It had been more than six hours of continuous cultivation from Hana's part. Each time the sound wave from the soul chant touched the partial souls hovering within Hana's Soul Hall Domain, they shone brightly with differing colors.
Hana was feeling so much better at the moment, although not truly healed. She had continued singing the beautiful new-age 'song' to her heart's content. She admitted that she did add a little here and there to make the 'song' more tasteful. Additionally, she felt that her additions had improved the song slightly. It's like for an originally four-star song, she had added a quarter to a half star to increase its quality slightly, making it more pleasing to the ear.
To Hana, it was normal for any songs to have some discrepancies from each other. The same song sang by different artiste will always sound slightly different. Usually, the core melody will be maintained, but the other trivial parts will exhibit the artiste's tasteful improvisation. It didn't necessarily ruin the song. Nonetheless, not many improvisations could best the original melody of a song.
However, Hana was quite confident with her improvisation.
Although she wasn't a hardcore fan of the current day music loved by the young ones, her tastes in music were more towards the older generation, which focused on finding peace and internal healing. She loved rich and beautiful soothing music either in the form of classics, opera arias, ambient music, chants, experimental music or new age. Most importantly, she was not tone deaf. She had even delved into basic music theory and could sing quite well. This was a way to alleviate stress from not having any breaks for being a full-time housewife. The laidback weekly classes were her breaks from all the chaos at home, courtesy of her beloved's token of appreciation.
After more than forty-eight hours of continuous resonance with Hana's soul, the first few shadowy threads reached the nearest ruby-colored star. Once it touched the red star, one of the shadows turned tangible and firmly bind the red star while the rest remained unstable; flickering in an out of existence. After that, as if a chain reaction occurred, more shadowy thread-like lines extended into the void to finally connect to other stars. These threads were similarly unstable and were as fine as silk. If one could magnify the tiny 'threads', then one would note that all 'threads' originated from Hana's astral body in the middle of the Soul Hall Domain were solidified from abstruse ancient runes used within the soul cultivation chant. However, the thickness of the unstable threads was different from each other, with Kuro's red star having the thickest while the Primordial Queen Mother's was the thinnest.
After a while, all connected stars shone brightly.
Kuro stopped slithering outside of the Elemental Fiend's nest towards where Mommy was currently resting while taking a deep breath. After an initial surprise, he closed his eyes to savor this wondrous familiar feeling. He understood that the mass Soul-link was finally manifesting! He needed to see with his own eyes! He connected with Hana immediately to observe.
Shiro stopped talking to Chomper and walked towards the sleeping Hana. He placed his head on Hana's abdomen and closed his eyes with contentment. There were happiness and gratitude reflected in his eyes before he closed them.
[Finally, Mom reached out to me…]
Not long later, the Elemental Fiend Queen slowly moved forward and laid down her large body beside Hana. She had an astonished look in her six compound eyes and closed them reverently. She didn't dare to touch Hana, lest the white creature will attack her with hostility. Just standing beside her new mistress made her immensely satisfied.
Far within the Waterwave main clan grounds, Ara stopped cultivating as she could faintly feel the presence of her mistress. She looked longingly towards the direction of the Elemental Fiend's nest, although she didn't know where Hana was at the moment.
Although Ara didn't understand what was happening, her agitated heart suddenly calmed down as she felt that she could cultivate better. A sniffing sound full of longing sounded, "Mistress.. wuwuwu.." She was extremely jealous of her own attendant. So jealous! Why was she still being grounded! Arghhh!
All spiritual beasts contracted by Hana could feel Hana's distinct aura enveloping them. It was warm, peaceful, and nourishing them from within; it felt like being coddled lovingly. The nourishment to their souls was very minute but was unmistakable.
Apart from spirit beasts with the ability to manipulate soul power like the Lightning Serpents, there was no other way to increase one's soul power directly. Most importantly, the nourishment was accompanied by a warm and fuzzy feeling that was beneficial for them in comprehending cultivation methods and techniques. It was especially advantageous to those who had the ability to access their own bloodline memory. Besides Kuro, who had always conquered Hana's nourishing aura for himself every single time, it was the first time the other contracted spiritual beasts realized the advantage of becoming Hana's important persons.
Notably, the Elemental Fiends' Primordial Queen Mother could distinctly feel her own soul being directly nourished. She was shocked at the beginning but finally could understand how her new mistress had the ability to suppress and made everyone submit to her. She herself was an insect type spiritual beast who had a unique soul that specialized in nest-wide telepathic management. The minute increment had actually increased her total control over her nest! She finally was convinced and whole-heartedly submitted herself to Hana. The acceptance triggered an instinctual dominance effect as Hana's soul power invaded her core control and directly traveled through the existing nest-wide telepathy channel to reach the other Elemental Fiends under her.
A peculiar occurrence happened to all Elemental Fiends under the control of the Queen Mother. All of their movements paused for a fraction of a second, as light gleamed through their eyes. The surviving Generals, the wounded Warriors, the Workers, and even the ones saved by Kuro; all had stopped what they were doing to turn towards the inner chamber of the Queen Mother where Hana lay unconscious. All of them emitted a soft drone as they lowered their heads. They were aware of what just happened through the nest-wide telepathic link.
Previously, their submission was due to the Queen Mother's command, but now it wasn't so. They had truly acknowledged another being above their Queen Mother. A new hierarchy had permanently set where the Empress was at the highest. Their new Empress had firmly entrenched herself into their community. A strange string of runes had invaded their mass consciousness via the Queen Mother and had changed something within them.
Everyone was startled with the Elemental Fiends befuddling behaviors, while the Primordial Queen Mother herself bowed the lowest, to the point of groveling beside the unconscious Hana. She instinctively submitted herself and her nestlings to this rare Expert as each undulating wave brought about a deeper telepathic resonance with them.
…
Kuro found himself witnessing the splendor of the Soul Hall Domain within Hana with wonder. He looked at his own shiny astral body to find a clump of thread-like bridge attaching itself from Mommy's astral body to his own. Within the bundle of 'threads', a single tangible one the size of Mommy's pinky served as the core while the others wound around it firmly. The others were still unstable, as they kept on flickering in and out of existence.
He had noticed that the threads were made from the profound runes present within the ancient Lightning Emperor's Divinity chant. The dissipation of the runes at various locations of the bridge was what made the rune-thread unstable. Kuro counted and found that there were another five other unstable threads present. However, when Mommy restarted the next cycle of the chant, the dissipating runes were immediately replaced, before runes from other parts of the thread started to disappear again. He was somewhat confused and turned around to observe the other stars in a bid to try to understand the peculiar phenomena.
He then realized that every bridge connected to a star was made of six threads. However, no other stars have a tangible thread from their personal bridge like him.
He nodded with comprehension.
He now knew that the single tangible thread represented the mastery of Soul-link for the sense of sight between Mommy and him. This conformed with the fact that other threads representing senses of smell, hearing, taste, touch, and spirit were still unstable. Once the sharing of a sense between the host and the recipient solidifies, the 'thread' will then remain tangible.
Kuro couldn't wait for the day Mommy truly achieved full Mastery of Soul-link with eagerness in his heart.
[I need to help Mommy to prepare herself for the full brunt of Soul-empowerment..]
Kuro pondered hard as he recalled the heavenly treasure notified by Shiro a few days back. It was always good to prepare ahead of time for the inevitable. Soul-empowerment was a double-edged sword. He knew Mommy's constitution wasn't good enough to support the burden from how her body automatically shut down after a few tries of performing Soul-pressure. It would only get heavier with each successful mastery of a full Soul-link with his other 'brethren'.
...
Summary after 101 Chapter:
...Hana's stats update.....
Character: Hana – after the prawn skewer crisis (Chapter 78)
Strength level: 1.2
Overall constitution: 1.2
Soul level: 5.0
Spiritual level: nil
Hana's Soul Cultivation: Lightning Emperor's Divinity Soul
Cultivation progress: Early-stage Initial Mastery (Premature Soul Link)
Character: Hana – in meditation-hibernation after the subjugation of Elemental Fiends (Chapter 101)
Strength level: 3
Overall constitution: 3.5
Soul level: 21
Spiritual level: nil
Hana's Soul Cultivation: Lightning Emperor's Divinity Soul
Cultivation progress: Initial Mastery (Full Soul Link)
Kuro's Soul threads thickness = 1.70 (1 out of 6 senses unlock)
Shiro's Soul threads thickness = 0.40 threads (0 out of 6 senses unlock)
Ara's Soul threads thickness = 0.10 threads (0 out of 6 senses unlock)
Queen Mother's Soul threads thickness = 0.03 threads (0 out of 6 senses unlock)
Note:
1) Stats value is compared with one Normal Healthy Male Adult Human (1.0)
2) Thread thickness is relative and only served to be compared to each other (no quantifiable SI unit)
3) Hana does not have a system within her. The quantifiable numbers only served as a guide for readers to observe her progress