Art of Spirit Rebirth—First Cycle

Based on the concept of Cycle of Origin, that from Creation comes Destruction, and from Destruction comes Creation, this Art seeks for the single ray of life that lies hidden in the…

The scroll of the Art of Spirit Rebirth was long. Much longer than the scroll of the Three Turns Spirit Forging Art had been, at least thrice as long, with the size of the words being thrice as small. If he had not known better, then he might even have thought that the text inked in blood red colour was forming a network of its own. No, if he looked carefully, the text truly was forming a network of its own. Seeing the scarcity of space on the scroll, his master had used the words to form the figure of his Spirit. What an ingenious idea. As expected of his omniscient master.

It was not time to think about her greatness though. He could do that later. First, he had to understand the ant like text on the scroll. Compared to a measly thousand words that the Three Turns Spirit Forging Art had, the First Cycle of the Art of Spirit Rebirth had at least ten thousand words, detailing everything about the Art, explaining everything in a clear, and concise language. But that was to be expected.

The Three Turns Spirit Forging Art was a Seed Ranked Art. The most he could do when practising it, would be to hurt his Spirit a little, which his master could heal easily, if needed. The First Cycle of the Art of Spirit Rebirth though, was an Initial Stage False Ranked Art, that would be manifesting Mysteries directly into his Spirit. Not just attenuated effects of Mysteries, but proper Mysteries of the Origin Sea. A slight misstep could result in a grievous injury, and that would be the least of the consequences. However, this was the only way he could train his Spirit. This was the only way for him to get past the trap of his Oaths.

But that did not mean that it was an exciting way. Or one that brought him enormous joy. Rather, reading through thousands of words, written in such fine size, was starting to give him a headache, while hurting his eyes. Especially since the light in the canyons was low as it was. His master did create some soft glowing light to help him read, but that did not help much. In the end, Alnea just closed his eyes, and used the senses of his Spirit to observe the scroll.

…Dividing the entire process of rebirthing Spirit into six parts, namely, condensation, dispersion, manifestation, clash, arousal, and rebirth, you can…

As Alnea read through the scroll, he noticed that the parts about the Art that he was finding it hard to understand earlier, were coming more naturally to him. No, even before that, he noticed that the ant like text, forming a complicated network of their own, seemed like just normal text in the senses of his Spirit. No, not just normal text. These were magical text, that were delivering their meanings directly to his Spirit. Was this an effect of the Dream Bull’s blood?

No wonder, he was finding it so easy to understand all those things. And no wonder that the Orthodoxies, and the Heterodoxies had almost hunted the Bull into extinction. No. They probably had kept a batch of these Bulls to themselves, rearing them in secret. After all, who could ignore the allure of easily learning Arcanas, and Martial Styles? But then, how had his master gotten her hand on such a precious resource? And why was she using it for low level Arts?

…What was he thinking? She was his master. She was omnipotent. Such resources… they were probably not worth much to her. Only a Dream Bull of the Grand Beast Stage would have any effect on her. But hunting a Grand Beast was not so easy. Besides, since she had used a Dream Bull’s skin, and blood to create the scroll for him, the Dream Bull must not have been too strong. Or else, the effect of the scroll would have been too much for him to bear.

Lost in his thoughts, with the aid of the senses of his Spirit, it did not take long for Alnea to go through all the text in the scroll, and understand its essence. But before he could contemplate any further on it, the ink, and consequently, the text on the scroll began morphing, transforming the network on the scroll into a complete outline of a humanoid figure.

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Then, as it had been described within the text, some of ink separated from the outline, filling up the inside of the figure with numerous strings. Unlike the Three Turns Spirit Forging Art though, the strings did not merge together to create larger strings. Instead, they began disintegrating into even smaller threads, which then further disintegrated into even smaller threads, and so on, until all the parts of the figure were filled with countless tiny threads. And this was where the tricky part of the Art began.

The text had mentioned that this was the point where he was supposed to manifest the Mysteries of the lineages of Creation, and Destruction, and have them clash with each other. But the problem was that he did not know how to do that. The text was not very clear on it, so he had hoped that the demonstration of the Art on the scroll would help him, but even that did not help him much.

In the senses of his Spirit, he saw the countless threads of Oren start to vibrate within the figure, causing the outline of the figure to vibrate along with the thread. However, for some inexplicable reason, he got the feeling that the vibration of the figure, and that of the threads inside it were of completely different nature. Maybe that was where the essence of the manifestation part of the Art lay. If only he could understand it a little better. If only he could—

The countless tiny threads within the figure burst apart, completely dying the figure in their red ink. There was not a singly part of the figure which was not red. If such an explosion were to happen within his Spirit… Was this what his master meant by saying that the true terror of the Arts would be displayed from the False Rank? Would he really be able to bear it?

No, this was not a question of would. He had to bear it. No matter what. His master had paid so much, suffered so much, all so that he could keep his Oath. Was he going to disappoint her? Was he going to break his Oaths? Practising the Art might hurt him… but would it hurt more than the pain of his Heart? The choice was easy to make.

Concentrating his senses back on the scroll, Alnea saw strange fluctuations within the blood red figure. It was as if the entire figure was beating with a strange rhythm, one different from the two vibrations that it had experienced before. And within moments, that strange rhythm began to arouse something within the figure. Something deep and profound.

The arousal phase of the First Cycle of the Art of Spirit Rebirth. The phase, where he was supposed to manifest the Mysteries from the lineage of Life. But once again, looking at the figure, he understood nothing of what was happening. All he could do was watch helplessly, as the blood red ink began to retreat from the figure, as the Art entered its final phase, the rebirth phase. Soon, the figure was back in its pristine condition. And the first round of the Art was complete.

Thus, the figure began practising the Art from the beginning, going through all the phases once again. This time, Alnea watched even more closely, not daring to miss even a single detail. Yet he still could not understand how the Mysteries were being manifested. There must be something that he was missing, Alnea thought. But what could it be? Was he supposed to first comprehend the Mysteries to practise the Art?

No, that could not be. Otherwise, his master would not have given him the Art. Besides, his Roots were based on the Mysteries of the lineages of Day, and Night. He had no connection with the lineages of Creation, Destruction, and Life. How was he supposed to comprehend their Mysteries? If he could understand how just one of those Mysteries was manifesting, he would be able to extrapolate the rest. But how was he supposed to do that? How was he supposed to—

Alnea noticed, to absolute confusion, and disappointment, that at some point, the red ink had vanished from the scroll. He should not have been surprised from the phenomenon, as this was how it was supposed to happen. This was how scrolls made from the skin, and blood of the Dream Bulls worked. And this was how it had happened with the Three Turns Spirit Forging Art. But this time, he had yet to completely understand the Art. He had yet to grasp its most important points, how to manifest the Mysteries…

Should he ask for his master’s help? But what would she think? She had given him the scroll with no other explanation. Clearly, she had expected him to understand everything from just the scroll. If he told her that he understood nothing… Would she be disappointed in him? Would she—

Alnea paused in his thoughts, as the memories of the First Cycle of the Art of Spirit Rebirth flashed in his mind. The text, the figure, the demonstration of the Art, everything was clearly imprinted in his mind. And as he looked through those memories, he could not help cursing himself. He truly was stupid, and foolish, as Cecilia, and Yuri often called him. How could he ever think that his master would leave him hanging? How could he ever think that his master would give him the Art without giving him a way to manifest those Mysteries?