yuan stared at the Martial Soul. Trash Martial Soul? He twitched the corner of his mouth.
The characteristics of "Primordial Qi" were even more of a concern to him. This energy had amazing adaptability and harmonizing properties; it could not only nourish the Martial Soul and enhance Soul Power, but also smooth out the disordered Soul Power and even have a subtle effect on the spatial structure.
An idea popped into my head.
That afternoon, Lu Yuan brought the Source Seed to the observation point thirty feet away from the rift. Shen Moxin and Yun Youzi watched him nervously.
"Just an attempt to make contact." Lu Yuan's voice was calm. He took out the Source Seed, and the core light spot of the crystal rotated faster.
He released his Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul, the grass leaves unfurled, and pale golden veins lit up. Using the Martial Soul as a medium, he adjusted his own Soul Power to a frequency similar to that of the Source Seed, and then very slowly "probe" a wisp of Soul Power mixed with trace amounts of Primordial Qi toward the direction of the rift.
Thirty feet away, a low, regular pulsation emanated from the vertical fissure, with chaotic and violent energy fluctuations.
The mixed Soul Power touched the edge of the chaotic fluctuations.
In an instant, Lu Yuan's consciousness seemed to be pulled into a violent vortex. Countless fragments of chaotic energy information rushed towards him. He steadied his mind and manipulated his Soul Power to try to "fit" with the rhythm of the fluctuations.
His Soul Power was being depleted extremely quickly, and his mental strength was stretched to its limit. Veins throbbed on his forehead.
Just when he was about to give up, the trace amount of Primordial Qi in the mixed Soul Power took effect.
It's like a drop of cold water falling into boiling oil, instantly causing a change—not an intensification, but a strange kind of "soothing." The peak of the small patch of chaotic fluctuations it touches decreases, and the violent rhythm appears momentarily "flattened."
In that very instant.
Lu Yuan detected deeper structural information. The fissure energy was not completely disordered; the pulsating chaos revolved around several core "nodes." Those nodes felt unusually "old" and "rigid," as if they were firmly fixed by invisible Shackles, unable to move yet struggling.
He disconnected the connection.
His vision went black, and his ears were ringing. His Soul Power was almost depleted, and a sharp pain from the depths of his brain came from the exhaustion of his mental energy. He couldn't care less about these things. He grabbed a charcoal pencil and paper and quickly sketched the locations of the nodes he had sensed and the patterns of energy flow.
Shen Moxin and Yun Youzi gathered around, their expressions changing as they looked at the hastily drawn yet incredibly informative sketch.
"You... you really did it?" Yun Youzi's voice was hoarse.
"Briefly smoothed out the peak of the extremely small fluctuation." Lu Yuan panted, "We saw more structure. The fissure energy field has fixed nodes, and its state is very strange..."
He didn't finish his sentence, a heavy realization weighing on his heart.
After that, the "active resonance" experiment became a daily routine. Each time it was conducted under strict protection, and each time it ended with the exhaustion of both Soul Power and mental strength. The gains were enormous. His understanding of the energy structure of the rift deepened rapidly. The lines representing nodes and energy veins on the sketch became denser and clearer.
He even started to understand some things.
It is not language, nor sound. It is a vague "fragment of information" carried in the pulse of energy, more like a regular "appeal" or "state description", echoing repeatedly.
Restraint.
Imbalance.
Awaiting correction.
These three core images became increasingly vivid with each resonance. They confirmed Yun Youzi's conjecture about the "rule experimental field" and also gave Lu Yuan a more profound and concrete understanding of the meaning of the "Gate of Finality".
Meanwhile, based on resonance perception data and Su Yan's massive monitoring records, Lu Yuan revised the critical point prediction.
"Ninety days." He laid out the latest calculations in front of the core members. "The error will not exceed five days. After ninety days, the pulsation frequency will reach the theoretical critical value. What will happen then is unpredictable."
The stone hall was silent. The timeframe was even tighter than the most pessimistic estimates.
The pressure is specific to each day and each hour.
Lu Yuan didn't say anything more, put away the blueprints and walked towards the isolation chamber. He needed a deep resonance to further confirm the status of the key nodes.
This resonance lasted longer. When he severed the connection and slumped in the center of the rune array, his face was ashen, but his eyes gleamed with a sharp light. He had a clearer understanding of the node 'Shackles.
But just then--
Without warning, a sharp, intense palpitation gripped my heart.
Cold.
A feeling of malicious voyeurism.
It was as if some indescribable being cast its gaze upon him from afar, lingering on him for a moment. In that gaze there was no curiosity, no inquiry, only a pure, chilling negative emotion—like hatred, or hunger.
Lu Yuan felt a chill run down his spine. He suddenly jumped up and released his mental energy to scan the entire stone chamber, then rushed out to check all the monitoring rune devices.
There was nothing unusual. There was no intrusion. The ruins remained quiet as usual, with only the regular pulsations coming from the distant fissures.
He was breathing rapidly, forcing himself to calm down. An illusion? A hallucination caused by mental exhaustion?
He walked back to the stone chamber, his gaze unconsciously falling on the Mutated Source Seed on the stone platform.
Then it froze.
At the core of the crystal, that slowly rotating chaotic point of light, a faint yet incredibly glaring tint had appeared at its edge sometime during that time...
Dark red.
Like dried bloodstains, or some kind of filth eroding, it is silently seeping into that bit of chaos.