Time lost all meaning. Ren's world contracted to the four walls of his own screaming flesh. The agony was absolute, a white-hot, cellular inferno that threatened to tear him apart from the inside. The Primordial Heavenly Lightning of his soul was a corrosive poison, and he was forcing his body to hold it, to embrace it.
His muscles spasmed violently, his skin flushing a feverish red. Black, foul-smelling sweat beaded on his forehead and drenched his simple tunic. It was his body trying to expel the overwhelming energy, trying to purge the 'poison' that was his own soul.
"Do not let it escape!" Zephyrion's voice was a merciless iron command in his mind. "Every wisp of Aether you allow to leak is wasted potential! Force it back in! Your will is the only thing that matters now! Is your will strong enough to command your own flesh? Or are you merely a failed vessel?"
The taunts were a lifeline. Ren anchored himself to the spirit's scorn, using it to fuel his own stubborn resolve. He pushed back against his body's instincts. He imagined his skin becoming a sealed container, every pore clamped shut by his will. He trapped the searing, chaotic lightning within him, forcing it deeper into his tissues.
He felt the breaking point approaching. His consciousness began to fray, the edges of his vision turning dark. He could feel his own cells beginning to rupture under the strain, a sensation of being unmade from within.
"Now!" Zephyrion's command was a thunderclap. "The breaking is complete! Now, you must reforge! Do not release the Aether! Use your will to seize it, to guide it! Use its own energy to repair the damage it has caused! This is the essence of Dominion! Command your own reconstruction!"
It was the most counter-intuitive thing Ren had ever done. He had to use the fire to treat the burn.
He seized control of the chaotic energy rampaging through him. He stopped thinking of it as a poison and started thinking of it as raw material. With a surge of desperate, focused will, he began to weave the volatile Aether. He guided it to the sites of the worst cellular damage, forcing the lightning to cauterize the wounds it had created, to power the reconstruction of his own ruptured tissues.
The pain shifted. It was no longer just the agony of being burned; it was now the excruciating, grinding pain of being remade. It felt like his bones were being broken and reset, his muscle fibers torn and re-woven with strands of solidified lightning.
He lost track of how long he was locked in this state. It could have been hours; it could have been a lifetime. He was a smith and his own body was the forge, the hammer, and the red-hot steel.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. The chaotic Aether within him did not dissipate. It settled. The corrosive, painful rejection ceased, and the energy was simply... accepted. The searing agony subsided into a deep, thrumming hum of immense power.
He opened his eyes, gasping for air, his body slumped and drenched in sweat that steamed in the cool air of the room. He felt… hollowed out, but simultaneously more solid than he had ever been in his life. He looked down at his hands. His skin was the same, but beneath it, he could feel a new, profound density, a resilience that had not been there before.
He tentatively reached for his Aetheric sense, gauging the state of his own cultivation. The result sent a shockwave through his exhausted mind. His Aetheric Capacity, the fundamental measure of a cultivator's potential, had skyrocketed. He had been a solid Rank 3 Aether Initiate before. Now, the sheer volume of power his body could safely contain had blasted past the bottleneck of his rank. He was, without question, a Rank 5 Aether Initiate. Two full ranks in a single, agonizing session. It was a rate of progress that was simply unheard of, a speed that would shatter the understanding of any instructor at the academy.
"Acceptable," Zephyrion's voice echoed in his mind, the word a grudging admission of success. "A pathetic, but acceptable, first tempering. The vessel did not shatter. It has been widened, but it is still crude. The process has just begun."
Ren barely heard him. He was focused on the new sensation within him. The dam of his will was still there, but it was no longer holding back a raging, chaotic river. The river was still powerful, but it was no longer fighting him. It was waiting. Waiting for a command.
He extended a single finger. Focusing his will, he drew upon a tiny wisp of the now-tamed energy within him. A single, brilliant, azure spark of pure lightning, no bigger than a firefly, danced to life at his fingertip, humming with a quiet, contained power.
It was not a parlor trick. It was not a manipulation of air.
It was his own soul, finally answering his call.