"What is a shadow? Can anyone tell me... No? No I'm not asking what causes a shadow to appear, I'm asking what is a shadow, why is a shadow dark. Why is space dark? when you block a window the light in the room disappears, are you now in space? Is what we know as the endless void simply a closed room to another? Are we in the 3rd dimension? the 4th? 5th? Mortals can not touch shadows, but we can, mortals can not touch nor perceive essence, but we can, we can do what shouldn't be possible, why is that?"
- Teacher Veya ~ Late stage golden core
5 years ago ~ Vast tree realm
The strongest cultivators across the cosmos had all fled leaving their homelands in fear of the Calamity.
Those unlucky or too weak to flee left to their fate.
Mortals knew something was wrong as cultivators across the vast tree realm had disappeared en mass while those who remained seemed to have gone insane.
Devil cultivators roamed free across the cosmos of the Vast tree realm wrecking havoc and causing mass slaughters.
An air of resentment, fear, hate, and unwillingness could be felt
Armageddon had arrived.
Tens of millions of devil factions set up mass slaughter arrays in the most populous of sectors of the vast tree realm, refining trillions of mortals and low tier cultivators every hour creating unprecedented devilish Qi across the cosmos.
At the very end of a Universe hope was lost
All the fear, pain, anger, guilt, frustration, sadness, disgust, anxiety, lust, shame, envy, worry, resentment, disappointment, contempt and regret in Vast tree realm started to coalesce and manifest itself upon the vast tree universe, space itself twisted.
As the ships carrying the elite of the vast tree realm left a bright light shinned upon them submerging them in the final radiance of their homeland carrying the final gifts of farewell to those that inhabited it.
The world does not distinguish between good and evil.
It does not judge you nor tempt you, it simply is as always.
The rules of the universe dictate - the distinction of good and evil is decided not by it, but of the sentient life that inhabits it.
As such for every gift it provides, a tribulation came with it.
When one gains another does not, giving rise to jealousy and want.
It is good that they gained something but why didn't I also attain the same?
As the devilish Qi and resentment in the world increased the will of the 'good' was overcome by the will of the 'evil' with more and more resentment building up
The universe (world) had changed
That which was considered 'good' was now evil, and that which was considered 'evil' was now good.
That evil now had justification
The good ran away abandoning the universe
The world was now filled with devilish Qi replacing the old spiritual Qi majority of the universe
So the universe responded to the change in the will of the world
The devils only had few goals in life
Chaos.
Power.
Domination.
As such the will of the universe prepared one final gift.
After all devils are inherently selfish, no one wanted to share power with others, no one wanted to be dominated by others, and while they like to cause chaos it must benefit THEM.
So the world responded in kind.
All the devilish Qi in the universe was gathered, all the foul, all the treasure, all the knowledge, all that was left gathered onto one point.
As the past will of the world still held affect gifting everything it could for one last time, another will arrived.
On a relatively small ark, a newborn child was born of a spiritual heaven.
A child that could bring the light of day upon those whom needed it most while he himself lived of their joy.
As the child was in the middle of his formation the most crucial step of building the mind took place, then the devils gift had arrived.
An unprecedented amount of devilish Qi pervaded the childs body, followed by the foul of the universe, the hidden treasures of creation, and all that once was.
The childs blood was pure white without flaw, originally a single drop would open the mind to endless Dao, but now his blood had become pitch black devouring the light that came upon it, it no longer opened the mind but devoured it.
The childs nature would have pure and good even ignorant of evil by normal standards, easy to take advantage of, but now new feelings had been given to him, doubt, regret, sadness, rage, resentment, lust, greed, ect.
The child would originally be absent of the pains and pleasures of the world, but now he developed nerves across his body feeling the abhorrent pain of spiritual and divilish Qi being forced into him, his mind raptured by feelings not of his own.
His body was forged of pure treasure light originally, now all the filth left behind from planets, spiritual continents, stars, black holes to even the very light and dark of the universe crafted his body.
His mind was filled with all the information of creation within the vast tree realm, too much information - so much that should he attempt to recall it all in one go his mind would shatter.
The child by all standards could be considered 'whole'.
That is until the balance shifted.
More and more vile energy entered.
His mind that had not fully formed was attacked by phantoms of past and present, all the suffering souls killed by devilish cultivators or anyone else throughout the vast tree realms history filled his mind.
As his mind was eroded away the will of the past 'good' universe took notice directing more energy towards his creation.
Treasure light flooded towards him, filling him with all manner of new Qi's to combat the vile Qi.
Both the old rule of 'good' and the new rule of 'good' (evil) fought over the mind of the child
It all happened in mere moments yet the childs mind had been broken and rebuilt trillions of times until a balance was struck
The surrounding area near the child had become an unrivaled spiritual heaven, and the child...
would either become an unparalleled devil
Or an unprecedented Saint
A childs nature is not decided upon birth, but on how they experience life.
However the childs mind was exhausted befor he could even open his eyes, his mind was clouded and he was unable to form a full thought most the time.
As for the devils whom had spent the time setting up the arrays, sacrificing trillions every hour, they were enraged!
The heavens were unfair!
All the spoils, all the power, it was all taken from them at the last moment!
"This cannot be! We almost had it all!" A 100 feet tall demon raged against the void
screaming could be heard all around the vast tree realms void, but this time it was not the screams of the victims but of the perpetrators.
~ Present day ~
"Elio sit down, why must you cause such a ruckus" Madam Nordaine was irritated at her adopted son.
"Fff-fa-airy" Elio pointed outside in the direction of the bell families flying ship
"Hmph, do you think that little girl is interested in you? You cant even speak properly even after 5 years do you expect her to take care of a retard who can't even think properly!? The bell family would never allow it"
Madam Nordaine spoke in absolute disdain of her childs deficiency, she was not in a good mood after what just happened with the sect master.
"If you want to obtain something you need to have mental capacity to at least think of a way to obtain it, but you can't even do that can you?" Madam Nordaine sneered at her adopted son while she pinched his right cheek.
"Tri... tr-trying" Elio spoke with difficulty pausing at times
"Try harder" Madam Nordaine did not care for excuses she wanted results
'haa- I must get him to understand the basics of copulation arts befor her visit, if I can't avoid this calamity then at I at least must make sure it does not become a shadow in his heart' she did not want this to happen but if it couldn't be avoided the least she could do was turn it in her favor.
If he had trouble cultivating from lack of understanding, then dual cultivation that allowed for a clear view of the transfer of energy across the body would be able to make up for the deficiency in the early stages.
After that she can only hope he understands enough to cultivate without the need of such methods, otherwise he will really limit his future potential.
Madam Nordaine was quite disappointed, a pure spiritual being like Elio could be considered a top tier treasure of a realm and normally you would have no problems.
Pure spiritual beings didn't need to cultivate, they are spiritual energy in the most pure form possible gaining sentience after all.
But elio was not normal, instead of giving Dao and spiritual energy he absorbed all the spiritual energy around him and made the sensing of Dao even harder while not being able to use any of that absorbed spiritual energy!
She was absolutely livid, a top tier heavenly treasure falls into her lap and she can't use it! The heavens are unfair!
Luckily many forms of dual cultivation rely on the partner giving and taking energy without the consent of one party, with this he may just understand what he is doing wrong.
'I better start changing his curriculum starting now, instead of basic spells he can't even cast it would be much easier to teach him to move his hips, no matter how stupid he is he can't mess that up'
But would Elio understand?
It seemed she now had to do another undesirable thing, lie to her son.
Making up her mind, her flying ship arrived at her destination without mishaps.
~Five family union - Bells of hope -
The Nordaine family Ancestor had just finished her tour of the sky and the elder led down towards the stone city.
The ancestor seemed oddly quite and had not spoken much since leaving the sky
The elder did not know if he had said something wrong but he was panicking in his mind
Finally the ancestor broke her silence
"Elder take me to meet some of the soul integration immortals I must confirm something with them"
The Elder was a bit perplexed by this but didn't think it was all that odd.
"I will send a message to meet them ancestor but the Nordaine's don't have many interactions with them so they might decline "
"Tell them you wish to speak to them about the problem of the sky"
"!?"
The elder was taken aback there was a problem with the sky?
"I will send the message now" The old man did not delay as the ancestor who had shown nothing but calm this entire time seemed a little shaken.
~Outside the bells of hope flag ship~
"Mother are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yetttt!? mummmmm!" Anabella was trying her best to annoy her mother on her way home to alleviate her boredom
She may have been a heaven breaking expert in the past but her current mind could not tolerate that level of mental strain let alone the amount of information she had previously, letting the mind lose itself during childhood was much better then putting strain on it lest she damage her new body so quickly.
Madam Bell has half paying attention to her child but the other side had already left the flying ship and ignored all her childs demands for attention
"Madam we have arrived" a voice spoke
"Good, Bella come here" Madam Bell picked up her child and left the flying ships cabin
Outside the flying ship Madam bell was greeted by 3 Nascent soul elders and 10 core formation guards that had been assigned to escort her to and from the evenings event
The guard was not for Madam Bell herself but for little Anabella whom the Bell family put great importance on, should Madam Bell be sacrificed to save the child it would be acceptable by the elders standards.
Madam Bell clearly understood this so she made sure to always keep hold of Anabella unless one of the elders should suddenly have a Dao devil manifest in their hearts causing them to 'lose control' inadvertently killing Madam Bell in the process.
Clearly Madam Bell was well respected in the Bell family.
~ Nordaine family secret ship -Majestic Night - ~
Arriving at the ark -Majestic Night - madam Nordaine docked the star covered ship in a small platform.
In front of the platform 9 -eight storey pagodas could be seen separated by a path going from south to north.
The pagodas being black, the light that illuminated them blue, and the plants that surrounded them looked dry and near death.
At the end of the path a large black iron gate 5 storeys' tall blocked the any further passage.
This was the guest receiving and residence area, the floating island behind those gates and walls couldn't be seen, and likewise all the spiritual energy is contained behind this gate.
Madam Nordaine could not enter the gate, the spiritual energy held within was simply too overbearing, so she chose to build her and the childrens residences on the dock of the ark.
Only Elio could enter the gates without harm, not that it mattered anyway.
Madam Nordaine - "Girls' head to your room and rest, tomorrow you will start the basics of spiritual cultivation so make sure you get a good nights rest"
"Yes mother" both replied in unison.
Them being identical twins which made it sound a little creepy.
Madam Nordaine then carried Elio with her.
The two girls watched their mother fly off a frown on their faces.
'Ugh why does he always steal all of mothers attention'
They didn't like Elio, if not for being told to keep watch over him today, they would rather avoid him like the plague.
Elio hardly knew anything about his sisters, they avoided him and his mother isolated him.
If he wanted to ask about them, he first needed to speak properly otherwise he would only be faced with reprisal.
Not that it matters, the few times they had meant it always ended with him on the floor after they pushed him down, so he really felt no kinship whatsoever.
Madam Nordaine took Elio into her chamber.
She raised a barrier not wanting anyone to see what she was about to do, even if no one but her and her children stayed in this ark she still felt shame.
She didn't have a plan.
She didn't have any material for him to use as reference.
He couldn't use spiritual energy yet, as such he couldn't use jade slips.
She couldn't even use mind cultivation techniques to imprint it directly into him because his mind was simply to chaotic.
She had to use visual methods along with hands on approaches to teach him.
"Elio... today I'm going to teach you to play a game"
She set up a screen displaying simple black and white drawings.
She then undressed him.
For Elio undressing befor changing into sleep wear or for entering the bath is simply matte of course, so other then the screen everything was as it should be.
As for this new game he would be learning... he didn't really care.
Madam Nordaine grabbed the member between his legs, it was flaccid.
Elio did not feel lust, he had not experienced carnal desire as of yet and simply saw today as any other.
As for his mother grabbing it nothing odd, they often bathed together and she always washed him, only... he wasn't bathing right now.
'Its always so ridiculous to look at on his small body'
Madam Nordaine took a good look without worry.
'Ah thats right I have a few yang elixirs that will probably give a certain side effect to male cultivators, which is why it's not recommend for them'
Too much yang qi in a male clouded judgement, even worse the effects of overflowing yang affected cultivation techniques drastically.
Cultivation techniques main purpose is to purify spiritual energy to a desired extent which would them be turned into all manner of different Qi spells.
But yang qi is already considered a finished product, in order to ingest it one needs to be deficient of yang otherwise it pollutes the pure spiritual energy held within a cultivators body burning it away and even decreasing their cultivation.
Cultivators strive to build a foundation that they themselves regulate, any change to this can lead to Qi deviation.
Even dual cultivators' did not ingest yang based pills and elixirs, they used vitality revitalization pills and elixirs a major difference.
Those who claim to use yang pills to dual cultivate we're a bit of a laughing stock to dual cultivators.
They are after all were experienced adults who understand how and when to lust for another, they dual cultivate within reason not excess.
Madam Nordaine had miscalculated.
Yang qi should not be used on children unless a medical issue demands it.
A child still growing cannot expel excess yang through meditation and could ruin their body.
"Drink this, I will guide the energy forcefully where it needs to go, so it will hurt a bit"
Elio did not know how to use his meridians to transfer energy, he tried and tried but never succeeded even if shown.
He drank the elixir without worry, he trusted her after all.
In but a few second the energy arrived, and within a second his 3rd leg re-emerged
"I-it's already bigger then..." this time Madam Nordaine stuttered
She didn't want to bad mouth her deceased husband even if it was a marriage of convenience but... Elio had him beat.
Madam Nordaine cleared her head
"Mm...Anyway, Elio I need you to move the way the picture shows, I will hold you from down here so j-just move as you need ok?" she held his 3rd leg with both hands as she waited for him to take action.
'Move the way the picture moves?' Elio looked at the image on the screen.
'... but it's not moving'
He was stumped.