Destiny in Cinders

If I don't break through fast enough, I won't be able to defeat the elite forces that the demonic cult sends next. An Jing shook his hand and caused the charred skin to flake away like soot on the surface of burnt metal.

"Your body refinement technique is not an average one, that's for sure. It must be on the level of secret core teachings," Ming Guangchen said. He had wanted to warn An Jing to be careful of his Ocular Blaze, but thought that letting him learn that lesson the hard way wasn't a bad idea either. A child would probably internalize the lesson of not playing with fire after touching a hot stove rather than being told not to do it. He had done so in the hopes that An Jing would take the Fortification Realm even more seriously.

It turned out that An Jing did raise his guard so that he wouldn't easily be ambushed by Fortification martialists. With a body refinement technique of that caliber, was there even anyone that could attack him by surprise? What pure Evenstar metal qi. Has he consumed any high-grade metal-aspect spirit items before?

"Either way, let's move on." He shook his head and put his questions aside. Anything was possible when you had some kind of connection to Endmost Sky. He continued to focus on the important points. "The Five Vistas of Fortification, though named as such, aren't necessarily limited to five. If you have a unique lifearc or bloodline wonder, you'd be able to manifest one or two more wonders, matching up with the Six Harmonies or the Seven Luminaries. Manifesting extra wonders has pros and cons for the Clearing Realm and requires their own specific techniques and methods. We'll focus on five wonders as a baseline for now.

"The five wonders must encompass the entire body. Typically, those of the external school focus their wonders in their four limbs, five extremities and bones. Those from the internal school focus on meridians and internal organs. For both schools, the fifth wonder must focus on the soul."

Ming Guangchen moved his arcane corpus and warned An Jing. "You should beware. Make sure to be alert and strengthen your will. Otherwise, you will one day suffer for it."

After the warning, the arcane corpus's eyes opened and turned to An Jing, who felt shapeless blades push against his soul. His body swayed slightly. As he had been maintaining the selfless, wantless state and meditating with Sword of Tranquility for extended periods of time, his soul was quite strong and managed to resist the piercing psychic intent. Even so, he still felt Ming Guangchen reading part of his surface thoughts. It was as if his mind had been dissected. The deeper it was cut open, the more exposed the soul's fundamental nature would be.

"What a dense soul! As expected of a starchild!" Ming Guangchen was no longer that surprised. Since he learned that An Jing bore the Spark, he knew that he wouldn't be able to truly harm An Jing with his arcane corpus if he didn't go all out. Little did he know that he wouldn't even be able to knock him unconscious. The most he achieved was a dizzy spell.

He smiled at the sight of the look of surprise on his disciple's face. "How was it? If you got hit with something like this during a deadly battle, wouldn't you lose your life right then and there? Even if you managed to endure it, some of your tactics or trump cards can be read by your opponent. Experienced martialists will be able to use information like this to gain an edge over you."

"Is this the power of someone at the peak of the Fortification Realm?" An Jing continued to contemplate its implications. After a while, he exclaimed, "Oh! The usage of psychic intent isn't telegraphed in any way. It's possible to strengthen psychic intent and use it to attack the soul in tandem with physical attacks to overwhelm the opponent! So that's what a peak Fortification martialist is capable of!"

While he did seem impressed, he recalled the Temporal Grasp wonder he had gained insight into. While it was a soul arcanum as well, it had to be matched with a completely different set of martial techniques to bring out its full potential. There was quite a stark difference between attacking the soul and reading thoughts and slowing down the body and mind's sense of time, after all.

But if his insights were correct, he believed that the first wonder he should manifest was Temporal Grasp, which ran contrary to Ming Guangchen's advice of manifesting the soul-related wonder last. Why was that the case?

An Jing tried to find the words to express it. "Must the soul-related wonder be manifested last?"

"I knew you were going to ask that," Ming Guangchen said with a smile. "For a Spark bearer like you with a much stronger soul than typical people, you already have a firm foundation to build upon. Most normal people, on the other hand, have to study martial techniques and nurture their physical bodies as a means to hone the mind and soul until they're strong enough to manifest a wonder. Not to mention, what's the point of being able to use a soul wonder without a powerful body to back it up?"

It finally made sense to An Jing. Being able to stun the enemy's soul for a few seconds with a soul wonder was pointless if one didn't have a powerful body to take down the enemy in that timeframe, especially against an enemy that practiced body refinement. This meant that Temporal Grasp was far superior to Sharp Psychic Intent, given that it could be used under any circumstances whatsoever. Manifesting Temporal Grasp as the first wonder didn't come at the cost of any other combat-oriented wonders.

Ming Guangchen continued his lecture. "Once a martialist's aura fills their whole body, one can manifest wonders with the lifearc's power. The first four wonders need to encompass the body to fortify it into a complete whole. After that, one can only advance on the martial path by shattering the heaven-earth gateways to complete the cycle of heaven, earth, man, thereby reaching the Clearing Realm.

"The key to this step is your soul wonder. Take me for instance. The 'sharp' in my Sharp Psychic Intent soul wonder doesn't refer to how sharp it is when I use it to attack other people's souls. That's merely a derivation of the abstract concept it stands for. To use Sharp Psychic Intent is to sharply sense the movement of qi energies in the environment. It also embodies the sharpness a blade needs to cut through the heaven-earth gateways. Then, one will be able to project one's own internal state to affect celestial phenomena and enforce one's will as heavenly will, making a microcosm centered around the self."

"Heavenly will? Isn't that what the Heavenly Demon Cult talks about nonstop? Also, what's that about making a microcosm centered around oneself?" An Jing recalled back during Ming Guangchen's fight when he used an ability to suppress the fiend qi in Keensight's terrestrial veins. It was an ability so powerful that it seemed to allow him to wield the universe however he liked. It was as if he had isolated the surrounding area and made it part of his internal world! This also reminded An Jing about the major Purple Mansion defensive formation he saw at a town in Skysource.

"It reminds me of formations," he muttered. "What does a microcosm have to do with formations?"

"The Heavenly Demon Cult isn't wrong, at least where the fundamentals of the martial path are concerned. That doesn't mean that their other philosophies are correct," Ming Guangchen said, shaking his head at his disciple's doubts. "If they couldn't even get martial theory right, they wouldn't have managed to commit so many atrocities over the years in the Northblack Sacrifice Continent and rise to join the 108 upper sects. As for microcosms and formations..."

He sighed when he mentioned that point, before he chuckled. "Your comprehension capability is so advanced that even I am shaken by it. Since that's the case, let me quiz you on something. What do you think the intrinsic nature of wonders is?"