As Shi Feng silently recited the incantation in his mind, the dark-gray seed of flame in his palm transformed into streaks of dark-gray light that shot straight into his body and vanished in an instant.
The moment those dark-gray streaks sank into his body, Shi Feng couldn't help but grimace.
It hurt far too much!
This pain was incomparable to what he had experienced when absorbing a Tier 3 Strange Fire. It felt as though every drop of blood in his body was boiling, while his bones itched and burned as though countless ants were gnawing at them.
Had his mental fortitude not undergone a breakthrough, he probably wouldn't have been able to endure even a fraction of this agony.
Before long, a system fusion bar appeared in his line of sight — but its progress was agonizingly slow, climbing roughly 1% every ten-odd seconds…
"So using a Flame Seed is already this difficult. No wonder so few players in my previous life mastered a Tier 4 Strange Fire."
Shi Feng watched the sluggish fusion bar and felt a wave of realization wash over him.
This level of pain would drive anyone mad after a single second, and this was a weakened Tier 4 Strange Fire. Without the weakening, he couldn't even imagine what it would be like.
He even began to wonder whether those who had wielded Tier 4 Strange Fires in his previous life had resorted to some special method, just as he was doing now.
After all, he had tempered himself in the Divine Realm for ten years. In this life, his mental growth had been tremendous — he considered his mental endurance to be on par with those monstrous experts of the Divine Realm. Yet even absorbing a weakened Tier 4 Strange Fire was this grueling. What about one that hadn't been weakened at all?
3%… 10%… 30%…
"Hold on!"
"I have to hold on!"
Shi Feng clenched his teeth until they nearly cracked. His gaze had turned completely bloodshot, but his face was paler than it had ever been.
As time ticked by, the fusion bar's rate of growth grew ever slower. After two full hours, it had only reached 73% — still a considerable distance from the 100% needed.
However, once the fusion had progressed to 60%, the Strange Fire seed began emitting powerful waves of mental shock, ceaselessly slamming into the depths of Shi Feng's mind, battering his sea of consciousness.
At the 74% mark, a particularly violent shock nearly sent Shi Feng collapsing to the ground. His consciousness had started to blur, as though he was losing control over his entire body.
"No — the mental impact from absorbing this Tier 4 Strange Fire seed is getting worse and worse," Shi Feng realized, forcibly biting down to drag his fading awareness back from the brink. "If this keeps up, even if my mental energy isn't completely drained, the shock alone will knock me unconscious." He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay alert. "I have to find a way to counter these mental shocks, or there's no chance I'll make it to the end."
During fusion, a player had to remain conscious and resist until the very last moment. Otherwise, the fusion would fail no matter how far it had progressed.
With that thought, Shi Feng began employing mental resistance techniques to counteract the seed's psychic assaults. At the instant a shock wave arrived, he condensed his entire consciousness into a single point, as unyielding as bedrock.
He had to admit — this mental resistance technique proved remarkably effective once again.
But before he could savor his relief for long, once the fusion bar crossed 80%, the seed seemed to have sensed his trick. The frequency of the mental shocks began escalating rapidly — from one per second to two, then three… four… five…
The rate climbed as if it had no upper limit, bombarding his mind with frenzied abandon.
"Are you kidding me?!" Shi Feng was momentarily dumbfounded.
His mental condensation technique could only hold for a single instant. It was like tensing every muscle in your body at once — in that fleeting moment the muscles became rock-hard, but the energy cost was enormous and the duration razor-thin. Mental condensation was even more complex, with an even shorter window.
This high-frequency barrage of shocks gave Shi Feng no room to relax. He had to maintain the condensed mental state for far longer than it was ever meant to last, only able to release his focus during the briefest gaps between shocks. The strain was beyond description.
83%… 87%… 92%…
As the frequency of the mental shocks continued to intensify, the gaps in which Shi Feng could catch his breath grew ever shorter. The pressure was so suffocating that he felt as though his mind itself was being crushed.
"Isn't it over yet?!"
Shi Feng forced his eyes toward the fusion bar, feeling as though he was about to break.
At this point, the searing agony throughout his entire body was nothing compared to the suffocating pressure on his mind. He had instinctively stopped even registering the burning pain of the Strange Fire — the only thought remaining in his skull was finding his next moment to breathe.