Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 43
Strengthening the Fire Star Cores!
The nocturnal breeze sweeping down from the distant crags of Mount Canglei whispered through the ironwood pines along the forest edge, carrying a biting chill into the winding alleys of South Street.
Within the cramped attic loft—barely ten square meters in all—silvery moonlight slanted through the weathered roof tiles and the raw timber window frame, dusting the worn floorboards in a fragile, gossamer glow. The midnight air hung undisturbed save for the gentle chirp of crickets nesting along the damp, moss-covered brick, accompanied by the steady, rhythmic ticking of an antique brass pendulum clock downstairs.
Down on the ground floor, after a punishing day battling sun and storm to steer his heavy mana-transport truck across treacherous mountain passes, Father Lin Hai had long since succumbed to exhausted sleep. The deep, weary snores of the family patriarch mingled softly with the faint rustle of Lin Xiaomo turning in her bed from the adjoining room. Of late, a faint, tingling warmth had begun returning to the young girl’s legs, slowly dispelling the frigid numbness that had locked them in ice for so many years. That fragile warmth was Lin Feng’s most sacred sanctuary—and the burning impetus compelling him to seize absolute power, whatever the cost.
Lin Feng sat cross-legged atop a frayed straw mat, his back held ramrod straight. His ash-gray combat cloak, still reeking of calcified mineral muck and the pungent gore of demonic beasts, had been scrubbed clean and hung to dry along the outdoor veranda. For now, he wore only a loose pair of coarse homespun cotton clothes.
His right hand rested gently over his sternum, feeling the cool, slate-gray surface of the Primordial Dragon Pendant resting snug against his bare chest.
The jade face was no longer the dull, coarse pebble it had once appeared. Hidden deep beneath the faded gray patina, primordial dragon glyphs pulsed with ethereal luminescence, sending rhythmic ripples of soothing, tranquil warmth coursing into his breast.
Following that desperate, lethal clash against the Poison Claw Ape Lord and its pack of man-eating lesser apes within the subterranean drainage labyrinth, Lin Feng’s harvest had surpassed all earthly bounds. Beyond the hunter’s platinum account card loaded with two hundred thousand magic coins resting quietly in his pocket, a priceless fortune waited within the pendant’s mystical interior, ready to be unveiled.
Thanks to the Primordial Dragon Pendant’s transcendent ability to harvest and temper spiritual remnants, he had not only claimed a pristine, complete Beast Soldier Soul Essence from the corpse of the peak Poison Claw Ape Lord, but the fifteen Soul Remnants harvested from the lesser apes had also been refined and condensed by the jade pendant into a second complete Beast Soldier Soul Essence!
Two whole Beast Soldier Soul Essences!
Were he to bring them to Bian’an City’s underground black market or place them upon the grand auction block of the Hunter’s Union, the staggering sum they fetched would comfortably purchase an entire row of prime commercial real estate along the city’s central thoroughfare. Even towering aristocratic syndicates like the Ling Clan would turn feral with greed, battling tooth and nail to secure such treasures to forge high-tier Defensive Magic Armor or devastating Offensive Magic Blades.
Yet Lin Feng did not harbor the slightest intention of parting with even one.
Wealth could always be claimed anew through blood and sweat within the untamed wilds, but the heaven-defying fortune to shatter the rigid shackles of orthodox magic and stride upon the sovereign path was something ten thousand bars of gold could never buy.
Lin Feng softly shuttered his eyelids, regulating his breathing until it flowed long and profound.
His consciousness gradually descended into the velvet dark, following an invisible psychic tether straight into the mystical sanctuary of the Primordial Dragon Pendant.
At the center of that boundless expanse, veiled in swirling primordial mist, two thumb-sized spheres of concentrated luminescence hovered in serene suspension, rotating slowly. They beamed with a profound, abyssal azure radiance reminiscent of the ocean trenches, their crystalline cores sloshing with pristine, iridescent liquid devoid of a single mortal blemish. Every shred of bestial malice, demonic madness, and earthly impurity had been thoroughly scrubbed away by the dragon pendant, leaving behind nothing but the unblemished soul essence and purest vitality of magical beasts.
“Let us begin,” Lin Feng murmured silently within his mental domain.
Extending a slender yet razor-sharp wisp of spiritual intent, he gently grazed the surface of the first Beast Soldier Soul Essence.
The deep azure sphere pulsed softly, submitting without resistance to its master’s call. Steered by Lin Feng’s meticulous guidance, the Soul Essence drifted out from the pendant’s void, gliding serenely into the vast, midnight cosmos of the youth’s spiritual sea of consciousness.
Lin Feng’s sea of consciousness was a tranquil, infinite expanse of nocturnal heavens.
Over in the right corner, the pitch-violet Lightning Stardust surged with oppressive, tyrannical majesty, coiling with crackling arcs of electric fury that exuded the untamed, annihilative aura of a prehistoric leviathan.
At the very center of his mental cosmos, however, the Fire Stardust blazed like an incandescent ocean of crimson magma. Seven vivid scarlet star cores, dancing like lively crimson motes of flame, looped along their predetermined orbits. Ever since Lin Feng had mastered the art of linking them into a seamless Star Path to unleash “Fire Burst: Crimson Sparks,” these seven star cores had grown impeccably coordinated, moving in harmonious synchrony like shadows forged in flame.
Yet the instant that deep-azure Soul Essence drifted across the perimeter into the Fire Stardust, the tranquil harmony was instantly shattered!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh——!
The intoxicating fragrance of pure, concentrated life essence rippled throughout his mental realm.
All seven Fire Star Cores shuddered violently at once! Like seven starved, voracious fledglings suddenly catching sight of a royal banquet, they unleashed sharp, high-frequency vibrational hums of untamed delirium. Their once-pristine orbits instantly collapsed into pandemonium. Whirling and leaping in wild ecstasy, all seven star cores broke into a mad, reckless charge toward the deep-azure orb at blistering speed, each violently shoving the others aside in a desperate bid to snap up the exquisite prize for itself!
“Halt!” Lin Feng barked an icy command across his mind. A wave of sovereign mental intent broke from his will, instantly raising an impenetrable psychic bulwark that slammed the reckless advance of the star cores to a dead stop.
Struck by the barrier, the seven star cores were forced back, fanning out to either side. Yet the crimson flames wrapping them burned with incandescent fervor, radiating frenzied waves of pleading, impatience, and ravenous hunger.
Lin Feng remained utterly unhurried. He grasped the unyielding law of enhancement with total clarity: immense as the energy within a single Beast Soldier Soul Essence was, it was only sufficient to empower a single star core past the mortal threshold. Were he to scatter it evenly across all seven, the celestial nourishment would be hopelessly diluted, leaving none of them capable of achieving a qualitative transmutation.
He had to concentrate his total might to shatter the shackles of each link one by one!
Lin Feng’s awareness swept past the pleading constellation before anchoring firmly upon the star core situated at the very origin of his Star Path.
It was the First Star Core—the initial star he had spent an entire grueling week of relentless meditation to conquer and tame through sheer, unyielding willpower when he first awakened his magic within this modest attic. It shared the deepest, most resilient resonance with his soul, attuned to every breath and heartbeat of his thoughts.
You’re up. Lin Feng extended a mental summons.
As though receiving the supreme grace of an emperor, the First Star Core instantly broke away from the flock. It surged forward in joyous elation, tracing three celebratory loops around his consciousness. Seeing this, the remaining six star cores could only retreat in bitter dejection, emitting low, mournful hums brimming with envy and longing.
Under Lin Feng’s steady command, the deep-azure Soul Essence descended gradually, floating toward the eagerly waiting First Star Core.
The distance between the two celestial spheres closed inch by inch...
Ten inches... Five inches... One inch!
The instant the crystalline surface of the Soul Essence brushed against the scarlet flame of the star core, an earth-shattering eruption detonated!
BOOM!
The First Star Core—ordinarily no larger than a tiny crimson spark—suddenly expanded, opening an illusory, fathomless maw! Without a shred of hesitation or measured digestion, it clamped down and swallowed the entire deep-azure Soul Essence whole into its innermost core!
The moment the Soul Essence was devoured, an unprecedented, terrifying inferno erupted straight through Lin Feng’s mind!
“Ngh... ah!”
A choked gasp of agony tore from Lin Feng’s throat. His body spasmed violently, nearly pitching him backward onto the floor.
It felt as if someone had uncapped a cauldron of bubbling molten iron and dumped it directly into his skull! The raw, primordial vitality of a peak Beast Soldier, violently pulverized, unleashed a blistering thermal wave of catastrophic proportions. It didn’t simply incinerate his sea of consciousness; it cascaded down his spinal cord, coursing along every neural highway, flooding his meridians, ripping through muscle fibers, and invading every single cell across his body!
Lin Feng felt as though he had been cast bodily into an alchemical crucible stoked with white-hot coals!
Blistering! Excruciating! Every blood vessel threatened to burst beneath the monstrous pressure of this surging torrent of subterranean lava!
Atop the straw mat, sweat erupted from his brow, neck, and spine like an open floodgate. In the span of a few ragged breaths, his coarse cloth clothes were soaked through. Scalding, salty beads of sweat poured down his jawline, pattering onto the woven straw with frantic, rapid-fire tap-tap-taps.
Lin Feng’s hands clamped over his knees, his fingers digging into the coarse weave until his knuckles turned ashen white, the joints creaking with sharp, popping cracks. Thick blue veins stood out along his forehead and temples, writhing violently like trapped earthworms.
His teeth ground together with bone-splintering force, clamping down so hard his lip split; the metallic tang of fresh blood bloomed across his tongue.
The sheer agony threatened to shred his very soul into ribbons!
In the standard lectures at Feng Lan High School, the instructors had drummed it into their students again and again: the sea of consciousness of a Basic Mage was fragile as unbaked clay. Any foreign surge of excessive energy could instantly crack the vessel, reducing the caster to a crippled, mindless husk for the rest of their days.
Yet Lin Feng did not yield a single millimeter!
What was this petty agony compared to the venomous sneers and humiliating contempt of the Ling Clan?
What was this pain compared to the bleeding, calloused abrasions gouged into his father’s shoulders, hauling crates of raw mana ore through the howling frost of winter nights?
And how could it ever match the silent sorrow in Xiaomo’s eyes, staring at her withered, lifeless legs day after day for five agonizing years?!
You want to tear me apart? You don’t have what it takes!
Lin Feng roared within the depths of his soul, his willpower honed razor-sharp like a steel blade quenched in ten thousand degrees of flame. He did not loosen his mental grip by the slimmest margin to evade the torment. Instead, rallying every last scrap of mental fortitude, he locked down like a vise upon that boiling star core at the center of the Fire Stardust!
Right at that moment, against his chest, the Primordial Dragon Pendant trembled with tremendous force.
ROOAAR——!
A deep, primordial dragon roar echoed from the fathomless depths of the void. A billow of slate-gray mist, carrying the supreme sovereign majesty of an ancient dragon, cascaded from the pendant into his sea of consciousness, coalescing into an ethereal perimeter barrier that guarded the borders of Lin Feng’s mental cosmos.
Every violent shockwave that battered against the gray mist was instantly snuffed out, forcing that runaway thermal deluge to reverse course. Denied any avenue of escape, the rampant heat had no choice but to fold inward, pouring back into the center of the First Star Core!
Bolstered by the protective might of the ancient relic, Lin Feng was like a tiger granted wings. He tightened his psychic grip, forcing the star core to grind, assimilate, and ingest every last drop of the azure Soul Essence’s pristine quintessence.
Within his mental realm, having gorged on the full energy of the Soul Essence, the First Star Core swelled to twice its original volume. Its crimson exterior roiled like boiling oil in a searing iron wok, hissing violently with piercing intensity.
Suddenly—
Crack!
A crisp, brittle fracture echoed through the silent void of his mind!
Lin Feng held his breath, watching with razor-sharp focus.
Across the familiar scarlet mantle of the First Star Core, a hairline fissure of pitch-black appeared without warning. Then, like an unstoppable chain reaction, dozens—hundreds—of jagged spiderweb fractures spread across the star’s surface!
The outer shell was shattering!
And then, from the depths of those dark fissures...
SHIING——!
A beam of blinding, resplendent golden light erupted in all directions!
It was not the fiery crimson of ordinary flame, nor the pale amber of mortal fire. It was a blazing golden luminescence—regal, tyrannical, and all-consuming, like a newborn sovereign sun tearing through the eternal shroud of night!
Wherever the golden radiance washed, the surrounding mental void trembled in deep resonance. Swept by the brilliant aura, the six crimson star cores nearby shuddered in profound awe, recoiling dozens of yards and bowing their crowns like humble subjects prostrating before an imperial monarch.
The fractures widened at terrifying speed. The golden blaze within erupted like a waking supervolcano, burning the fragmented scarlet shell into cosmic dust!
CLANG——!
A deep, resonant toll—like an ancient bronze bell cast during the primordial dawn of creation—suddenly reverberated throughout Lin Feng’s soul!
The chime carried a miraculous, transcendent grace. It swept through his meridians, wiping away every trace of blistering agony, soothing each battered and inflamed cell. In an instant, Lin Feng’s mind turned crystal-clear, tranquil, and revitalized, as though every pore on his skin had opened wide to drink in the ambient mana of heaven and earth.
The last fragments of the scarlet husk shattered completely, dissolving into nothingness.
In its stead, an entirely new celestial creation was born!
It was a star core twice the volume of a normal star. Its body was no longer simple crimson; it had deepened into a rich, dark blood-red, resembling blood jade that had settled across ten thousand years of antiquity. Encircling this blood-red sphere was a vibrant, blazing rim of imperial gold, flickering like the divine flame of an immortal phoenix!
Rhythmic shockwaves of dark crimson heat, edged in brilliant gold, pulsed from the star core, radiating an aura twice as ferocious, razor-sharp, and concentrated as before!
The star hovered proudly at the vanguard of the Star Path, like a supreme general clad in golden plate armor standing before his legions. The remaining six crimson star cores revolved obediently around it in a flawless orbit, completely submissive, without a single trace of unruly wildness remaining!
A Fourth-Tier Star Core!
Rank 4!
A concept without precedent in the entire recorded history of human Basic Magic!
According to orthodox doctrine taught across every magic academy on earth, Basic Magic possessed only three ranks: Rank 1, Rank 2, and Rank 3. Each rank corresponded to greater fluidity in connecting the Star Path and a larger reservoir of mana. Not a single textbook or Grand Magus had ever dared suggest that an individual star core could devour a Soul Essence to undergo a qualitative transmutation, ascending to an entirely new threshold of power!
Yet now, that very miracle blazed proudly within Lin Feng’s sea of consciousness!
Phew...
Lin Feng exhaled a long breath of scorching air, slowly opening his eyes in the shadows of the attic loft.
Within the deep, ink-black pupils of the youth, a razor-sharp glint of gold-rimmed crimson flame flared before sinking deep into his irises.
His coarse clothes were drenched in sweat, plastered against his skin, yet Lin Feng felt not the slightest hint of fatigue or exhaustion. On the contrary, coursing through every vessel and muscle fiber was an unprecedented, surging vitality.
He raised his right hand before his chest, casually spreading his five fingers.
Lin Feng did not chant a spell, nor did he link all seven stars into a complete Star Path. With nothing more than a passing thought, he lightly grazed that solitary Rank 4 Star Core that had just completed its metamorphosis within his consciousness.
Fwip!
A crisp, sharp crackle echoed in the stillness of the night!
Right atop Lin Feng’s palm, a tiny ember no larger than a thumb spontaneously burst into life!
The flame did not bear the familiar bright crimson hue of ordinary fire. It was dense and viscous like dragon’s blood, its outer perimeter crowned with a dazzling, resplendent rim of imperial gold!
The moment that gold-rimmed crimson ember appeared, the air within half a meter of his palm warped and distorted violently! Terrifying thermal radiation billowed outward; two paces away, an academic certificate tacked to the wooden partition instantly dried to a crisp, its edges curling inward as a wisp of faint white smoke curled from the paper!
The wooden floorboards beneath his feet let out sharp crackles as their moisture was sapped in a heartbeat!
Lin Feng stared at the flame dancing atop his fingertips.
Its lethality... was utterly terrifying!
This was merely an ember conjured by a single Rank 4 Star Core, without the harmonic amplification of all seven stars connected into a full Star Path! Yet its thermal intensity and destructive profile had completely eclipsed the fully manifested “Fire Burst: Crimson Sparks” he had blasted into the Poison Claw Ape Lord’s corpse in the sewers.
If this tiny ember touched the flesh of a Beast Soldier, in less than two seconds, the gold-rimmed flame would bore straight through its thick, armored hide like a red-hot iron rod punching through lard!
“Just upgrading a single star core to Rank 4 has nearly doubled the destructive yield...”
Lin Feng curled his fingers into a fist, snuffing out the tiny ember. A confident smirk touched his lips in the shadows.
He looked down toward his chest, where the second Beast Soldier Soul Essence still drifted serenely inside the Primordial Dragon Pendant.
If... over his upcoming hunts in the wild, he gathered enough Soul Essences to elevate all seven Fire Star Cores to Rank 4...
To what apocalyptic heights would his Fire Burst ascend?
Would that exorbitant Magic Armor worn by the Ling Clan’s so-called genius Han Yi, or the arrogant frost wielded by Young Master Ling Bai, stand a ghost of a chance against his incinerating blast?!
Outside the window, moonlight bathed the straight, resolute silhouette of the youth, illuminating the ferocious, meteoric path of rise that was about to unfold...