"That is all, benefactor," Lu Ming sighed as he finished. He glanced at Kong Xiang, whose face clearly depicted he was lost in his thoughts. Standing, Lu Min hovered in front of the duo, making to take away the empty plates on the table.
Just now, Lu Ming had volunteered more information to him, revealing the origin of the inky cloud, and the circumstances surrounding its release from its seal.
"What I have just told you is the core secret behind this temple's establishment" Lu Ming continued, recalling how surprised he had been when he had been when his master had told him and his brother some years back, following their discipleship. It suddenly flashed through his mind that his Master, not himself, had the right to determine whether or not he should have revealed this information to him. He stifled that train of thought as soon as it popped in his mind.
"Brother...." By the side, Lu Min began, but Lu Ming hushed him, noticing Kong Xiang's expression suddenly turn strange.
Kong Xiang, who had been taking in all this information, felt a faint tug and instinctively reacted, following it. Unwittingly, his vision darkened and his environment changed, finding himself in a strange looking place.
He was somehow now in the middle of nowhere, a tunnel-like vacuum space opening that spiralled randomly into vast space.
"Where...where is this?" He asked out loud, but didn't hear his voice. As he cast his gaze to his feet, he realized two things. First, he was somehow afloat. There was no solid floor or earth beneath him that he could see. Second, while he could make out the 'darkness' around him, he could sense that his present body form was a squishy point of....light? Somehow, he could sense his own...radiance?
Almost immediately, his mind jolted as he realized that was his own karma subspace. Simultaneously, a subtle realization came upon him; he had somehow reached the Manifestation realm in the law of Karma.
"That easy?" He could not help but be surprised. It was one thing to grasp two laws to manifestation level, but three!! Just one alone was shocking enough, not to mention his lightning law was close to manifestation too!!!
'So this is manifestation realm of karma, uhn?' he thought. At this moment, he underwent a shift in mentality, grasping certain information previously obscured from him. In the outside world, Lu Ming and Lu Min witnessed his aura gradually diminish, reducing his presence to a bare minimum. Right now, his previously sagely presence was absent, replaced by a rather stiff, inhuman one.
"The more you know, the more you realize there is so much more you actually do not know" Grasping the law of Karma to this stage brought a change to Kong Xiang's word view. Information bits floated about about in his view. He could sense his radiance illuminating certain 'information' in his karmic space so he could 'see' them. At the same time could also sense how much remained unlit, obscured and inaccessible.
Revolving around his radiant karmic form were karmic threads, forming some sort of shackle system around him. They differed in their thickness, signifying the significant karmic connections he had amassed in his life. He could make out some of the weaker ones, like the one he newly formed with the monk brothers. Even then, this weak karmic line connected to a larger, grander one that represented his karma with the temple he was presently in. On an impulse, his mind moved. The radiance exuding from him shone as he focused on that line.
For the second time in a row that day, he spat out a mouthful of blood.