Chapter 280: You’re a punk!

Lee felt crushed. Literally.He was lying under a layer of rocks, or maybe he was buried under rocks, he had no clue. What he knew was that it was dark and he had hard time breathing.

For a split moment he tried to focus to understand where was up and down, but the lack of oxygen forced him to use large amounts of wind elemental energy from his Dantian to rush upwards, setting himself free.

He did get out, on the way bruising himself all over, but on the way he realized there was nothing in his Dantian – the spot below his navel was void of anything. The place where once lie the sparks that tormented him for decades was empty. In fact, he could swear he didn’t even sense their existence.

Lee would’ve gladly inspected his own condition, except he was stunned speechless by the sight in front of him.

He stood in the middle of a wide crater, shallow, but stretching at least a couple of miles across. The ground beneath him was rough and covered in loose rubble. At first he might’ve thought he was on a mountain plateau, if not for the fact that he felt like an ant trapped at the bottom of a bowl, able to see only it’s walls around him, and not anything beyond.

The only two things that he did see were mountain peaks to his left and right, but before Lee could think of implications, a familiar voice startled him.

"You took your damn time, didn’t you?" The annoyance in the overlord’s words was obvious.

Lee glanced to the side and noticed the small stature of madam Seris sitting on a larger rock. Gathering his thoughts, he asked, "What did you do?"

"What did I do?" She looked back at him as if he was a retard, "What did you do?! For over a month you tried to destroy the whole Dominion! I understand it was my own fault for sending you to the top of the mountain, but why did you have to destroy the houses of thousands of people?"

"What?" Lee asked, trying to process the implications.

"What, what?! The earthquakes, the storms ... why the heck did you do that?" She asked, but then realized the guy in front of her was as clueless as he looked, and said, "Were you at least successful?"

"I think so." Lee absentmindedly said, "My Dantian seems empty."

"What do you mean, empty?" Seris asked, "You just used large amounts of wind to jump out. Was it some kind of artifact? Let me see ..."

She vanished from her spot, appearing in front of Lee, and pressed her wrinkled palm on his chest.

"How peculiar." Seris mumbled, paused, and then commanded, "Sit down and focus. Don’t perform any techniques, just observe."

Only now did Lee notice that most of his clothing was gone. The only things in tact were his glove and ring. His trousers were in tatters, with only the upper right part remaining – the section containing the spatial pocket. Fortunately, the overlord ignored his manhood dangling along with the strips of cloth, so Lee quickly pulled out a spare shirt and trousers and put them on to avoid further embarrassment.

Afterwards he sat, focusing on his breathing first, and then slowly switched his attention to observe the elemental particles within.

It was confusing. He clearly could sense fire, water and wind, and even earth particles within, but they were all entangled together. Right, then there were spatial elemental particles, and new ones he had never noticed before.

Following the natural flow of the particles within, his attention settled on the center of his chest, when suddenly a bright white light appeared, illuminating his consciousness from within. For a split moment Lee felt as if he were in a dark room where the light had just been switched on, but the difference was that the source of light came from inside of him, from where the heart lay.

It didn’t pulsate or flicker. It shone with constant brightness, radiating power and calmness at the same time. And it came from an object.

Lee immediately recollected seeing something similar when he hunted the Old Gods. In fact, he held such thing in his hand before, except not as bright. Back then, the flea-like Old God’s spark was just like this one, except it later lost the whiteness and became a regular spark.

"How peculiar!" Lee repeated Seris’s words, "I didn’t even do anything! How come they merged on their own?"

"What do you mean, on their own? Didn’t you see the destruction you caused?" Seris said with a snort, but then her eyes lit up, "They merged? Describe!"

"I don’t know what to say." Lee said, still with his eyes closed, "Instead of five ... I mean – seven sparks, I have one, white, in the middle of my chest."

"You mean Dantian." Seris corrected.

"I mean – chest. Here!" Lee opened his eyes and pointed at his heart.

"Impossible!" Seris said, shaking her head, "Before you merge your spark with your soul, it’ll reside in your Dantian. First you merge it with your consciousness, becoming an elemental lord, and maybe, one day, you’ll become an overlord, merging it with your soul. Now you’re just a punk!"

"I don’t know what to tell you." Lee said, "I saw what I saw ... ouch!"

He felt a sudden, piercing pain in his right palm, where the Trexian’s seal lay. It was bearable, but unexpected, although his hand wasn’t damaged at all.

"Alright, try summoning elemental particles." Seris said, ignoring Lee’s reaction, "Let’s go with the wind first!"

Ignoring the pain in his hand, Lee lifted the left palm, and focused on the elemental energies within. It was strange at first. Previously, if he wanted to use an element, he had to focus on a particular spark. Now, though, he had to separate the needed particles from the flow of elements within to manifest them.

It took some time, but with some effort he managed to summon a tiny twister in his palm. He felt completely spent, though. Drenched in sweat and panting, he stared at his palm, not being able to believe he had to struggle so much for a laughable result – his initial intention was to show off by summoning a ball of rapidly spinning wind particles! It was like he had tried to use an element for the first time!

Before blushing from shame, Lee suddenly realized that his earlier action didn’t have the usual negative reaction – the pain. Yes, his right palm still felt like it was on fire while being poked with an icy needle at the same time, but ignoring that – he was fine!

Excited, he focused on fire element, and managed to summon a tiny flame ... right before he passed out.

***

Lee woke up in the middle of the night, beneath a sky full of bright stars. Seris clearly wasn’t a caring water elemental cultivator – she had left him lying on the rocks where he lost consciousness. His right palm still hurt, but it was nothing compared to what Lee usually suffered.

He sat up and focused on the elements within, patiently observing the strange phenomenon in the form of the white spark in the center of his chest. He had no clue how it happened, but apparently the nature had found a way to fix him in natural way, without any side effects.

When the sun rose and Lee decided to go to Seris’s place, the moment he arrived at the edge of the crater, he realized he had been wrong. There had been side effects. Plenty of them.

As far as he could see, the mountain slopes were scarred by rockslides, avalanche paths, and the wreckage of fallen trees. It was hard to imagine what kind of disaster had struck, especially since one of the three majestic mountains, the middle one, was half-gone. Its snowy peak was no more, as if the mountain had exploded from within.

But that wasn’t all. The once-beautiful forests were gone, shredded by sliding debris. There were no beautiful mountain streams or brooks – everywhere Lee looked, there only was dirt and rubble.

The next day Lee arrived to the spot where Seris’s cabin once stood. The old madam stood there, speechlessly staring at the surrounding disaster, deep in thoughts.

"Sorry!" Lee said, but she immediately waved him off.

"I should’ve sent you to another world." Seris said, "I was just too eager to witness the result, you know? Rashness isn’t something you would expect from someone of my age. But it’s not every day you can observe a nature’s wonder being born. Actually, the first couple of days I was next to you, watching you struggle in agony. It was when the Tribulation Lightning drove me away I had to observe you from the other mountain peak."

"Listening wasn’t enough?" Lee tried to joke.

"At some point there was so much noise, I purposefully had to turn my hearing off." She seriously said, but then changed the subject, "What do you plan to do now?"