After an hour break she continued her cultivation for another four hours before taking a break again. Then she began her third set...
She was three hours into her third set when she began to feel the energy in her dantian begin to spin. Her eyes lit up, according to her cultivation manual this was the first sign of her demonic core forming.
"Keep focus and continue with the same pace. Don't let the suction from you dantian fool you into increasing you pace. " Jun Xi reminded.
Ming Yue nodded and continued performing her cycles in the same pace. However the suction force in her dantian continued to grow asking for more and more demonic qi. It felt like having a starving beast inside of you but you couldn't let its hunger control you or you would loose control and end up messing up the moves. It was different for more experienced cultivators who could control the cycle without any moves as they were not dependent on actually physically moving their bodies, so they could just increase the speed of the cycle with little effort.
As the suction force kept rising so did the hot feeling inside her dantian. Right now it almost felt like she had a miniature sun in her belly. The strong suction force kept sucking up every bit of demonic qi from her meridians and made her feel dried out.
After another hour of cultivating the suction force finally began to decrease. Another hour passed and now the feeling was completely different, the starving beast seemed to be full and with every finished cycle it felt like she was force-feeding it.
Another hour passed and as she finished this cycle it felt like something broke or cracked inside her dantian. A sudden outburst of energy shot out of her dantian and took the form of a pressure wave that quickly shot off omnidirectionally, as if there was an explosion and she was in the center. The pressure wave left a small indentation in the gravel in the circle where she stood and formed a shallow crater. Jun Xi's robes and hair flapped in the wind as the sudden low pressure around Ming Yue formed and pushed all the air outwards.
As the sudden outburst of energy occurred, Ming Yue felt her consciousness sink into her dantian. Before her she saw an endless darkness with a dark gray planet occupying the center. The dark gray planet looked like it was made of iron. It had several cracks crisscrossing its surface and showed the molten core of magma hidden beneath.
It took her a while before she realized what she was looking at. This was her demonic core. And just as her cultivation manual had explained, once her core was formed her inner eye would open which explained why she could see it.
Ming Yue felt so elated she wanted to jump from happiness. The demonic core was a little ugly and foreboding, but it was hers alone and she was sure it would one day be as beautiful as a diamond. Which was true as once she reached the divine realm it would become crystallized and its color would determine its quality. There were many colors ranging from red to blue where the red was the worst and blue was the best. However she still had a long way to go before she reached the divine realm so she left those thoughts for a future date.
Suddenly she felt a light tap on her shoulder and her consciousness was pulled away from the demonic core and she appeared in the real world.
Jun Xi stood before her with a slightly proud smile on his lips.
Seeing him and being so happy she couldn't help herself from plunging herself into his arms.
"I did it! I formed my demonic core!" She spoke into the soft fabric of his robe and happy tears began to form at the brim of her eyes.
"You did well." Jun Xi said and comfortably rubbed the top of her head.
"En!" She nodded.
"Maybe now you can control your transformation. Try it." Jun Xi gently pulled her away from him.
Ming Yue felt a bit reluctant, she had wanted to stay in his embrace for another few minutes, but finally agreed.
She wasn't too sure how to go about it, but closed her eyes and imagined herself as a fruit.
Plop!
Suddenly Ming Yue's human appearance disappeared and a small purple fruit landed on the ground.
Ming Yue opened her "eyes" and saw how the world around her seemed to have quadrupled in size.
Now back to human form!
She closed her eyes again and imagined herself as a human and with another plop, she now stood in front of Jun Xi again in her human form.
"I did it!" Ming Yue jumped from elation. Finally she didn't need to experience the near drowning experience every two days!
Jun Xi suddenly produced a wooden sword out of nowhere and threw it to Ming Yue. "Follow me!"
Ming Yue looked at the wooden sword questionably and then followed Jun Xi.
He stopped before a rock which was about the size of a basketball and then said, "Remember the martial arts moves you've been practicing the past two weeks? Use one and chop at this rock."
Ming Yue's eyes narrowed as she looked at him wondering what he was up to. But she walked over to the rock, held the handle of the wooden sword firmly with both her hands, and then performed a swing in a chopping motion. As the blade of the sword landed on the rock, a crack was formed along its center and then it suddenly split in two!
Ming Yue looked dumbfounded at the rock, but then she noticed the lingering trail of heat in her meridians, which was very familiar to her. However the acupoint activation sequence was completely different from when she was cultivating. This time the trail of heat began at her dantian and traveled down her arms to the sword and then back to her dantian.
Even Jun Xi looked a bit surprised. He didn't think she would succeed on her first attempt, while he also marvelled a bit over the impressively destructive force of demonic qi. If she had been a normal human cultivator of their sect she would at most have been able to produce a small crack.