The following day
The vortex was still in the room, but the situation had changed from the previous day.
"That's it, come closer."
He could feel a wisp gravitating toward him.
A few hours later, the wisp came in contact with him.
Bzzzzt!
Suddenly, his body jolted back as if it had been electrocuted. A single wisp from the stone had energized his entire body.
His body had never experienced such pure bliss.
The wisp was at least a hundred times purer than any Qi he had come in contact with till now.
Woah!
"If this is from their planet. Then, their situation is way better than ours. Nothing can rival the Qi from the stone on this entire planet. It seems like I've hit another jackpot."
"I'll save this for later."
He placed the stone inside the ring and went to Lou Xiang.
***
Lou Xiang's Manor
Knock! Knock!
"Come in, disciple."
The doors opened.
Grim went in and sat before his master.
Lou Xiang asked. "How have you been, disciple?"
Grim replied. "I'm fine, master."
Lou Xiang inquired again. "And what brings you here, disciple?"
Grim stated. "I'm here to say my farewell, master. My second and third crystals have been destroyed. So I need to look for a chance to repair them."
He didn't disclose information about the recent changes in the forbidden forest.
The answer caught her off guard. She didn't know there was a way to restore the crystal, but she could understand his decision. A cultivator without crystal would be equivalent to a human without arms. Yes, they can survive, but they would be weakened significantly.
Grim said farewell to the master and flew toward his senior brother and sister.
Gu Lan and Ren Dan were happy to see him, but the atmosphere turned bitter when he disclosed the reason behind the visit.
Gu Lan, in particular, was upset about his decision to depart. However, they changed their minds after Grim explained the reason behind his departure.
***
The Forbidden Forest
Grim arrived at the forest eight days later, but the atmosphere remained the same even after two weeks.
The deeper region of the forest was filled with a fiery aura and no signs of life within. However, some curious beasts were around the edge of the forest.
Grim paid them no heed and advanced toward the cave, but reached the limit at the 1300-meter mark.
"I guess this is the best I can do without the crystals. Alright, time to synthesize them."
He sat down and started to absorb the aura from the surroundings. Instead of Qi, he wanted to create the crystals out of the aura.
He accumulated aura and concentrated on a single spot. But the plan failed again and again.
"Looks like I won't be able to create a crystal out of the 'fire' element. I'll try merging Qi and the 'fire' element."
He started to concentrate 50% Qi and 50% aura. The plan worked, and a minuscule crystal formed inside the body, but the downside was the time it consumed.
Usually, the crystal formation only took a few hours. However, the crystal only grew a few millimeters every hour this time.
He mumbled. "At this rate, the crystal formation will take about a week."
***
A week later
A dark orange crystal could be seen floating inside his body. It looked like an orange sapphire.
"It took a whole week for its formation. Now, I'll imprint the 'fire' element."
He began to imprint the 'fire' element. He could feel his affinity with the 'fire' element recover, and the crystal was turning even brighter.
"Yess. It feels as if something stolen from me has returned."
He relished as the 'fire' element was being imprinted. The imprint process ended after an hour later.
He expected his affinity to return to the former level, but surprisingly it had been boosted further.
"Mixing aura with Qi paid off well. Let's test it."
'Fire Domain'
The domain expanded across 2.5 kilometers(1.5 miles) which was 500 meters(1640 ft) more than before.
'Solar Wave'
The wave was 20% bigger than before.
"Might as well create the third crystal here."
He returned to the crystal formation process again, and it took him another week to complete.
But, he was left with a dilemma in the imprinting process. The crystal was made with the combination of Qi and the 'fire' element. However, he only had 'water', 'earth', and 'life' elements. None of the elements were suitable for the newly formed crystal.
"Well, that's awkward. The aura turned from a blessing to a curse. I'll leave a spot for the future. What matters now is the fact that I have three crystals."
"It might take decades to break above 'master' level. However, I don't know when the enemies might arrive, so it's not worth the risk. Instead, I'll explore the other marked locations."
Grim flew to the next marked location in the east.
***
A month later
He arrived at the marked location, but it was a frozen wasteland.
Snow covered the lands as far as he could see, and it radiated a chilly aura. Even Grim couldn't help but shiver.
He muttered. "The last location had a fiery aura, and this one had an icy aura. All these locations have a connection with the elements."
"Unlike the last one, I have no affinity for the 'ice' element. I might as check the final location instead of wasting time here."
Grim flew toward the west.
He arrived at the final location. An ordinary mountain welcomed him.
"Looks can be deceiving."
He was cautious.
'Polyp'
He summoned the clone and let it investigate the surrounding. The clone moved a meter and vanished.
"What?"
He tried to sense his connection with the clone, but it was gone.
He murmured. "My connection with the clone has severed, could this place be a death trap?"
He slowly backed away from the location and breathed a sigh of relief when he had backtracked about fifty meters.
He began to ponder. "The previous locations had something to do with the elements, but why is there a death trap here?"
"Let's see if that's the case."
'Water Blade'
He launched water blades ahead, and to his dismay, it vanished once it reached the same spot as the clone.
"Let's try this."
'Solar Wave'
A wave of fire advanced and vanished at the exact spot.
"They keep disappearing at the exact spot. This can't be a coincidence, right?"
'Storm'
Lightning bolts pressed on, and produced the same result. Then, he began testing with objects, and it produced the same results.
However, he uncovered something interesting. The effects produced at the moment of disappearance were pretty similar to the effects of the ring.
Grim pondered. "The ring can store and withdraw things out of thin air, so it probably deals with the 'space' element, and this location has a similar effect. This location has the 'space' element, the rarest among two?"
"It can't be true, right?"
He pinched his cheek.
Ouch!
"So this is not a dream. Three locations with three different elements, and one happens to be 'space'. I pray the aliens don't know about it, or else we're in a lot of trouble."
Sigh!
"Why did it have to be here of all planets?"
He was probably the only one in the whole universe to be unhappy with such a fortune.
[Evo points left: 10,444,750]