"What happens when your cultivation stagnates? What are the causes for a stagnated cultivation? -- Talent, cultivation techniques, luck and the worst of all... heart. To be exact, I am not talking about your physical heart but a metaphorical one. This heart is generally called a dao heart by many, it is the single most important thing outside of spiritual roots required for cultivation, specifically for advancement. The smallest thing can cause your heart to shift slowing down your cultivation to a crawl and in the worst case completely stoping it, If you have experienced some sort of great trauma in life and are unable to let go of it, it is over. A cheating spouse, a lost keepsake, an enemy you couldn't kill, a loss you could not accept... Never get caught up in emotions, not befor you break away from heaven"
- Dao teacher Qui ~ Mid deity transformation
Clara - "So let me get this straight, you are not samuel but some random hobo from another realm that took over my now dead sons body and you were not searching through my belongings but simply investigating your surroundings? Did i get that right?"
A small boy who looked rather unkempt was sitting befor a young woman
The young boy who's named samuel had come to find himself possessing the body of this child but his actual name was david and he was not a child but a grown mortal man hailing from another realm who came upon the body of a newly deceased child and had unintentionally possessed his body.
Samuel - "Y-yes that's correct"
He was sitting on the floor looking a little anxious this situation was simply an impossibility in his mind and he expected the woman befor him to simply call him crazy or even calling it a child delusions.
Clara - "So you have no cultivation experience, no background, nothing to offer which could be of use and yet you decided to stick around to see if you were just dreaming it all?"
Samuel was finding it hard to find words 'did she not care or is she playing along?'
Clara - "Haaaa~ well possession in the cultivation world is nothing new kid, although its unfortunate that it happened to my own child I will not put the blame on you even if you hail from a different realm then ours although if you are I would keep quite about being from a different realm it could get you killed instantly" the young woman didn't seem to care and seemed to know the boys thoughts.
This was too irrationally calm and understanding about the situation even about the fact that her own child had technically died which put samuel in an odd mood
Clara - "What? Do you find it hard to believe the situation you are in? Or it it about the fact that I dont seem to care about your possessing of my childs body? Well let me tell you this now, a baby may he considered a miracle to high tier cultivators but to us lowly core formation and below cultivators its just a burden we hope grows up quickly, your no miracles your just pests eating up resources we already lack"
This woman held nothing back in her disdain for her child
Clara - "Ahh but that may just be my own thoughts after all my kid was an oddball who refused to eat normal food and inflicted self torture on himself in an attempt to keep up with those 'real' miracle children instead of sitting back and just riding the wave like a normal cultivator"
Samuel's mouth opened a little at the lack of care he was seeing, his own family while not perfect would never go this far even when it came to sibling rivalry he would be absolutely crushed if his family thought so little of him
Clara- "So what do you plan on doing now kid? Do you plan to shack up with me here or do you plan to find your own way across this new life?"
Samuel was caught off guard about all this but he still thought quickly about it, but decided he needed more information befor acting rashly, he was still hoping he was dreaming and that soon he would wake up but it was all feeling a bit too real
Samuel - "I think I want to stay here for a bit, at least until I can wrap my head around whats going on"
He was now only a 6 years old child with no prospects and no clue as to what he should do in this new world could he go back?
Clara - "Mmmm thats fine I guess... I already paid to have samuel enrolled into early education after all, it would be a waste to not have you go at this point"
Samuel - "..."
Clara - "What? Its expensive!"
Samuel had an awkward smile on him befor a thought hit him
Samuel - "Ah thats right what about the father or family of Samuel, will he also think like you?"
Clara - "Don't worry his father isn't around, nor is my family here. Samuel is just an unintended outcome but one that was needed to get a ride on this boat otherwise I might not even be here"
Samuel - "?"
Clara - "What im not wealthy I cant afford to buy a ticket on this ark under normal circumstances"
A thought then occured to him
Samuel - "Ah... sorry I asked"
Clara - "Don't be its not the worst outcome after all, I have all the things needed to live and cultivate plus your fa- Samuel's father was not a cruel man he paid for everything I needed and if not for his family we would probably have even gotten married"
Samuel - "...?"
Clara - "Think of them as wealthy snobs and while the man I fell for was a good man he was also a coward"
Samuel - "So they disapproved of your relationship due to status?"
Clara - "Eh so so, its more about my lack of talent that they worried about our relationship. Either way we don't have a bad relationship with each other, Samuel even ment his grandfather and grandmother although it was not the most pleasant of meetings at first"
Talent? Not wealth or background? It seemed the nature of this family dynamic was based on having some sort of talent, maybe she wasn't a prodigy of some kind or was it something else?
'wait ark? What does she mean by that? Is it the name of this building?' Samuel found this part a bit odd but did not ask in the end every sentence simply created more questions in his mind
Clara - "Anyways are you hungry? We should go out to eat that way you can familiarize yourself with the surroundings better, your the perfect age for it anyway no one will question your lack of knowledge well they may find you a bit dumb"
Samuel took one look down towards his stomach and put one hand over it
Samuel - "Yeah I think that'd be good"
Clara - "My name is clara dutch by the way"
Samuel paused for a bit befor remembering she never asked for his name
Samuel - "Ah. I am David hamel"
"David? Good thing your a samuel now don't have to use that atrocious name anymore"
"..." What? How was his name atrocious... Maybe she had a dislike of the name but atrocious is much!
Clara - "Ah let me give you a quick run down as to samuels circumstances otherwise you would probably be an even bigger weirdo"
David now Samuel appreciated this, even if she talked rather cruelly she did seem to be a bad person... Completely.
Clara - "So the most important part you need to remember first is not to get involved with the miracle children I mentioned earlier, those kids are absolute monsters and they will eat you up just like they did to samuel although it may be a little difficult since Samuel keeps antagonizing them"
Samuel - "Oh was samuel bullied?"
Clara - "Bullied? Didn't I just say he starts the conflict? Their is no such thing as bullying here, he simply lacked the talent to compete with them and so he was left behind and he couldn't deal with it"
Samuel - "Talent... Talent in what exactly?"
Clara - "In cultivation, it is the most important part of life for us after all our whole society revolves around it"
"Come here" she gestured at him
Clara stood up and walked towards the left wall next to a wooden closet
Samuel walked towards her, and stood next to her.
The moment he stood next to her she lifted her hand and samuels vision blurred, it took a moment for his vision to once more return to normal but once it did he was no longer inside the same small room as befor but another small room filled with books.
Clara - "This is the lounge, it would generally be set up as the room for the entrance to our home but since samuel lacked talent for spiritual energy control I had to change the location for the entrance and exit to our room"
Samuel was bewildered, how did they get here? There were no doors anywhere to be seen in the last room and he couldn't have been carried, nor was their an elevator that took them up or down.
Samuel - "How did we get here?"
Clara - "What do you mean? I just used a little spiritual energy to trigger the short distance teleportation"
Clara thought he was dumb for a second but quickly remembered his lack of cultivation world experience 'maybe his world was in the stone age?'
Clara - "Ah this apartment complex is a duo layered space, meaning we have the entrance zone which would be the place we greet guests and enter and exit the apartment and then we have the actual house in a separate space which is much safer"
Samuel did not understand what she ment
Clara - "Essentially its just a security measure, only we are able to enter the main house since we have imprinted our soul signatures on it"
Samuel - "No thats not what im confused about- wait no~ soul signatures? Uh... First tell me about this layered space and teleportation? Just how..."
Clara - "Did mortals not invent teleportation where you are from yet? This is one of their achievements you know- well one of the alien species achievements anyway"
Samuel was awestruck, teleportation! A dream transportation method only in known in science fiction it was real!
Clara - "Ah well it did take several thousands of years to perfect the mortals method of teleportation after all so I can see how you might not have figured it out yet even I only know the basics of it... Something about inequivalent equivalent energy transfer from one location to the other although I don't know how it works so don't ask"
Samuel - "But how... I mean it's revolutionary!"
Clara - "Ehh its so so, we already had spiritual energy based teleportation befor this for tens of billions of years now its just a different form of energy being used to activate the teleportation device but it still spiritual energy thats being transferred and received for the most part just using other energy sources to pay the price of teleportation rather than spiritual energy. Its really only useful for short range teleportation like this, if you want to teleport far away then the sending base and receiving base have to have a constant influx of energy being sent to each location in order to open a path for the energy to travel without dispersing in a million directions which would kill you" after a long rant she choose to stop
Samuel - "... Sound like you know more then you let on"
Clara - "No, this is really just the basics after all how were they certain that our spiritual energy would just reform back into the same form, how do they know we wouldn't just become a pile of dust or goo or that we would even be able to wake up? Or that our body wouldn't be possessed mid conscious transfer? Don't underestimate the amount of research that had to go into this, I told you didn't I? It took thousands of years to perfect mortal teleportation to a degree, the amount of people who were sacrificed to test every iteration was no joke"
Samuel - "Ah I guess thats true, then what about this 'space' what do you know about it?"
Clara - "I guess you could say it's a bubble of spiritual energy separated from the rest of space allowing it to have its own separate environment? Don't ask me how they separate space and put it ontop of another space without either interacting I did not study the void path or rule path"
More answers and even more questions!
Samuel - "And what about soul signatures what is that?"
Clara - "Ah now this I know! Its simple really, a soul signature is basically your brainwave mixed with some spiritual energy making a unique energy signature thats very difficult to copy you will learn about spiritual energy soon so don't worry to much and as for the brainwave its basically just an electrical and chemical signal that is transfered all over your body via your nerves so you don't have to do anything special just using spiritual energy creates a special soul signature unique to each person"
Samuel felt confused but since she said he will soon learn how to do it anyway he did not ask her to clarify further and simply nodded.
Clara - "Now then that door your right is were my room is at as to the door further down in the right it leads towards the kitchen and on the left had side the first door leads to your room which is basically empty since you never used it once you started competing against those other kids, and the final door is the bathroom since you still have mortal needs after all one was needed"
Samuel - "Mortal needs? Does this mean you never have to use it?"
Clara - "Thats right, I am in the golden core stage and have moved beyond the needs to do such a thing, whatever I eat is spiritual energy based as such it leaves no extra residue in our stomach unless you can't consume it all, only our bodies need to be cleansed after which we generally break down all contaminants with spiritual energy and expel them from the body like sweat - so we do take baths but we don't really need to if we simply don't eat"
Samuel - "But then you never took a shower befor having samuel?"
Clara - "Of course I did! There is many ways to clean one self besides baths you know, there are many spells and special tools that we use to keep ourselves clean from outside contaminants, we don't generally sweat and when we do we just use a wet towel to clean ourselves or use a simple spell water isn't cheap you know"
"..." Was he in a post apocalyptic world or something?