The weight of her presence amplified, pressing gently against the very fabric of the sanctuary.
Fan Yumei extended her energy, stabilizing their bond and Lufei's soul world. Lufei inclined her head beneath Fan Yumei's hand, calm as the eye of a tempest, and continued her cultivation until Maxius's evolution concluded.
Fan Yumei turned to Maxius, nodding as he ingested the provided materials.
She initiated the process of weaving a strand of energy to connect Maxius's core to her own and Lufei's.
Maxius remained unfazed.
The first pulse emerged—low, cutting, and precise.
She directed energy towards his core and soul world. Maxius's core and soul world drew from Fan Yumei's energy at a staggering rate. Had it not been for the pill she ingested earlier—rich in qi and soul power—she might have reached her limit.
Maxius's form underwent a rapid transformation. His body elongated and expanded, as feathers transitioned into a reflective black with a silver iridescence. His previously unseen wing began to refract light like a prism. The tail bifurcated into three sinuous, ethereal tendrils, vibrating with an unsettling tranquility. His ocular features were now mismatched—one gleaming violet, the other mirroring the sterile ceiling of the clinic.
With a forceful expansion of both wings—one corporeal, the other ethereal—Maxius's silhouette distorted, elongating further. Feathers became sleeker and elongated, radiating a lustrous black and silver mirror-light. The incorporeal wing shimmered, resembling a cloaked blade, refracting light in intricate patterns around him.
The tail undertook another metamorphosis, segmenting into three razor-tipped appendages. His eye that was once violet transformed fully into a reflective surface while the other deepened into an unsettling black hue. A muted, chilling screech altered the atmosphere as he levitated just above ground level.
With a powerful flap of his wings, he vanished, only to reemerge behind Fan Yumei, punctuating the moment with a piercing caw, observing her with an intent that felt almost predatory.
Maxius had transcended from a mere trickster to a spectral entity in fluid dynamics, honed by precision and a simmering indignation.
Fan Yumei remained unfazed. "Don't fret about me. Evolve as necessary. Do you and Lufei perceive me as your master—a fragile being?" She managed a laugh, crimson droplets staining her lips.
Maxius inclined his head in a gesture suggesting, Of course not.
"Should you tarry further, I'll have you performing whistle drills," she tried to jest, reassuring her companion amidst the chaos of pain and volatile energy coursing through her.
Maxius acquiesced, inhaling the final pill as if a predator savoring its prey—swift, silent, and unequivocal.
A burst of silver qi detonated beneath him.
His incorporeal wing glimmered, elongating—its edges sharpened and clarified, no longer just an invisible projection, but a tangible existence intersecting time layers. The feathers enveloping his body shifted to an abyssal black, their tips accented with a dim starlight glimmer.
His final evolution was both flawless and formidable.
⸻
→ Phantom Apex Mirage – Ascended Assassin Class
🧬 New Abilities:
• Mirror Lash Dive: Generates illusionary afterimages during descent, each posing a threat. The actual Maxius positions himself behind the target to execute a strike.
• Silent Kill Radius: Compromises all auditory and qi detection within a designated radius, rendering opponents oblivious to his presence.
• Null Thread Rewind: Rewinds his actions by 1.5 seconds—facilitating evasion, repositioning, or countering before adversarial impact.
🔐 Hidden Trait – Dead Zone Memory:
Retains memories of previous kills as "ghost strikes." Upon Fan Yumei's direction, these echoes convert into reflexive actions, endowing her with anticipatory responses in combat.
⸻
Fan Yumei regarded the transformations in awe. But didn't yet again have time for sightseeing as she still had a good amount of energy left in her core. She emptied her thoughts and began cultivating the energy invoking her core to break through as her foundation was solid and stable.
She was currently at the high initiate phase for her soul function cultivation and mid-apprentice for her elemental caller cultivation.
At this moment Fan Yumei felt that it was a good time to break through now. She called out all her body energies she cleansed, scrubbed, and pressed them together ridding her Qi and core of impurities in a long tiring and studious process as hours passed by. She felt the full strain in her meridian and core as she used the excessive energy to refine her bones, her muscles, her veins and body pushing as many impurities out as possible.
Fan yumei then felt a connection reaching out to her from her bracelet, and she pulls out her father's bow as she reaches out with both her soul and mental power forming a solid connection as her core began to enlarge.
It accepted her and she accepted it.
Fan Yumei stables hard-core after finishing her cleaning, she combined all four energies, forming a drill needle tip made of this energy and trying to sense the perfect part in her core to invoke breakthrough at the strongest energy vein where she will puncture a hole and weave a bridge of energy connecting into a constant flow from her core to her body and meridians.
This process is very painful and requires a lot of mental energy and willpower.
It took her about two hours to finish bridging the energies between her margins and her course into a constant flow. Then use a little bit of remaining energy to strengthen the bridges finding them making them tougher and more solidified to allow easy flow, allowing her to smoothly breakthrough to Mid-scholar phase elemental caller and low-novice phase for soul function cultivation.
Lufei had grown taller, now requiring her to bow her head to meet the level of Fan Yumei's shoulder.
Maxius settled on her opposite shoulder—substantially larger, sharper, and imbued with enhanced potency. They had transcended mere function as weapons.
Before any of them could fully comprehend their new reality, they were forcefully ejected—just as abruptly as they had been summoned.
Then, without warning, the clinic expelled them—followed by the sanctuary itself, which hurled them out in a flash of light and wind.