Pain racked Lin Mu's body without rcy.
It was not a sharp, sudden agony that one could grit their teeth through and wait to pass. It was vast and overwhelming, like being subrged beneath an endless ocean that pressed in from every direction at once.
Each pulse from the Water Core sent a crushing wave through his flesh, bones, ridians, and even deeper, into the very fabric of his soul.
Lin Mu clenched his teeth, jaw trembling, as his entire body spasd.
Yet he did not scream.
He had scread before, long ago, when pain was still sothing new and terrifying. That ti had passed. Pain was now an old acquaintance, one he had t in countless forms.
He rembered the True Gold Body Forging Arts, when molten gold had been poured directly into his flesh, burning through muscle and bone alike. Back then, every breath had felt like inhaling fire, every heartbeat like a hamr striking his ribs from the inside.
He rembered consuming Bloodline Crystals by the thousands, forcing incompatible bloodline energies into himself in a desperate attempt to save Lady Kang. His veins had felt as though they were being ripped apart and reassembled over and over again, while his consciousness wavered on the brink of collapse.
He rembered the countless lesser pains too. Broken bodies. Shattered bones. ridians torn and reforged. Cultivation deviations narrowly avoided through sheer will.
Compared to those, this pain should have been manageable.
And yet, it was not.
This pain did not respect endurance. It did not care about tolerance. It bypassed his hardened nerves and assaulted sothing far deeper.
His soul trembled.
Each surge from the Water Core carried not only energy, but pressure. Conceptual pressure. It was as if the Dao itself was forcing its way into him, testing whether his soul was worthy of carrying its weight.
Lin Mu's vision blurred.
His thoughts slowed.
For a brief, terrifying instant, he felt his consciousness begin to loosen, as though he might slip free of his body entirely.
"No," he thought, clinging to himself with iron resolve. "Not now."
His soul burned bright.
It was not cultivated gently, nor polished delicately. It had been forged in hardship, tempered by survival, and reinforced through countless brushes with death. It was this soul, stubborn and unyielding, that anchored him now. He endured.
Wave after wave crashed through him, hamring his internal world. The Water Core pulsed again and again, each ti releasing power so dense and violent that his body struggled to contain it.
Outside, only three of those waves had escaped.
Inside, Lin Mu had endured dozens.
Ti lost aning.
He did not know when the pain began to lessen.
He did not know when the crushing pressure finally cased.
He only knew that, suddenly, he was breathing.
"Huuu..."
The breath ca out ragged and deep, but it was not accompanied by agony.
Lin Mu froze.
He took another breath.
Still no pain.
His chest rose and fell as he inhaled again, slowly this ti, carefully testing his body.
The sensation was different. His lungs did not simply draw in air. They drew in moisture. Invisible threads of water vapor from the surroundings flowed toward him naturally, effortlessly, as if answering a silent call.
Lin Mu opened his eyes.
Bright sunlight greeted him.
For a mont, confusion flickered through his mind. The ceiling was gone. The walls were gone. The protective formations he had painstakingly laid out were
gone.
The entire courtyard was gone.
He found himself in the open air, bathed in sunlight, the sky vast above him and the ocean stretching endlessly below.
Gasps reached his ears.
Lin Mu glanced downward and realized he was not standing on solid ground.
He was floating.
Beneath his feet was a platform of water, calm and smooth like a perfectly still lake, yet firm enough to support him. The surface rippled faintly with each movent, cool and soothing.
"A water bed," Lin Mu muttered softly, astonished.
But even as he spoke, he felt sothing else.
A presence.
Water answered him.
HUMMM
Dense Water Dao Traces surged into existence around him, rushing in from every direction.
They ca from the ocean below, drawn upward in invisible currents. They ca from the clouds above, condensed from the moisture suspended in the sky. They ca from the air itself, summoned by an affinity that no longer needed conscious effort.
The Dao Traces did not remain abstract or invisible.
They manifested.
SHUA SHUA SHUA
Translucent blue runes ford in the air, intricate and fluid, each one carrying profound aning. Daoist Chu sucked in a sharp breath when he saw them, his eyes widening in disbelief.
"They are manifesting physically..." he whispered.
ng Bai stood frozen, heart pounding. He could feel it too, even without
understanding it fully. The pressure, the authority, the sense that sothing fundantal had changed.
The runes surged toward Lin Mu.
They did not strike him violently, nor did they burn or tear. Instead, they
pressed against him gently, persistently, as if imprinting themselves upon a
willing dium.
Water Dao runes spread across his skin.
They etched themselves along his arms, flowed across his chest, traced the contours of his neck and face. They seeped into places no cultivator had ever witnessed Dao Traces imprinting directly.
His eyelids.
The whites of his eyes.
The insides of his ears.
His tongue.
Even his teeth.
Lin Mu remained still, breathing slowly as his body beca a living canvas. He
felt no pain now, only an overwhelming sense of completeness, as though sothing long missing had finally snapped into place.
Minute after minute passed.
The ocean below churned restlessly, responding to the imprinting process.
Waves rose and fell, tides shifting unnaturally as the surrounding waters
acknowledged their new master.
Finally, the runes slowed.
One by one, they faded from view, sinking beneath Lin Mu's skin and vanishing
into his body.
Silence fell.
Lin Mu exhaled.
And felt it.
His Water Core.
It was no longer rely a marble of condensed energy. It had changed fundantally. The Dao Traces that had imprinted themselves onto his body now converged upon the core, embedding themselves directly into its
structure.
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