Chapter 0441: Cruel Cauldron Conditioning

The arboreal sprawl cloaked the rocky mountains in a coat of severe green, relenting only to allow dappled sunlight to filter downwards, and the ferocious roar of spirit beasts ringing out upwards.

This was the mountain behind the Astral Sage College, the Gukun mountain range.

Sweat was pouring down Li Luo's face, stinging his eyes. His hand was practically a wiper on maximum speed, but the rain of saltwater seemed endless. He was using his resonant power in every way he could think of to increase his speed, and yet Chi Chan easily maintained her distance a few dozen meters ahead of him. He could not close the distance.

The Gukun mountain range had become particularly lively recently. As the Holy Grail Meet neared, all of the Violet Vibrance squads were hunkering down with their mentors here, killing spirit beasts and training themselves.

Li Luo saw Chi Chan halt in front of him, and he gratefully scurried back up to her, wheezing heavily.

He followed her gaze to see two people fighting a bunch of spirit beasts nearby. They moved well together, taking turns to attack and support each other. The spirit beasts fell with brisk efficiency.

Li Luo immediately recognized their familiar movements—Xin Fu and Bai Mengmeng.

This patch of forest had been marked out by Chi Chan for their training use, which meant that all the spirit beasts in this area were swarming them.

It was brutally effective.

Even from a distance, Li Luo could feel that both their auras had been hardened significantly, and their resonant powers were much stronger than before.

Everyone was racing against time to improve themselves.

"Am I to train here too?" Li Luo asked his mentor.

"This is not the sort of training you need. For you, the most important thing is to improve the level of your dual resonances," she replied. Li Luo followed her gaze... further. The only other thing of note was a volcano's mouth, with an ashy-white plume of smoke rising slowly from it. The heat was distorting the air.

With barely a thought, Chi Chan had moved herself over to the mouth of the volcano, and Li Luo again chased her accordingly.

Looking down, he could see magma bubbling merrily below him, gurgling like a baby. A very hot, red, wet baby.

He swallowed nervously. "Er, Mentor, you're not asking me to hop down and cultivate, are you? I'll be in hot soup, both literally and figuratively. My body can't handle this sort of heat."

"I wouldn't ask you to," she chuckled.

Li Luo was very relieved to hear that.

He was relieved too, but too soon. She reached out a slim hand and clenched it above the magma.

Li Luo saw it start to rise, the neon red magma cooling into an ashy-gray as it solidified in the air.

Soon enough, it formed a large, black cauldron.

Although the redness was all gone, the cauldron continued to steam and hiss with heat, and Li Luo could still feel it from a few meters away.

"Get in. You're going to cultivate inside," she said, jabbing a finger at the cauldron.

Li Luo turned an unhealthy shade of green. The damn thing was literally made of magma, and it was an enclosed space. He was definitely going to get cooked in that thing.

"Given your current resonant power, you should be able to last about 10 minutes in there. After that, you'll be completely drained and no longer able to protect your physical body. You'll be burned to a crisp," she told him as casually as if she was explaining how to bake bread.

"If you want to avoid that, you're going to have to break the cauldron within 10 minutes. However, I've put a sliver of my dual resonant power into it as reinforcement. It's not very strong, but enough to stop you from smashing it with brute force. Your only hope is to use the true power of dual resonances to nullify mine...

"If you can get your dual resonances to the Becoming One Stage, you'll be able to do it."

Li Luo winced. He had tried his best to reach the Becoming One Stage ever since the ticket match, but he had yet to replicate his success. It had been a pure fluke.

Still, he did not object to the cruel training that his mentor had set up for him. He knew that cultivating at the brink of life and death was the best sort of motivation and inspiration for a breakthrough.

"Li Luo, the cultivation of dual resonances is indeed very difficult. Because strictly speaking, it's not something that a Resonant Master is prepared for. It's the rightful domain of Dukes, and to dare to trespass on nature's boundaries is a rare but difficult chance to grasp.

"And yet if you can, you will have power in your hands that can far exceed your cultivation level.

"When you reach the Duke Stage, you will naturally grasp dual resonances, and it will even be at the sentience stage, something that you can only dream of right now. But you are not a Duke. You cannot move the resonant power within your body with that level of will.

"There is no way to brute force this—you have to let nature take its course. The power within you is like a very special plant. Pulling on it isn't going to make it taller in any healthy way. You'll have to grow it, nurture it.

"Quieten your heart and feel the pulse, the logic, the system of the two resonances. Understand their nature and then become them."

Li Luo had absolutely no idea what the hell she was talking about. But there was a slight glimmer of an idea itching at the back of his mind. He knew better than to chase it, as it would only disappear. Better to leave it be and let it come to him at its own time.

"Li Luo, you've always been quick to grasp the abstract. The dual resonances are like a pair of unruly, wild stallions. If you can somehow bridle them, they will carry you to fantastic places. It will be the greatest advantage that you can bring forward.

"If you want to do well in the Holy Grail Meet and beat the three hot favorites, you must pass the hurdle of the Becoming One Stage. I believe in you."

Hearing her encouragement cheered him up, and he gave her a huge nod.

"Don't worry, Mentor! I won't let you down!"

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

She nodded approvingly at him.

"Let us begin, then."

Fired up, Li Luo hopped into the steaming cauldron, disappearing into the thick, white smoke.

The next instant.

A miserable howl of pain and misery, enough to startle the birds off their perches.

……

In the forest nearby.

Xin Fu and Bai Mengmeng were taking a well-deserved break under a tree after clearing through a horde of spirit beasts.

Bai Mengmeng wiped sweat from her face, then she suddenly paused. "Did you hear something? Sounded a little familiar." Xin Fu's eyes were half-closed in fatigue, his body too sluggish to move. He gave a slow shake of his head.

"Nope, don't hear a thing... Say, do you smell something nice? It smells delicious, like someone's grilling meat nearby. Damn, I wish they would share a piece or two with me."