ACC Chapter 52 Enlightenment

The mountains of pre-evolved Earth had been things to marvel at. From the block to the volcanic, every single one of them had been a daunting challenge to any mortal that sook to scale their heights.

They became even harder to scale for Spirit Gathering and Foundation Establishment cultivators when the density of the spiritual energy in the atmosphere had reached critical levels, mutating the climate and very make up of the soil, stone and lava they were composed of.

Then the Earth had evolved and things got complicated to the point that the dune before my eyes would have been akin to a mountain of before.

Curiosity dragged me up as I gazed at the top, where a crowd was gathered, with all the people's attention congregating towards something on the other side of this dune.

And because curiosity was something that couldn't banished from any sentient life's brain, I sped up, with just three steps putting me just behind the gathered crowd.

"How can such a thing exist?!"

"Wow! Did you fuckin see that?"

"I am going to record the song. Its beautiful!"

"I wish she were human. I have a feeling she would have been as beautiful as a goddess."

"How do you know that that 'thing' is female?"

"Am I the only one seeing those curves here?"

"We can't rule out all the possibilities, can we?"

"Shush! In five seconds the song is going to restart!"

"How long have you been here?"

"Thirty minutes. Treat this as some sort of spiritual record..."

The murmurings, the conversations, the gesturing, everything was simply adding to the atmosphere, which in turn was affecting me.

I didn't know what was happening yet, but for some reason, I had a feeling that whatever these people were excited about was something that was going to have a profound impact on me.

This feeling was one I wasn't a stranger to. I had also felt it the moment that I had been about to gain enlightenment on my first deity art.

I had confided in Mr. Taylor after the enlightenment and he had expounded upon it.

As I pushed my way through the crowd, a song entered my ears, with the sand below my feet rippling in tandem with the beat. It was a soothing tune, one that was upbeat, yet also soft on the ears.

I loved music. Though, there were particular genres I disliked, like the one prevalent in most of the places Qin Wentian had battled in.

I don't know how long it took to move to the front of the crowd since I was under the spell of the song, but when I burst out from the crowd, like a whale out of the sea, my eyes were drawn and locked onto the scene below, and below they stayed, not even straying to the crowd beside me, or even the surroundings in general.

My ears had fallen in love with lots of music the past few years of my life. From those singles, to albums, to movie soundtracks. But if I were being honest with myself right now, I would say that this song was the best mesh of everything I had ever had, and in a beautiful way.

It was upbeat, yet also slow and soothing. It was a pop song that bordered on country, and evoked feelings within me that I never knew I could feel... Like love.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Love and attraction. I had thought that such emotions and feelings could only be evoked by the opposite sex within me, yet the song had done the same, causing my mind to start painting a picture of the person that I wanted to be with.

And with those images, my heart was thundering in my ears, with butterflies in my stomach.

The one dancing was a shadow, no doubt about that. But the dress it was clad in was something that was out of fantasy.

It was long, with a hem that trailed in the sand, yet managed to not trip it up. It was lighting up for a moment when the sun caught upon its many black icy flakes that joined into each other to become it.

When the shadow twirled, it sparkled like a galaxy filled with stars, around a black hole.

The song was something I didn't even think could be danced to, yet the shadow was proving me wrong, twirling, stepping, and leaping as if it was a simple affair. Yet, all of its moves were in tandem to the song that it was singing through the hole where the mouth was supposed to be on a normal human.

As I sunk deeper within my trance, I felt the music influencing my spiritual energy, making it vibrate to the same beat as the song, with even my core resonating faintly.

Every single aorta of spiritual energy pulsed with power and joy, almost causing a shivering moan of pleasure to escape my lips, which I tampered down before the urge became too powerful to stop.

This was a resonance with the heavens. You could theoretically come up with a few deity arts, but fail to gain any resonance with the heavens to bring them into true existence. And this resonance had nothing to do with talent, just sheer dumb luck at 1%, and a broad gallery of experiences to draw from, which made up the other 99% needed to create a deity art.

The resonance finally reached a peak when the song reached the point where my instincts were telling me that it was about to end, and then, within my core, a new runic key chain was birthed to rotate around it just like the first one.

Though, before I could study it in great detail, the sound of applause, involving clapping and whistling broke me from my trance-like state, bringing back all my other senses online, which had been dulled.

The shadow, in the icy black dress was in the middle of a bow when my attention shifted back to her, before she froze, like a statue.

"Wow! Reed... I don't even know where to start! I don't think I will ever listen to quite the epic song that this was!" Paul spoke, amazement and awe thick within his voice. His green orbs within the dark eyeholes were literally glowing with fervor and excitement.

"Does this mean that you are done exploring on your own?" I asked with a thin smile. So far, I hadn't yet figured out how to treat Paul.

"Nah. The only reason I am here was because I was looking for you. Some stone-no, mountain cornered me somewhere and asked me a weird question."

"I have no idea what you are really saying." I said with puzzlement thick in my voice.

"Ah! My bad. It was a mountain spirit."

The moment I heard those words, my heart skipped a beat and my divine sense unfurled like a tsunami, covering over five kilometers in a mere second, with anything over that distance blurry to my senses.

My spiritual energy roared within my body as I prepared to unleash my strongest power.

"It has already left. There is no need to get worked up. Besides, all it wanted was to have a conversation."

Even as Paul spoke, I meticulously scanned everything within my divine sense, making sure not to miss any tiny clue.

"Paul! Spirits are dangerous!"

"I know. If there hadn't been this many weak humans around I would have attacked it."

This was grave matter. I had to meet up with someone. What if the spirits attacked us in this desert? Many people wouldn't survive.

"Follow me!"

I took off into the skies, piercing through the air barrier in only an instant after taking off, leaving behind a sonic boom that didn't enter my ears, but through my divine sense, I felt the air particles dispersing in the form of a shockwave.

(Reed, this is an overreaction on your part. I don't believe that the mountain wanted to attack the humans at this time.)

My heart was beating a million miles a minute, and with every passing second, I could feel my anxiety growing.

A person could be read like a book, from their personality, to the meal they last ate. I could glean that much from Spirit Gathering and Foundation Establishment cultivators. To a lesser extent, even some details could be gleaned from those in The Core Formation.

But spirits... I couldn't afford to trust Paul's feelings alone. Spirits had rudimentary intelligence, having been born not too long ago. They were akin to young children, capable of throwing a tantrum at the slightest juncture without even a single warning.

Within a minute, a tall and long wall came into view. It was something temporary and could be moved. It was brown, filled with so much spiritual energy from its enchantments that it glowed in my divine sense.

Within just a second, I was at the gates, stepping through the sand, and trying to make myself appear calm. But my heartbeat and the fear that had claimed me weren't things that could be stopped with just a few deep breaths and slowing down the circulation speed of my spiritual energy.

"Reed!"

Paul shouted upon landing, with his green hand halting me in place by holding my left forearm.

"You need to calm down! No one is going to die! That mountain wasn't going to attack! We have been partners! I trust you with my life! Can't you do the same for me?"