The moment Thuan Thien clicked into the fourth pedestal, the chaos in the chamber did not stop. It intensified.
The entire Hall of Four Books came alive. Golden runes, unseen for millennia, blazed across the floor, walls, and ceiling, connecting the four pedestals in a brilliant circuit of light.
The energies of the four books—the unyielding stability of Earth, the raw fury of Fire, the fluid adaptability of Water, and now, the sharp, conductive will of Metal from Thuan Thien—surged through these channels.
The Tu Thu Dien, the ancient atmospheric machine, fully rebooted for the first time in ages.
But it was booting up in the middle of a psychic hurricane. The black sphere of resentment essence, now completely untethered, pulsed violently, its sole purpose to fulfill its sacrificial programming.
The chamber became a battlefield between two opposing primordial forces: the clean, balanced power of the world's elements, and the chaotic, toxic death-energy of the Madakaros ritual.
"THE MACHINE... IT'S GONE HAYWIRE!" one of the Nascent Soul aliens shrieked telepathically, dodging a rogue fireball and a lash of shadow energy simultaneously.
Lin Ming stood at the center of it all, his hand still on the hilt of his sword. He had become the fulcrum of the entire system.
Waves of elemental energy surged through him from the pedestal, while the dark sphere tried to corrupt his spirit. It was a battle for control, and he was the command console.
[WARNING: Host is connected to a Primordial-level system!]
[System is being flooded with incomprehensible amounts of elemental data!]
[Geomancy Proficiency: 100%]
[Pyromancy Skill Tree Unlocked! Proficiency: 100%]
[Hydromancy Skill Tree Unlocked! Proficiency: 100%]
[Metallurgy... I mean, Ferromancy... Sword... a new skill tree for Metal is being generated... Proficiency: 100%!]
[System Overload! System Overload! Temporarily shutting down non-essential functions to process data! Host is on his own! Good luck!]
The System's voice vanished from his mind, replaced by a symphony of pure elemental knowledge.
He understood Fire's hunger, Water's depth, Metal's sharpness. It was all flowing into him, through him.
He realized the Tu Thu Dien wasn't just a machine; it was a teaching tool. And by inserting the key, he had just signed up for the most intense crash course in the history of cultivation.
He had the knowledge, but not the power to wield it all. He was still just one Foundation Establishment boy. But he didn't need to fight the aliens or the black sphere.
He needed to conduct the symphony. He needed to achieve balance.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the chaos, and focused on his new understanding. The dark energy was chaos. The elements were order.
The only way to defeat chaos was with perfect, unyielding order.
He reached out with his mind, not trying to suppress the rogue elements, but to guide them. He 'spoke' to the raging fire, not with commands, but with the concept of a hearth's warmth, of a forge's focused heat.
He 'spoke' to the lashing water, not with dams, but with the concept of a river's steady, unyielding flow.
Slowly, miraculously, the rogue elements began to listen. The wild fireballs calmed, retracting back towards their pedestal.
The lashing torrents of water subsided, flowing back to their source.
The two Nascent Soul aliens watched, their minds reeling. This primitive wasn't fighting the machine; he was taming it. He had become its master.
With the elements calmed, Lin Ming turned his full, united attention to the true enemy: the black sphere of resentment. It was the discordant note in the symphony.
He couldn't destroy it with force. But perhaps he could... harmonize it.
He pushed the four elemental energies forward in unison. Earth to ground it. Water to cleanse it.
Fire to purify its rage into passion. Metal to give its shapeless despair a form, a purpose.
It wasn't an attack. It was an act of large-scale, spiritual alchemy.
The screaming black sphere shuddered. The chaotic dark energy within began to swirl, not randomly, but into a pattern.
The raw despair was being given structure. The formless rage was being forged. The color began to shift, the toxic black slowly turning into a deep, neutral grey.
The two aliens watched in horror. "He's not destroying the ritual! He's... he's hijacking it! He's refining the resentful essence for himself!"
This was a level of control, of elemental understanding, that even they, in the Nascent Soul realm, couldn't comprehend.
For a Nascent Soul cultivator, power was about domination. For Lin Ming, now connected to the very heart of the planet, power was about balance.
The grey sphere shrank, its energy condensing until it was a small, perfectly smooth orb of polished obsidian resting in the air.
All the death, pain, and fear from the city above had been refined into this single, pure artifact of potent spiritual energy. The ritual was over. The antenna was silent.
The two Madakaros aliens, seeing their grand plan not just foiled but stolen from them, knew they were beaten.
There was nothing more for them here. With a final, hate-filled glance at Lin Ming, they activated their personal teleporters and vanished in a flicker of light.
As soon as they were gone, the immense power receded from the chamber. The runes faded, the books returned to a dormant state, and Thuan Thien's glow subsided.
Lin Ming, drained and utterly exhausted, slumped against the pedestal, pulling his sword free. The small obsidian orb fell from the air and he caught it.
[...System rebooting...]
[...What the heck just happened?]
[Analysis: Host has successfully refined a city's worth of pure death-energy into a 'Soul Pearl'.]
[Item: Soul Pearl (Pinnacle Grade)]
[Description: An artifact of immense spiritual power. Can be consumed to dramatically boost soul strength and mental fortitude, or used as a core component for high-level cultivation techniques or artifacts. Use with extreme caution.]
He had won. He had actually won.
Pham Tuan, who had spent the entire time huddled behind his stone shield, watching the light show with his jaw on the floor, finally rushed over. "Ming! Are you okay? What was all that?!"
"I'm fine," Lin Ming rasped, his throat dry. "I... I think I just passed my final exams."
His comms unit, now free from the interference, crackled to life.
Quynh Nhu: Zenith! Juggernaut! Talk to me! What happened down there? The weird energy draining from the city... it just stopped!
Lin Ming keyed his mic, a weary but triumphant smile on his face. "Hawkeye, the show's over. Tell Minerva to cancel the apocalypse. We got it."
A long silence, then Quynh Nhu's voice, full of breathless relief and unadulterated exasperation. "You 'got it'? That's all you're going to say?! I was fighting off half their stupid army up here, and you just 'got it'?! When we get back to base, you are buying all the pizza for a month!"
For the first time that night, Lin Ming laughed. A genuine, relieved laugh. The city was safe. The battle was won. And he had a brand-new, terrifyingly powerful 'Soul Pearl' in his pocket.
The path of a hero, he was learning, was very, very strange.