Rebirth of the Phoenix God

Chapter 121: Evolution

One by one, more and more droplets continued to appear, quickly making its way towards Fen's skin. With the explosion of energy that nearly broke his body apart coming from a single piece, the young man didn't dare to imagine what would happen were all the disturbed liquid infuse itself in his body.

Under the influx of raw power, Fen's muscles and veins filled up with the fire. As if someone was boiling him from within, the young man's skin turned red But it quickly returned back to normal. After the initial outburst managed to rile up his constitution, the effects of a single droplet quickly started to wane. It seemed as if there was something resisting the energy, slowing it down so that Fen's body could properly assimilate it.

And then, the next droplets started to splash against Fen's skin.

Bombarded with insanely condensed for of fires, Fen quickly realised that even his body was unable to keep up with the onslaught. The same thing that earlier acted as a security valve on his body now seemed to slowly lose its potency. To be more accurate, the young man felt as if something extremely heavy was slowly forced to move.

Snap.

It happened in a single moment. Bringing Fen's innate resistance to its utmost limit, the liquid fire that continued to splash against his skin at accelerating rate reached the final line. Beyond that, Fen could no longer keep up with the energy swelling up in him.

Click.

Compared to the previous sound, this click wasn't only a projection of Fen's mind. Clearly disturbing the entire area, this sound itself seemed to initially boil the air around the young man only to suddenly explode all over his body. With the force of the explosion directed opposite to Fen's body, a shockwave spread around him, only accelerating the rate at which the liquid fire was rising above the pool.

But the young man no longer could control what was happening. 

Burning from inside, Fen felt as if his consciousness itself was washing away in the waves of the fires. Unable to even scream in pain as his body refused to listen to his commands, the young man could swear that his blood itself was burning. This feeling was in a sense comparable to when he was burnt at stake But brought several levels up. 

Yet, at some point, Fen suddenly realised that he was no longer in a pinch!

For some reason, once he stopped resisting the agonal pain and embraced it instead, the torture lessened a little! 

Fully aware that this moment could spell the end for him otherwise, Fen decided on a wager.

Dropping all his resistance, the young man opened himself to the fire. As if pulled by a string, a good part of the liquid water within the puddle jerked up, instantly splashing against the young man in a single jet of concentrated fluid. 

If the excruciating pain from before already neared Fen to losing his sanity, then what came now, proved that he knew nothing about the torture. Under the insane fury of the concentrated energy, his body initially started to decompose. All the way to his cells, all the structures were giving up against the storm. All the way to the point when Fen simply relaxed.

Dropping all his guard, he simply accepted the fire washing through him. 

Losing the sense of his physical body in this onslaught of fire, Fen could feel something moving deep within him. Despite the insane, wrecking pain that crippled his entire body, the young man pulled that something up. At least, that's what he wished to do.

Reacting to his moves, the fire exploded with even greater fury before it suddenly started to converge back to the young man's body. A fireball the size of a decent house that by itself was made of extremely condensed fires, shrunk all the way back into the volume of a single, normally build human.

Unable to hold to anything else but that wish of his, Fen's entire soul was focused on the simple task of holding onto his intent. As if following his wish, a half-form of the catalyst that sometimes appeared during his training surfaced. 

Only for the three points where Fen locked his intent to explode in the light before the entire thing simply broke apart! For a moment though, the young man could see what his catalyst supposed to look like. 

Just like in the vision he had all the way back in Akhaz, a simple line going through all three points of his turned into a fiery sword. Even without touching it, as it only appeared for a fraction of a second, Fen suddenly realised that this sword

It was a perfect fit for his hand. 

In this one moment, the young man understood the idea behind the intent. While not a natural way of using the arcana, it was a great tool for humans to develop a form of their power that they would easily control. Contrary to how it sounded, said intent would allow them to achieve far greater means than just relying on their innate drive. But it didn't change the fact, that it was still an external mean of controlling one's power!

With his mirage of catalyst shattered in the onslaught of fire, Fen simply understood the underlying principle that made any form of catalyst an actual weak point. If the catalyst was something external, then how could one wish to truly control the fires?

This was the last straw that broke the camel's neck. As if this realisation was the last stone needed to finish the mosaic of the true face of arcanism, Fen's mind exploded. In a single moment, he experienced something similar to the snippets he recalled from when he resurrected from the fires. But this time, the young man was fully aware of what was going on both around and inside him. 

As if all the lies and misunderstandings that Fen was basing his entire idea of the craft on were washed away by the fires, his body was filled with a strangely familiar energy. It was as if all the fire that attempted to wash his own flames clean off his consciousness, somehow lost the bet and assimilated back to the young man's body!

All at once, Fen could not only feel the world at him to a far greater degree, but there was also a strange aura surrounding him!

Only once the young man managed to calm himself enough to actually open his eyes, he realised that his body was actually shining!

There was no over-exaggeration when this realisation struck Fen's mind. And once he moved his arms around, the truth of the situation revealed itself to him.

The catalyst that he was attempting to make back in the academy, never had any chance to appear. Now, there were damned wings growing out of his back in a grand manner, with a strange layer of his semi-corporeal flames going all the way to both of his hands, where a set of two weapons grew. 

In his rand hand, a relatively long, bastard sword. Maybe it was only an illusion, but Fen could swear that the fabric that made up its blade gave of the glints of a strange light. With a simple crossguard securing his wrist, Fen instantly felt a strange connection with this weapon, as if it existed only for him to use. 

Taking a simple swing, Fen's eyebrows shoot up. There actually wasn't any weight to the weapon at all! Instead of feeling as if he was swinging a lump of steel, if the young man were to close his eyes, he wouldn't be able to tell whether his hand was empty or if he actually held his fire sword in it!

In the other hand, a simple knife lied. Made with the same material as his main weapon, it features a relatively short but sturdy blade, with only one cutting edge. The other end of the weapon was relatively thicker, allowing to parry the attacks with it.

For now, the strange aura that surrounded Fen's body was limited only to the area of his back, arms and upper chest. Even without testing it, the young man could tell that misfortune would befall anyone thinking that this semi-corporeal armour would be easy to penetrate. 

But the biggest surprise has yet to come.

Floating above the surface of the now smaller lake, a single petal of the flower made its way directly into Fen's hands. On top of it, a small grain rested. 

Despite being unable to explain this occurrence, Fen somehow knew the meaning of this situation. Instead of freaking out, he kneeled on one leg and moved his hands forward to graciously accept the reward.

Feeling the petal landing on top of his skin, a shiver went down Fen's spine. Only now did the young man realise that were any Draconis arcanist attempt conquering the challenge, he would surely pay for it with his or her life. There was simply no way to withstand the overwhelming energy of the liquid fire without a legendary bloodline of the phoenix supporting one's effort! 

Even just by touching the petal, Fen could tell the insane heights of energy it contained. It would suffice to say that the liquid fire that the young man absorbed, was nothing more but the waste product created by this single petal!

But right as Fen realised that this single piece of the herb contained even more energy than all the fluid fire that nearly killed the young man, yet another thing brought his attention.

With the level of the liquid in the lake now decreased, its relatively shallow bottom appeared, no longer hindered by the light shine of the fluid.

And right at the bottom of the lake, Fen saw more monster cores feeding on the heat than he saw in his entire life before combined!