The cold seeping in through the skin
And piercing the bones.
It chills me to the core
And thrills me at the same time.
Like a storm of white dust -
Floating, growing, expanding,
And engulfing everything in its vicinity.
From Being a speck of dust
Hanging in the vast nothingness -
To Becoming the Great Void
Devouring this eternal Nothingness of Space.
It appears soft and silent,
Gentle and slowly moving.
Yet underneath lays hidden
A deep impenetrable strength.
Wild and impetuous,
Raging within its confines,
Restlessly seeking
To break all known boundaries
And fly away into the Eternal Unknown.
Thick white vapors rolled around the edges of the large and barely visible pool. Like thick clouds hanging low, almost touching the ground, they floated along the waves of the silent waves in the air. Emerging from the center of the pool, they circled around the core, moving further and further to the edges, weighed down by the below freezing chill, till they broke apart and dropped to the floor as shards of glistening ice.
Yet as soon as they touched the warm earth, they turned to moist water, and seeping in through every crack and pore, they disappeared, leaving behind a mirage of a wet ground.
And in a corner sat an unmoving, unflinching block of ice. As if time had moved on without caressing this block with its touch....frozen in slumber, eternally accompanying the rolling and precipitating and condensing and evaporating white clouds.
Ahem.....this very block of ice was Rihanna. Only if one looked closely could you see the soft purple light still cloaked around her body, separating the layers of cold, freezing ice from directly wrapping its chilly fingers around her tiny frame. Once she closed her eyes and delved into her subconscious, she soon lost track of time. The cloudy vapors kept rolling in towards her, and she kept on absorbing them, little by little filling in her dantian.
But Little Purple was growing perplexed. She should have reached her limit a long time ago.....How in the world was she still able to keep absorbing so much of energy?! Where was it all going?
Indeed a very important question.....which gave rise to a very interesting answer. And answer Rihanna herself had been ignorant about till a while ago, when she was herself wondering what was going on, and decided to take a close look at her dantian.
That's when she noticed the center of her energy ball had at some point turned into a tiny vortex....and all the energy she was absorbing was going into the vortex....and simply disappearing through it!! Where did this vortex come from....and where was all the energy going off to?!
After staring at it from all directions for almost half a day, she found that at some point her spiritual consciousness had detached itself and decided to take a trip down to this vortex by itself. So here she was now, a spiritual form, floating about anxiously, trying to figure out what had entered into her dantian that was eating up all her hard-work!
She wanted to go closer, but was scared that the vortex would suck her in as well. She wasn't particularly capable in this form. But before she could figure out what to do next, as if sensing her thoughts, the vortex suddenly turned around like a fat ball bouncing on its axis, and spread its sucking mouth wide...and before she could pull herself off, Rihanna was sucked inside this large black tunnel like mouth.
'Ahhhhh!'
Rihanna felt like she was travelling down a black hole.....it was pitch black, yet flashes of bright white light illuminated it's outer edges. Perhaps there was lack of gravity, or it might have to do with her spirit form, but she was tumbling along like a bowling ball, losing all sense of direction, rolling head over heels, till she fell flat on her face, sprawled over something flat, hard and dusty. Dust rose high in the air, pouring in through her nose, mouth and eyes, and she ended up rolling on the surface, sneezing and coughing as dirt stained tears rolled all over her face. By the end o it she was gasping and crying by turns. Thank god she was in her spiritual form, or this fall would have at least her crippled for life, if not killed her in one go!
'Tsk! What kind of creature are you? You look as dirty as a swamp pig! How in the nine worlds were you selected?! Tsk! There must be something wrong with the selection criteria! Don't come near me! And keep your dirty paws off my white clothes! Ahhh! I don't want this master! I want a refund!!'
Rihanna had barely managed to stop herself, when she went off into another coughing and gasping fit, startled out of her life. Who the hell was this jinx?! And why was he complaining? She should be complaining for this shoddy reception of this place...by the way....where was this place?
Rubbing her eyes, till her whole face was stained with muddy streaks, and completely ignorant of her own ignoble looks, she sat up, looking quite undignified, and stared around in wonder. Well....there wasn't much to see actually. It was all white, filled with clouds rolling around.....Wait! wasn't this the ice energy she had been painstakingly accumulating over so many days?! Why was it here?!
Rihanna jumped up to her feet, feeling both shocked and infuriated, as she ran around the 'place'. Well, it was barely a flat piece of barren land, with some kind of tiny puddle of water at a corner. In its entirety it was as empty as...well, she did not really know what to compare it to!
'Hey! Down here! Stop running around....and watch where you step, or you will crush the only me in here!!'
Rihanna looked down in surprise....then looked all around, feeling more and more mystified.
'Lower down! Someone sewed in buttons for your eyes! Can't see with two perfectly fine eyes!'
Feeling yet more baffled, Rihanna gingerly hunched down, wondering if she needed a magnifying glass to look closer. She strained her sight, carefully scanning the entire piece of ground.
Ummm....what was that? It looked like a bug....oh...no....wasn't that a tiny seed of....something?! Stretching out a finger she tried to flick it around and check what kind of a seed it was.
'Stop! How dare you touch me with your grubby paws! And why are you trying to roll me around?! How will I grow my roots if you keep displacing me from my Core Earth?'
Rihanna could feel her forehead spasming...was it a desire to laugh or to cry? Ever since she had ended up on this planet, there were too many weird things she had had to get used to. Beasts that could cultivate and talk?.....well, it was still kind of believable. Talking seeds?!! She couldn't even pinch herself to see if she was dreaming!
'What kind of a seed are you?'
'Hmph! You were chosen by the space, and you don't know? I never expected one day I would have to acknowledge a stupid girl like you as my master!'
Rihanna turned to look away, sighing in distress. Why was this sarcasm so familiar? Or rather....why was everyone around her so skeptical about her capabilities? How was she supposed to grow without any positivism?! Feeling irritated she stretched out a finger and pushed the seed around once more.
'Enough with your melodrama! Just tell me who you are. And while you are at it, might as well explain where the hell I am and what is this place?'
After another round of screaming and cursing, the seed finally fell silent for a while. Then replied rather grudgingly.
'The Ancient Seed of Spirit Space. This space selected you, so it is yours now. You can come here whenever you want, but only in your spirit consciousness. That's all there is to know.'
Rihanna pinched it lightly with two fingers. Placing it back in the centre of her palm, she brought it up to the level of her eyes.
'Really? That's all? Then who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my spirit space?'
'You ungrateful little brat! Put me down this instant! I am the Great Spirit of this Ancient Seed of Spirit Space! How dare you play around with me?!'
Raising an eyebrow, Rihanna pondered over its words. Then she turned to look around.
'This must be the Spirit Space....which means that you must be the Ancient Seed! But what kind of Ancient tree or plant is supposed to grow from such a tiny seed?.....Tell me, you came into my dantian a long time ago! Then how come you have yet to start sprouting?'
'That's because you are a blaspheme to this world of cultivation! All cultivators are born with a spiritual seed, which sprouts and grows as they cultivate. And I am supposed to merge into their original spirit seed.....but you don't have one! Moreover the energy you absorb is so tiny....how can I grow and let down roots if there is not enough energy for me to evolve?!'
'Oh?...So it is my duty to provide you with energy so you can grow? Hmmm.....but what exactly is this place?.....And what do I gain by giving you energy to grow?'
Rihanna was sighing in distress inwardly. When others got a golden finger space, it would be filled with medical fields, rare medicines and plants, huge buildings storing lost documents on alchemy, medicine, weaponry and arrays formations, spiritual and divine level weapons, armours and artifacts.....and definitely a cute space spirit.
All she got was a talking seed....which could scream and cuss at the drop of a hat! She felt pain at the thought of her future days, haggling and playing tug-of-war with a seed spirit!!