Chapter 95: Four Living Volcanoes

The courtyard was bathed in the light of the moon. Elder Thorne stared at Theo as if the young man had just sprouted a second head.

"You want to forge four External Qi-Cores?" Thorne whispered, his voice trembling. "And you want to tether them directly to your own Inner Scenery?"

"Correct," Theo affirmed. "The upcoming Imperial Summit will be a gathering of monsters. If I am forced to clash with the Crown Prince, standard cultivation might not be enough. I need a trump card. Four concentrated detonations of karmic fire should suffice."

Thorne took a deep breath, trying to steady his racing heart. "Young master, I understand that reaching the top twenty on the provincial stele has filled you with confidence. But detonating your foundation to rebuild a stronger one is a myth propagated by cheap tavern bards. You cannot destroy your Inner Scenery and survive."

Theo blinked. "I have no intention of destroying my foundation."

"Then what exactly are you proposing?!"

"I am going to condense four external batteries of pure Abyssal fire," Theo explained patiently. "I will anchor them within my dantian’s orbit. They will act as secondary reserves and, if necessary, disposable explosives."

Thorne looked like he was about to faint.

"You are insane," the elder gasped. "The elemental friction of housing multiple distinct energy cores within a single human body will tear your meridians apart. It is akin to swallowing four active volcanoes."

"I disagree. My foundation is quite spacious."

Before Thorne could launch into another lecture on cultivation safety, Theo raised his hand.

He did not argue with words. He simply opened his palm.

A miniature projection of his Inner Scenery materialized in the cool night air.

At the center burned the pitch-black karmic flame of his Abyssal Forge.

A moment later, Theo summoned a second orb... a pale, icy sphere of Supreme Yin energy he had siphoned and refined from Liana.

Finally, a third orb appeared, forged entirely from razor-sharp sword intent.

The three distinct energy sources orbited his palm in a complex, flawless trajectory.

They moved in self-sustaining harmony.

"Whoa!" Corey stepped forward, his eyes shining with excitement.

Corey possessed a naturally chaotic qi affinity. He loved volatile energy.

Without warning, Corey channeled a burst of his own golden, untamed qi and threw it directly into Theo’s orbital projection.

"Corey, no!" Thorne screamed, bracing for a localized explosion.

Theo merely shifted his wrist. The Abyssal Forge projection expanded slightly, absorbing Corey’s golden qi and weaving it seamlessly into the orbital dance.

Now, four distinct energies spiraled above Theo’s palm without a single spark of friction.

Thorne stood frozen, his mouth hanging open.

He had practiced alchemy for sixty years. He knew the limits of the human body. Yet, the young man standing before him possessed an internal capacity that defied natural law...

Clearing his throat, Thorne tried to regain his composure.

"Impressive," Thorne conceded, though his voice still shook. "However, maintaining that balance requires immense concentration. To permanently forge an External Qi-Core, you must etch specific containment arrays into the physical shell. Learning a single advanced array takes a talented scholar five years."

"I am a fast learner," Theo replied calmly.

Thorne narrowed his eyes. "Genius has its limits."

Determined to prove his point, Thorne reached into his robes and produced two heavy bamboo scrolls.

They contained the blueprints for the *Iron-Lock Void Array* and the *Crimson-Seal Binding*.

They were notoriously complex, requiring the cultivator to split their focus across twelve different energy nodes simultaneously.

"Study these," Thorne challenged. "When you master the first node in a few months, we will talk."

Theo unrolled the first scroll.

His eyes scanned the intricate diagrams. Behind his stoic expression, his Heavenly Mandate System hummed.

The vast reserves of comprehension he had hoarded from Elara’s training and Liana’s dual-cultivation were channeled directly into his cognitive centers.

The complex lines of the array unraveled in his mind, simplifying into basic, intuitive concepts.

Two minutes later, Theo dropped the first scroll. He unrolled the second.

Three minutes after that, he handed both scrolls back to a bewildered Elder Thorne.

Theo raised his index finger. Golden qi flared at the tip.

In less than a second, he traced the complete *Iron-Lock Void Array* in the air.

Without pausing, he layered the *Crimson-Seal Binding* directly over it. The dual arrays pulsed with flawless stability.

Thorne stared at the floating arrays. He looked at the scrolls in his hands, then back at Theo.

He had deliberately chosen arrays he himself struggled to draw perfectly.

"Monster," Thorne muttered under his breath.

"Are the prerequisites satisfied?" Theo asked politely.

Thorne sighed, a heavy, defeated sound. "Even with your monstrous comprehension, we face a final hurdle. My formula for External Qi-Cores is flawed. The shells always leak. The energy decays within twenty-four hours. If you try to anchor a leaking core inside your dantian, it will eventually detonate."

"I assumed as much," Theo said.

He reached into his spatial ring and retrieved an ancient, weathered tome.

He had looted it from Zuo Qiuyang’s stash after the assassin fled the courier station.

"This is the *Primordial Containment Scripture*," Theo said, placing it on the stone table. "I believe it contains the missing variable for permanent energy stabilization."

Thorne picked up the tome with trembling hands.

As he flipped through the brittle pages, his skepticism transformed into wide-eyed shock, and finally, profound enlightenment.

"The internal meridian mapping..." Thorne gasped. "Instead of building a shell, we etch artificial pathways inside the core itself! The energy circulates instead of stagnating!"

For decades, Thorne had treated energy as a fluid to be trapped in a jar.

The scripture taught him to treat energy as a living entity that needed a circulatory system to survive.

Thorne snapped the book shut.

"Corey! Ignite the broad cauldron!" Thorne barked.

Corey bounced on his heels.

"I will handle the stabilization!" Corey cheered.

Within minutes, the cauldron was roaring with fresh energy.

Theo took his position at the primary array node. He channeled his Abyssal Forge, unleashing a torrent of black, karmic flame directly into the crucible.

Corey stood opposite him, acting as the catalyst.

The boy pumped his golden qi into the mix, forcing the raw materials to liquefy and fuse under the extreme heat.

Thorne stood at the helm.

"Compress the center!" Thorne commanded.

Theo intensified the karmic fire, pushing his spiritual sense to its maximum limit.

His control over the Abyssal Forge had grown exquisitely precise since reaching the Golden Meridian stage.

He isolated a concentrated sphere of pure heat, separating it from the main fire.

Corey immediately flooded the isolated sphere with his golden catalyst, solidifying the star-iron dust around it.

"Now, the pathways!" Thorne shouted.

Guided by the ancient scripture, Theo injected thin, needle-like threads of qi directly into the cooling metal shell.

He carved intricate meridians into the core’s interior.

Thorne realized then that Theo was the key. By assisting in this unorthodox forging, Thorne was witnessing principles of energy manipulation that orthodox internal alchemy could never teach.

Hovering in the center of the crucible was a sphere.

The meridians glowed beneath its surface, simulating a living heartbeat.

A permanent External Qi-Core.