Creating arrays required a medium to engrave on and flux to fill the engravings. Soul arrays were similar. I would use my Dharmic energies to craft the array within my inner sea and then ‘copy’ the mental construct into the spirit realm.

Adding the flux required me to use material I had looted from the Mystic Realm. It was a slow process to fill the channels I engraved. My lack of experience with arrays caused problems. And the way the materials needed to be transported was something never before done by my people.

I couldn’t transport the materials directly into my inner sea, but Toi and her people had found a workaround for that problem. The problem was moving a solid medium into my body and then transferring that medium into my soul space.

They solved this problem by creating incense and gathering rituals that could allow the cultivator to meditate and breathe in the smoke from the incense. Once the lungs were filled, the body’s respiratory, circulation, and meridian channels could make the ingredients accessible to the Dharmic body.

I wondered if it might not be possible to place the spiritual material inside my torc to harvest with my Dharmic body or see if Storm could transport it inside when she merged her physical with Dharmic.

The incense required spirit stones to be ground fine enough to bond with the other materials giving the smoke the properties needed for use as a flux.

The method to grind spirit stones without destroying them was simple enough. So simple I was shocked that neither the Elves of Hindel had discovered it. You needed to layer the stone in a bubble of force energy, maintaining a steady pressure that included both aspects of physical and spiritual.

Qi supplied the physical properties needed, Dharmic the spiritual. Once the two energies were blended, the spirit stone was encapsulated in the energy field that could withstand the energy released. The process was quickly completed by breaking the stone into shards and grinding the flakes into a fine powder.

Spirit stones ran the spectrum in color. The more vibrant and intense the hue, the more powerful the stone. I ground a spirit stone into sand-like particles that removed any distinguishing features that would allow the stone to be graded.

The spirit stone I used coalesced into individual particles shimmering the deepest red. Mixed with the spirit plants I had harvested, the incense was formed. It had a medicinal smell to it, but what stood out the most was the red shimmer from the spirit stones retained that shimmer. And the faintest echo of Qi resonance.

“Storm,” I said, “watch over me. I’ll activate a protective array, but I’d feel safer knowing you were guarding the area.”

It had taken almost a week to process the ingredients for the incense I would need. The ground spirit stone needed to be combined with spiritual plants I’d found inside the Mystic Realm. I had to have Bao, our strongest Herbalist, nourish and grow a few plants I potted when I discovered I’d only managed to harvest a few small seedlings of the variety needed.

Herbalists were capable of encouraging rapid growth for plants and spirit plants. The problem they encountered was finding a balance where growth occurred at a pace that allowed the plants to retain their potency and vitality.

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Too often, plants that were encouraged to grow withered and died. Usually, that occurred with novice Herbalists, young cultivators too inexperienced to guide the plants’ internal structures. That problem was only compounded when dealing with spirit plants and herbs that grew with a lacework of connecting constructs used to gather and store Qi. That lacework ran in tandem with the network of veins that supplied the plant with nutrients and water.

“Toi? What should I do?” I asked once Storm had taken wing and I had activated the protection array.

“Light the incense and form a Qi barrier around yourself, making that barrier large enough to include the smoke from the burning incense,” Toi instructed me.

“Once the incense is burning, and the smoke has begun to be released, begin cultivation. Exactly seven cycles of gathering and refining Qi before stopping and entering your inner sea. I will guide your Dantian body to the soul realm where you will create the soul gathering and purifying array you will need to brand inside and into the soul realm.”

Cultivation and meditation had become synonymous for me at this point in my progress as a Cultivator. I still had to pay exact attention as I cycled my Qi. Even the slightest deviation could cause a major setback. It was the sacrifice I was happy to make to cultivate such a powerful method.

Now that I was able to split my mind, it made it easier. I could devote my full attention to cultivation while meditating on other problems, reviewing fights, or trying to further my understanding of the [Dao of Movement].

As I finished the seventh cycle, I exhaled reflexively, my lungs full of smoke from the incense. I made the mental shift that allowed my awareness and perception to shift, my focus turning inward. It wasn’t so much I claimed my Dharmic body. It wasn’t a puppet waiting in a dormant state. The Dharmic body and I were one, and it was active as a part of me at all times.

The only difference between choosing to focus my consciousness inward was that the Dharmic took on a dimensionality that my physical body had learned to filter and ignore. My body dealt with the world around me. My Dharmic body dealt with the spirit, soul, and astral.

I had expected to see my inner sea when I focused inward. A world of liquid Qi surrounding an island that held my mental palace and my [Dao] pillar in place. Instead, I found myself floating within the astral.

The world below me sharply contrasted with what I could see in the physical realm. A pit of writhing souls, lost to torment, wailing in agony, fear, and anger, greeted me as I spent a few seconds familiarizing myself with this state of consciousness.

The sight before me was mainly horrific, except for the presence of a universal truth. The river of forgetfulness existed in this place. The power and beauty of those waters' ever-changing, never-ending flow crashed against a pit of darkness. The suffering and anguish of so many spirits served as a ward to keep the souls locked within the pit, and the river from piercing the barrier and setting them free.

There was a small tear, a rift of brimstone and sulfur just beginning to form, and I knew, instinctively, that if that tear were allowed to grow, Xiwang would have to contend with a demon horde.

“We are in time,” Toi assured me. I hadn’t had a chance to mention my fears, but anyone who could see the evil tied to the land below would have worried.

“It was a close thing. Even a week more and the tear between planes would have reached the point of no return. These souls would have been destroyed as the demonic forces cannibalized their energy to expand.”

“What will happen to these souls now?” I asked, feeling a tightness in my chest at the thought of the complete annihilation of so many people.

“The soul array will filter and purify their despair. Without that energy to block the river of forgetfulness, it will flow, and each spirit will begin their voyage, a journey across the wheel of reincarnation to find and begin their next life.”

The tightness in my chest eased as I took comfort from Toi’s words. A final death had been my greatest fear in my previous life. I had no idea if I would move on once I died and if I would begin a new life and a new adventure. But somehow, I felt comfort knowing that, for the Elves, reincarnation was real.

And I had tangible evidence that the wheel of reincarnation was real. That the river of forgetfulness could ease any pain and remove any sin.