20

Once he was sure his mother and sister knew where he would be and that he wouldn't be in danger, Onari made his way to the forest behind the castle. His final destination was a clearing with a bubbling brook that ran into a small pond in the center. He took the cauldron he requested, now a homemade pill furnace, with him.

He made himself at home in the peaceful clearing, and set everything up. The mortar and pestle was set to one side along with the reagents he had gotten from Da Shuizhi. His new pill furnace was placed on a raised rock in a spot that overlooked the clearing's pond.

Onari turned his attention to his ingredients. His fingers grazed each of them before settling on the lavender. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing. He was just following his instincts and listening to his Qi.

The lavender was placed into the pestle, and Onari began to grind it down to dust. A feeling of Zen overtook him as the beautiful flower turned to pretty purple powder. Half of the purple powder was sprinkled into the pill furnace, and the other half was set aside for later.

Next, Onari reached for the Yang Pillar Tree fruit. Careful not to imbue the reagent with any of his own Qi, he sliced the fruit in half with a steel blade. He picked out each individual seed and set them aside for future cultivation, before peeling both halves of the fruit and placing the flesh into the cauldron.

Onari moved the two halves around until they were both coated in lavender dust. The hardy rind of the fruit was cut up into small strips and lined around the rim of the furnace. Onari stared at what he had done so far, feeling like he was missing something. With a snap of his fingers, he realized what that something was.

A single seed was placed in the center of the furnace. He then ground the smoking amber bud into fine powder in the same way he had done for the lavender.

With a single clap and a flex of will, a small flame of foxfire was lit beneath the pill furnace. Onari dusted the foxfire with a small amount of the golden catalytic powder, causing the flame to flare and take on a golden hue. Focusing all his attention on the cauldron as it heated up, he slowly started to feed a strand of his Qi into the process.

Onari sprinkled the rest of the golden dust into the pill furnace and sealed it. The small portion of his Qi that he had put into the process felt like it was rumbling and purring along with the cauldron. The foxfire began to rage until it engulfed the entire pill furnace, yet it wasn't hot for Onari in the slightest.

Over the course of the next couple of minutes, the alchemical reaction intensified, steadied, and wound down. Onari knew the pill creation process was done when the whole furnace seemed to almost 'ding' like an oven. The inaudible 'ding' that resonated through his core puzzled Onari, but he decided to ignore it and trust his instincts.

He smothered his foxfire, and slowly opened the lid to the furnace. Inside, he saw that there were no traces of the ingredients used other than a perfectly round pill. The interior of the cauldron still looked brand new.

Onari reached into the furnace and plucked the pill from the bottom. He held it between two fingers, just admiring his first alchemical creation. It was about half his finger in diameter, and its surface was as smooth as glass. The pill's color was a pure red that was almost see through, showing the seed of the Yang Pillar Tree fruit at the pill's center.

Onari didn't even bother to name the pill. He just took a deep breath, and swallowed the pill whole. For a second, it seemed like nothing had happened.

In the very next second, Onari felt a torrent of Qi flood his core and body. The Qi gathered in the center of his being, then suddenly raced upwards along his spine. It surged through his diantians, obviously targeting the last diantian of the Second Stage -- the Eighth Dragon Diantian.

The Eighth Diantian offered no resistance in the face of the rushing Qi. It burst open under the sudden assault, skyrocketing Onari into the Third Stage.

The effects of Onari's spontaneous breakthrough even spilled over into the physical world. A wave of Qi spread outward from Onari's body, briefly lifting all of the water in the pond into the air. The pond water splashed back down soon after.

Even with how relatively small his breakthrough was in the grand scheme of things, Onari could feel the heavens take notice. Like when he had broken through to the First Stage, his step into the Third Stage had caused ripples to spread through the nature of the world.

One lively old monkey even took notice of the sudden ripples in the fabric of the world. The ever-energetic monkey king turned his attention to Onari just as the heavens struck out at him with tribulation.

Four thick bolts of lightning, one from each of the four cardinal directions, struck Onari's form in an attempt to smite the young cultivator. The heavenly lightning nourished Onari's physical body as much as it hurt. He grit his teeth against the sharp assault. His cultivation churned and swirled as he tried his best to digest the heavenly, lightning-element Qi.

After an instant that felt like an eternity to Onari, the heavenly tribulation came to an end. Onari was left panting. His vision was surprisingly low to the ground. He tried to move his limbs, and found that he was on all fours for some reason.

He looked down, seeing the orange, red, and white fur that covered two small paws. He "tsked" in annoyance. It seemed that the heavens in this world had a sense of humor. Sometime during his tribulation, the heavens had decided to turn the young Kitsune into a fox.

The change of shape wasn't really an issue for Onari. He was a natural shapeshifter after all. But it was bothersome and slightly humiliating. Even though he quickly transformed himself back into his natural state, he couldn't help but feel like the heavens had trampled on his pride a bit.

He packed up his alchemy equipment, and left the clearing, still annoyed at the heavens of this world and unaware that his tribulation had been watched. Somewhere in the distant heavens, a monkey god king laughed himself to tears at the new, young Kitsune cultivator he had found…