One step away

Natasha decided not to report her progress, she already understood that golden bones were not impressive Matthew's eyes.

She decided to go back to refining her bones, but she found that no matter how she circulated her mana and tempered, it had no effect at all.

It felt like she had reached her limit, and there was an insurmountable chasm that blocked any further progress.   

"The teacher said that diamond bones cannot be made with only talent, perseverance, and persistence…"

Natasha thought for a long time. But she could not think of anyway out of her predicament.

"Should I ask the teacher for advice?"

"No, he has taught me everything I need to know, so I can only understand the 'meaning' by myself, and if I can't understand it clearly, I must have missed something…"

…

Three days later.

Natasha was had chosen to try to further comprehend the "true meaning" of the all the techniques that Matthew had taught her, but she was still unable to make any progress.

Matthew looked at her with some doubts.

'This silly girl seemed to be a little distracted during the past three days, and she would often be in a daze.'

'Does she finally feel at a loss for not being able to sense mana after such a long time?'

'Does she want to give up?'

'I haven't gotten my diamond yet, come on, you can do it!'

'Let me make up some mysterious words to fool her into regaining her energy.'

Matthew fell into deep thought.

Later in the day, after eating, when Natasha was preparing to clear away the dishes, Matthew spoke:

"Persistence is essential during the journey of becoming a mage."

"If you find that you have encountered a bottleneck, you always keep trying."

"If there is still no progress, you can relax, empty your mind, and try to understand the nature around you."

"Perceive the nature of the world and capture the hidden inspirations around you."

"If you can have a sudden enlightenment, the door to mage-hood will be open to you!"

"Throughout the ages, there are many people who have could make no progress in practice, became stuck in the bottleneck, and could not break through."

"A sudden enlightenment is all it took for them to break through their shackles."

Matthew opened his eyes and started telling lies, deceiving Natasha to try and realize the so-called inspiration.

This way. She would think that if she can achieve enlightenment, she can step into the door of becoming a mage.

Since hard training is not enough anymore, let her go for enlightenment.

In Natasha's ears, Matthew's words became instructions on how to break through her current bottleneck.

'Comprehend the hidden inspirations around you, understand and feel the nature of the world…"

Natasha seemed to understand something and fell into a momentary daze.

"Thank you for your guidance, teacher. I understand what to do!"

Natasha said respectfully.

Seeing that he had successfully fooled her once again, Matthew nodded with satisfaction.

For the next two days, Natasha stopped practicing.

Instead of her daily practice, she wandered around the small village, fed the chickens, took care of the vegetables, and gazed at the stats in the night sky.

Her mind was surprisingly peaceful.

Without the persistence of breaking through the shackles of the golden bones, without the persistence of practicing, her mind seemed to have put down a load, and her whole person became relaxed.

At a certain moment, she even had a feeling that the world was very wonderful.

Another three days passed.

Natasha finished weeding and was about to leave when she suddenly discovered that an earthworm had emerged from the soil and was retracting into the soil.

She also saw another small insect digging a hole in the soil.

At that moment an idea flashed in her mind, as she had gained a sudden enlightenment.

"Nurture the true meaning…I understand!"

At this moment, Natasha felt that she had an epiphany.

A flash of inspiration suddenly appeared in his mind, and she instantly understood the profound meaning of a technique.

"I will be able to temper the diamond bones!"

"It is all thanks to the teacher's guidance, that I was able to have such an epiphany and capture the hidden inspiration around me!"

"Now I finally understand the technique and how to break through my bottleneck!"

Natasha was very excited.

…

The next day, Natasha started practicing before dawn.

After Matthew saw her, he was surprised.

'How could this silly girl cheer up so quickly and continue to persevere?'

'Well, as long as she doesn't find out that she was cheated, everything is fine.'

'At the end of the one-year period, our student-teacher relationship will be immediately severed, the scam will end, and I will go and live in another kingdom!'

'From then on, I we would never meet again.'

At this moment, Natasha was mana into her bones and accumulating it in her bone marrow.

It took two days for Natasha to feel a sense of soreness in his bones, and then he began to temper.

Natasha, who entered the cultivation process, seemed to have forgotten everything, only the mysterious inspiration between heaven and earth emerged in his mind.

Boom!——

The mana in the bone marrow suddenly condensed into a snake snakelike shape along with the bone marrow, and the bone marrow surged as if it had come alive.

At this moment, Natasha felt an unspeakable pain in all of her bones.

The bones all over her body swelled for a while, as if they were about to explode, and then contracted the next moment, as if they had become smaller, and even the bone marrow was squeezed and solidified.

Natasha seemed to feel that an inexplicable power was being born in her bones.

The feeling at this time was more painful and unbearable than the first what she experienced the bone refining.

Beads of sweat kept streaming down her face.

Through it all, Natasha just grit her teeth and persisted until she could no longer hold on, then she would stop.

"The golden bone bottleneck has finally become a little loose…"

Natasha discovered that her golden bones, which had reached their limit and could no longer be tempered, were improving in strength.

"The way I thought of must be correct, and diamond bones are no longer just a distant dream!"

Natasha was so excited that she practiced harder in the next few days.

The pain she endured was also more intense.

…

Seven days later.

The originally golden bones had gained a crystalized luster.   

Although the golden bones had become lighter, the strength of the bones had increased by more than thirty percent.

Half a month later, all the bones around her body become somewhat, and had lost their golden color, but they were more than twice as hard as golden bones.

The mana in her body also felt purer and stronger.

…

Ten days later.

All the bones all over Natasha's body had become crystal clear, and they were only one step away from becoming flawless.

However, at this last step, Natasha felt resistance again.

It seemed like she had hit another bottleneck and could not continued.

Only the last step was needed to truly transform her bones into diamond bones.

Natasha felt very unwilling, therefore, in the next two days, she continued to temper, but made no progress.

It seemed that only by breaking some kind of shackle could she complete this last step of transformation.

…

Matthew didn't know that Natasha was about to temper her bones into diamond bones.

With nothing to do these days, he would dig up some relics of the villagers, which were mostly books and the like.

Although the of the village had come here as refugees, they were literate people, and there were some books left behind.

As he was fiddling around, a rolled up cloth fell to the ground, Matthew bent down to pick it up and found writing on the cloth.

"Whose relic is this? I don't think I have ever seen it before."

Out of curiosity, Matthew rolled out the cloth.

The cloth was quite long, and after unfolding it, he saw that it was full of words.

"This is actually a diary?"

"Daniel's diary?"

Matthew was taken aback.

"That big burly man actually kept a diary?"

For a moment, Matthew was filled with nostalgia.

Daniel was one of the people who were the first to risk their lives by going through the Lefifi forest, he didn't even know if he had managed to escape.

Since he was bored Matthew decided to read the diary, who knows, maybe he would come across some juicy gossip.

"Daniel actually wanted to marry eight wives? Haha. Seems like he was very ambitious. It's a pity."

"When he read the end of the diary, Matthew was suddenly startled and his expression became solemn.

At the end of the diary, it was recorded that Daniel once left the village alone and wanted to go to the city.

On his way he actually saw a vicious beast outside the Evil Forest!

The ferocious beasts he saw was not a lion!

There had been rumors in the village that there was a fierce lion in the Lefifi Forest, so Matthew subconsciously thought that there was only that one lion in the Lefifi Forest.

But now it turns out that besides the lion, there was actually another ferocious beast?

"That ferocious beast was bigger than a lion, the hair on it's head was like fire, and fangs as long as a ruler…"

Matthew was shocked when he saw the description of the ferocious beast in Daniel's diary.

This ferocious beast was even more terrifying than the lion.

"Why is there such a ferocious beast besides the lion in the that Forest?"

"Isn't the lion the king of the forest?"

"How could other ferocious beasts be allowed to exist in it's territory?"

Matthew suddenly thought of a possibility.

"Could that lion have been the subordinate of the other ferocious beast?"

"Did Natasha not encounter the ferocious beast when she led the people to hunt down the lion?"

"It seems that she didn't. Did it hide when it saw a big number of people then??"

"I have to get Natasha to get people to search the forest for this beast, and kill it!"

Matthew immediately took action the moment he thought so.