Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO ON KINDLE SEPT. 2)

Carmen hung from the ceiling, the chains cutting into her wrists as her assistants slammed their hammers into her flesh. She felt the blows – of course she did – but she couldn’t let them affect her. Instead, she focused inward on her ethera, pushing outward with every fiber of her will.

It barely moved.

That was expected. She’d experienced it before. But with every hammer blow that struck her flesh came a pulse of foreign ethera. Her body reacted to it, and her own energy surged to repel it. In that way, her form was saturated.

She wanted it to go faster though. She needed to be better – like Elijah, who seemed to take cultivation for granted. Carmen had heard his stories, and initially, she’d thought she would progress just as easily. She’d learned differently the second she’d started her own journey of cultivation.

None of it came easily. In fact, it was like pulling her own teeth with a pair of plyers. Difficult and painful.

But it was the price she needed to pay for progression. Her constitution and abilities like Resist Fire could only go so far in protecting her from the increasingly hot flames with which she was forced to work. She’d been burned more than once, and that was despite having protective gear. She needed to be more durable.

It didn’t stop there, though. Even if she managed to take the first step in body cultivation – which was closer than she’d ever expected so soon after she’d started – she needed to immediately jump to other aspects of cultivation. Her soul needed to advance so she could handle more ethera, and she needed a mind upgrade so she could regenerate energy more quickly. But most of all, she needed a proper core, and one that represented her path.

Others had already taken that step, and she’d seen an immediate change in their capabilities. Everything those people did was just better.

Carmen wanted – no, she needed – that, but she wouldn’t cut corners. She wanted to do things right, at least as prescribed by the guides she’d read. That meant starting with body, moving to the soul, upgrading her mind, and then working on her core. It was a long and arduous process, but she was committed to seeing it through.

With that in mind, she focused entirely on the flow of ethera through her body. The session continued until her entire form was black and blue, and even then, she refused to let up.

Not until she felt her ethera surging of its own accord.

“It’s happening,” she croaked from between gritted teeth. “Get out.”

Her assistants wasted no time in vacating the cultivation room. Carmen could feel the heat building all around her as she tried to control the ethera in her body. It suffused every cell, practically consuming them with every passing second. At some point, she lost track of where her flesh ended and where the raging torrents of energy began.

She tried to control it. She bent every ounce of her considerable will to the task, but eventually, it proved useless. At some point, all she could do was endure – which she did, albeit not without a few screams along the way.

Then, suddenly, the ethera all rushed out of her, forming a metallic cocoon that enveloped and soothed her. That only lasted a brief second before it solidified, locking her in a sarcophagus of hardened steel. She couldn’t breathe, but then again, she didn’t need to, either.

The cocoon gave her everything she needed.

At some point, the heat began to build. Only a trickle at first, but soon enough, it was hot enough that, by all rights, the cocoon should have melted. It held firm, turning from silvery to red in the space of minutes. Carmen tried to scream as she was burned alive, but she was entirely incapable of moving. Helpless, she felt her body break down.

Only her consciousness remained.

Dissociated from her body, she still wasn’t immune to the pain as she reformed. If she’d been capable of thinking straight, she would have acknowledged that the chrysalis was a necessary and expected part of the process. However, as she experienced it, she could think of nothing but the pain it caused.

Then, suddenly, it stopped.

Ethera and metal rushed into her newly formed body. She screamed – not in pain, but rather, in shock – as she drank it in. It only lasted a few moments before she fell to the ground. The chains were gone. The room glowed red with immense heat, and the glyphs on the dragonstone walls flickered with intense energy.

Carmen saw none of it, though.

Instead, she curled into the fetal position, her knees clutched to her chest as she wept. Echoes of intense pain tore through her in one wave after another. She had no idea if the agony was real, imagined, or simply a series of memories. But in that moment, it did not matter. She felt it all the same.

Gradually, the intensity of those pulses slowly faded until, at last, they disappeared entirely. Only then did Carmen receive the expected notification: