Just like the previous worlds, I've come to a place where there is a system.
The first world has [Connect] and the second, [Karma]
This one is fairly simple, [Soul]
This Soul is like a weapon. We will have to make it stronger, train ourselves to it, and dominate others. This is that kind of world.
Strength rules over everything.
If that's not enough explanation.
This is a world of cultivation. Meditating improves one's soul. Scriptures, sutras, and ancient scrolls were the mainstream methods to cultivate.
[Seek yourself and you shall find your Soul]
It made this world more philosophical and spiritual. So instead of focusing on creating martial skills and techniques, scholars are more popular and stronger.
Literature has become the biggest contributor to strengthening oneself. Of course, in a battle, raw power is not enough. But it is incomparably high, what's the use of skills and techniques?
When I've reached the age when I remembered everything in my past life, I swore that I will find the Princess, Lennie, and my only mother.
Here, in this world, I finally had a chance, freedom, unbounded.
My name is Jax Ferter, the rising genius of the Raven Clan, a rundown clan. Due to my appearance, the clan felt hope that I will revive their former glory.
The pressure they were giving me should've killed a normal child. However, I already know what they are going to teach me. So it was not that hard to keep up. Also, pressure and hardship are nothing to me.
That is why, to fulfill my goal, I secretly cultivate before I should be even ready.
There are five main realms in Soul Cultivation; Soul Searching, Soul Founding, Soul Strengthening, Mastered Soul, and finally, Ascended Soul.
I have another life again, another world, another people to know, and new parents.
However, I can't see them as my parents, but rather, just greedy people who expect too much from a child. As a pretense of working hard, I've never bonded myself to this clan.
I feel no connection towards them.
What my goal is not to revive this clan, but to find my Princess. She must be somewhere here in this world. With the great Karma that she and I shared, I can sigh in relief that she will do fine.
After all, right after I was born, a Mastered Soul-Beast fell from the sky, dead. The reason was unknown. As a result, Its body created a dense fog of enlightening energy in the area, helpful to Soul Cultivators.
This is not a coincidence. This is my [Karma] working. But everything still has an effect. The downside was attracting the envy of other clans.
However, using me, the Raven Clan formed a relationship with Royalty, protecting us. I was promised to be handed when I reach a proper age.
By then, my golden glow was finally subsiding. But that doesn't mean my Karma is finally exhausted. The golden glow, I believe, is just the excess good Karma. Once it is gone, it just means that I have full good Karma a normal person can contain.
That is why, at the age of 13, we were on our way to the Royalties who promised to take me in as a disciple.
At that moment, a Soulquake occurred, the enlightening energy in the continent shifted as a whole and that opened a seemingly portal of chaotic energy, sucking me in.
In there, I saw a lot of dead people, already skeletons. There was no way out. However, the upside was that the energy was continuous and almost never exhausts.
I'm already at the second realm, Soul Founding so I at least know how to look at one's inheritances. The skeletons here were strong Cultivators who challenged the so-called "Energy Vortex" based on the inheritances they left.
High risk, high return.
But they failed. None of them got out. In the end, there are just about more than a dozen complete inheritances here, just lying around.
One of them is enough to make the Royalties drool as these are the inheritances of Matered Soul Cultivators, trying to reach the legendary realm, Ascended Soul.
They must've been full of themselves and wanted to get in here, like entering a cocoon and ascending later on.
I took all of the inheritances, leaving nothing behind. Even with my talent, I've spent nearly three years, comprehending and making all the inheritances mine. The energy here was enough to sustain my body without me needing to sleep or eat.
Along with it were the research notes these masters left, trying to figure out how to get out of the Energy Vortex.
After that, I looked at the remains of the masters...
They succeeded and failed at the same time. They've reached the realm of Ascended Soul, however, failed to get out of here.
I wonder... how ṁ̸̧̩̍ṷ̶̮̇c̸̨̺̜̋͝h̵̗̱̏̇̋ͅ Karma they left.
They are supposed to become a legend or, at least, an emperor once they came out. But they just died from old age.
Just how much did they leave?
I didn't hesitate to know.
So I feasted on their bones.
I learned that Karma does not only lies in the blood. Mainly in the blood, yes, however, what if even the blood dries up?
With bones only remained, although their Karma has already been shaven, after I finished gobbling them up, I've retained my golden glow again.
I'm already sixteen by then. I should have a bigger container for Karma but I still glow.
By then, after two more years, I've reached Mastered Soul.
Before the gold glow completely disappears, I've used it to escape the Energy Vortex.
I understood how these Ascended Soul Cultivators failed to get out. Even with the greatest Karma, it still needed me to study it, experiment, and have many trials, using one more year before I finally came out.
Another Soulquake happened, this time, I'm the reason. To escape the Energy Vortex, I have to stabilize the chaotic and dense enlightening energy within it. So I took it all in with one swoop then escaping.
I've reached... Ascended Soul.
I understand them. I completely comprehend just like the back of my palm. Even though I'm younger, I've gone through more than these people.
Soul Cultivation is about strengthening yourself. Not the physical body, but your within.
And, how can I be weak?
Let me have this glory.
I've gone through almost everything. There are only a few things that fear me now.
Thus, I've returned and came back to the clan. They hoped for me to reach Mastered Soul in the far future, and never expected that I will reach past it at such age.
To return the Karma, as they still fed me and gave me shelter, I made them the ruler over the land.
As an Ascended Soul Cultivator, and still very young on top of that, the old legends didn't stop me.
Those like me, they've hidden from the world for they have searched for their true selves and become an Ascendant, They are the only ones who can stop me.
I've fought some of them. Nearly died, yes, but I won, proving myself as the greatest genius and cultivator in all of history of the World of Soul.
This... is not what I wanted.
I've traveled around the world, calling myself the "Prince" Jax Ferter and "434".
Princess, she has gone through a lot too.
In this world, at the very least, she should've attained the realm of Soul Strengthening.
But she was still not showing up even though I tried to make myself known all over the world.
It is either she's still too weak and bounded... or that she didn't want to risk and find out that it is me, your Prince.
If you've changed and didn't want to meet me again, at least, tell me.
(Or she didn't reincarnate just like your mother... just like Lennie.)
I wonder where the Princess is?
I still asked that at the age of fifty. I have proclaimed that I am searching for her, for the "Princess"
But Princesses from different countries presented themselves to me in front of my abode.
They've wasted my time and hope. You think you can compare to my Princess?
Many decades passed and I have searched every crook and cranny of this world. So I've stayed on one mountain where I will stay and wait for her.
(You will be forever alone.)
"I will be alone?"
On top of my mountain in my land in my continent in my world, I looked up at the sky.
I rarely cried. And in this life, this is the first time I did.
I cried for months...
"I will never see them again...?"
My condition has reached its worst for months to come by.
Until I realized...
"So what?"
"Even if I do not see them again, I will continue. Forever and ever until I fade into nothingness."
At that moment, I've reached past Ascended Soul. I've reached Nirvana. Nothing can stop me.
Approximately a hundred years later, my body couldn't contain my Soul any longer.
Did I die from that?
No...
My Soul became my body itself. It materialized. But the world pronounced me as dead and Connect brought me to another world again.
This time, I have both Golden Karma and Perfected Soul with me.