CHAPTER 55: THE BLACK SEA

Two Days Later

The chamber was still. Still in the way that only deep stone could be. No breath of wind, no tremble of vibration. Only the quiet hum of Lan’s inner world, rippling in slow, steady waves.

His legs were crossed beneath him. His breathing shallow. Sweat traced down the side of his temple, unheeded.

Three pills gone.

Each one felt like swallowing a star. Not fire—weight. Mass. The kind that dragged at his soul and made his bones ache with the pressure of becoming more than he was.

And still, he hadn’t broken through.

[Progress to Core Formation: 68%]

[Spiritual Will: Ascendant – Locked]

[Current Realm: Foundation Establishment – Tier II]

"Why?" Lan muttered under his breath. "Why won’t it—"

A ripple passed through the air.

Then, like a reflection in disturbed water, he appeared again.

Xie Wuchen.

He stood barefoot now, robed in black so deep it shimmered with the memory of stars. His hair hung loosely about his shoulders, and his eyes... those eyes were mirrors. Deep, endless mirrors.

"You’re forcing it," Xie said. His voice was calm, unhurried. "The True Core Realm cannot be approached like a wall to be broken through."

Lan grit his teeth. "I’ve pushed Qi to its limit. Strengthened my meridians. My foundation is solid."

"Yes," Xie replied. "But it is a black foundation."

Lan frowned. "I know."

"Do you?"

Wuchen stepped forward, and the air bent around him. Not heat. Not power. Something else. Something older.

"You formed a foundation not of aligned Qi, but of opposition," he said. "Of contradictions. Fear that cannot be sensed, Qi that cannot be grasped. That is what the Sutra of the Severed Heaven demands."

He pointed to Lan’s chest, where the Qi sea trembled faintly.

"Now ask yourself: how can a core form from something that does not wish to be touched?"

Lan was silent.

Wuchen knelt before him.

"You remember what a Core is," he said, voice low. "It is not just a compression. It is a decision. A choice made by your spirit to stop expanding and instead to refine. To collapse inward—not as surrender, but as concentration."

He tapped two fingers together, slow and soft.

"Like forming a star from nebulae."

Lan exhaled.

"You must gather everything you are," Wuchen continued. "Your will. Your experiences. Your path. And from those, make a single point. That is the core. Not just your Qi—but your truth."

Lan looked down at his hands.

"I’m not ready," he said.

"No," Wuchen said. "But you’re close. You have built a black sea. Now, to find the one point of light in its center."

He stood again.

"You must walk your inner world."

—

Lan’s eyes opened—not into the chamber—but into darkness.

Endless and starless.

He stood on a vast sea of black glass. Beneath it, the reflection of his Qi churned like a storm, shapeless and wild.

This was his foundation.

He could see it now. A sea without a shore.

And in its depths, fragments floated.

He stepped forward, each movement making no sound, his bare feet not disturbing the glassy surface.

There—he saw a shard of memory.

The moment he first heard the voice of the Sutra, whispering through his cracked dantian.

He walked further—another shard.

His humiliation at the Trial of the Sun’s Grace. The sting of the lash. The silence of the crowd.

He walked on.

Each step brought more.

Seraphine’s warmth as she healed him from the wounds inflicted by Garreth and his friends when he was a child. His father’s disdain. Miller’s fierce loyalty.

All of it.

All of them.

Weight.

His soul had become heavy—not just with pain, but with meaning. Xie Wuchen’s voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.

"Now bring it together."

Lan raised his hand. Qi surged.

The fragments began to move, swirling into orbit around a central point—a single core of light no larger than a pearl.

But then—

Pain.

A scream tore through the space, and the black sea began to quake.

His body trembled. The spiritual world buckled.

The core flickered.

Warning: Spiritual Will Unawakened

Core Formation Process: Incomplete

Lan dropped to one knee. He couldn’t do it.

Not yet.

His soul lacked the anchor.

He needed will—not just emotion. Not just power.

Will.

—

The black sea cracked open.

And Wuchen appeared before him once more.

"Then we start smaller," he said.

He raised his hand—and in it formed a single glowing shard.

"This," he said, "is the key. The essence of Spiritual Will. Its without force and abstained of control. Just clarity."

He stepped forward, placing the shard between Lan’s eyes.

Lan felt it instantly.

Like ice. Like fire.

His thoughts sharpened. His breath stilled. His mind narrowed—not in ignorance, but in purity. All the noise faded.

Wuchen spoke.

"There are cultivators who spend a lifetime searching for this clarity. You must seize it in a week."

"I understand," Lan said.

"No, you don’t," Wuchen replied softly. "But you will."

—

Back in the real world, Lan’s body shook.

His spiritual sea began to glow—not in violent surges, but in steady pulses. His veins filled with Qi that flowed like molten shadow.

He swallowed the fourth pill.

And this time, when he returned to the black sea—

It was still.

Not because it was empty.

But because it obeyed.

[Spiritual Will: 1% Unlocked]

A notification shimmered into his mind.

[Progress to Core Formation: 72%]

Still incomplete.

But now?

He could feel the difference.

His thoughts no longer scattered. His inner world had stopped fighting him. For the first time since forming the Black Foundation, he felt control.

Lan opened his eyes.

The stone chamber hadn’t changed. The cold walls still surrounded him. The air still buzzed with quiet power.

But within him?

A storm had become a river. A river had found its course. And the core... it was no longer running from him.

He smiled faintly, sweat still cooling on his skin.

"We still have work to do," he murmured.

Wuchen’s voice answered like a whisper in wind:

"Then let us begin again."