Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 95
Breaking Through the Intermediate Tier Bottleneck
The evening wind swept down from the desolate heights of the Cang Lei Ridge, surging across the valley with a bone-chilling bite that tore through the lingering plumes of black smoke hovering over the pulverized ruins of Bo’an City. Standing upon a jagged granite crag jutting out from the hillside behind Feng Lan Magic High School, Lin Feng looked down. The entire municipality resembled a colossal, grievously wounded beast, sprawled out and panting weakly beneath the murky, blood-red twilight. Scattered flickers of magical light from military patrol squads drifted like lonely fireflies amidst the descending dusk.
Lin Feng sat cross-legged upon the freezing, ash-gray stone. He slowly exhaled a long breath of turbid air, his fingers reaching up to adjust the Hero Medal pinned to his chest. After a quiet moment, he unfastened it and laid it carefully aside upon the flat surface of the rock.
The thunderous ovations, the deafening applause that had shaken the grand hall of the Magic Tribunal, the reverent gazes of thousands of survivors, and the five million magic coins deposited into his platinum card... all of it had receded into the background. Lin Feng understood better than anyone that in a world besieged by ravenous beasts, worldly glory and renown were nothing more than transient smoke. If he had lacked the sheer strength to slay that Warrior-class Black-Winged Frenzy Wolf the previous night, his corpse would already be rotting amongst the smoldering rubble alongside hundreds of other unfortunate souls.
The true authority of a mage resided in the destructive might coiled within his spiritual sea, not in a glittering medal of polished gold.
Lin Feng slipped his right hand into his collar, his fingertips brushing against the dark, ash-black dragon jade pulsing with sweltering heat.
The Primordial Dragon Pendant hummed with deep, rhythmic tremors, transmitting a tingling resonance straight into his chest like the vigorous heartbeat of an ancient living entity. Following the brutal bloodbath, the interior dimension of the pendant had swallowed whole the soul remnants of hundreds of aberrant beasts. At its very center, a vortex of violet-gold luminescence revolved with frantic intensity.
A complete, pristine Warrior-class Soul Essence!
A priceless treasure for which prominent clans and sprawling merchant conglomerates would gladly squander tens of millions of magic coins, vying frantically to forge high-grade magical equipment. But to Lin Feng, this Soul Essence was something infinitely more precious—the master key that would rip apart the shackles of the Primary tier and unlock his ascent into a grander realm.
“The Intermediate bottleneck...”
Lin Feng’s lips pressed into a hard, unwavering line. He closed his eyes, his posture rooted firm as a monolith, and guided his consciousness plunging deep into the recesses of his mind.
Within the pitch-black void of his spiritual sea, two realms of Stardust rotated in quiet majesty. To the left lay the Fire Stardust, radiating a blazing crimson brilliance, its seven Stars burning like ferocious bonfires. To the right stood the enigmatic Lightning Stardust, bathed in a deep violet-black hue, its seven electric Stars honed sharp as celestial lances and thrumming with overbearing draconic might.
Both Stardusts had reached the absolute saturation threshold of the Primary tier’s Third Stage. Every single Star swelled to bursting with magical energy, violently colliding against the perimeter of the surrounding space.
Yet encircling Lin Feng’s entire spiritual sea at this moment was an invisible barrier of extraordinary fortitude. Smooth, dense, and impenetrable as a rampart carved from millennial black crystal, it confined the boundaries of his spiritual sea to a meager radius of barely a dozen meters. No matter how savagely the Stars roared, no matter how fiercely they unleashed violent sparks and lashing thunderbolts, the instant they struck this unseen wall, they were repelled backward, unable to advance even a fraction of an inch.
This was the bottleneck barrier that had strangled the dreams of more than ninety percent of Primary mages across the globe!
Countless prodigies had tasted bitter despair and ground to a halt before this unseen divide, for the magical energy gathered through standard meditation could never produce the explosive momentum required to breach the barricade. Most were left with no choice but to pray for miraculous serendipity or purchase exorbitantly expensive potions worth millions, all while risking the catastrophic peril of magical backlash shattering their spiritual seas to dust!
You think you can hold me back?
Lin Feng sneered in his heart. His divine intent locked directly onto the Primordial Dragon Pendant against his chest: ”Unseal!”
HUMMM——!!
The jade pendant let out a low, sonorous hum that shattered the silence. At the core of the pendant, an invisible force crushed the protective shell encasing the violet-gold Warrior-class Soul Essence. The dimensional space within burst wide open. The pure, berserk magical energy distilled from the life of the gargantuan Black-Winged Frenzy Wolf—resembling a vicious dragon roused from an eon of slumber—roared through the meridians between his brows, flooding like a deluge into Lin Feng’s spiritual sea!
A brilliant ray of violet light, swift as a falling meteor tearing through the pitch-black night and bearing world-crushing pressure, collided head-on into the invisible barrier wall!
BOOOOM——!!
An earth-shattering detonation erupted at the core of Lin Feng’s mind!
The concussive blast was terrifying beyond measure, as though tens of thousands of thunderclaps had struck the crown of his skull at the same instant. A deafening roar buzzed in his ears, and his vision was bleached into a blinding expanse of absolute white.
The pure, berserk magical energy of a Warrior-class beast possessed not a single shred of benevolence. Following that catastrophic impact, it immediately morphed into a colossal violet tsunami, surging forward to sweep through every crevice of his spiritual sea. Roaring torrents of raw power churned wildly, drenched in the residual savagery of the feral wolf, threatening to engulf and devour the conscious mind of the youth attempting to command it.
Pfft!
In the waking world atop the granite ledge, Lin Feng’s physical body jolted violently. A trail of metallic, crimson blood leaked from the corner of his lips.
His entire frame shuddered uncontrollably, muscles spasming in violent fits. Beneath his skin, blood vessels and meridians swelled and twisted, writhing grotesquely like ferocious earthworms tunneling beneath the surface. His body temperature surged to terrifying extremes, his pathways burning with such searing agony that it felt as though boiling streams of molten magma were being poured straight into every joint and marrow!
Sweat poured from his forehead and back like a torrential downpour, drenching his crisp school uniform in mere moments. Heavy, viscous droplets dripped onto the cold stone beneath him, instantly hissing and vaporizing into wisps of white steam against the scorching heat radiating from his flesh.
Agony!
It was an excruciating torture that lacerated the very depths of his soul, as if thousands of white-hot steel needles were clawing savagely at the lining of his brain. The lingering feral bloodlust within the Warrior-class Soul Essence snarled without pause, condensing into phantasmal wolf fangs that snapped and gnawed ferociously at Lin Feng’s fragile threads of mental focus, desperate to force him to relinquish his grip.
If he yielded by a single heartbeat, if his resolve wavered for even a fraction of a second, the runaway tempest of energy would detonate from within—reducing his spiritual sea to a scorched wasteland and leaving him a crippled, raving lunatic for the rest of his days!
You dare try to devour me?
Lin Feng’s jaws locked together with a harsh, grinding crunch. The pressure was so severe that fresh blood seeped through his teeth, dyeing his pale lips a gruesome scarlet. Yet the more agonizing the torment, the more ferociously the savage fire blazed within the depths of his eyes.
He remembered the cold, contemptuous gaze of Ling Zhuofeng years ago at the manor, ruthlessly tearing apart the dignity of him and his father.
He remembered those freezing winter nights when his father, Lin Hai, stayed awake through the bitter dawn driving a hazardous magetech cargo transport across treacherous mountain passes, his tattered shirt soaked through with sweat and blood just to scrape together enough money for a meager, low-grade Fire Magic Crystal.
He remembered the innocent, radiant smile of little Xiaomo sitting in her rusted wheelchair, her crippled legs trembling in the cold, yet always clutching a half-knitted woolen scarf as she waited for her brother to return home.
He had sworn an oath before the howling winds of Cang Lei Ridge: in this lifetime, he would never again allow anyone to trample upon his destiny or the people he loved!
A wild beast that had already perished beneath his boots—what right did it have to demand the surrender of his soul?!
”A dead beast dares bare its fangs and claws before me?!”
Lin Feng roared like thunder from the deepest depths of his mind. An iron willpower forged through life-and-death baptism at the bloodstained South Street intersection erupted without reservation, manifesting into a titanic palm of divine intent that crushed every shred of the wild beast’s lingering malice straight into the abyss!
Just as the stalemate between his willpower and the magical tempest hung on a razor’s edge, the Primordial Dragon Pendant resting upon Lin Feng’s blood-flecked chest suddenly erupted with an abyssal, pitch-black radiance of absolute purity.
ROOOAAAR——!!
A magnificent draconic roar, ancient and resonant as though echoing from the dawn of primordial chaos, thundered through his spiritual sea!
Above the boundless dark, the colossal phantom of a Primordial Black Dragon slowly coalesced in majestic grandeur. Its draconic eyes, glowing like two blazing suns, cast a frigid, unyielding gaze down upon the raging violet tsunami churning below.
With merely a single glance, supreme draconic majesty descended like a thousand-meter mountain peak, crashing down with overwhelming weight!
The residual savagery of the Warrior-class Black-Winged Frenzy Wolf shuddered in abject terror the moment it touched this draconic breath, instantly disintegrating into ash and void. All the berserk magical energy within the Soul Essence was crushed, purged, and tempered by the Primordial Dragon’s breath, transforming in an instant into the purest, most obedient, and most dazzling celestial stream in creation!
Nor did it stop there. The warm, revitalizing draconic breath surged into Lin Feng’s fractured meridians like a soothing glacial spring, gently washing over every scorched tear, reinforcing his heart vessels and bodily channels, weaving a resilient layer of internal armor that was utterly impregnable.
Empowered by the earth-shattering support of the Dragon Pendant, Lin Feng did not hesitate for another heartbeat!
”Gather all power... BREAK FOR ME!!”
Under the supreme command of Lin Feng’s divine intent, the entire tsunami of purified violet magical energy fused seamlessly with the blazing scarlet flames of the Fire Element and the violet-black thunderbolts of the Lightning Element. The three destructive forces coiled together into a gargantuan spearhead drill that spun at blinding, terrifying speed. Bearing a momentum capable of overturning mountains and seas, it slammed violently into the invisible barrier wall!
BOOM!!
The expanse of his spiritual sea quaked violently. The sturdy bottleneck barrier that held apart the Primary tier from the Intermediate tier shuddered frantically beneath the ferocious assault.
Under the ceaseless scour of the magical tsunami, the glassy, polished face of the wall showed its very first sign of distortion. Wave after wave of concentrated energy crashed forward in relentless succession, driving like titanic sledgehammers into that solitary point of impact.
CRACK...!
A crisp, brittle snap echoed across the void!
Right at the epicenter where the energy drill bored in, a jagged fissure half a foot long violently ruptured open! Blinding beams of magical radiance erupted from the fracture, showering the void with luminous brilliance.
With its strongest defense pierced through, the structural integrity of the barrier lost its absolute balance in a single stroke!
CRACK... CRACK... CRACK... CRACK!!
A rapid, deafening chorus of fractures cascaded outward, like thick river ice breaking apart beneath a spring thaw. From the central rupture, thousands—tens of thousands—of spiderweb fissures spread frantically in all directions across the spiritual sea. Radiant violet-gold light from the surging magical energy snaked through every crack, violently tearing apart the shroud of enclosing darkness.
The barrier wall trembled to its absolute breaking point as massive slabs of invisible crystal began to flake away and tumble.
Lin Feng gritted his teeth, pouring every remaining shred of his divine intent into one final, all-or-nothing strike:
”SHATTER!!”
CLAAANG——!!
A crystalline chime rang out, sharp and pure as a thousand-year jade mirror crashing onto a polished granite floor, reverberating across the depths of his soul!
The unyielding, invisible wall that had shackled Lin Feng for so many long months shattered completely into dust!
Tens of thousands of sparkling luminous fragments swirled through the space like cosmic stardust, then melted into a gentle drizzle of pure light, raining down to dissolve entirely into the roaring currents of magical energy.
The Primary tier barrier... had officially crumbled!
The very instant the dividing barrier vanished into nothingness, an earth-shaking metamorphosis unlike anything he had ever known detonated across his being!
With no boundaries left to restrain it, the perimeter of Lin Feng’s spiritual sea expanded outward at an unimaginable speed!
One zhang... ten zhang... fifty zhang... a hundred zhang!
The once cramped, suffocating mental space—barely several yards across, confined like a narrow prison cell—swelled frantically by tenfold, twentyfold! The boundaries of darkness were swept back toward an endless horizon, transforming his entire spiritual sea into a deep, boundless galaxy that mirrored the primordial cosmos at the dawn of creation!
A titanic vortex of magical energy swept through the newly unlocked expanse, carrying with it the entire refined essence of the Warrior-class Soul Essence to merge into the void.
At the center of that vast celestial expanse, the Fire Stardust and the Lightning Stardust began to vibrate with overwhelming intensity. The seven fiery scarlet Stars and the seven violet-black electric Stars, once solitary, now voraciously absorbed the inexhaustible sea of magical energy. Their luminous bodies blazed like miniature suns, on the verge of undergoing an earth-shattering evolution—splitting, multiplying, and condensing to ascend into true Nebulas!
Out upon the stone crag behind Feng Lan High School, a violent gale suddenly erupted from Lin Feng’s seated form, blasting away fallen leaves and loose dust in a clean, perfect circle ten meters across.
The youth’s tightly shut eyes snapped open.
Within the depths of his gaze, one pupil blazed with crimson fire that seemed ready to scorch the nocturnal sky, while the other danced with razor-sharp violet-black lightning that cleaved the air, radiating the suffocating aura of a powerhouse who had just torn through mortal shackles!
Yet, just as Lin Feng prepared to guide his Stars to coalesce into Nebulas, something shifted at the furthest, most uncharted fringes of the boundless darkness newly opened within his spiritual sea...
Two completely new, bizarre motes of light were quietly kindling into existence.
One mote was pitch-black, dark and elusive as a spectral wraith slipping through the dead of night...
The other mote shimmered with an ethereal, translucent silver gleam, sending out subtle, mysterious ripples of spatial distortion unlike anything he had ever witnessed before...
The overwhelming aura of a brand new awakening was rumbling to life!