Mira and Maria both sat down in a lotus position where they stood. The surrounding energy felt like it was on fire. The surrounding Qi began to seep into the pores of her skin. Mira felt like she was being cooked alive on a giant lava grill. Mira started to try to diffuse this flaming Qi that entered her body by sending it all over her body equally. Now instead of a grill, it felt like she was in a slow cooker.

Mira then circulated her Hell Scythe Cultivation Technique. When she circulated the technique Mira was a little surprised. When the scorching Qi entered her skin, her cultivation technique would seemingly split the flaming Qi from the normal Spiritual Qi. After splitting it, Mira used the cultivation technique to temper her skin and flesh. Circulating the cultivation technique would take the absorbed flaming Qi and force that into her skin and flesh. After all of that fire, energy was forced inside of her skin and flesh, then the normal Qi began forcing its way into her skin and flesh, healing what the flaming Qi did to her. Maria was doing the same thing but was going to take a little longer. She could utilize her own Qi along with the Qi in the air to help heal her skin and flesh, but her cultivation technique couldn’t separate the different energies.

Time passed slowly as both Mira and Maria kept tempering their body with this heat. They haven’t even entered the cave yet but were already able to temper their body.

All of a sudden a fluctuation of energy happened in the lava lake. They both opened their eyes to see what was going on, only to see a small…thing? Floating on top of the lava. It was too small and they were too far away to see it so they couldn’t even begin to try to identify it. They waited to see if anything else would happen, but nothing else did. They went back to tempering their bodies.

After an unknown amount of time, Mira opened her eyes.

‘Damn, that hurt. I felt like I was being barbecued. Well even with just this residual Qi from the lava lake, I was able to temper my skin. Skin, marrow, blood are the hardest things to temper and I can temper 2 of those here. I don’t think I can temper my marrow with this lava lake, but that’s what I was going to use the Ice-Fire Flower for. Speaking of the flower.’ Mira thought and took out the flower from her space ring. The flower began to absorb the surrounding flaming Qi like this was the best place in the world for it. Mira noticed this and figured this might happen, but since this also takes in yin energy as well, then Mira will need to give it some. Mira began to incase the flower in ice even if the ice was melting in seconds. The flower noticed the ice from Mira’s ice Dao and started to absorb the now water as well. Mira figured that she would continue doing this until Maria was ready to go inside the cave to temper their bodies further.

Mira didn’t know how long she waited, but the flower was almost rank 2. She decided that even if Maria wakes up, then she will stay at the entrance and make this flower a rank 2 flower before moving farther in.

After a while, the flower finally became a rank 2 flower after absorbing a ton of fire and ice energy. Maria still didn’t seem ready so she decided to utilize this flower right away.

There are several ways to utilize a plant like this, but Mira had only 1 available to her at the moment. She was going to eat the plant raw. This is generally not recommended as the energy can be extremely volatile and chaotic. If one can’t control the energy then it may cause internal injuries. Mira already knew this, but figured that her body was strong enough to handle it. Plus she had her Hell Scythe cultivation technique.

Mira had the flower in her hands and shoved the whole thing in her mouth, gulping it down. After a few minutes, she finally felt the energy being absorbed in her body. The first energy to be released from the flower was the fire portion. After the flower released this energy, Mira circulated her cultivation technique and sent this energy to the marrow in all of her bones.

“AAARRRGHH!!! FUCK!” Mira screamed in pain. It felt like the insides of her bones were filled with ants that are ripping her bone marrow.

The fire energy from the flower continued to crazily flow into her bone marrow, but it also started to leak into her organs as well. Mira noticed this and gritted her teeth. She knew this would happen at some point. Her organs were rather strong, but she didn’t want to intentionally burn them. Veins were popping out of Mira’s forehead as she tried to control this leaking. She was able to control most of it, but a tiny amount still leaked. That tiny amount wouldn’t cause any injuries that were beyond repair and Mira wasn’t able to control any more of the chaotic fire energy.

The fire energy kept flowing through her bone marrow. After a while, Mira was able to force all of the fire energy into her marrow, then a chill came. The ice energy started to seep into her body. Mira was now forced to do the same thing as before, but this time it was easier due to her physique, Dao, and body tempering with her ice previously.

Mira controlled this ice energy and forced it into her marrow. When the ice energy entered her marrow, the fire energy stopped trying to destroy everything. Mira kept forcing this ice energy into her marrow as it seemed to stop the pain a bit the more she did. After a while of forcing the ice energy into her marrow, all of the energy from the flower entered her marrow. Everything seemed fine for a second, but then the two energies collided seemingly fighting. The fire was trying to melt the ice and the ice was try to freeze the fire.

“ARRRGH!” Mira yelped in pain and gritted her teeth. This was the pain that comes from tempering one’s marrow. Mira kept circulating her cultivation technique and sending Qi into her marrow.

Every time the fire attacked, it would begin to set her marrow ablaze, but the ice would then freeze over the marrow while Mira sent Qi in to help heal her marrow.

This unending torture continued for a while until the ice energy started to melt and the fire energy started to cool. The two energies started to settle down and Mira’s marrow began to absorb the rest of the energy.

Mira was covered in sweat right now, but she looked even more beautiful now. Her skin looked like a refined jade made by the gods. No blemishes, but simply perfect. With her body covered in sweat, jade-like skin, and silver hair her entire body was reflecting any light that came into contact with her. Like a Goddess had descended that wasn’t meant for mortal eyes to see. Mira was starving and started stuffing her rations into her mouth like a crazy person. Mira’s bone marrow now had a golden-blue hue to it. This signifies someone that was able to successfully temper their marrow.

Maria had just woken up from her tempering session and caught the tail end of Mira’s breakthrough.

“Congratulations on breaking through to the Marrow Tempering Stage. It seems that you were able to use that flower and breakthrough.” Maria congratulated Mira.

“Yeah, it shouldn’t be too long before I break into the Qi Condensation stage. I want to stay in this cave to utilize all of its benefits. It isn’t every day you come across such an accessible lava lake especially around here.” Mira said.

“You’re right. Even though I thinking training like this is the worst, but this lava cave will definitely make us more resilient.”

Mira nodded. They both felt extremely tired right now after tempering their body so much. They went back into the tiny cave corridor where it was a little cooler and tried to find a spot that didn’t hurt to lay down on and fell asleep.

After they woke they went back to the lava lake. They were now able to enter the cave. They noticed that they were a couple of hundred meters from the lava lake. There was nothing special about the cave itself. There was a ton of that smooth black rock. They decided to collect some when they leave this place. The lava lake itself was still as huge as before. They were also able to spot the orb-like thing floating on the lake but still couldn’t identify nor could they get it. They continued walking in the cave until they couldn’t handle the temperature. They were only able to go about 10 meters closer after entering the large cavern before the heat was too unbearable for them and sat down and focused on tempering their body.

They continued their tempering sessions accept now they sent some of this energy to their blood. They only sent a minuscule of this flaming Qi to their blood. This was to remove any impurities in the blood. Maria was also able to start purifying her Qi removing any impurities that may be in her Qi. One might think that by doing this she can break through the Qi Condensation stages, but no. Qi condensation involves the gathering of Qi, making it denser. Purifying the Qi is just a side effect of the higher densities pushing out the impurities. What Maria is doing is slowly burning away the impurities away in her Qi allowing her to collect more Qi at her stage along with making it circulate smoother through her meridians. Basically, it just increases her Qi’s quality and quantity. This is the reason that Mira wanted to reach the Qi Condensation Realm in this cave.

Maria kept tempering themselves and moving closer to the lava lake. They had no idea how much time has passed, but it’s not like it really matters. Every time they would get closer to the lava, it would take longer to temper themselves enough to where they could get closer. Mira would also cultivate and collect Qi into her meridians trying to break through to the Qi Condensation Realm. Her body’s foundation is incredibly stable and her meridians are very sturdy, so now all she has to do is fill up her meridians with Qi. Maria was also about to break through to the 3rd Stage of Qi Condensation, but every time she purified her Qi, she would have to collect more so it was tough.

Time slowly passed as Mira and Maria kept tempering themselves. They were now stark naked right now. They were getting so sweaty and hot that the beast hides were starting to stick to their skin. Their skin also seemed like it was on fire underneath it. Their skin was a burning red color. They also noticed that whenever they got closer, the heat got exponentially hotter.

They were now 10 meters away from the lava lake. Mira seemed to grow up quite a bit in the unknown amount of time here. She now looked like a 13-14-year-old girl. They knew that it hasn’t been 2-3 years since they’ve been in the cave, but Mira seemed to grow quite a bit. It seemed like a rapid change, but Mira was able to explain the phenomenon to a degree. The extreme temperatures expanded her body slowly as everything grew a bit to keep up with her growth.

She was now a little over 155 centimeters tall and had small lumps on her chest. Mira noticed this change and felt that she could break through to the Qi Condensation Realm with this look.

“I’m going to break through to the Qi Condensation Realm now.” Mira told Maria and she nodded.

“Good luck!” Maria said with a cheerful smile and took out some Spirit Stones to aid her.

Mira shamelessly took them and began trying to breakthrough. She circulated the Qi in her meridians one time. She began condensing and absorbing Qi in the air like crazy. Every time she condensed her energy, she would need to absorb more energy into her meridians and repeat this process over and over until all of her Qi reached a certain density where she reached her limit.

A vortex appeared above Mira’s head. It was clearly much bigger than Maria’s as Mira’s meridians are a lot more tempered along with her extraordinarily strong body while still being in the Body Tempering Realm.

She kept absorbing and condensing the surrounding Qi and had already used the spirit stones that Maria gave her. Hours went by as she repeated this process over and over again. Soon she felt like her meridians were about to explode and she felt like this was her limit. She tried to gather more energy but immediately stopped as her meridians might actually explode if she did that. She circulated the Qi in her meridians 1 full rotation and then the condensed Qi in her meridians began to seep into the rest of her body. It wasn’t all of it, only a small amount of her total Qi was sent to her body, but it increased her strength by many times. Her strength right now is incomparable to herself in the Body Tempering Realm.

Mira clenched her fists.

‘This life will be different. I was definitely not this strong at Stage 1 Qi Condensation Realm in my last life. If I can’t even kill that asshole in this life, then…’ Mira started to despair a little. She clenched her fists so hard that her nails dug into her skin causing them to bleed.

Maria saw this and was about to ask what was wrong when all of a sudden Mira punched the ground, causing cracks to form on the rocks. Then she looked at Maria and said, “Let’s spar!” and dragged Maria away from the lava lake and started sparring. There were a couple of reasons she wanted to spar. One, she needed to clear her head, and two, she had a ton of pent-up energy after her breakthrough that was ready to explode.

Mira and Maria had a fierce spar and sparred for what seemed like hours. Then they went back to temper themselves. The only difference is that Mira was now able to burn away the impurities that are in her Qi. This is incredibly painful as she has to allow this scorching and volatile energy into her meridians to burn away her impurities.

Not long after they were able to reach the lava. Their skin was bright red now and due to all of the tempering that they have done due to the lava lake they now had a slight fiery aura to them. They also seemed to temper themselves as much as they could without actually getting in the lava.

Mira looked at Maria and even with how hot it is in the cave she felt cold sweat forming all over her body. Maria guessed what Mira wanted to do. Faced in front of such a hell, how could the devil not want to jump in?

‘I don’t have the guts to refuse an order from the devil, so all I can do is jump when she says to jump.’ Maria thought to herself.

“It looks like you already know what’s next. Good. We are going for a swim!! Hehe. Coat yourself in your Qi. This will make it easier to purify your Qi and cleanse the impurities in it. I don’t know how much we can burn off, but lava is pretty hot. Also, try to let in little bits of lava and use it to temper your skin and blood.” Mira said with a devilish smile on her face. Even though Mira looked beautiful with a smile, that smile was scarier than any lava lake. Maria gulped and felt that even if she refused to jump, Mira would just throw her in any way.

“Okay.” Maria nodded.

“Let’s go”

They both coated themselves in their Qi and walked into the lava lake. Even with Qi covering their bodies, they could feel the overwhelming heat. The lava immediately began to try to burn the Qi around their bodies. The Qi began to burn off and purify slowly and they began to keep supplying enough Qi to keep their bodies covered.

After they felt stable enough in the lava, they each let in a small drop of lava. They spread out this drop of lava to cover their entire body. A microscopic size drop of lava entered all over their bodies and started to temper their skin.

“ARRRRGGGHHH FUCKING HELL!!” Both Mira and Maria screamed in pain. Just a drop was enough to cause this much pain. They would instantly die if they weren’t covered in Qi.

That one drop began to quickly eat away and burn their flesh and skin. They both circulated their cultivation techniques to try and heal the burnt skin and flesh. Mira’s Hell Scythe Cultivation Manual can’t help deal with the heat here. The lava itself is not Qi and can only be used to help in tempering the body.

After the first drop of lava was entirely used up, they let in another drop and did the same thing.

They continued doing this until they couldn’t keep the Qi around them. When that happened they crawled out of the lava. Their skin almost looked like the lava itself it was so red. They sat there to ‘cool off’ a bit and restored their energy.

After they restored their energy, they ate some food. They realized that in their time near the lava, cooking food was incredibly easy. It often tasted like crap as it was just meat that was fully cooked in a couple of minutes. Mira felt like this was similar to the instant ramen she had on earth except the water is lava and she doesn’t have noodles or salt.

After restoring their energy they went back into the lava and continued their suffering.

An unknown amount of time passed.

‘What a wonderful day! A forecast of hot with a 100% of chance of lava drops. Wow! This was the same forecast.’ Mira thought to herself smiling bitterly. Cooking herself alive is incredibly boring, but she wanted to maximize the benefits out of this damn lava lake.

They must’ve gone into this lava lake 100 times. Each time lasted longer than the last. Mira woke up from her sleep then woke Maria up. This was common and Maria wouldn’t say anything and just follow Mira. They both just wanted to be done with this lava lake. They went back into the lava again and just focused on removing impurities from their blood. Their Qi had already been purified by the lava and aren’t able to achieve any further purity. They didn’t reach 100% purity but guessed that it’s probably somewhere around 90% purified. They were able to temper their skin a lot, this was probably the biggest benefit. They were pretty much able to just walk in the lava now without any Qi barrier. This isn’t necessarily due to their skin being so tough and resilient that the lava can’t burn it anymore. It’s more like their skin gained a certain immunity to the lava. They also noticed that the lava lake had cooled down a lot. This was because of the orb that was floating in the middle of the lava lake. It’s not an orb now and they were able to identify it. It looked like some kind of animal being born. They had no idea but wanted to wait for it and see if it wanted to follow one of them.

They continued cleansing impurities from their bodies and then got out of the lava.

“I don’t think we can get much more out of this lava lake, Mira.” Maria said happily.

“I think so too. I think that was the last time we need to get in the lava, plus that thing in the middle is sucking all of the energy and heat from the cave.” Mira said.

​ “Yeah, but I want to wait and see what creature that is. Maybe it will follow us. I hope it’s cute! Hehe.” Maria said full of expectation.

“Sure we can wait. It should almost be done anyways.” Mira agreed.

They then spent the rest of their time in the cave sparring and cultivating.

It didn’t take long for a massive undulation to come from the creature in the middle of the lava lake. It kept releasing these massive undulations that were much hotter than the lava lake. It felt scorching. Mira and Maria had to block it with their Qi and even then it was scorching. After it released these undulations, all of the energy in the cave was being absorbed by the creature in the middle. The heat and energy that was in the lava were being absorbed too. The whole cave was dropping in temperature at a rapid rate. The whole thing looked like a volcano erupting but in reverse. The volcano is collecting the lava that it erupted. A huge ball of heat and Qi formed around the creature and it seemed to act like a chrysalis.

The creature began absorbing the energy from the chrysalis and soon the chrysalis cracked then shattered. The creature absorbed the chrysalis too, then released its undulations.

Mira and Maria had already hidden and covered themselves in Qi as they watch this. The heat that the creature was radiating right now was insane. Like they were standing next to the sun. After a while, everything started to cool down and the creature dropped from the air. It landed on the now dried-up lava. Mira and Maria came out of hiding and began to approach the creature.

When they saw what it looked like they were shocked.