Zilan didn’t know what to make of his current situation. He could see himself walking around, speaking perfectly well with the group of Elders who proceeded to escort him towards a room to the side.

The only problem was, he didn’t understand why he was not him and instead was now a separate entity outside of his own body.

Therefore without at least understanding the situation, Zilan decided it was best not to follow his body.

He instead began wandering around the large theatre like hall, trying to get a handle on what he was.

Thankfully, he had read on the strange abilities that Masters would develop after breaking through a mental barrier and from what he was experiencing now it appeared he had developed a super charged version of the [Splitting of the Mind] which was an ability allowing a cultivator to do two things perfectly well without any burden on the mind.

An example would be powerful Master swordsmen who Dual-wielded.

However as he thought more on the abilities gained from breaking through mental barriers, another idea came to mind. He knew little of this ability but he was aware that it allowed a practitioner to temporarily let their consciousness wander out of their body.

As he thought more on this though, he quickly came to the conclusion that what he was experiencing now was not that, nor could it even be a combination of the [Splitting of the mind] and the ability to let his consciousness wander.

At least that was what his gut told him. It was then that another thought, like lightning suddenly struck his brain.

He couldn’t confirm it but he had a feeling that he had somehow unlocked the third and final level of  Zaum’s Gift of love.

For his theory to have any weight though, Zilan felt that there must be more to this ability if it truly was a gift from Zaum, and that it must also have something to do with analysis.

He looked around himself but couldn’t feel or see anything different. He even tried touching and striking various things, only to directly faze through them.

“What am I missing?”

As he grew frustrated, Zilan raised his head up high to shout out his frustrations however, what he did instead was drop his jaw in astonishment and cluelessness.

“What are those?”

Directly above Zilan, were dozens of thin strings of grey energy all rising up to unknown heights.  With his eyes, he followed the strings all the way down to their origin.

“That room. The Elders?”

Without hesitation, he bolted towards the room, easily fazing through the door.

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In the room, Zilan could see all the Elders sitting on chairs directly below a platform where his body and an almost eight foot person wearing layers of robes and a veil, could be seen conversing.

Attached to the heads of all the Elders, were those thin strings of energy.

“I’ve never seen this type of energy before.” Thought Zilan as he slowly approached one of the Elders with the intention of grabbing his string.

Just as he was about to clutch the string though, an unknown invisible barrier stopped him from getting closer.

“This is…”

Completely stumped as to what was going on, Zilan decided to take a deep breath and think everything he was seeing through.

He observed everyone in the room closely for five whole minutes before deleting all the information he deemed useless and focusing just on two factors that stood out.

These two factors included, the fact that Zilan’s string despite being thin was completely red in color, at first he thought it was because he had broken through a mental barrier but after examining it even closer, he found that the flow of energy of his string could only be described as chaotic when compared to the organized flow of the Elder’s strings.

Unable to find an answer as to why he was different, Zilan opted to put it at the back of his mind and instead direct his attention towards the other factor which was far simpler to understand.

The sizes of the strings varied, that is to say, Zilan had noticed that Kifo’s string was slightly wider than his and the Elder’s strings were even wider than that, followed by the huge string of the veiled Elder, he presumed to be Mwizi.

Thus he came to the conclusion that, “Maybe I can’t touch the string because all of these people have a greater cultivation base than myself which means my best option would be….”

Zilan singled out Kifo’s string and decided to go ahead and try and grab it. He didn’t dare try this on his own red string because an internal warning told him not to.

Once again, just as he was about to clutch the string, a barrier appeared however, this time he felt that he could power through it and that’s exactly what he did.

*Pap*

The instant Zilan came into contact with the string, his consciousness travelled or more accurately was dragged around for what seemed like an eternity, sometimes he’d stop and open his eyes only to see infinite darkness and then millions of tiny lights of varying colours appeared.

Just as he was about to grasp something, he’d be dragged yet again to another place.

This continued until he suddenly found himself in a forest staring at the trunk of a gigantic tree, that went on for miles.

Unfortunately, just as he was about to raise his head to get a good look at the tree Zilan was blasted back to the room he was originally in.

His hand was no longer touching Kifo’s string and time seemed to have not moved since he had left only resuming once he was back.

“Life and consciousness! The Universe!”

What Zilan had managed to obtain from his seemingly long journey were three principles he honestly could not comprehend but what he did understand was that his ability was beyond scary.

“These are the strings of life and fate. The connections to the Universe! Just what are we? The scorched? What exactly are we? To be able to see so much.”

Just as Zilan was contemplating this, he suddenly felt a movement in the air above him. He turned to look, only to see two pairs of feline eyes watching his physical body.

“That is Feline Perception at its peak. So he’s watching me!”

Zilan then began to follow the massive string that looked more like a tiny stream towards its origin. Unfortunately, just as he stepped foot out of the theatre like hall, his non-physical self was sucked back into his body.

Before he could process anything though, a prompt from the Book of Path appeared.

[Descendant Zilan has not mastered the Gift of Love. Only a fraction of the third level’s power has been explored, due to the Divine mental formation laid out in this structure.]

“A fraction?” whispered Zilan. “That can’t be!”

“Is something wrong Young Master Zilan?” asked Head Elder Mwizi in a deep voice.

It was only now that Zilan realized that he was back in his body and that his words were audible.

[The Gift of Love’s third levels abilities are limitless as is Master’s Zaum’s love]

That was the final statement from the Book of Path.