Hana was surprised to suddenly appear inside her Soul Hall Domain. She was very sure she was in the middle of something just now.
However, what was it again?
She couldn't think too well. The pain had dulled her senses.
She realized that her condition wasn't so good. She looked at her own partially translucent hands. Her pastel-colored astral body was flickering. Every flicker sent a searing pain inside herself. She gritted her teeth hard and endured. She couldn't explain what was wrong with her, but she tried to review back what was the cause.
After enduring the pain for a few moments to ponder deeply, she came to the conclusion that she must have overdrafted her soul power. She recalled that Kuro had advised her not to use her new skill wantonly since it didn't conform with the actual Emperor Serpent Divinity Soul cultivation progress. Nonetheless, if she could turn back time, she will still use the new skill. She had no other way to subjugate the gigantic queen termite.
Mommy! Are you okay?! I cannot connect to you for a few hours and just managed to see you now… A familiar voice laced with worry and desperation intruded her reverie. Kuro appeared in front of her in his astral form and explained what has happened. It turned out Hana has passed out for a few hours and her beloved little pet had been trying multiple times to connect to her but to no avail.
Inside the Soul Hall Domain, when Kuro didn't merge himself with Hana, his astral self will appear in the form of a gigantic red serpent with a partially corporeal body. It was the same size as his real body during the past tribulation. In front of Kuro, Hana was only as big as a rabbit in front of a fully grown human. Nonetheless, she surprisingly never felt fear at her doted snake pet, and her previous aversion to snake species had mysteriously disappeared.
Did I really passed out that long.. Mommy's feeling a little bit under the weather in the beginning, but Mommy is alright now, Sweetie. Maybe need a little bit of rest to recuperate. Hana tried her best to appear in a better condition to alleviate Kuro's worry. However, once in her own Soul Hall Domain, she couldn't lie. The flickering was obvious as day, and her vitality had plummeted to a new low; it was just a little better than when she was sick from eating the prawn skewer. As someone who was the closest to her, Kuro could feel her condition like it was his own. Nonetheless, he knew she did become a little better. Being able to connect to her was the proof of the matter.
Mommy, could you try to chant the Emperor Serpent's Divinity Soul chant in front of me now? Kuro asked with great concern. He wanted to confirm something which had been brewing in his mind.
Sure. Hana waited habitually for Kuro to merge into her, but her pet snake didn't move, just waiting and watching seriously from the side.
Since Kuro wasn't going to merge with her, she tried cultivating by herself and started to chant when she got into position.
A beautiful ancient serpent chant reverberated inside the Soul Hall Domain. A somewhat mellow and darken ancient tone had been given a fresh and light note when it was performed by Hana's telepathic-voice. The chants were the same, but it gave a different feeling to Kuro when it was chanted by his Mistress herself without his assistance.
Hana closed her eyes and immersed herself inside the beautiful chants. She was delighted that she didn't need to depend on Kuro to cultivate anymore!
Now, he could do whatever he wanted without the need to accompany her every single night! She had always felt that she was a burden to the loyal little snake. She didn't know about the benefits Kuro received from them cultivating together since Kuro had never told her. As a cycle was completed, Hana could feel her condition getting somewhat better. Even the searing pain had started to lessen significantly.
Ku-chan dear, Mommy suddenly feel so much better! Hana exclaimed.
Kuro just nodded and gave an encouraging nod for her to continue.
I'm just soooo awesome... Hana was in a good mood as she continued with the second cycle, the third one, the fourth...
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Kuro was observing the Soul Hall Domain and Mommy's soul warily while focusing on her chant. To him who had just cultivated this soul cultivation technique, he had very little information about it. For someone who had downgraded himself as the recipient rather than the host, he too, was treading an unknown path. What he could glean was from previous obscure experiences by others from words of mouth.
He knew that cultivating this technique could give rise to the increase in soul power in lightning serpents through hibernation-meditation, but that was all. His kind disdained this technique due to its painfully slow progress. Besides that, it has no other additional benefits such as for body-tempering or increasing spiritual energy reservoir. Hence, nobody had actually went through with this cultivation until the end except for the creator of the chants, their first ancestor, the Lightning Emperor, eons ago.
On another note, amassing soul-slaves had nothing to do with the soul cultivation chants. Soul-slaves were a normal means for lightning serpents to lord over the others. Only, he had looked down on the other spiritual beasts too much, which had prevented him from staining himself with someone else's soul within him. After all, he loved being a dashing lone ranger.
However, Kuro was not like the others. Other lightning serpents that he knew had thousands of soul-slaves at their disposal as they occupy a region of their own. These soul-slaves acted as their personal senses through the Soul-link technique. No one dared to retaliate or betray these tyrannical serpents, as they will extinguish the slave's soul with just a thought.
Kuro refocused his attention after the fleeting thoughts. When Mommy chanted, nothing happened at the beginning. However, after a while, a wave-like translucent energy slowly manifested with her at the center. The wave was like a stone dropped into a body of water, rippling wide and continuously. As the wave touched his astral body, his eyes went wide.
His soul had formed a resonance with the sound wave even without him merging with Mommy!
His astral body shone for a while before the light dissipated. Then, the second wave arrived after Mommy finished chanting for the second time.
Similarly, it touched his astral body, and it shone again. Kuro turned to his back rapidly towards the little scattered 'stars' within the hall.
He could see Shiro's ice blue colored soul floating not too far away, Ara's aquamarine tiny soul on the other direction, and a new grayish-white soul at a distance, presumably the new Elemental Fiend's Primordial Queen Mother's partial soul. Once the wave-like energy touched these souls, they shone brightly before dimming again.
Every wave of the abstruse chant was nourishing these souls as shadows of threadlike-bridges extended themselves from Hana's astral body inside the Soul Domain's space towards the direction of each 'star' at a snail's pace before they retreated!
At first, he thought he had seen wrongly, but after scrutinizing closely, the shadow did increase in length each time a cycle was done. It looked as if the shadowy 'threads' were trying to reach the stars around them!
A comprehending light appeared in his gaze, partially feeling wondrous, while the other part felt slightly disgruntled.
The wave-like chants brought the effect of directly merging with Mommy! He could extrapolate what would happen when the shadowy translucent 'thread' finally touched the other souls! This phenomenon was an advent of a premature mass soul-link!
Is this the true function of amassing soul-slaves? Was it to be used in tandem with the soul cultivation technique for the technique to be effective on the host? What was the use of enhancing the soul-slaves' partial souls, then? Why wasn't it being mentioned specifically in the technique's information? Kuro pondered suspiciously.
He then thought of how fast his soul power increased when he merged with the weak Hana.
Maybe, the soul cultivation technique needed the soul-slaves as a 'furnace' to propel the technique? So, increasing their soul powers will directly pushed the host's soul power to an unprecedented level faster in a win-win situation?!
Kuro was clueless with the fact that the two-way enhancement only happened due to Hana's unique soul properties. In fact, the other partial-souls' only function was to be siphoned by the main host via the overbearing soul cultivation method apart from being used as easily discarded grunts once their minute soul powers were emptied out. All the soul-slaves were destined to die once being shackled!
Kuro could now understood that the other serpents had missed a crucial piece of puzzle regarding the Lightning Emperor's Divinity cultivation technique. If only they tried cultivating the soul cultivation technique with thousands of their soul-slaves, they might found that their soul power will increase at a breakneck speed. All these while, the soul-links they manifested with their slaves as a means to control them were at best of a primitive level without the cultivation technique enhancing them. The only thing was, he had formed a misconception about the cultivation method which was pivotal for him to understand the underlying sinister undertones within. If not, he would've use all means necessary to stop his precious Mommy from cultivating it!
Kuro was in cloud nine and was oblivious with the danger of the soul cultivation method. He envisioned a not-so-distant future where Mommy would not be far from being able to merge her soul with his other 'brothers' and 'sisters' to cultivate instead of just him as their soul compatibility improved with every cultivation cycle. He could already feel the minute changes within the other partial souls' of his 'brethren'. The compatibility and constitution of each partial soul was unmistakably increasing with every cultivation cycle, but at a very slow rate. In turn, when that time finally came, Mommy's progress will definitely more than doubled!
Kuro's eyes glittered as he started to scheme on how to convince Mommy to take in more soul-sla.. ehem, more companions as his brothers and sisters! He must succeed!!!
Wait, wait, wait! Then what about Mommy jumping levels to use Soul-empowerment?! That's definitely not normal!
If sharing of senses could be attributed to a true level of Soul-link, and full mastery of Soul-link equated to the full mastery of all other senses, it didn't make sense how Mommy could bypass this hurdle to use his power during the subjugation process! He knew that previously, no others had ever reached Soul-empowerment before giving up. Hence, he had no reference for this anomaly. Kuro couldn't understand why did this aberration happen.
Another epiphany struck his mind. Then, did it meant that in the future when all the souls within this domain has been cultivated to complete mastery later on, Mommy will be able to access everyone's ability at the same time during mass Soul-link through Soul-empowerment?! The potential was enormous!!!
The glorious rosy 'future' he envisioned wasn't even too far off since she could already perform the rudimentary Soul-pressure after ten days of cultivating. He had remembered someone tried for a few hundred years to reach Soul-empowerment but failed!
Kuro didn't dare to extrapolate so far. He now understood the tyrannical effect of the Lightning Emperor's Divinity Chant, which had been disregarded by the clan. They had been too short-sighted and looked down on such a wonderous Soul-cultivation method. That was why the first ancestor had millions of soul-slaves and dominated the region while still being gravely injured!
Kuro calmed himself after a while. He needed to continue observing his precious Mommy.
The harmonious chants had been reverberating for a couple of times until Kuro suddenly scrunched his brow in astonishment (as if a snake had eyebrows!! haha).
Ehh! The tone here is too high. He seriously concentrated to properly listen to the chant. If the Emperor Serpent's Divinity Soul chant was incorrect, there could be a substantial backlash to the soul!
Twenty minutes later...
Kuro had a speechless look plastered on his face after listening properly to his mommy's soul cultivation chant for a few cycles. He found that it has been modified slightly!!! He had found more than fifty aberrations within the chant!
Seriously, Mommy... He didn't know whether to laugh or to cry; he was feeling extremely exasperated. Thank goodness her soul had not receive any backlash!
Was the aberration of the Soul-cultivation chant was what affected the early manifestation of Soul-empowerment? Will it be alright? Kuro pondered worriedly.
Kuro had not found any other detrimental problems affecting Mommy after scrutinizing the condition of her soul and body three times. He then silently exited her Soul Hall Domain with mixed feelings.
Kuro started slithering towards the Earth Demons' nest, where the gory melee was still ongoing. He had a lot to do. Namely, he needed to save all these little bugs from being decimated by the Earth Demons under Mommy's orders.
Kuro sighed with complicated feelings.
Mommy had done an incredible but dangerous thing towards the ancient serpent soul-cultivation chant. If one didn't focus well, it sounded the same, but if one truly put one's heart to it and wholly focused, one would realize there was a slight change in length of specific notes, nuance, and pitch. Although it was barely noticeable to anyone else, it was clear to him once he listened adequately. At the moment, he wasn't sure why Mommy didn't receive a backlash. Mommy's action will lead to a mutation of her own soul-power. He wasn't sure it would be in a positive or a negative way in the long run. He will inspect more thoroughly after this and discuss it with her face-to-face later.
...