The spear appeared as if trembling in excitement. Asura Ryuu furrowed his brows and felt the emotions hidden in that dark abyss, and then he noticed something. There was no more blood on the spear shaft!
His eyes scanned the ground but didn't find the red blood splattered beneath the spear.
Asura Ryuu: "This could only mean..."
His eyes suddenly looked at the old man, believing that he had an answer. The old man noticed the change in his expression and understood what the youngster wanted to ask.
"Your conjecture is correct. That thing in your hand is from the cursed tree.", the old man said while pointing at the black tree in the distance.
"I don't know its origin nor its real name but everyone calls that tree the cursed tree. The reason is that it devours any kind of life energy - blood, vitality, Spirit Energy... Anything that comes in contact with it will be devoured."
The old man glanced at the black shaft and extended his hand: "Let me see it for a moment."
Asura Ryuu came forward and gave him the spear shaft that was missing a tip and removed the ring and the broken leftovers of the previous spearhead, revealing the mechanism behind it.
The old man looked at it and showed a surprised face. He wasn't surprised because it was difficult to do that, rather; he found it surprising that a little kid could think of something like that.
He felt the aura of the spear shaft and submerged his Spirit Energy inside. The shaft trembled under the oppressive Spirit Energy and managed to absorb only a part of it. Suddenly, it emitted a strong aura and wanted to repulse the old man's hand, but he grabbed it even harder.
There were not many people that could escape his grasp with his cultivation, let alone a mere spear shaft.
"It truly is mysterious! It could even absorb my Spirit Energy. I wonder what are its limits?"
He played around with the spear shaft and suddenly looked at the other three behind Asura Ryuu. Formless Spirit Energy poured out of his body and brought the other three spears to his hands.
"I'll make the spearheads out of a good metal for your spears. The materials you chose for the spear shafts is good. It'd be a waste to use a normal spearhead made of stone. Wait for me.". The old man said and vanished from the place.
Asura Tenka, Xun Bao and Xun Meng went in front of the mansion while Asura Ryuu picked up the broken knife and went to cut the wolf apart, taking out what's of use and burying the rest.
After two hours he came back with wolf meat, its fangs, blood and fur. He didn't know what use any of the parts had in this world, so he took the majority except the wolf's bones and intestines.
He carried the meat to the wooden table in front of the mansion and the four started preparing their meal.
They ate several meals in one day, sometimes up to ten or more. But it was all because the day in this world was several times longer than normal. Asura Ryuu calculated that one day here was nearly a week on Earth.
It was very strange!
Asura Ryuu wondered, how long was a year here exactly? If one day here was seven days on Earth, does that mean the year here was seven years on earth? If that's the case then neither of them had a full year yet.
The four of them being five years old was five years on Earth. He had to find out how they calculated time on this planet.
If they ate meat, then they wouldn't need to eat as much meals as usual. Based on previous calculations it'd mean they had to eat fourteen meals a day, but it doesn't need to be that way. If the food was nutritious, they wouldn't need to eat as much.
Asura Ryuu thought to himself: "One day here is as long as seven on Earth, yet we sleep much less than back there. Is this because of Spirit Energy? It should be like that..."
The four had already eaten and were now resting on the entrance to the mansion. There was a long wooden platform spanning several meters in front of the mansion's main door. It's had a place for resting, the tea table for guests, although there were no guests as far as they remember. Asura Ryuu was reading a book with his legs crossed in the swing, Asura Tenka laid on the bed next to him with Xun Meng while Xun Bao laid on the other side of the same bed upside-down.
Xun Bao always had strange sleeping positions, but they got used to it. Gradually, Asura Ryuu fell asleep with the book in his hand. The book had mysterious characters. But the point is, Asura Ryuu didn't know how to read the language of this world. He was trying to figure out the meaning behind characters, but it didn't turn out the way he wanted. When he asked the old man to teach him, the old man said when they undergo Spiritual Awakening he'll send them to the main academy where he'll learn how to read so he won't show him anything.
Asura Ryuu was naturally stubborn and tried to do it himself, but he found out that there was not a slightest similarity to any language out of all his previous lives. It made his head ache, but he told himself to be patient.
After several suns in the sky overtook each other, the old man came with the four spears. The four kids were sleeping, but Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka awoke when they felt his presence. It was because of their Divine Sense. Old man stared blankly at the two, thinking: "I couldn't sneak up on them even if I wanted, *sigh*. My old heart will break because of those two monsters!".
Although his pride was shaken when he couldn't sneak up on the two despite his cultivation, there was also elation and relief. "If I can't do it, who can?", he thought.
But all his thoughts happened inside his head there were none showing on his face.
"Here.", he said only that, left the spears and disappeared again.
Asura Ryuu looked at the spears, then at the sleeping Xun Meng. He noticed that Xun siblings were deeply asleep, probably because of exhaustion. The residents of this world don't get exhausted quickly because of Spirit Energy, but when they do it takes a lot of time to replenish that energy - especially when they didn't undergo Spiritual Awakening such as the four of them.
Looking at the spears, he suddenly remembered something and whispered his idea to Asura Tenka. Her eyes shone, and she nodded, taking one spear with her - the white one.
Every spear now had the spearhead fixated at the top permanently, and the previous mechanism was missing.
Asura Ryuu quietly followed her and watched her pick up the broken knife and start carving something on the spear.
His idea was simple - since Xun Meng had a split personality, her spear should follow her personality.
On the other side of the angel emblem, Asura Tenka carved the devil emblem and changed the usual flower pattern so that the design was of fiery flowers intertwining with frozen flowers. Fiery side corresponded to Devil emblem while frozen side corresponded to Angel emblem. Both emblems had wings, as usual, but this time two pairs of wings had a contact point at their ends because there were two pairs as of that moment.
Just like that, another day had ended as all nine suns disappeared behind the horizon.
What Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka couldn't get enough of watching was the sunset - All nine suns set at the same time and formed a symmetrical nonagon in the sky (hexagon - 6, nonagon - 9).
Each of the suns had a different color. It didn't follow the usual rules from their previous life - the temperature connected to the color of the star.
Another interesting thing was, how do those nine stars always divide the day into half - a night part and the day part equally. If there was only one sun, then it'd be normal, but there were nine! Shouldn't at least one sun be there even during night? And how do seasons change here? They didn't know!
Asura Ryuu knew he'd be able to make a good use of his knowledge from 'hell' here, but that obviously wasn't the case - this world functioned differently than 'hell'. Why? Because of Spirit Energy!
Asura Tenka: "Are you wondering about the suns again?"
Asura Ryuu: "Umm."
Asura Tenka: "Our Divine Realm also had different rules than both of the worlds, remember?"
*nod*
Asura Tenka: "I always thought that there was someone who deliberately calculated the path of the stars and made The Celestial Plains that way they are now. The one on much higher level than The Realm of Gods!"
Asura Ryuu: "That's probably the case, but I'm just curious what is beyond? The Celestial Tree in my Spirit World seems to be from there..."
Asura Tenka: "If it really is, then you may be able to change the rules of the world someday. Maybe you can even become the same as them - those beings stronger than Gods."
Asura Ryuu smiled and held her hand while staring at the stars in the night sky. The night sky was never completely dark - it's as bright as the day of a full moon on Earth, maybe even brighter. Naturally, the culprits behind that were many, many more moons of this planet.
From time to time, Asura Ryuu's look would drift away from stars to the location that's the intersecting point of the nine stars forming a nonagram during the setting period. When it's the nighttime, there was nothing there - just the normal sky.