Amber felt like she had wasted her Eternal Realm visit.
In the first week, things had been going smoothly. The pocket realm Amber had chosen was free of monsters and saturated in a strangely pure fire Qi and daos. The problem was, every time she sat down to cultivate, there was a faint whisper calling out to her. At first, she thought it was the whispers of the dao responsible for the purity of the fire Qi, but the more she listened, the more she realized that wasn't the case.
The whisper was coming from a specific direction. Call it curiosity or greed, Amber sacrificed her precious cultivation time to pursue the whisper. After days of traveling, she finally came upon the source.
A shrine.
It was here that Amber had spent her last two weeks, infatuated with a single dying ember. It hung in the air above a nest of fused glass and blackened gold, no larger than her fist, burning a red so deep it was nearly the color of a wound.
"It's feeding time," Amber said, kneeling before the ember. She cupped her hands around it and gently released all the fire Qi she had gathered since the last feeding session yesterday. She had kept none for herself, stalling her cultivation in the 7th stage of the Star Core Realm.
"Please, give me something today. Anything," Amber quietly begged.
The ember didn't react in the slightest. It didn't glow, flicker, or dim from her feeding. It remained eternally consistent, unfazed by her offerings.
Amber sighed and stood up. She stood there for a while, staring down at the ember. "Are you really not an inheritance?" she asked, and got no response.
"I messed up then," Amber said, running a stressed hand through her hair. "My family is going to kill me for disappointing them. Figuratively, of course. But still, I didn't want to let them down." Her shoulders slumped. "At the 7th stage, I'm not sure I'll qualify as a leader of the Ashbound Order. Ugh, what a waste of a trip to the Eternal Realm."
Huffing with frustration, she collapsed down beside the ember and hugged her knees.
How am I going to explain my lack of progress when I return? If I tell them I spent all my Qi on a random ember I found, will they berate me for being foolish?
It just didn't make sense. All signs pointed to this place being one of those legendary inheritances. The shrine was unmistakably a resting place—the fused glass held the faint outline of something vast and winged that had curled up here, once, and never risen again. Whatever Monarch had made this realm had made it as a tomb.
A tomb for what, though? That's the question. Amber sighed again. Whatever, it doesn't matter anymore. Her spatial ring flashed, and the rainbow Realmwarp fruit appeared in her hand.
Her time was up. By her estimations, it had been thirty days, and she wasn't about to try and extend her stay past the allocated time and anger the Grand Elders any more than her failure already would.
I went up a single stage in thirty days. The realization struck her like a gong, forming a pit of shame in her stomach. Forget being a leader of the Ashbound Order. I'd be lucky to be kept on as a member after this colossal waste of resources.
Amber slowly raised the Realmwarp fruit to her mouth, her gaze distant and unfocused. Her teeth rested on the fruit's surface, and as she prepared to bite down, she felt the temperature suddenly drop behind her.
"Mhm?" She lowered the fruit and glanced over her shoulder.
Her eyes widened.
The ember was gone without a trace.
Realmwarp fruit forgotten, she scrambled across the smooth surface of the shrine and practically slid to the nook in the glass the ember had floated above. There, lurking beneath the glassy surface, she could see a rising inferno.
Whatever rested in this tomb was awakening.
"Yes!" Amber pounded on the glass, hope surging. "You're finally reacting to my Qi!"
The lurking inferno swelled and erupted from the nook, forcing Amber to retreat, only for the fire to come after her like a beak, and she was the worm.
Amber tensed as the fire poured into her through her skin, her mouth, the old scar on her sword hand, her tear ducts—everything. The all-consuming fire roared through her spirit roots and was so pure that it was charring them.
Amber staggered down the shrine's slope, a soul-wrenching scream tearing from her throat. The fire wasn't offering power in exchange for her feeding.
It was taking her body for itself.
A bird's face made entirely of majestic fire appeared in her mind and gazed upon her with primal hunger. It looked like a phoenix from legend. But Amber had no time to revere it. Instead, she felt only fear as it spread its wings wide and brought them in like sweeping walls of fire that drowned her in searing pain. She collapsed to her knees with a dull thud, her hands pressed to the glass as her Star Core shrieked. She stared down at the swirling inferno beneath the shrine as hairline cracks of light crawled across her inner vision.
It's killing me, Amber thought. The realization somehow cut through the flames, and beneath the pain she felt something else.
Her own Qi.
It was swamped by the phoenix's unfathomably pure fire, but that only made her murky Qi stand out all the more. The two were so different they refused to blend, like oil dropped in water. She could reach out, seize what was hers, and push the invader out.
But she decided not to, despite the pain.
She had sacrificed too much to flee now.
Still howling, her whole body shuddering, Amber willed her spatial ring to flash. A charcoal-black and gold fruit dropped into her palm. It was the Divine Cycle of Creation and Ruin fruit, said to convert destructive techniques into restorative ones. It was a gamble. But if the phoenix was burning her with her own stolen Qi, couldn't she flip the script and make it heal her instead?
The fruit slipped from her trembling fingers and rolled down the smooth slope of the shrine.
She lunged after it, only for her back to arch as another scream ripped free. The phoenix had taken a bite out of her soul like a bird pecking through an eggshell and was going back for more. Memories, Qi, and Dao comprehension tore loose from her like feathers plucked from a carcass.
"Ungrateful bird," Amber cursed through teeth clenched hard enough to crack. "I fed you everything, and this is how you repay me?!" She heaved herself along the glass after the fruit, spasming with every fresh peck at her soul. It felt as if a knife were being driven into her back again and again. Tears of blood streamed down her face, and she tasted iron as veins of fire appeared across her skin and her body broke apart.
Just a little more. She stretched out a desperate arm, bloody fingers slipping off the fruit's edge. Fuck's sake. She lurched forward with everything she had left and clamped her hand down on it. With both hands, she crammed the fruit into her mouth and chewed like her life depended on it.
Because it did.
Please work, please work, she silently begged as she swallowed the fruit. If it didn't, she was probably going to die here. She didn't have the strength left to overpower the phoenix in her own body even if she were to seize control of her Qi.
She lay there on her back, staring up at the stars.
"I just... wanted to make... everyone proud...." she rasped.
Her vision darkened. Her breathing slowed as she teetered on the edge of consciousness. The damage to her soul was extensive, and the phoenix burned on, hollowing her out from within, using her own flesh and blood as fuel.
Then the fruit reached her stomach where the phoenix's body had taken root. The phoenix noticed the foreign object entering her body and attacked it.
A mistake.
The parts of the fruit that were charcoal black withered away, and all that remained was a blindingly golden fruit that looked like a twisted work of art. The phoenix continued trying to melt the fruit, and if it had been any other, it might have succeeded.
But this was a fruit grown by the Dark God, Ashlock.
A pulse of power tore through her body from the fruit, and change rapidly spread out from her stomach and through her charred spirit roots. The fruit's power gripped her stolen Qi, and where her stolen fire Qi passed now, flesh knitted instead of scorching. The agony didn't fade so much as flip, pain flooding backward into a warmth so intense it was almost worse.
The phoenix noticed immediately.
It shrieked inside her mind, wings flaring, and drove its beak into her soul for another bite, but the wound sealed shut around it faster than it could tear. It pecked again. Healed. Again. Healed.
Amber's lips curled up into an exhausted smile as she simply lay there.
I've won.
The phoenix was burning her with her own stolen Qi. And her Qi no longer knew how to harm her.
Every flame it fed into her spirit roots restored them better than before. Every strike against her soul mended it stronger, the cracks sealing over with something denser than what had been there originally. The bird was a bellows pumping life into the very thing it was trying to consume, and it could not stop, because the only fuel it had taken into itself was hers.
Amber's body felt pleasantly warm as her cultivation level began to rapidly ascend, as weeks' worth of Qi that she had patiently fed to the ember was returned to her.
Wait, my Qi has changed, Amber realized as she helped direct the fruit's power to heal her body. It's even purer than before, making it many times more efficient for my soul to process and store. Did the ember do this?
Whatever the case, repairing her ruined body from the ground up with phoenix-purified fire Qi was greatly improving her foundations and body in every aspect.
But there was still the phoenix to deal with. Just like the legends, it was incredibly persistent, and no matter how much reclaimed Qi she tried to throw at it, it didn't do anything. It was firmly rooted in her mind down to her stomach, and while it couldn't burn her anymore, it wasn't leaving either.
The skies overhead began to darken and rumble, and Amber felt an all-too-familiar pressure press down upon her. Her rapid rise in cultivation had triggered a heavenly tribulation.
Does that mean I'm on the cusp of Nascent Soul Realm? Amber thought and began to panic. To create a Nascent Soul, she had to perform a finicky process and split her soul. It would have been hard enough to pull that off even with all of Ashlock's fruits, but she had a stubborn soul-eating phoenix in her body. But what else can I do? If I fail to form a Nascent Soul, the heavenly tribulation will cripple me.
Thunder roared overhead as a sea of golden eyes tore through the sky, glaring down at her. While she could escape this place with the Realmwarp fruit, this wasn't something she could run away from if she wanted to progress.
She quickly shifted into a lotus position and searched her spatial ring for options. The box of resources they had given her for pledging her loyalty to the Ashbound Order was filled with incredible fruits and truffles.
Surely one of them can save me in this situation.
Amber's eyes flickered through the options as she recalled their effects. She knew the truffles had extensive effects that were better taken after the tribulation, as she would need to expel impurities. So her focus landed on the fruits, and three in particular.
Soul Dominion: For a duration after eating the fruit, you will have complete dominion over your soul. You can fracture it and even temporarily put your soul into items without risk of permanent soul damage.
Corrosive Aura: After eating this fruit, you can devour other Qi types to replenish your own Qi reserves.
Soul Protection: Eating this fruit protects your soul from external attacks.
Out of the three, the factor that jumped out to her the most was the Soul Dominion fruit, as it let her freely fracture her soul and put her soul into items.
Does... the phoenix count as an item?
If so, couldn't she split her soul and implant her Nascent Soul into the phoenix to take control of it? It was another greedy gamble, but at this point the phoenix was her prisoner, and with these three fruits, her ascension was all but guaranteed.
Simply expelling the phoenix or using the Corrosive Aura fruit to absorb the phoenix's Qi feels like a waste. While this isn't quite the inheritance I expected, I want to get everything I can out of it—
There was a flash overhead followed by a bolt of divine lightning that struck her on the back. It pierced through her flesh like a hot dagger, and before it could strike her soul, the phoenix moved in to intercept. It let out a cry and grew slightly in power.
Amber wasn't going to let that slide.
Her spatial ring flashed, and the translucent Soul Dominion fruit appeared in her hand. Eating it in one bite, her eyes widened as she felt her soul like never before. Even as more lightning rained down upon her and the shrine, she was infatuated by her own soul.
Until now, she could only sense it with her Qi, like looking at a star in the sky and knowing it existed. But with the Soul Dominion fruit, she could feel her soul in its entirety, and it was bowing down to her control. With a mere thought, she could send ripples across its surface, and by applying a little pressure, she could begin to pull it apart.
This is power that belongs in the realm of the gods. Amber let out a sharp breath in awe. The phoenix also seemed to sense what she was doing and grew restless. I'd advise you to leave, phoenix, because you're not going to like what happens next.
The Soul Protection fruit appeared in her hand, and she wolfed it down. Her soul took on a darker shade, and she welcomed a bolt of divine lightning that struck her soul... and did nothing. She could feel that the effect wasn't going to last long, and she only had one of each fruit, so she couldn't waste a second.
Here goes nothing.
Amber pulled, and her soul split in two.
It was as effortless as breaking a loaf of bread.
Between the two halves, she chose the one missing memories as her future Nascent Soul and offered it to the phoenix.
The stupid bird accepted her offering and greedily swallowed it whole.
Amber smiled as her invulnerable soul merged with the phoenix. The beast arrogantly spread its majestic wings, looming over her other soul, and took on the lightning strikes. It began to grow in power again, looking hungrily down at her other soul.
"Don't get greedy now, little phoenix."
The Corrosive Aura fruit appeared in her hand, and she ate it with gusto. Her plan? To let the phoenix take the brunt of the lightning, while silently converting its Qi into her own.
Amber looked up at the enraged heavens with a grin.
It was time to ascend and make everyone proud.
***
Amber's eyes snapped open five days later.
The heavens' wrath withdrew with a dissatisfied grumble, and the skies overhead cleared.
"It's over," she said, her voice laced with exhaustion. Even with Ashlock's incredible fruits making the ascension far easier than it should have been, the phoenix was an added complication.
Standing up, she spread her wings of flame, illuminating the shattered shrine before her. They weren't as big as Diana's feathered wings, but they radiated the power of a Nascent Soul cultivator.
"You didn't give in until the very end," Amber grumbled.
After a few hours, the fruit's effects had worn off. While her Nascent Soul had successfully merged with the phoenix, allowing her a degree of control over it, she couldn't risk the phoenix pecking at her soul again.
So she had forced the phoenix threaded with her Nascent Soul out of her body and worn it externally as wings. With a majestic flap that trailed fire, she rose into the air without the assistance of a sword.
"Time to go home." Amber couldn't suppress a smile as she retrieved the Realmwarp fruit from her spatial ring.
How is everyone going to react to me now? she wondered as she bit down and the pocket realm warped around her. Replaced by the celestial fog of the Eternal Realm, she confidently walked forward and out into the open mouth of the cave.
A hundred pairs of eyes turned her way.
Everyone was already here, gathered before the Eternal Realm. Had they been waiting for her? The tribulation had taken her a few days over the limit...
A shadow cast over her as an Archdemon with her wings spread wide slowly descended from above and glared down at her.
"You're not only late," Grand Elder Diana's cold voice cut into her like a blade.
"But you're the last one to return."