Chapter 386: Unlocking the Navel Core

She quickly looked at Solomon, her heart pounding frantically. ’Why did the spiritual union break? Did someone interfere with our cultivation?’

She scanned the dark pavilion gardens, but they were completely empty. She looked back at Solomon and gasped in sheer horror.

Solomon’s physical body was shaking violently. His dense silver aura was leaking out of his pores uncontrollably. But it wasn’t a standard, external projection of qi. His meridian pathways, his nerves, and his veins were glowing a blinding, silver directly through his skin.

His dark academy uniform shredded and tore apart from the expanding internal force.

Yue could literally see his physical body beginning to fracture, microscopic fissures forming across his flesh before his immortal heart desperately scrambled to knit them back together.

Yue was completely bewildered. ’I do not understand what is going on! This is not a cultivation backlash! I have never seen or heard of a breakthrough reacting like this!’

It looked as if his physical body was preparing to detonate like a magical bomb. But that shouldn’t be biologically possible as there was no overflow of qi. They had carefully filled the navel core to its exact limit, not a drop more.

’Is it because I transferred my qi? Are our energies incompatible?’ Yue wondered in a panic. She instantly dismissed the thought. ’No, if my qi was incompatible, his body would have rejected the transfer the exact second we established the connection, not at the very end of the compression phase.’

She didn’t know what to do.

’Should I shake him awake?’

Waking a cultivator during a critical, unstable breakthrough was incredibly dangerous and highly life-threatening as the sudden shock could easily kill him in less than a second. But if she just sat there and did nothing, his body would inevitably tear itself apart, and he would die anyway.

Furthermore, the shaking threatened to throw his unconscious body right off the branch into the abyss below.

She looked closely at his glowing abdomen. His navel core was starting to visibly tear apart under the pressure, but she couldn’t tell if the fracturing was the natural result of a successful breakthrough, or a symptom of the catastrophic phenomenon currently destroying his body.

Suddenly, a horrifying realization hit her.

’His own body is resisting the expansion. It’s forcefully trying to stop him from opening the navel core. But that shouldn’t be possible for a human.’

She quickly concluded that something deeply embedded within his physical vessel—whether it was an ancient, dormant bloodline, his talent, or some other foreign biological entity was actively fighting to prevent him from achieving spiritual ascendance.

She didn’t have the luxury of time to sit and comprehend the bizarre phenomenon. She only knew one thing for certain and that was the volatile, pressurized qi building up inside his fracturing body desperately needed a safe place to go before it detonated.

All she had to do was offer her own body as a conduit and absorb the overflow herself. Perhaps draining the excess pressure would stop whatever catastrophic chain reaction was tearing him apart.

However, transferring qi safely required an established spiritual union, and re-establishing a meditative connection with an unstable, fracturing cultivator was practically impossible.

With no other viable choice left, Yue abandoned all traditional cultivation protocols.

She quickly climbed onto his lap, straddling his waist to secure his shaking body against the trunk of the tree. She grabbed the sides of his face, leaned in, and pressed her lips forcefully against his.

With the deep kiss, she actively initiated a desperate, physical qi-siphoning technique, attempting to forcibly suck out and absorb the volatile, excess energy threatening to destroy him.

[1Fizzy: YOOOOOO!]

[GoonLord: WAIT WHAT IS HAPPENING?!]

[sgtcwby: is this really good time for this?]

[James_hayes: YUE MADE HER MOVE!]

[Foodball: OMG SHES KISSING HIM!]

[Mezz_3863: dual cultivation just leveled up!]

She aggressively forced a spiritual union through physical contact. Even though initiating a forced connection with a destabilized core was incredibly dangerous for both of them, and significantly more lethal for her as the receiver. Still, she forced her consciousness back into his chaotic mind to check exactly what was going wrong.

Outside on the branch, their lips remained locked in a kiss. But inside the mental void, Yue was fighting a battle just to exist.

It should have been a quick and easy transit back into his mind, but his internal defenses actively rejected her intrusion, pushing her consciousness back. She stubbornly refused to stop, pushing her mental projection deeper into the dark void of his psyche.

Suddenly, her progress halted.

A massive, vertical black crack tore through the darkness directly in front of her ethereal projection. Even though the surrounding void and the crack itself were both pitch-black, she could distinctly see the sharp edges of the tear.

A dense, glowing silver mist began to leak rapidly from the fracture. The ethereal fog spilled out in all directions, swirling before condensing into a thick, liquid-like mist that formed a perfect, circular border around the crack.

’What in the heavens is that?’ Yue wondered, staring at the terrifying, eye-like structure.

There was no other place or alternative route she could take in the void. Believing Solomon’s consciousness was trapped inside that bizarre anomaly, she moved her projection directly toward the silver eye, desperately hoping to find him.

But as soon as she drew close, the massive crack abruptly snapped shut.

The silver mist vanished instantly. The chaotic turbulence within his mind immediately calmed down. Her surroundings slowly shifted and stabilized, smoothly transitioning back into the familiar, serene space of their established spiritual union.

Solomon’s silver silhouette was hovering in the same position she had left him in before she was ejected. However, his projection had become noticeably denser and much brighter.

The glowing liquid condensed, growing infinitely denser and brighter. It shrank from the size of a lake, down to the size of a boulder, then to a pebble, until finally, it condensed into a single drop of pure, liquid spiritual energy.

The drop hung suspended in the center of his navel for a fraction of a second.

Then, it detonated.

A shockwave of pure power ripped through Solomon’s spiritual projection, flooding every single meridian, vein, and cell in his physical body with a profound strength.

[Nick: YOOOO THE AURA JUST EXPLODED!]

[Brerell: AHAHAHA HE LEVELED UP!]

[Dakota_Smith: the shockwave almost knocked the owl over!]

[Frendscham: FOUNDATION ESTABLISHMENT REACHED!]

[GoonLord: MY KING IS ASCENDING!]

He had successfully forced the core open and achieved the breakthrough.

However, inside the spiritual union space, Solomon’s silver projection remained suspended in the same position, hovering motionless in the void.

"Solomon?" Yue called out telepathically.