"Father, look! Yanzhou has awakened his Ash Seed!"
Shen Hongyuan pointed toward his son, who was sitting quietly inside the formation. However, after looking at him for a while, he frowned.
"Hmm? Why does something seem strange?"
Shen Tianxiong, Shen Yanzhou's grandfather, stroked his long white beard and nodded.
"What's strange about him?" he asked.
"Why does he look like... like he's not feeling any pain at all? He's even sitting so calmly, as if nothing is happening."
Shen Tianxiong looked at his grandson with satisfaction.
"That's a good thing! It seems my grandson is stronger than I thought. I heard he trained hard for the past three days. What a good grandson!"
Shen Hongyuan nodded in agreement.
If they knew that Shen Yanzhou was busy imagining himself surrounded by beautiful women and had almost forgotten about the pain, they might abandon their own cultivation and ask Shen Yanzhou to become their master instead.
Meanwhile, inside the formation, more participants began to lose consciousness.
One after another, they fell limp while sitting cross-legged. The three sect elders immediately acted, using the formation to remove the unconscious participants from the central area.
Even so, their eyes remained fixed on those who were still inside the formation. The ceremony was far from over.
Soon, changes began to appear around several participants.
The faint gray auras around their bodies slowly turned brown.
"They're reaching the second stage!"
"The Stone Seed!"
Before the spectators could finish their discussions, a new wave of pain struck the participants whose auras had begun to change.
"ARGH!"
Several people cried out in pain.
The heat inside their blood vessels had not disappeared, but now another kind of pain spread through their bodies. Their bones and joints felt as if an invisible force were crushing them from every direction.
Some participants clenched their teeth, their faces twisted in pain. Others trembled so badly that they struggled to keep their backs straight while sitting cross-legged. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
One young man grabbed his knees, his forehead covered in sweat.
"My bones... they feel like they're breaking!"
Another participant bit his lip so hard that blood began to trickle down his chin.
The spectators watched with worried expressions.
"How can anyone endure that?"
"The pain must be terrible!"
Even some of the older cultivators frowned as they watched the young participants struggle.
Then, two familiar figures caught everyone's attention.
Chang Shiyue's gray aura began to turn brown.
At almost the same time, Shen Yanzhou's aura underwent the same change.
"Look! Miss Chang has reached the Stone Seed stage!"
"Young Master Shen too!"
Shen Hongyuan's eyes widened in surprise.
"Yanzhou has already reached the second stage?"
Shen Tianxiong stroked his beard, looking pleased.
"Excellent! Let's see how far he can go."
On the other side, Chang Weiming watched his daughter with pride.
"Good, Shiyue. Keep going!"
Shen Yanzhou was still lost in his own fantasies.
In his imagination, Shen Yanzhou was lying naked on a bed, with a naked woman on either side of him and another woman straddling him. Beside the bed, Chang Shiyue was slowly taking off her clothes. Once she was completely naked, she climbed onto the bed and joined them.
His imagination was so vivid that he barely noticed the pain in his body.
The burning sensation in his blood vessels continued, while the new pain in his bones and joints grew stronger. Yet he remained completely absorbed in his fantasy.
Meanwhile, Chang Shiyue was thinking about him.
In her imagination, Chang Shiyue was wrapped in Shen Yanzhou's arms. She hugged him tightly, and he lowered his head to kiss her on the lips.
Shiyue's face flushed, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she closed her eyes and hugged him even tighter, completely lost in the warmth of his embrace.
Yanzhou kissed her again, and she shyly leaned against him. In her fantasy, they were alone in a quiet room, with no one around to disturb them.
As their embrace grew more intimate, Yanzhou gently helped her remove her outer robe. Shiyue, her face burning with embarrassment, helped him loosen his own robe in return. Soon, their clothes lay scattered beside the bed, and the two of them stood close together, unable to meet each other's eyes.
Shiyue nervously lifted her gaze. The moment she realized how little separated them, her eyes widened, and her face turned even redder.
Ah! What am I even thinking about?!
She hurriedly lowered her head, too embarrassed to look at him again. Yet her imagination continued, and she found herself clinging to Yanzhou, wishing the moment would never end.
Outside her fantasy, Chang Shiyue remained seated inside the formation, her face flushed and her expression unusually soft. She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she barely noticed the growing pain in her body.
Her cheeks grew red as she imagined a future in which Yanzhou treated her as the most important woman in his life.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that she barely noticed the growing pain in her own body.
The brown aura around her continued to grow brighter.
Both of them remained seated with their eyes closed, their faces calm and focused.
To the spectators, they looked like two young geniuses with remarkable willpower.
No one knew that Shen Yanzhou was dreaming about a life filled with beautiful women, while Chang Shiyue was imagining a future with the man she loved.
And as their fantasies continued, the pain of the Stone Seed grew stronger.