**Chapter 75: Light Transformation**
Jie Ming habitually closed his eyes, directing his consciousness inward.
Even during this period of indulgent relaxation, he hadn’t neglected nurturing his magical treasure, and his efforts had not been in vain.
He could feel the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror growing ever more connected to his mind, as if it had become a sixth limb of his body.
This sensation grew stronger by the day, until just moments ago, Jie Ming felt that the time had come for his first attempt.
Eager to experience the core function of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror—Light Transformation Escape—he could hardly wait.
He wanted to test the extent of its capabilities in the late stage of Qi Refinement and determine the limits his body could endure.
Given the mirror’s extraordinary speed, a mere laboratory training ground was insufficient.
Jie Ming left the academy again, flying for several days until he selected a wide, open mountain range as his testing site.
In a secluded valley, Jie Ming took a deep breath to calm his mind.
He focused his divine sense entirely on the mirror within his dantian.
“Transform into light!” he commanded silently in his heart.
In an instant, the mirror in his dantian erupted with a dazzling radiance.
The light didn’t scatter outward but converged instantly, shifting from tangible to intangible, becoming a formless force that surged from his dantian and enveloped his entire body.
It was an indescribable, peculiar sensation.
His body seemed to lose its physical substance in that moment, becoming incomparably light, as if he were pure light itself.
A layer of shimmering, five-colored “light armor” coated his skin, merging seamlessly with his body.
He could sense that this light armor was formed by the five interwoven concepts of light within the mirror!
His body felt no pain or discomfort—only an extraordinary sense of liberation.
It was as if he had broken free from the constraints of his flesh, ready to surge in any direction at will.
With another thought, he chose a protruding rock in the distance as his target.
No roar, no thunder, not even the faintest sound of air tearing.
Jie Ming felt his body explode into a stream of golden-red light. The surrounding scenery shattered, as if cleaved by a giant axe into countless fragments.
His sense of time warped entirely; space seemed folded and compressed.
Everything before his eyes blurred into streaks of light and color, with only fragmented glimpses—trees retreating at blinding speed, the faint outline of a mountain peak, fleeting patches of ground vegetation—all stacking and leaping in a chaotic, illogical manner, too fast for his eyes or brain to process!
It didn’t feel like “flying” but rather “teleporting.”
He wasn’t controlling light—he had briefly *become* light!
No resistance from the air, no sense of the ground’s distance—Jie Ming only knew he was rushing forward at an unimaginable speed!
He tried to control his direction, to adjust his trajectory, but his body refused to obey!
He was like an arrow loosed from a bow, able to move only in the predetermined direction at breakneck speed!
How long did the light transformation last?
Perhaps a fraction of a second.
The extreme speed distorted his sense of time, leaving him unable to judge.
Without deceleration or warning, one moment he was immersed in that ultimate velocity, and the next, a massive impact struck!
The light escape dissipated instantly, his body snapping back into physical form, and then…
He felt himself crash into something solid!
The tremendous force recoiled, and his body let out a pained groan.
He tried to steady himself, but his legs buckled, and his vision darkened.
It took a long while to regain his senses. Only then did Jie Ming realize he had slammed into a massive rock!
Half his body, from the waist down, was embedded in the unyielding stone.
He struggled to free an arm, bracing against the rock wall, gasping heavily.
In his dantian, his true essence was like a riverbed drained dry, utterly depleted.
That fleeting moment of light escape had consumed all his true essence from the late Qi Refinement stage!
His soul felt as though it had endured torture, trembling with exhaustion, his mind throbbing with fatigue, on the verge of collapse!
Struggling, he extracted himself from the rock, the pain forcing a low growl from his throat.
Fortunately, the magical treasure had been crafted with an impeccable safety system, ensuring the user didn’t carry the inertia of flight upon ending the light escape.
Jie Ming’s embedding in the rock was purely due to his inexperience with controlling the power. When he ended the light transformation, a burst of residual energy caused self-inflicted harm.
With a few more practice sessions, such issues would cease.
Compared to the backlash of the force, the brief emptiness after the escape was far more terrifying.
In that moment, Jie Ming felt as if his life force had been drained, his limbs unresponsive. For several breaths, he was incapable of any effective dodge or counterattack.
If this test had occurred in front of an enemy, he would be a sitting duck, ripe for slaughter!
With all his strength, he crawled from the rock and collapsed beside it, leaning against the human-shaped dent he’d created.
His body was powerless, barely able to stand.
His insides were hollow, his divine sense weakened, his body ached, and an indescribable stiffness lingered…
After lying on the ground for a long time, he finally began to recover. Trembling, he reached into his robes, pulled out a well-protected potion bottle, and poured its contents into his mouth.
As the elixir’s cool sensation rapidly healed his injuries and restored his mental strength, Jie Ming finally had a moment to reflect on the light transformation.
The speed of light flight was so overwhelming that he hadn’t fully comprehended what happened before it was over!
So fast that he completely lost control!
But… it was also *incredibly powerful*!
At just the late Qi Refinement stage, with the treasure’s initial form, he had achieved such a velocity!
Probing his dantian with his consciousness, he found the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror dimmed, its light flowing sluggishly, clearly as drained as he was and in need of recovery.
Gasping, he looked back toward the mountains he’d come from, now invisible, then down at his battered state.
If his vision couldn’t even catch the mountains, it meant he’d traveled at least a thousand miles in that instant.
And that was only because his true essence was too limited to sustain the light transformation for more than a fleeting moment.
If he could maintain it longer, the distance he could cover would multiply exponentially.