Back inside the cave.
Ping*
The light waves drifted over the water pond's edge. Caused by Luo Si, sitting in the center.
"Huh… At this pace I'm going to miss my opportunity. At least I have grasped my lower skills to their fullest." After she had cultivated all areas night and day, she had mastered full comprehension of the lower skills, skid step and mirror mind. The latter one responsible for the rippling water.
Cheerlessly, there had been no changes in terms of coming close to breaking through into the next sub realm so far. Having opened up all possible Acupoints at once had its pros and cons.
On one side, she had a large fillable source of qi and an extremely cleaned body at the martial learner stage. Strengthening her attacks and endurance way beyond the norm. This was an invaluable longstanding profit anybody would kill for.
On the other side, because she had acquired such an artificial high-quality physique, it took way longer to refine it.
Luo Si did not give up though. In thought she pondered. 'Is there anything I have not thought of? I have a good Qigong and great understanding of it, my Acupoints are all open, my body rid of all removable impurities…'
Relaxing her neck, she looked at her mirrored image on the tensed water surface. She thought about herself. If there were any flaws. So far, she had been caught off guard thrice in total. Not wanting to repeat such shame she contemplated about them.
First the woman in the well, then the finals slip and lastly the assassin's mark. "These mistakes seem to have some things in common. The attacks were all not traceable and did not directly attack me physically. It even felt like that time I got out the first time...!"
Her eyes widened, finding the root of all her problems in an instant.
Splash*
She swiped over her reflection.
"Of course, the Soul!"
***
The sudden question surprised John. 'Did I trigger a special event?' He took it naturally, since he had endured the longest from all.
"Does old man mean soul like spirit? Because I am the most spirited. I even awakened an advanced fire vein. But it went down a tier after I died once." He said the last half in reluctance, not wanting to cause a confusion.
Elder Hu overlooked his questionably ignorant arrogance. "No, I mean soul as in there exists the body that is driven by the soul and the soul that is driven by faith, thoughts and commitment, forming the mind. Since every blessed being, under the heaven and earth has one, you should have one as well."
John was confused. Wasn't he in control of his character, and what did the old man mean by blessed being under heaven and earth? Nevertheless, he proudly said, "then I guess I have a soul. If anyone has a soul, then it can only be me." "But what can I do with it? What is that of any help? How do I do this soul-pressure thing?"
Elder Hu chuckled. "Keke, don't be a pig and take things slowly. a soul is not a soul. At least not one that aids you in cultivation. First you need to cultivate your spirit a martial spirit. There are 3 stages of forming your martial spirit. Namely: enemy, self and astral.
"Enemy because you can influence your enemy after entering the first stage. Self because you can influence yourself in the second stage and third is because then you can act on your surroundings. I will not talk any further than that, since it is very unnecessary at this point. Cultivating the spirit takes months if not ages for the unlucky one."
***
Luo Si was thinking about the stages as well. Besides guidebooks, general knowledge was the only thing left in her head. "The Soul… let me think, it should have some connection to the realm if I remember correctly. Forge, inner and outer. Or something like that. "Thanks to the mental skill book, it was easier for her to recall information faster.
While Elder Hu was talking about the outcome, Luo Si went over the how. How it was related to the physical cultivation and how to achieve it.
"The first is about forging and forming the soul, akin to quenching the body. If soul and body are in imbalance, it will be like driving up the hill with pulled breaks. The second, inner, is to fill the soul, or rather the forged shell." While the first three martial stages were meant to prepare the body to hold unbelievable might, the realm of martial artists was dedicated to refine the inner force and develop supernatural strength.
Both stages could be combined into the saying, 'know your enemy, but know yourself better.'
The third and last soul stage to a full-fledged martial soul was about bringing out that inner force. Influencing thy surroundings, by going beyond human strength.
***
"After you have formed your martial soul, your talent in cultivation will rise as well."
"But first of all, you need to come in clean understanding of what the soul is and feel it, before you start cultivating it. Or else you will seek a heavy backlash, if not death."
In bliss John wanted to keep the exploit for himself, but Elder Hu swiftly repeated the conversations key points to others who had come closer.
Min Song had also listened in. But for him it was not really important he had learned about these long ago. Instead, he looked at Jun Din, exclaiming. "That boy seems to have gained some insight I suppose. By that, he could be counted as a true genius."
"Indeed, village chief. Although you have fallen, your senses still remain sharp I see." Elder Hu did not hide Jun Din's talent. "His insight about the first soul stage has propelled him into the second martial realm."
Min Song cursed the branch Elder for his rude comment about his injury inwardly, but looked back at Jun Din in awe. Not really seeing, but feeling the others soul. The soul was human in size and shape, there was a light current executed by it, indicating that Jun Din had a wind vein of the lesser stage.
***
"Since I have mastered Mirror Mind, it should be possible for me to comprehend a faster solution." Mirror Mind, like its name included, could display one's inner self like a mirror after being fully comprehended.
Entering the lotus-sitting position, her thoughts became void, sinking deep into herself. Driving Mirror Mind to its fullest she entered a state of awake unconsciousness. The soul realm.
Everything was dark around Luo Si as she opened her eyes. She was still in the sitting position, but transparent, like a ghost. This was thankfully not her soul, but her consciousness, traveling inside her, or else she would kill herself for good out of shame.
What she was looking for, was directly in front of her. Her eyes constricted as she took some steps back in surprise. "This is indeed a problem."
She was looking at a transparent big mirror, seeing a spitting image of her current self. Detailed to the last pixel in the highest definition visually possible. At first sight, there was nothing strange beside the fact that she looked ghost-like. But that was not the explanation of her surprise, as this was just an after effect of mirror mind. To her dismay, while Jun Din's soul was human in size, the figure behind her image, was a 3-story tall crude giant, kneeling in the same position.
Just like herself, seemingly ordered, it retreated, but looked directly at her instead of up. It was hard to gauge, since it blended in greatly with the surrounding black. The silhouette hardly distinguishable. Leaking at some places.
However, all this was not enough to shock her to this stage. The most shocking were the mountain big shards, floating around the giant, feeding on the ever-leaking colossus. Dissolving at an even faster rate than they absorbed, as if to use plain air to fill the drying ocean. These mountain sized shards were nonetheless detailed outside the eyes possible limit.
Hard to distinguish the thousands and thousands of scraps, even with the high resolution, Luo Si knew what they were and she looked at them in reluctance.
Luo Si curled her lips at the overall sight. "But a welcoming one."
She assessed the problems of her soul in perspective. 'This should be a result of my awakening. The soul would naturally be affected by it.'
"This disproportional unbalance and chaos. No wonder it takes me so long to leap into the next stage." During the time others were awakening and quenching a human, she constellated and trained a giant with human limited training speed. Luo Si didn't know whether to laugh or cry at her stupidness.
"There is no point crying over spilled milk. Let's set things right." She reached out to the mirror, her hand overlapping with the giants.