Ch 0 Teaser | Demi-Immortal Ascension (Old)

// This is the old version of the, arguably, first chapter. I decided to rewrite pretty much everything from about 600 words onwards.

*CRACK*

Lightning struck the ground next to teacher Wong, but he didn't even bat an eyelid, his gaze focused on the miraculous spectacle before him.

A young woman, appearing to be in her early twenties, levitated in front of him. She was preparing for her ascension to the demi-immortal realm from the mortal realm.

Inside her human core, the pond's pure golden water like Aratra began to exceed the pond's natural capacity. She was in the process of absorbing enough Aratra from her surroundings to smash her human core's crystal-like walls by pure pressure.

The golden Aratra raged inside her core, waves were forming huge torrents reaching the height of maybe ten bamboo huts crashing against the crystalline walls with such violence that the walls began to crack and groan.

Her face in agony, she howled towards the heavens and the heavens answered, enraged, the frequency of lightning strikes soared and the already storm-like rain became even heavier, it was a flood of water and electricity that poured from the sky.

"Everyone's ascension is different, some experience unimaginable agony, others pure bliss, but all have one thing in common, they defy, forego, and therefore enrage heaven-"

"This is the turning point, your core is about to shatter, after it does, the Golden Aratra inside will contaminate the shards of your broken core, the longer you let the shards be contaminated, the higher your future potential will be! But if you let your shards soak in the Aratra too long, they'll start breaking down as at this point the Aratra won't strengthen the crystalline connections anymore, but destroy them!"

"You have to balance the shards' contamination to the point where they have become a pure translucent golden color and have not yet become pure gold.", teacher Wong yelled through the rain, his long hair disheveled by the wind and rain, the young woman just barely nodded as she continued to scream in her unending agony.

"As you balance the contamination of your shards, heaven and earth will, at some point, send an earthly catastrophe!"

"I don't know which catastrophe it'll be, but remember heaven's methods are endless, boundle-", having spoken these words he was abruptly interrupted by a lightning strike shaking his body and charring the ground beneath him.

As the electricity entered his body his eyes rolled back and only the pure white of his eyes remained. A normal lightning strike wouldn't be able to even cause his hair to stand up, even less cause him to faint. But this wasn't a normal lightning strike, but one sent from heaven whilst the ascension of a person from the mortal realm to the demi-immortal one, the highest major realm humans ever reached.

"Teacher!!"

The woman's shock enabled her to push aside the veil of agony for a second.

"Concentrate! DON'T LET THE CONTAMINATION IMBALANCE!!", somehow teacher Wong managed to regain his consciousness after just a second, though a wary glimmer remained in his eyes as he started to frown.

The young woman hastily concentrated on balancing the contamination of her human core's fragments again.

Slowly but surely she started to succeed, her progress was very good, a lot of shards already reached the maximum saturation without exceeding it.

'If I manage to keep it up like this, I'll have a high chance of receiving a high-quality demi-immortal human core!'

'Though, where is the catastrophe teacher Wong mentioned?'

As the young woman was absorbed in her thoughts and with difficulty maintained a high concentration to retain the balance of contamination, her teacher's face grew ugly, he frowned deeper and deeper.

He seemed to be indecisive about something important as if he stood in conflict between two very influential and potentially consequential decisions.

Though, he watched on as his student reached the critical stage of reuniting her fragmented core.

'I am almost there! Only a little bit more and I'll be able to ascend to demi-immortality!'

As the young woman took her last step before completing the demi-immortal ascension her teacher seemed to have come to a decision and slowly approached her.

"Teacher, I have almost made it! My core is almost reformed!"

At this point teacher Wong showed up behind her and activated his power core -sword arm core- as he rammed his arm through the left side of the young woman's chest.

"I am sorry Thia, but heaven needs you to die-"

A single tear escaped his right eye as his lip quivered for a second, but he quickly adjusted his expression.

This should have been Thia's most joyful moment, the moment where she finally entered the Demi-Immortal realm, but now the betrayal of the one she actually trusted, she knew that in this world no one can be trusted or you'll be sacrificed for benefits, but teacher Wong was different. He was aware too, of the nature of this world, but he still chose to trust in other people, trying to spread good and help the weak.

Was it all just smoke and mirrors?

'That can't be, I have followed him for over a hundred years, no one can keep up an act for so long, and he had disciples that accompanied him for far far longer than that!'

'So, why, why?!'

"WHY!"

She howled louder than the thunder, the shockwave even stopped the pouring rain, but Wong was unmoving, he quietly endured it as his ears and eyes started bleeding.

"As it seems, your earthly catastrophe, was me-"

He laughed painfully as he retracted his arm from Thia's chest.

"Don't worry, I'll stay with you until the end and then atone for my sins."

"I thought once, you would never, under no circumstances break your own principles, but you are just like the others. I should have lived my own way back then, never trusting anyone."

Her voice was getting weaker and weaker as she started drifting off.

The situation was getting dire.

'I have no way out, is this really where I die? Betrayed by my teacher? No! I WON'T!'

At this moment something she had long forgotten roused.

'You are… the -time cascade core-, my innate power core that I never figured out how to use!'

At this point, the core started to shine brighter and brighter inside of the Aratra pond. Instinctually she felt that this was her way out of this predicament.

She chuckled weakly, "Hihihi, I'll come back and take revenge, whilst also uncovering the truth! Just you remember, teacher Wong!".

With that, her body and human core exploded as her consciousness got catapulted into the cascade of time.