Clink!!
Clack!!
Clink!!
Clank!!
Omari was now mining faster, determined to finish the entire mine on his own. He didn't know how deep in the caves he truly was but kept going, focused on the plan.
The evil energy in his body flared and he felt dizzy. "Not now, not today, I won't give in. Don't ruin my plans!! Tomorrow I'll be free, ha ha ha ha hahahhaha" he laughed not even blinking once.
After a few hours he reached a hard rock. His palms bled, eyes red, but he kept hitting and hitting until the rock broke.
He stopped and stared in awe as he walked through the rock he had broken. He was now in the biggest cave room he had ever seen. It was filled with countless flame stones; some were even bigger than a fully grown man. The spiritual energy in that cave was strong, intense, and pure.
He started digging the flame stones. The evil energy flared up again, this time strong as if demanding control. Omari grabbed his head, as it felt as if it could explode. He rolled on the ground trying to stop the evil energy from getting rid of the drug. It flared up again leaking out of his entire body.
Omari clutched his fists, grinding his teeth trying to stop the evil energy. He got on his knees banging his head on the ground until he bled.
Ahhhh!!!!
He screamed looking up, then his pupils turned green, the evil energy winning the battle.
"I have less than twenty-four hours to finish my breakthrough. If I don't, it will be nearly impossible to do it in the future."
He sat cross-legged and began absorbing and pushing out spiritual energy.
Up above still in the mines, the bell rang and the miners woke up rushing to work.
"We're missing two," a yellow-robed cultivator spoke.
"Ohh those two, they went crazy last night screaming something about mining the entire mines so that we let them go. They are probably dead in some cave now. I'll send people to collect their corpses later."
A few more hours passed by and Omari's face was starting to look a bit more relaxed. He was starting to feel less pain from the process of absorbing and secreting spiritual energy.
"These flame stones are amazing, they destroy and heal your meridians making them stronger with every rebirth. The amount of spiritual energy I have in my body is immense. This is amazing."
He kept going for a while and the process became comfortable, relaxing, and peaceful. Slowly he opened his eyes, then opened his right hand, gathering qi in his right palm and a ball of spiritual energy formed. With a swift movement he closed his palm and the ball exploded in a wave of orange energy. The green glow in his eyes then slowly vanished as he passed out from exhaustion.
After some time he felt extreme pain around his chest. He slowly opened his eyes and the pain got worse. He quickly sat down frantically touching his chest. Looking down, he saw the jade token that he was given to always wear around his neck had started to sink into his chest.
The deeper it went, the weaker he felt. He quickly grabbed it with his right hand, his fingers sinking into his skin to get a better grip on it.
He groaned in pain as he pulled it out fast in quick succession, ripping out a bit of his skin in the process. Without wasting any time he threw the token away from himself.
His eyes darted to it, and white energy shot out of the token, whipping past him. He spun around.
His knees nearly gave out.
A barrier stretched before him, vast and impenetrable. Beyond it stood a white gate lined with orange designs that glowed with an energy he couldn't name. And past the gate,
A phoenix.
Not a painting. Not a statue. A real, living phoenix, its body so enormous that it took him three full seconds to comprehend what he was seeing. It was massive, so large that he had to tilt his head back just to take in the full span of its body. A spear as tall as a building had been driven through its chest, pinning it to the earth like a nailed butterfly.
Omari's hands started shaking.
"What the heck..."
He had felt powerful moments ago. After the breakthrough, after everything, he had actually felt like he was becoming someone. Something.
Now, staring at this divine beast, he felt like nothing.
A single feather on this creature's wing was bigger than his entire body. The pressure radiating from it was suffocating, even through the barrier. And that spear—what kind of powerhouse had been strong enough to wound a creature like this...
Don't think about it. Don't. Think. About it.
He forced his eyes away, forcing air into his lungs. "Is this some kind of forbidden area of the sect? They have a half-dead divine beast in here. And what's with that token?"
He examined his body and his qi was the same, remembering what had happened and how the token tried to sink into his body as if sucking something and how weak he felt, everything connected.
"It wasn't sucking my qi, it was absorbing my life force," he thought.
He sat down and meditated, watching the phoenix with his spirit sense. Minutes or maybe hours went by with him observing everything. Soon he realized the truth. The phoenix was the source of the flame stones. They were feeding it the life force of the miners to make sure it kept producing more stones.
"I can't stay here for too long. If I try to touch anything beyond that barrier I'm dead, and it's not like I can even put a dent on that thing anyways, but first...."
He removed all the tainted flame stones in his low-level spatial pouch and started collecting the good flame stones that were in that huge cave. Within a few minutes it was already full. It couldn't hold more than three hundred stones.
"I'll make my move at night. It will be much easier with the cover of the dark night."
He found a hidden part of the cave and started to cultivate, exploring the changes in his body. His spirit sense had increased; he could hear things that were far away, further away than before. His hearing and overall strength had increased, but the most exciting part was being able to manipulate spiritual energy outside of his body.
"I will need a good flying sword when I get out of here."
"I can already feel the natural elements but that's for later. Right now I need to focus on expanding my spiritual energy. I'll focus on absorbing and circulating qi."
Time went by quickly and soon night time came. He could tell because the bell had rung for the miners to get their food for the day. He didn't have any weapons on him so he grabbed a rock and sharpened it by rubbing it against another rock. After he was done, it was finally time to set off.
Making his way through the caves, Omari heard voices and laughter.
"How far did these two go? It's a trail of flame stones on the ground."
"Check that cave and I'll check that one."
That was Omari's chance. He walked back, vanishing in the shadows. In one of the caves he tailed one of the yellow-robed cultivators, suppressing his presence the best he could.
"Over here," he spoke.
When the cultivator turned, he swung his sharpened stone, stabbing him in the throat three times in quick succession, then he finally stabbed him in the left chest and slowly laid his body on the ground.
He left the sharpened stone in the cultivator's chest and took the man's spatial pouch. Inside were flame stones and a flying sword. Omari continued.
"Hey I found something, it's one of the miners. Poor thing choked himself to death..ha ha ha ha ha ha."
The cultivator looked and there was a shadow just standing there.
"Hey, you coming? We need to get rid of this corpse before we clock in for the day," he spoke walking towards the shadow.
Once he got there he saw his fellow brother's body placed against a wall. Before he could even react, a sword pierced his chest from the back. He spilled a mouthful of blood and dropped to his knees choking on his own blood.
Omari pulled the sword out, grabbed the man by the hair, and slit his throat.
He took the man's spatial pouch and continued with his escape.
Omari was still shoeless wearing brown dirty rags and hadn't bathed in two years. He made his way up skillfully slaying any yellow-robed cultivator he met along the way and took their spatial pouch. He decided it was best to use one spatial pouch so he put all the other pouches in one pouch. The yellow-robed cultivators were easy to kill for Omari since they were basically slaves with privileges. Only white-robed cultivators were considered true students of the sect; yellow robes were workers.
Most miners and cultivators had already gone to sleep or were cultivating. While moving around in the tunnels, Omari would hear occasional laughs and weird giggles from miners who were high on stamina pills.
Soon enough he found the way he came in two years ago. He walked to the entrance and saw the outside world for the first time in a long while. In a situation like that he couldn't help it but stand and smell fresh air for the first time in a while.
Not wanting to get distracted for too long, he smiled and pulled out a large flying sword and placed it in front of his feet, then he walked on and flew towards the ground. Balancing his body was way harder than he had initially thought but he kept on going, trying his best not to fall.
Only when he was a few feet from the ground did he fall, landing on his back.
"I still need a lot of practice on flying on a sword. For now I'll keep on going by feet."
The side of the mountain he was on didn't have any residents on it; it was just woods for a few miles. Omari ran dashing through the bushes until,
Thud!!
He slammed into the barrier that protects the entire Celestial Gate Sect.
"Damn it," he cursed inward. Quickly he remembered how they came in with Mo Jie. He had used a token to enter the sect.
"Guess I'll have to go and get myself a token."
Soon enough Omari was sneaking around, hiding behind buildings and bushes. He saw a white-robed cultivator and started following behind. Omari closed in on the cultivator ready to attack. While in the sect, the cultivators were very relaxed with zero hopes of being attacked.
Before Omari could strike, something caught his attention. He had spotted someone with the corner of his eye.
"Boot"