Two years later, within his dorm room, Thirteen sat with closed eyes, his surroundings unnaturally warm and bright, giving the impression that it was filled with mild sunlight. His age now matched his name and he had cultivated within the Clarke Estate for a total of eight years, since the time he was five.
The last four of those years had been spent accumulating great amounts of lifeforce with which to cultivate his baseline. This was the second stage of cultivation, following the fundamental refinements of his body.
When speaking of cultivation in a general sense, there were vague labels for each stage based on the most common methods of advancing. The first three for augmenters were the Fundamental Realm, Energy Accumulation, and then Foundation Establishment, while for qi cultivators, it was the Fundamental Realm, Spiritual Awakening, and then Core Establishment.
But although it was still body or qi cultivation, the many cultivation arts would explore vastly different methods of advancing through these vague stages, some forgoing the orthodox guideline completely. And so, every cultivation art named their stages something more appropriate.
Thirteen had once thought this unnecessary and inconvenient, but over the last two years he had been reading through many cultivation methods and combat techniques to gain reference for his own experiments in finding new applications of his powers, and had been truly amazed at how vastly different they were.
For his Grand Life Tome, the first three stages were known as Enrichment—which correspond to the Fundamental realm—followed by Proliferation, and then the Lifeblood stage.
There was one more stage after that, but then the art ended abruptly.
Currently, within Thirteen's body, an incredibly vast amount of life force was surging. The bright hues and warm air surrounding him was the result of the excess of this energy bubbling forth. It had been spewing forth like that for a month now, but Thirteen had put off advancing to the next stage, trying to force his baseline to expand even a tiny bit more, and to actual success. But to continue delaying now would be dangerous to his future prospects, and so Thirteen had finally begun the act of breaking through to the Lifeblood stage.
His face was incredibly pale as he underwent his breakthrough, and for good reason. He had to disrupt and collapse the natural form of his lifeforce. To collapse the baseline and let it all run freely within his body without order, so that it could be refined into a higher form. This was an irreversible act that would kill him if done poorly, as he was now quite literally holding his life together through willpower alone.
While condensing his lifeforce into multiple points, Thirteen did the same with his blood, taking part of the flow each time it entered his heart and keeping it there where he condensed it to a single point. Next was a process of integrating the condensed blood and lifeforce together. This was a slow process and he would need to do it many times.
Hours passed as his face grew sickly and his skin cold. Gradually, the first point of condensed blood, having been infused with vast amounts of dense lifeforce, took a golden hue. This continued for hours until finally, he was left with a single drop of purely golden blood.
Immediately, Thirteen felt a wave of stability rush over him as that drop of golden blood found its place within his heart. There was still an incredible amount of excess lifeforce he needed to condense, but now that the first drop of Lifeblood had been formed, his task would be far less dangerous.
He continued to strain his control as he condensed great amounts of lifeforce and blood together, the already formed lifeblood supporting his body's incredible ability to heal and reproduce what his body needed.
Gradually, more golden drops formed and found their place within his heart.
One.
Two.
Three.
Eventually, he was left with a total of five golden drops. The remaining life force was too little to condense into anything of worth, so he simply expelled it from his body, having no more need of it. He no longer had a baseline, only those five drops.
Next came the final act of this structural transition. He followed the instructions of the Grand Life Tome to bond his soul to those golden drops, allowing them to serve as the replacement of his baseline. When he was done, the golden lifeblood thrummed and a wave of power filled his body.
The Lifeblood stage was one in which the true foundation of higher cultivation would be set in stone, and could be considered a talent gateway. All throughout the stage, one would have to condense even more drops of lifeblood, but unlike most cultivation stages, it actually got easier as you progressed. Each drop condensed would help one's will align with the forces of life, making cultivating and condensing the next drop easier.
If you condensed only one drop when breaking through, you would have to spend far, far longer getting out of that initial rut. It might even take a decade just to reach five drops.
But because Thirteen had succeeded in condensing five from the beginning, acquiring a sixth would be far easier than someone trying to form a second.
Taking a deep breath of fresh air, Thirteen's blue eyes opened as he took in his surroundings. Immediately he felt the difference. He could sense the lifeforce in the surroundings, like a vague awareness of it at all times. He could tell that the air was thick with the excess he had released, and when he focused on it, that sense became heightened, like his lifesight but no longer bound to vision. He could sense not just lifeforms, but all lifeforce surrounding him, even beyond the bounds of his room and through the walls of the estate.
He could also feel the blood in his body becoming enriched with power every time it beat through his heart, and that power being delivered to every part of his body.
Most common soldiers would never surpass the fundamental realm, while average cultivators would spend their prime years in the second realm of cultivation, only reaching the third in their middle ages.
Yet here he was, 13 years old and having just stepped into the third realm of Body cultivation. Thirteen truly understood why the world was in chaos at the moment. Sure, he had the resources of the crown to help him train at an accelerated rate, but none of this would be possible if he were not a meta.
Metahumans all possessed an increased talent for cultivation that only got more pronounced as they continued to mutate. And mutations held no preference for leaders or nobility over criminals or commoners.
Jumping off his bed, Thirteen stood tall and stretched deeply. He had been seated for almost the entire day, having been excused from classes to make his breakthrough.
He didn't need to look around to know that Nine was not here, he'd have sensed his friends position even if he hid under the bed.
Thirteen wasted no time in heading to the clearing outside to exercise and get accustomed to the new state of his body. With every punch and kick, he felt an invisible power shifting within his body. And every beat of his heart was accompanied by the thrumming of his lifeblood.
After exercising his body for a while, Thirteen sat on the grassy ground and began to exercise his energy and his mind. He was constantly aware of the golden lifeblood within his heart, and could call on its power at will.
Closing his eyes, he explored the feeling and prodded it in as many ways as he could think, eventually opening his eyes once more. Exerting his control over the Lifeblood, he willed its power to emanate beyond him in a burst.
It was like an invisible shockwave, or harsh sudden breeze. It pulsed from him in all directions, making the grass grow and the colours saturate everywhere it passed. Then he held it like that, manifested externally around him. He created a domain of life and positive energy. He didn't know what uses this would have, but only experimentation would tell.
Half an hour later, he experimented with his lifesight, or rather, lifesense as it would be more aptly named now. Closing his eyes, he reached out with that sense in all directions and 'watched' the students undergo weapon training in the distance. He probed their forms and a myriad of distinctions were revealed among them. Not just their lifeforce and injuries, but something else.
The closest thing he could compare it to were the colours seen with one's eyes. They were distinctly not colours, for he was not 'seeing', but they were distinguished from each other in a similar way.
After watching for a while longer, and comparing the 'colours' with the attitudes and actions of the students, Thirteen came to a shocked realisation.
'They're emotions'
He could distinguish the surface emotions of those he probed with this new lifesense!
Opening his eyes once more, Thirteen smiled widely. There was a lot to learn about his new capabilities, and so little time in the day.
—��
One week later, Thirteen sat on one of the provided cushions of the cultivation hall. Lessons on the world of cultivation were no longer a daily event as their schedules were tightly packed with many other topics and skill sets. They remained quite common however, as the topic was very important no matter their future assignments.
What set today apart from the usual, was that Nicholas had begun to talk about higher concepts than usual. He explained the legend of the spirits in cliff note details to the children, every word spoken matching what Thirteen had read those years ago.
When he finished describing the old legend, Nicholas followed with a bombshell.
"I can now confirm for you all, that the legend of spirits and creation, as far as our current knowledge, is true."
A not at all small commotion broke out in response to his words. The legend of creation was incredibly old and few considered it a factual telling. It was just too old, too esoteric, and too… weird. There were no great prophets, no further texts, no structured worship in any of the recent ages, and so of course nobody wholeheartedly believed such a thing.
"As stated in the legend, all spirits exist in three forms. The spiritual being, a plain of existence, and an embodiment of one face of the dao.
"I understand that this can be difficult to understand but I recommend you listen well as it will become incredibly important to you all in the future. The plains of existence are immaterial realms, places that can not be reached by normal means. It is not spatial distance that separates them from our universe, but something else. The border between dimensions.
"Every plain consists of immaterial concepts and energies relating to their namesake, and are the underpinnings of the material realm we live in.
"The reason this is important to all of you, is that it is integral to the workings of Flux and Ascendence. Understand that many energies in our material realm are either intrinsically linked with, or direct manifestations of the plains of existence. Fire is intrinsically linked with the Plain of Fire, which bleeds into the Plains of Heat and Light.
"The only exception to this rule is pure qi, considered a wholly spiritual energy, it is the manifestation of the spirit realm as a whole; capable of transforming between all other planar energies.
"Flux is not exempt from this bond with the plains, and finds its roots in a few among them. The connection I want you to understand is Flux's link to the Plain of Thought. The Plain of Thought is a dimension consisting of all common beliefs and thoughts, is it home to every story and folklore, every religion and every idea held by life in existence.
"Have you ever wondered why common animals, after undergoing mutation, sometimes reflect creatures from our folklore? Stories from before the advent of Qi in our world? It is because those tales, believed or thought about by many over time, have become deeply rooted within the Plain of Thought, and the transformative Flux has drawn on that. In fact it is this way for all monsters, those we do not recognize from our own tales are simply drawn from stories too old for us to remember, or from stories originating in other worlds entirely.
"For this reason, the common hawk becomes a creature resembling the thunderbird of old folklore.
"It is because of this that I recommend each of you use some of your free time to study the legends of our world. New monsters are appearing every day, and the ability to recognize a new breed from a story may well save your life one day."