And like that, half a year passed in the blink of an eye since the event that shook the jujutsu world.
In this period of time, nothing remarkable really happened as everything resumed normally.
All the normal people knew was that there was a terrorist attack targeting a few locations in Japan and that the authorities were thankfully able to deal with them.
This of course garnered a lot of public attention as many people and organisations all over the world started pointing fingers.
Events like this are really the favorites of media outlets as they can continue posting and talking about it for a very long time.
From taking controversial stands, and setting the scene, to blaming certain individuals, and manipulating public opinion.
As long as it allows them to achieve certain agendas and earn money, they can do anything.
However, other than this, nothing really happened on that 'side' of the world as most people quickly forgot about the events and resumed their monotonous lives.
As for the 'Mystic' side, things also looked quite calm on the surface as everyone returned to doing their normal tasks.
Those who needed to be dealt with were dealt with and those who should be ignored were also ignored.
The 2017 year also ended with the students at Jujutsu High moving up a grade and Yuta surprisingly leaving the school to travel around with Rika.
This was quite similar to what he did in the original timeline just a lot more 'Positive' as he was no longer alone.
Surprisingly, It also seems that Yuta went through the same travel path he chose in the original as he went to Africa and passed through Tunisia which was also reported to him by Leila.
It seems that even with Lorien's intervention, Gojo was still interested in the tools that could negate negative energy and cursed techniques.
It's just that while some people may be interested in such things, Lorien didn't actually care much about any of it as he was currently quite busy himself.
Right now, he was huddled up in his house in Japan finalizing the Dream Path.
In the period of time since the aforementioned events, all Lorien did was analyze the concepts of 'Soul', 'Space', and 'Time', and also improve the 'Seeds' he previously made such as the 'Chaotic Energy Seed', 'Ability Seed', and 'Immortality Seed'.
And right now, Lorien has finally reached a bottleneck as the energy required to further analyze those things reached an astronomical number.
Of course, thanks to the Dream Trees from all over the world finally linking up, Lorien could afford to spend such amounts of energy without worrying too much about consumption.
It's just that he felt that by further analyzing them forcefully, he might not be able to effectively use the gained knowledge as it had reached a higher level.
So, knowing this, Lorien decided to finally stop and create the path he had been working hard for, for so long.
'Let's begin!'
Sitting cross-legged in the backyard with his back to the Dream Tree and linking to the immense reserves of Dream Energy.
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Lorien raised his hand causing a number of seeds to appear floating above it in harmony.
Doing so, he immediately began using his power causing those seeds to merge alongside the concepts he had long prepared.
First, Lorien began by constructing the [Awakened] stage which is based on the 'Ability' and 'Chaotic Energy' Seeds.
In this stage, the person awakened gets an ability alongside the energy he'll use to fuel it.
The awakened ability is very random and is based on many factors such as blood, origin, and outside interference while the Energy is Neutral and a bit Chaotic giving it a lot of potential and room for evolution and improvement.
Then, he began constructing the [Inner Dream] Stage based on his knowledge of the 'Soul' and based on the power of dreams.
In this stage, the person has to fight his 'inner demons' such as fears, regrets, or anything along those lines.
This battle will take place in one's inner mindscape constructed with the help of the power of dreams.
This 'Inner Mind Scape' is similar to a 'Dream Land' but based on a person's mind and personality, it's basically one's 'Inner World'.
Fighting those 'Demons' allows the person to strengthen his willpower and resolve while also gaining a better understanding of one's self.
Moreover, this stage is basically permanent as whenever a new fear, regret, or negative emotion appears, it'll instantly be displayed there allowing the user to fight it.
And the more a person battles those 'Inner Demons' the stronger the 'Soul' and 'Inner World' becomes which will be very helpful for the next stage called [Outer Dream].
And constructing this stage called [Outer Dream], Lorien used all the knowledge he had left which allowed him to finally achieve his objective.
In this stage, the 'Path Walker' has already beaten his 'Inner Demons' and can now fight again 'Outer Demons' and 'Negative Emotions' which are manifested in the form of 'Negative Energy' and absorb them.
From that moment on, as long as the Negative Energy isn't too much stronger than the user, it basically can't do anything to him, rather, it'll just make him stronger.
After all, the main point of this stage is to fight those Negative Creatures and to absorb them for one's own growth.
This absorption is also very complete as it strengthens all the 3 aspects of a person being their 'Soul, 'Body' and 'Energy' while also feeding back the pure insight and knowledge of the absorbed creature while removing the unimportant memories so as to not cause any adverse effects to the user.
Moreover, this isn't limited to the Negative Energy in this world or the Cursed Spirits and Nightmare creatures here, rather, it is very universal and is usable in any world.
This 'Dream Path' is basically the perfect counter for Negative Energy.
Not to mention that this isn't all the benefits of achieving the [Outer Dream] stage, Instead, this is just the beginning.
After all, if that were the case, Lorien wouldn't have had to work hard for so long to accumulate knowledge.
The most important part of the [Outer Dream] level is actually the 'Domain'.
Yes, Lorien actually used the knowledge he gathered about 'Domains', improved them, and then integrated them into this path.
It's just that this domain isn't as simple as the ones in 'Jujutsu Kaisen' which are just a 'Manifestation of the Cursed Technique's Inner World'.
Rather, this Domain is actually based on the 'Inner World' constructed in the previous stage alongside the power of 'Dreams' and Lorien's knowledge of 'Space' and 'Time'.
So, instead of a normal domain, this could also be called a 'Reality Marble'.
This gives the domain a lot more potential as it evolves with the user while also solving the problem of not being able to target non-cursed energy users which the normal domains in Jujutsu Kaisen are suffering from.
In this way, the user will never outgrow the Domain, rather, they'll evolve together reaching unknown heights.
After all, this stage is based on manifesting one's inner world into reality; It is moving from [Inner] to [Outer].
So, after finishing this, Lorien then moved on to adding some other things such as the 'Immortality' aspect which allows the users to increase their lifespan with each stage and basically gaining immortality by the last one (Outer Stage).
He also didn't forget to add his 'Mark' as the 'Path Founder' and a 'Backdoor' to the path allowing him to 'Ban' and 'Kick' whoever he chooses to and receives knowledge of each ability awakened which will quickly increase his knowledge and arsenal.
This is a very easy thing for him as the creator of this path, however, it is impossible for others to remove or even discover it as it is 'programmed' in the path's basic structure.
If someone wants to remove those backdoors, he basically has to reconstruct this path from the beginning which is basically impossible as it is very much based on Lorien's own [Origin].
And so, like that, Lorien quickly finished his task as a beautiful multicolored ball appeared floating atop his hand which is the manifestation of the 'Dream Path Seed'.
Looking at it, Lorien couldn't help but release a sigh of relief as a joyful smile appeared on his face.
'Finally! I've finally finished it!'