Book 6 – Chapter 18: Fhesiah – Core Formation

Book 6 – Chapter 18: Fhesiah – Core Formation

The large door closed behind her, Fhesiah exhaling as she settled her warring mind. From here, there was no turning back. She was on her own as she entered the tower, but this was normal for a cultivator. Your Path was your own, a cultivator’s pursuit of the truth never-ending.

She would either create her core, or die trying.

Of course, she’d be revived...but... it’d be a huge pain in the ass!

Firming her resolve, she stepped onto the waiting platform. Lights filled the glyphs of the circular platform, and she was teleported to a new room–she imagined at the top of the tower.

The heavenly energy within the spherical room was shocking. Never before had she felt so close to the heavens, every breath she took stirring her very soul. Her body yearned to be closer, the pores in her skin opening to draw in every bit of it.

Glyphs along the walls of the room began to light up, and a crystalline pedestal for her core formation materials opened up.

Opening her sack, it was with great pride she placed her three prepared materials onto the pedestal.

The Vial of Celestial Flames, the reward from the Dungeon Raid. This contained flames of primordial origin, fire from a dying star. This would match and fuel her draconic flames–the heavenly flames of Yang.

The Refined Mythril Dragon’s Core – holding the powers of her draconic claws, but infused with the powers of alchemy. Using her internal furnace, over the last few weeks she refined several materials within, making it embody something much closer to her Dao, her path.

Her blood, the energy from the dragon souls, and several alchemical materials were infused to refine this treasure, and it now resembled her closed dragon’s claw–a pill furnace made of her very body.

The Moonfire Emberstone. A small dark stone, it emanated a soft, silver-blue glow of the earthly flame core contained within. Steeped in powerful moonlight Qi, this artifact contained yin energies of the earthly realm.

Amazing second Tier materials all, they contained an echo of an even higher energy within. Using this, she would paint them all with her path, and they would form the cornerstone of her Core.

When Elder Wang and the many other cultivators she helped created their cores, she had needed to draw formations on the walls of the room to guide and transform the energy. This aided them with painting their core with their path, matching the energy they required and making it easier to transform and merge it.

One look at this room, and she could both feel and see it: the energy within was already as perfect as she could perceive, no matter what core she would create.

The scaffolding shown around her spiritual temple matched the glyphs in the room, and it was as if all energies from all paths were contained. A codification of the dao itself, void of any bias. Only something as powerful and complete as the Framework could create such a perfect environment.

Fhesiah imagined that when she began painting the core with her path, her daos, only those that matched her path would light up and assist her, powering the process.

Sitting on the platform, she entered a meditative state. Closing her eyes, her mind drifted until she stood within her spiritual temple.

She swallowed several pills in succession–cultivators were quite the drug addicts, weren’t they? One containing Source energy, which would help her with transforming and enhancing her path to the next level as she formed her core.

Another, was like liquified enlightenment. Her thoughts would be clearer, her mind able to operate faster. The last two, were elite core formation pills. Ones meant to be absorbed to fuel the process with internal energy.

The many inscriptions within her temple grew in brightness, and the energy that suffused her entire body was immense. The lake outside her temple was vast, and the sun and moon were reflected inside her room, the Celestial Mirror of Bastet allowing for both energies to be present.

She took a steadying breath. Her triplicate path would combine the heavenly flames of yang, with the earthly flames of yin. Combining the two energies led to releasing chaos itself, even if her alchemy attuned them to be merged into something more, a small amount of flame that contained it all.

Fhesiah was still missing something: the void. It brought order to the chaos somehow, and it was the glue that held everything together. She had to hope that this strange scaffolding somehow made up for this because she did not have a void material. It was not even a part of her path, so how would that work, anyway?

She didn’t even have a cultivation technique to paint her core with her path, it was a path never walked as a cultivator, as far as she knew. Growing up as a dragon, she had one for her dragon half, and she had on an off chance learned one for her kitsune half. But she certainly didn’t have anything like that for alchemy, let alone all three at once.

It was only thanks to the heaven and earth formation that she could make up for this, that made this all possible in the first place.

While dying wouldn’t be the end, failure would definitely harm her dao heart, her conviction in her path. No matter what, any new path she found would feel lesser somehow, and she would be weaker in the end for it.

But Fate itself seemed to be telling her to go for it. The Divine had likely nudged events, giving her the perfect opposition and enlightenment to temper herself and find her path. The formation and alchemy master, the dragon with a core that would be perfect for her, an enemy which her alchemy and superior flames were necessary for victory.

Even that kitsune painting felt too good to be a random, lucky find. Just like her meeting with the Dusky Sky Sect and the various materials needed for her bloodline, someone was likely skewing events in her favor. Events she was happy to take advantage of.

So it was with conviction in her found path, her family and the divine they all shared, that she triggered Core formation. Filling her three dantians with energy, the process began.

The three materials on the pedestal were infused with energy and they became liquid, and she drew them to surround her middle dantian–the one which held her spiritual temple.

In the sky, she could see the materials wrapping around, like a multicolored cloud. Grunting at the effort, she waved her hand as she guided and began drawing out the formation of heaven and earth using the liquified materials.

She drew the demonic runes that matched her path out of the clouds, creating the formation of energies that mirrored each other. A cultivator normally would be utilizing their cultivation technique, a method of breathing and directing their energies through the meridians in their body.

This would create what might be considered a natural formation, shaping their core to automatically accomplish this with what one might consider matched nature itself.

In a way, drawing her formations could be considered a much more scientific method of accomplishing this.

The transformation of the incoming heavenly energy would restrict and enhance one another, regulate and harmonize as her heavenly energy reactor created something more out of the heavenly energy she drew in from the world as she cultivated and fought.

The process took hours as she drew out her formation. As she was nearing completion, the energies were beginning to build up. The heavenly energy was transformed as it passed through the formations, transforming it to match her path.

Her spiritual temple began to shake as it was bathed in the greater energies contained within the special materials, as well as the massive amounts of energy from her pills. Continuing her task, eventually, the hearth blazed in intensity, drawing in an ungodly amount of energy.

This continued before the surrounding tremors became more intense, and the hearth ripped itself from the wall, alarming her. It rose into the air as if drawn to the central formation, and she felt like she knew what she must do. ViiSit no(v)3lb!n(.)com for new novels

Floating it to the center of the heaven and earth formation, she guided it to its proper resetting place in the sky. This mimicked the pill furnace she created, which held a special array that infused all the energy into a spark for a flame–that Sati would consume.

She drew the liquid energy from the dragon core and wrapped it around the hearth, creating a claw around it.

The clawed hearth sat on the edge of her core, and the two energies from her drawn formation began to mix inside. Yin and Yang started to find a sort of equilibrium, and the liquid began to become just a little more solid as the heavenly energy within the nexus chamber was drawn in to fuel the formation of her core.

She was repeating what she created with her Pill Furnace, and lungs. The two formations drew the transformed energies into a central point or array, where they were merged using her daos.

Her Core, the sky, currently looked like a tiny world with two halves, one perpetually noon, and the other nighttime. The eerie glow of the moon cast down on the purple clouds of the liquified Moonfire Emberstone, half of the sky bathed in a blackish-purple light. The bright sun cast a reddish orange haze to the other half of the sky, the clouds reflecting the sun’s light.

The energy within the core formation chamber was fantastic, and the heavenly energy was drawn in quickly and made her own. Her cultivation technique filled the star mosaics and temple with heavenly energy, bringing her closer to the heavens themselves.

Over several days she absorbed the energy within the chamber, happy to gain all the lead she could. When the War Trial started, she would be the slowest to gain levels over her sister wives and Jake, just like before.

[Draconic Fire Plunder Level 5 -> Alchemical Plunder Level 1]

[Can absorb nearly any energy, provided enough understanding. Excels at absorbing draconic breath, but can be used to absorb a singular magical attack to be used as fuel, up to the limit of user’s strength.]

Fhesiah grinned at her new ability. She could now absorb nearly any one spell of her choosing, but it would take her some time to transform it into fuel for herself. This would increase her longevity in battles, able to use the enemy’s power for herself.

[Technique: Dance of the Sun and Moon -> Claws of Celestial Fusion]

[Using flames of various origin, claw attacks can be merged with different flames for powerful attacks.]

A truly varied ability, thanks to the diversity of her family and herself. She could mix her Yin Kitsune Flames with any of Jake’s wives with Yang energy, or do the opposite with her Yang Draconic Flames. She had many paths to utilize these claws, and could even shift her formations if she wanted.

[Race: Celestial Hearthian Demoness (Dragon/Kitsune): Tier 3]

[With the aid of Bastet and Hestia’s Origin and bloodline tempering, both bloodlines have evolved beyond this one’s birth. The two forms and bloodlines are in complete synchrony, carrying energy above the demoness’s Tier. With a Hearthian Core, this cultivator can manage a vast array of spells and abilities utilizing mana, auril, and heavenly energy.]

Reading the prompt, she understood to some extent that becoming Hearthians, all of them had a bit of Hestia in them. The odd kernels stored in her hearth were likely Bastet and Hestia’s, preparing her for this special moment. She reviewed her status sheets.

[Fhesiah Status Level 29]

[Strength: 224]

[Dexterity: 202]

[Constitution: 180]

[Intelligence: 213]

[Wisdom: 216]

[Charisma: 215]

[Fhesiah’s Level 29 Combat Skill Sheet]

[Draconic Might: 1]

[Alchemical Plunder: 1]

[Technique: Claw of Celestial Fusion: 1]

[Expert Energy Control: 1]

[Expert Runic Magic: 1]

[Divine Energy Manipulation: 3]

[Auril Enhancement, Healing, Manifestation: 5]

[Champion Spells: Curse of the Sun and Moon, Summon Fire Elemental, Call Divine]

[Fhesiah’s Level 29 Non-Combat Skill Sheet]

[Expert Flesh Shaping: 1]

[Yin and Yang Hearthian Core: 1]

[Expert Alchemy: 1]

[Alchemy Subskills: Analyze, Synthesis, Reproduction, Extraction, Infusion, Transmutation]

[Misc Skills: Draconic Flight, Alchemical Breath, Energy Vacuum, Auto-Loot, Bloodline Transformation, Expert Purifying Flames, Hearthian Bond, Hearthian Presence]

Her draconic empowerment had evolved to draconic might, and she understood that this increased the effect of both strengthening and enlarging herself using her draconic flames. Her Bloodline Transformation was now mastered, becoming a skill with no level. It now only took two full seconds to switch races thanks to her special core and her flesh shaping skill reaching expert.

Fhesiah was filled with vindication. Her chosen path had worked, and she could feel Jake’s bond stronger than ever. Despite being shifted and distorted by time mismatch and crossing into a distant sector, his thoughts and feelings were coming through much more frequently now, and she was sure the reverse was true for him.

The connection was not perfect, but she felt with a powerful push from them both by Jake entering her state, or perhaps help from Ira, they might not even need the Temporal Chamber to make the connection for aid.

Now she couldn’t wait to get home to show Jake and her family her changes, and her new friends. In truth, Fhesiah would be playing the long game with Ruby and Sati. Despite evolving to the second Tier, neither were quite at the level of... worldliness or form to be...waifus just yet.

She could just imagine the conversation. Instead of long walks on the beach, stories from growing up with family and friends or a list of hobbies, the only thing Ruby could offer is a list of fights and a food list. That Ruby loved to fight and consume the blood and flesh of her enemies, and what types tasted best–a riveting conversation for Jake, she was sure, but not one that would likely result in him ever seeing Ruby as a romantic interest.

No, Fhesiah would have to spend some time with each of the girls, teaching them about the multiverse and finding their passions in...something else beyond blood and fire, for Ruby and Sati.

But they would be a work in progress. The companions to lovers was definitely a viable path, and Fhesiah wanted them to have their best shot at it. If it didn’t work out with them, it didn’t work out. Then, Aria’s niece might take a couple of years to arrive, due to how they were looking to migrate the entire clan of Celestial Nekomatas to Sector 87.

Highlands wasn’t the perfect destination for them because it lacked Heavenly Energy, so they would look to join one of the cultivator worlds within the sector. With any luck, Hearthtribe or its allies would lay claim to it, and set them up for success. Even the Radiant Flame and Blizzardblade Clan would be on their way, and the Great Wind Sect was strongly considering it.

She just had a few days left, and she would be back home with plenty of gifts. The Refuge and Highlands were sorely missed, and she couldn’t wait to be home at last.