Lee's body in the arena was also echoing the hammering sound, if one looked closely one would notice the hairs on the skin of Lee's body were all standing erect like a needle.
The arena was still strangely cold, and Lee was still clashing with the fragments. Suddenly, Lee who was swinging Blueflame around halted, the fragments still dashing towards him, the aura he was emanating suddenly became weak and frail.
"He can finally not take it anymore" Bonearrows sighed in relief, he was almost at the brink of getting exhausted of Spirtual energy, and seeing Lee suddenly stop made him ecstatic.
"He can't take it anymore, if i were in his shoes i would also get exhausted fighting the swarm of arrows"
"Yeah, he his promising, but he was tagged with the wrong fighter"
Comments began to fly in the air, this time it wasn't that of ridicule, but rather pity, with the skills Bonearrows had dispalyed, they had placed him as a dragon in their eyes, and Lee a tiger trying all it's best to soar in the sky like a dragon.
The fragments had closed on Lee real quick, that the crowd were already expecting him to admit defeat, but to their disappointment and shock, Lee was still, as still as ever.
While everyone had assumed that Lee had become dumb from the defeat, and were expecting the fragments to impale and peirce his body, it was this moment, that Lee's tightly shut eyes sprang open.
His eyes were shockingly bright azure, it felt as though an avalanche of ice was passing through his eyes.
Immediately his eyes sprang open, the wind around suddenly seemed to have found their master, as they began to eddy around Lee like a ball of snow.
"Clank!"
"Clank!"
The fragments were sent flying around as they hit the ball of wind surrounding Lee, it felt has though they had smashed on hard rock and not wind.
It may seem long, but all of this happened in few seconds, the point where Lee stopped fighting, till the point when the wind barrier suddenly appeared.
"What in the world just happened!!"
The crowd and the whole world seemed to chorus in unison, it was like seeing a tiger pounce on an unknowing innocuous deer, it was certain that the deer would die in the hands of the tiger, and then suddenly, the deer miraculously dodged the attack, grew fangs and killed the tiger, it felt like they were seeing a bed time story happening in reality.
"WTF!!!" Bonearrows screamed out, his body was fidgeting from shock, he couldn't just imagine how whatever happened, happened, like he could already see in his head, Lee impaled by the arrows. He felt, has though his mind was smashed by a stick and was hallucinating.
"Senior Brother Six are you seeing this...."The young gentle lady didn't know what emotion to feel, shock, ecstasy, confusion. They all danced through her head.
"Watch!" The usual unconcerned and haughty voice of Senior Brother Six seemed to have carried a trace of curiosity, his deep eyes had glints of anxiety flashing through them.
Lee's eyes became brighter by every seconds, it seemed as though lightning was flashing through his eyes, the wind around him suddenly became violent, his clothes and hair were being blown around fiercely, Lee's surroundings looked as though a wind storm was happening, the rest of the arena was calm, but only around him was this strange wind blowing berserkly.
It was at this moment that everyone was still trying to process and take in whatever was happening, that the clouds above Lee's head suddenly split open like as though a huge arm was separating them.
A huge ray of spiritual frigid energy suddenly began to fall towards Lee from the gap in the clouds.
The speed of the ray was so fast that the eyes could hardly follow it, before anyone could blink, the ray of spiritual frigid energy had engulfed Lee.
.....
Immediately he opened his eyes he had already been pulled out of the sea of ice, though he was already in control of his body, he still seemed as though he was not, as the strange phenomenon occurring, was not within his grasp, he was also as shocked as everyone in the crowd.
"Arrgh!"
Lee screamed in pains, as soon as the colossal Spirtual frigid energy engulfed his body, it drilled through his body like needles, his whole body was fidgeting from intense cold and pain, the Spirtual frigid energy swept through his body and smashed on his internal organs like an ocean wave, his bones had become so frozen that cracks had begin to appear.
"Argghhhh!!"
Lee's screams were overshadowed by the noise of the wind still edyying berserkly around him.
All of his internal organs were intruded, even his heart was not spared.
"Arghhhhhhh!!"
Lee bit really hard on his tongue, as he tried to keep a clear head, he gritted his teeth in anger as he endured the pain, he could not understand what type of luck he struck today, first was the issue with mental energy now was this. He didn't know what the Spirtual frigid energy meant or where it was coming from, all he knew was it was causing tremendous changes in his body.
Suddenly the sword totem in his Dantian began to glow and ring out, like a commander's call, the energy circulating around his body all began to swim towards his sword totem.
Lee couldn't help but sigh in relief, it felt as though a rock had been raised from his shoulders, he thought it was the end of the painful torment to his body but little did he know...
"Arghhhhhhh"
Lee's scream was so loud this time that the noise from the wind couldn't stop it, veins bulged out all around his forehead, ice began to spread rapidly all around the platform, the wind around Lee suddenly became testy, it felt as if the season had changed to winter, as all around Lee snow could be seen falling, the temperature had sharply dropped, the frigid energy in the air suddenly escalated at a crazy rate, his mask in seconds was already frozen.
All of this phenomenon was happening only around Lee, it didn't extend.
Lee's hair which was naturally pitch black, had shocking taking the colour of snow, not from snow falling on it but it seemed to have mysteriously lost all it's black color, like as though it was washed away, but all of this was nothing in comparison to the pain Lee was enduring.
His sword totem was emanating a faint silver glow as it absorbed the spiritual frigid energy, but no matter how it did, his Dantian was still filled to the brink, the spiritual frigid energy was not something his just growing weak Dantian could handle, the energy was so enormous that his Dantian had began to expand, and this caused him alot of pains more than any he had experienced.
He clenched his fist so hard that his fingers had began to tear the flesh of his palm, his face was fiery red, and blood was slowly sipping from his ears.
If he didn't find somewhere to pass the energy, he would definetly explode.
"I should use this opportunity to charge to the fifth stage" Lee thought aloud amidst the pain he was enduring.
With this he began to direct the energy towards his spiritual paths, his spiritual paths were been smashed hard by the sheer force of the spiritual frigid energy, it was like trying to make an ocean pass through a narrow tube.
The fourth stage to the fifth stage, might seem like just a step, but the difference was like heaven and earth, to break from the fourth to the fifth required enormous energy gathered from a lot of mystical cores or a very large source, an opportunity like this was hard to come by and Lee wasn't going to let it pass.
In the Spirtual stage, the only thing one needed was breaking spiritual paths. It was at it the Ring cultivation stage that one began to deal with foundation.
"Hu la"
Like the sound of rushing waters, the enormous spiritual frigid energy swept towards the fifth barrier.
While Lee was trying to divert the energy from his Dantian, his sword totem seemed to have absorbed to it's fill, a faint line suddenly appeared around the totem, the line began to elongate, and in an unexplainable way, it extended itself to Lee's mental space. The line In a way seemed to have created a bridge connecting the sword totem and Lee's consciousness.
As soon as this happened, Lee suddenly began to emanate a strange aura, it was unexplainable.
"Elder brother thiisss.. Aura could it be?!" The beautiful woman asked with shock written all over her face.
"Yes it is"
"Bridging of consciousness" replied Senior brother Six with joy that could not be hidden written all over his face.
Bridging of consciousness was a phenomenon were, the consciousness of the swore totem links with that of the wielder, it was a myth in the ears of cultivators in Vine city, as they had only heard about it and had failed to witness it.
It was another realm entirely, essence sword was formed from sword totem giving some of its essence to a normal sword, while the rest returns into the body of the cultivator, where he begins to cultivate it.
Normal essence warriors grow to cultivate and control the full of their totems till they can no longer ascend in cultivation.
But bridging of consciousness, didn't follow this pattern, it believed that the totem possessed a spirit, or some sort of consciousness.
Bridging of consciousness, allows you not to only control the totem, but to become one with it, it allows you unleash the full potential of the totem, though it was just the first step in fully understanding the totem, but it was something one in a million essence cultivators could not achieve.