Shadow stood alone beneath a storm-scarred sky, surrounded by a realm unlike anything he had ever known. Lightning arched in silence through heavy fog, tracing impossible patterns through the air. The ground beneath his feet was forged of obsidian and pulsing jade, as if lightning itself had shaped the world with a sculptor's hand. Every breath burned like inhaling fire and static.
He didn't know how long he had been walking. Only that something ancient watched him. Judging.
"Trial One: The Echo of Thunder. Only those who can resonate with the storm may pass."
The voice was not sound. It etched itself into the marrow of his bones, into the folds of his spirit.
Shadow's eyes narrowed as he took the first step forward onto a glowing fan-shaped platform suspended in midair. Silver glyphs lit up beneath his feet—then trembled.
The weight hit him like a collapsing mountain.
He staggered, his knees nearly buckling from the sudden oppression. It wasn't gravity. It was pressure on his soul, a suppression that ignored the laws of nature. The storm above didn't just scream. It commanded.
His dantian rebelled. Qi tried to flow—then spasmed. His spiritual sea churned. Lightning-threaded agony surged through his meridians.
"Is this... the storm's will?" Shadow muttered. "Or its rejection?"
Another step.
Then another.
By the fifth, he collapsed.
On hands and knees, sweat dripping from his chin, his robe soaked in spirit-forged dew. His breath came in jagged bursts. The storm's rhythm wasn't natural—it was mathematical. Structured. As if each bolt above carried a note in an ancient score.
Shadow gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. If the tomb won't let me walk its path... then I will rewrite it.
He reached inward, finding the chaotic thunder inside him—the shard of storm he had long cultivated. Not brute strength. Not brute force.
Vibration.
A pulse.
A song.
He aligned his heartbeat with the storm's tempo. His breathing with the rhythm of crackling sky.
His spirit harmonized.
The weight eased.
Shadow stood.
A dozen meters ahead, lightning slammed into the platform. When the light faded, a figure stood at its center.
Shadow froze.
It was him.
But not as he was.
The clone shimmered in robes of flickering stormlight, his blade gleaming with pure lightning. His eyes glowed with the stillness of thunder waiting to be born.
"Face yourself," the storm whispered.
And they did.
Their swords clashed.
Lightning erupted.
The clone moved perfectly. Thunder Step executed without delay. Flash Blade Art unleashed with zero waste. Even Thunder Slash—Shadow's most unstable creation—was fluid in its hands, refined to divine precision.
Shadow bled early.
His defenses faltered.
But his spirit did not.
"This is my creation," he growled, blade scraping against his double's. "And if it can be improved... then I will learn from it."
On the tenth clash, he was thrown back. His clone did not pursue.
It waited.
He realized then—it wasn't a battle to the death.
It was a lesson.
The storm did not want domination.
It demanded resonance.
Shadow exhaled, lowering his sword.
He didn't fight.
He listened.
To the sound of his own breath.
To the hum of static in his bones.
To the rhythm of pain, motion, thought—thunder.
The clone mirrored him.
They moved again, now in sync.
Their clash echoed not with fury—but harmony.
The platform pulsed.
Lightning struck them both.
But neither burned.
They became thunder.
The clone faded.
In its place, a floating platform formed from shifting plates of jade and blue crystal. At its center hovered a crystalline core, rotating slowly, its center burning with captive lightning.
Shadow approached.
"Do I take... or do I earn you?" he whispered.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched the crystal, everything changed.
The energy didn't rush into him. It welcomed him. As if lightning had been waiting for him all along. It seeped into his bones, his blood, his soul.
His dantian expanded.
Qi pathways ruptured—then reknit.
Something deeper awakened.
A node, within his core. Shaped not by cultivation methods or pill-refined breakthroughs, but by the trial's harmony. A spinning storm, small as a pearl, yet endless in resonance.
Core of Echoed Thunder – formed.
His eyes snapped open.
The storm above sank into him.
Bolts leapt from the tomb's air and pierced him—not to harm, but to offer.
Shadow screamed—not in pain—but power.
Lightning arced through his meridians, cleansing impurities, smoothing blockages. His spiritual sea surged, flooding with silver-blue Qi that no longer resisted control.
A voice boomed through the sky:
"Trial One Complete. Reward granted. Echo Devour unlocked. Foundation Realm advanced to Level 6."
Shadow collapsed to one knee.
The world was silent.
Then—he rose.
The thunder had changed him.
No longer just a cultivator aligned with the storm.
Now, he was part of it.
He raised his hand.
A spark leapt from his palm.
Then a bolt.
Then a stream of thunderous energy—absorbed from the environment, drawn into his body like breath.
"Echo Devour," he murmured. "I don't resist lightning anymore… I consume it."
A stairway formed ahead.
The next trial waited.
He did not hesitate.
He stepped forward, every step echoing like thunder.