Liam held it down with all he had, but to his shock, the next second the whole thing exploded on his face. If he hadn't instantly formed many soul barriers in front of him, half or more of his body would have once again evaporated. Liam staggered back, coughing violently as the thick smoke and shattered soul essence scattered around him. His vision blurred, his chest burned, and the soulweaver thread in his hand writhed like a snake pulled from fire, still intact, but unstable. The Black Dragon sword lay a few feet away, now humming lowly, its surface cracked and bleeding fine streams of black mist. "Are these two incompatible?" Liam did not understand. He had almost lost both of these precious items in a single attempt! "Damn it..." Liam wiped the blood from his mouth and knelt beside the weapon, his brows furrowed in pain and confusion. The connection had almost worked. The soulweaver thread had responded. So why had it detonated? 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶 Maybe if he tried again, he could understand something. He decided to take a break and focused on soul cultivation some more, but his soulweaver thread was only becoming more and more unstable. It felt as if he did not use it right now, he was going to lose it anyway. Liam gritted his teeth and came to a decision. He needed to try this again. But the sword was not the right answer. He closed his eyes, and several options went through his mind. In the end, he decided to bet on something ridiculous. Liam summoned a soul clone of himself. With the abundant soul energy all around him, he was able to conjure the strongest soul clone he had ever made. Sucking in a big breath of air, he once again started the same process. But this time, he guided the soulweaver thread toward the clone instead of the weapon. "It's probably going to fail again, but now I will understand why I am failing." Liam closed his eyes as he gave his utmost focus and concentration to both himself and the clone. Part of him was controlling the soulweaver thread while part of him was observing everything that happened from the point of view of the clone. Thankfully, he had enough mental strength to do something like this. Soon, the thread made contact, and the clone shuddered violently. The thick fog around them spiraled inward, pouring more and more soul energy into the process. Liam focused every ounce of control he had, not forcing the thread, but weaving it into the clone's essence. He threaded it through the clone's soul core, slowly and carefully embedded it right there in the core using as much soul energy as he could muster. His hands trembled, sweat pouring down his face, but he didn't stop. He suddenly felt a shock as he faced a strong rejection from his soul clone Liam clenched his fists. "No. Accept it. Take it and make it yours!" He shouted, giving the command to himself. The soul clone convulsed in place, its body flickering as cracks of bluish soul-light split across its skin. The rejection wasn't coming from the soulweaver thread, it was coming from within. From Liam himself. The clone was him, after all, and it was resisting the transformation at a fundamental level. Liam once again tried to force it when he had a thought. What if the soul clone was rejecting it because it simply couldn't accept? Once that idea popped into his mind, he could feel it. There was indeed something lacking. For a soul clone to become more whole and solid, it needed something to fuel it. Like a mana core or… Liam's eyes flashed open as the obvious thought finally came to him. A Dao seed! His soul clone needed a Dao seed! Just as he realized it, a wave of pain swept across him as his hold on the soulweaver thread became weaker and weaker. The thread was close to collapsing and exploding, taking his soul clone along with it. "No. I will not fail this time." Liam gritted his teeth and began to pump more and more of soul energy into his soul clone. This time, he also did something unthinkable. He took the part of his soul that had imprinted one of his dao seeds and ripped it apart. White-hot, blinding, soul-deep pain tore through Liam's body. It was the kind that made one's thoughts splinter, senses collapse, and one's being feel like it was being peeled away, thread by agonizing thread. His vision blacked out for a second as he clutched his chest, soul fracturing under the sheer madness of what he had just done. He had torn a Dao seed from himself. The Dao seed of Fire. Something he had cultivated, honed, and anchored deep into his being, and now, it floated between his trembling hands, raw and unstable, ready to be erased at any moment. "Sever what is not needed!" The old man's voice rang loudly in his ears at this moment. This was the old man he had met when he entered the Green Mountain sect for the very first time, the old man who had tested him, but Liam did not think much of his words at the moment. He only knew that he was not willing to give up on any of his dao seeds. But now everything suddenly made sense. Liam didn't waste a second. With a desperate cry, he thrust the burning seed into the core of his soul clone. The result was instant. The clone screamed, not with sound but with essence. Its body began to collapse… and rebuild. Collapse… and rebuild. A fiery aura began to appear around it. The soulweaver thread, now on the brink of disintegration, was pulled back into alignment like a taut wire being rethreaded into a loom. It wrapped around the core, weaving through the newly born Dao seed. The soulweaver thread surged with renewed vigor, no longer writhing or unstable. The clone's cracked soul core melted and reformed, binding with the Dao seed, locking it in as a true foundation.