I didn't need to open my eyes to understand where I was because I could feel hot waves slap my face, I was in the middle of ocean of fire with a 10 feet stone below my feet it was so thin that except where my foot was placed there was no space and stone beneath me was melting into the fire.
I stood there for few second and remembered what this chakra represents the Manipura Chakra, the seat of your power and transformation. In the same way that fire turns matter into heat and light, this is where you take what you've been given and make the best of it. And then some. Without a strong third chakra, we remain stuck in the sameness and drudgery of a passive life. Manipura is action, doing, going through the eye of the needle, breaking inertia.
So, I spread my hands and let myself free fall from the height because I needed to break the inertia to move forward and I have to accept everything even death as I already experienced it and it didn't scare me anymore.
And there was a gamble I was playing knowing that I was in my soul form so I had no body to burn and another reason I knew was that I could hear someone calling me from below that and it was urging me to follow him beneath the ocean.
I felt splash and it was so painful I felt a searing pain in my body but more than that I felt the pool of energy within me was on fire and I could just scream till my voice was hoarse.
That's when I heard his voice " Master you finally found me " it was a small bird with fierce red feathers on his body and there was a fire burning around it it looked like a phoenix bird I found in novels and magical Chinese dramas he was floating on my energy pool causing it to heat up.
I tilted my face and it did the same copying my expression of confusion " You are so cute" I held him in my arms knowing that it would not burn me and I was right.
" what are you" was first question I could ask "master was your death caused by donkey kicking your head how can you ask such a stupid question " I was your little bird Flap-Flap in your previous life you found me after I went into hibernation due to curse from my parents for 50,000 years, you broke my hibernation when you accidentally kicked me when you were trying to make some guy escape from prison, I introduced myself to you as God of phoenix and you gave me this stupid name Flap-Flap"
he said all this in one breath and this was said with him Flapping his little wings and I could understand my self why I gave him the name Flap-Flap.
I asked him " so you were my pet from previous life, what can you do for me" he looked at me with tears brimming in his eyes
" master why are you so selfish that every time you ask me for my value can't you take me for my cuteness and currently I am inactive as you soul is in between the journey from soul to deity and I could only take my energy from you, so as soon as you turn deity I can retain all my function of warrior bird, increase my size for your flying beast, in your previous life you didn't live long so I could not activate myself, So master please for all that is holy please survive and live long "
I could only roll my eyes and asked him "I need to know your value or else I can only throw you aside" I raised my eyebrow and started tapping my feet "do you know how to cross this dimension and how did I not burn in this ocean in previous test I felt I was getting my body back so why didn't it burn when I came inside it "
again he tilted his head and looked at me stupidly " master why are you so stupid in this life did you drink too much forget me soup when you reincarnated as mortal" I just kicked him and he flipped outside the pool of energy and looked at me grudgingly
" ok ok let me live in this pool I will explain it to you, this pool is full of qi and I could heal and grow faster which will only help you, see I am such a selfless guy you have no value for me " he floated in the water for a while when he saw my face was getting red he finally replied "master your body is not becoming mortal but turning into immortal so this fire did not hurt you and to get out of this ocean of fire open your eyes and look closely there is a cave which will help you" with that he ignored me and continued swimming
" oh by the way when you have to call me shout loudly Flap-Flap" were his last words echoing in my head as I found myself in ocean of fire again now I got it what was happening, due to pain of fire I reverted to my subconscious and this pain activated that weird bird. I looked for a while ocean of fire lost its heating effect on me finally I found the cave as I got near the cave transportation stone again vibrated and as soon as I entered it I crossed another dimension and entered my fourth test.