In a moment, Wei Zhiruo was back in the real world.

Her eyelashes fluttered a few times, reorienting her dilated pupils to get them used to the outside darkness. Her breath realigned, and she broke into a shiver. It took her quite some time to stop meditating – if she was to estimate the time using her own experience from the past, to her it appeared somewhere in between the early hours of morning, or around four o’clock. Naturally, when she glanced at the shore, it was already vacant. No weeping maiden stood there crying; all there was left was some rustling, slithering grass patch. What a lonely sight.

She let her eyes rest for a while, without doing much and then picked up the oars. Although the urgency was clearly reflected in her speed of rowing the boat, she still didn’t forget to search out for that sad companion of the past night.

Thinking that she might as well reassure herself where that girl might have gone, she decided to search for her. “Just a quick look to see whether she is safe or not. She didn’t look in the right state of mind.” Wei Zhiruo whispered.

It wasn’t that she was impervious to her growing interest in a complete stranger. What emotions defined this peculiar interest, she asked herself — was this sympathy talking? No. As for that she was pretty sure it wasn’t that. Wei Zhiruo was just faintly reminded of someone else she had known. In that girl's laughter filled cries, and dead eyes she caught a glimpse of a familiar something she had seen before. That brought a flood of past memories, and they felt fresh– like a prickly, sour smell of lemon.

Actually, madness was nothing foreign to her; she had seen many people break down and fall apart in her past life. Beguiled souls, desperately searching for a relief for their endless pain…

However, the madness of that gravity was, indeed, peculiar.

That night, her aunt had supported something similar in her eyes: dead yet alive and forbearing, only because she didn’t want to appear disgraced by crumbling apart in front of her – a beloved thirteen-years-old niece whom she had always treated like a daughter and nurtured with her own hands. Or maybe she didn’t want to break apart in front of a remnant of her past?

While Wei Zhiruo herself never tasted what a mother’s love felt like, she had plenty of opportunity to feel what it should be like. To be cherished and loved. Her aunt was her family and she had loved her more than anyone else.

That night, she realized that her aunt also had other’s whom she loved equally or more than her– her death wasn’t unexpected. That was also the night Wei Zhiruo had bid farewell to everything in her past, cut a deep wound on her heart and drifted away to never settle down again – because the last chain holding her feet to the earth had given up on her.

Wei Zhiruo remembered quite well. It was the same night; the night of clan annihilation. And that woman had not only lost two of her only sons and a loving husband, her entire family had been killed and almost all of her relatives and friends were dead. That woman had been a spectator of the end of her beloved land and butchering of her own people and past.

But when she lurched towards death, she laughed while she cried and cried in between laughter, as she stood tall holding a sword in her hand – facing an endless tide of oncoming enemy force.

That was the last she’d glimpsed of her; riding over clouds under her feet, flying over in the dirty yellow skies, as she slashed and cut into the black mist of men and beasts of her enemies, waves after waves of the opposite army fell trembling under her spells, crushing down, killed under her sword. She died with an arrow pierced through her breast.

Maybe, she was even supporting a smile when she died? Wei Zhiruo never found out, as she was busy fleeing for life.

Unsurprisingly, the faint similarity had made her wonder. What could’ve that little girl experienced to have such maddened eyes? It was indeed an intriguing mystery.

She pondered and rowed.

Wei Zhiruo used her Spiritual Consciousness. First, to pan out a bird’s eye view of the whole mansion. Instantly, she spotted that girl. Strangely enough, she was still on her way to reach somewhere. The ‘beauty’ still had that lingering morose air surrounding her and her pace was still as fearlessly slow and forbearing of outside chill as a walking dead.

A bird broke into a melodious song somewhere, snatching Wei Zhiruo’s attention. She rowed and heard, and felt the heaviness leaving herself in waves, realizing how some memories still captured her mind so deeply. “It still hurts to think – it’s been so long though.”

She sighed.

Wei Zhiruo followed ‘the beauty’s’ tired steps; saw her as she toppled and crumbled down. She kept watching, as she fell over the ground, and weakly knelt down on her knees or laid down like a corpse with no energy to stand up again, or when she gathered enough strength to crawl forward to only fall back again – she saw all of that happening and repeating; another person's arduous journey unfolded in front of her eyes as she rowed.

The girl somehow crawled back to her courtyard and a worried old woman instantly lunged at her, as if she had just been waiting for her.

With the most alarmed eyes and manners, still holding her mistress to herself, supporting and carrying her back into the chambers and with worried sighs and enquiries interspersed at each step, she kept asking – “Where have you been, young lady? We got tired looking for you, and then the curfew came upon us – no one of us dared to go outside to seek you out in such circumstances. We felt you might have your reasons to go out so late, but look at you – what happened?! What horrible things did someone do to you, my lady? Is it the Second Mistress again? Should I alert the Old mistress -? We must do that, and I…I would have already called for help but others said, they saw you walking away with young lady Cheng! I shouldn't have believed them! Cui’er was all about calling the Old mistress if you didn’t come back by the morning – but we should have tried harder! By god, I should have tried harder searching for you–! I... I, who knows pretty well that you are not someone who goes around without informing people close to you…Look at you, you look horrible! It's all my fault for being so careless!”

“No! Don’t…wake grandmother! I’m alright -”

The rest of the dialogue was left between the mistress and her servant as Wei Zhiruo reverted back her attention from that corner.

She wasn't interested in eavesdropping.

Early morning light started touching down the horizon, and birds’ songs and their flight became common, interspersed pauses.

“I will reach the shore in a couple minutes. Try and do everything and don’t fall into the second phase yet, alright Marr? It would look odd, if someone spotted us writhing in pain over the water surface, that is, if we don’t end up drowning first. Mind you – I don’t want either of that happening to me.” Wei Zhiruo offhandedly reminded her blood-seed.

[I know, I know.] Marr reassured her in her mind. [Whatever you say goes!]

Wei Zhiruo connected her mind with Marr’s and saw him skimming through texts inside the “Central House of Knowledge” floating inside her Spiritual Sea. His roots though, were furiously entangling with her human organs, taking over the Outer body.

Without even asking she knew instantly what he was up to. He must be searching for some way to alleviate the pain of body transformation that occurred in the Second phase of Awakening. She had already started feeling it, as Marr's piercing and digging his roots into flesh and organs was not a process without pain. But it was still in the range of tolerable.

“You don’t have to mind too much. It’s not like we don’t have experience. At least we are not going blindly into this Awakening – it's already our second time.” She tried reassuring Marr.

Wei Zhiruo herself wasn’t optimistic that he would get anything out of those old texts, but refrained from outright stopping him.

There were hardly any actual ‘clan secret’ books left, not to mention actual bloodline inheritance had only been partially revealed to them. Marr could use some bloodline techniques, but they were too few to let her survive off of them.

What was left of previous clan inheritance was just a few history and anecdotal books – all the techniques she used were found desperately in the Middle world after searching for years, and they all were based on the presence of Mana in her surroundings. Although she had also learned rune-forging and Blood-magic which could be used without Mana, they all required appropriate mediums and could hardly help her in her transformation.

Wei Zhiruo counted everything she had learned, but couldn’t find anything suitable. Marr suddenly spotting a secret method to lessen pain during ‘Awakening’ was really…too far-fetched to her.

Wei Zhiruo shrugged off some outside chill, and looked forward.

When the whole physical body, its organs and entrails started transforming together, and went through earth shattering changes to become a distinctly different kind of organism altogether, it wasn’t going to be an easy shift on any count. She was ready to bear the pain that accompanied this process. The numb pain that filled her at this moment as she felt those roots digging through her was just the first step –it was going to become a more and more exhilarating sort of anguish.

It wasn’t always like this, though. In the past, her kind never had to experience such tumultuous, unbearably painful transformations.

She recalled. Awakening had a long history inside her clan, almost going back millennia. But this process itself wasn’t old enough.

Considering that the First ancestor was born from the primordial chaos with other Gods and deities, and that he wasn’t even born in the same universe as them — it was common clan knowledge that the Sangtchi clan had migrated from a different universe and settled in the Cuiping world –the time to undergo all that could hardly be estimated in human numbers.

Wei Zhiruo remembered quite clearly. The genealogy stated that the first ancestors who came to the ‘known universe’, of which both the Middle World and the Cuiping world were a part of, were: the ‘Fifth Elder Yissem of Samthci’ and his wife whose name wasn’t recorded, and ‘Seventh Elder Obaen of Urus’ and his wife, Uriel of Areme. All the bloodclan in her universe traced their heritage back to these two couples. However, it was only the name Samthci that got corrupted and stuck around, which became the common clan’s name for all bloodkin, regardless of their descent.

“Maybe,” Wei Zhiruo said, “when I broke the vow tying the clan's link with Cuiping world, I was also breaking away from the recognition that land had given to an alien race like us? The link to that universe itself? Or why else am I now in a completely different universe? Thinking like that, it isn’t implausible… I died chanting the Oath breaking song and was rejected and thrown away into another universe in the end.”

[I bet its something like that. That would explain why your ancestors emphasized so much…on this oath tying your clan to that world. They selflessly dedicated years and years of their lives supporting the development of an alien civilization, and in return, you say, they got nothing out of it…? That is quite difficult to believe and really, too much dedication. I am more ready to believe that they might have negotiated a symbiotic relationship with that world.]

“So, when the oath broke – I too lost the last link tying me to that universe. Would we have died instantly if I wasn’t sucked inside this body? Crushed to pieces?” That made her obviously question whether or not she had now completely gained a ‘native’s’ identity?

[Hard to say. But this could explain that strange…depressing feeling I felt arriving in this new world.]

Wei Zhiruo shrugged off these unrooted thoughts and many more that started filling her up.

“What would it be like to live in ancient times?” Wei Zhiruo distractedly asked instead, as she took a turn around a reed-bed, and rowed. “To not have to suffer the pain of Awakening and to be able to roam the universe since childhood - doesn’t both of these prospect’s sound like the most fabulous dreams? They had it so much better in the past."

"Umm..."

In the ancient times, a bloodkin was born a bloodkin, not Awakened from a human offspring. This shift only happened after the bloodline diluted too much, making it impossible to bear a full-blooded progeny inside a weaker womb.

Clansmen evolved, or rather degenerated, owing to thousands of years of intermarriages with other races — most of which were marriages to humans. It was only natural that the blood would get diluted, with more human offspring getting born as time passed.

Soon enough, the women of the clan no longer bore new bloodkin. And while everyone was lamenting that they had lost the last trace of ‘acceptance’ from their bloodline completely– the first Awakening took place. A child Awakened his latent bloodline.

Later, this process became the only way the bloodline was carried on, and preserved. While her clan became classified into three classes – the full blood, half-blood, and the humans. However, it was only the descendants from the direct line of descent, who could support the royal seal and sit over the throne.

Wei Zhiruo herself saw this whole process as a natural decline. With each passing generation diluting the bloodline further and further, a bloodline like hers was too hard to preserve in the changing times. Awakening, that process alone could hardly do anything to revert the grave situation. She was a great proof of changing realities —as the only full-blooded bloodkin in almost a century, she was nothing short of a unicorn in a changed world!

Awakening itself though was not too complicated.

In the first phase, the bloodline awakens. The blood-seed sprouts inside the Spiritual Sea holding the soul – the place which she usually called the Sea of Consciousness – and blood-seed's root winds around the soul, wrapping and growing over it, feeding on its ‘life-essence’. Blood-seeds themselves could also manifest outside the body after this process. There were several records in the clan written about strange beasts and plants the blood-seed had manifested into. Most notable of them was the dragon companion of Uriel of Areme, who could swallow down planets if he was angered or crossed.

Wei Zhiruo’s blood seed was peculiar because its original form had always been a red liquid, very similar to some kind of red blood. It never manifested into a beast shape or the like, but later learned to mimic a cat’s body for ease of doing some things. He always said that it was because he had failed to Awaken full bloodline inheritance that he looked like this– maybe this was the reason of his ‘unformed’ form. But she herself always felt that hard to believe. Her instincts told her that he should have looked like that – familiar and amorphous.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

The second phase was usually the most painful. In this phase the whole body transforms. As creatures who were originally born in outer space, the body once again readies itself to face that harsh environment; adapting to temperature, pressure and the absence of air and food.

Although there was no record of the greatest extent of transformation one could undergo, the least one should achieve in this second phase was to become capable enough to easily control gravity. All half-blood could fly in the air.

She had also heard that the ancestors used to use the starlight as their food. When she fled from the Cuiping world, she did experience travelling in outer-space and the real flavor of wandering there, but she was well prepared. She had a clear destination in her mind, and books and maps to guide her through the real teleportation channel leading directly to the Middle world. She hardly needed to restock her supply or starve to such an extent that she was forced to confirm whether it was correct information or not. But the clan records clearly said that a real bloodkin could use any kind of light, and turn it directly into Vital energy and Life-Force…

The last phase was called ‘Soul Transformation’. The changes in this were usually quite esoteric, vague and difficult to put into words. But she knew that this transformation completely subverted the essence of the soul. It purified it, and made it firmer, and finally unified the inner and outer body to form a collective life-essence flowing system, originating in her soul and extending everywhere else. With this system in place, she could use other forging techniques to cultivate her body and organs.

The last transformation was pivotal in a sense. It was the last and final moment, when the whole body was fine-tuned and perfected and healed. It was a blessing from the nature that allowed a new bloodkin to heal up all past wounds in the soul.

[You’re taking too long.]

“I can’t do anything. It’s a maze in here.”

The shore was visible by the naked eye, and wasn’t too far away, but the reed beds and lotus stalks clumped together in bunches, scattering all around. They formed what looked like a maze-like path that forced her to change her directions several times. This increased the distance significantly. She couldn't just row through those jungles of weeds growing in the water, because if she did that, she would end up stuck in there.

“I’ll try to hurry up.” She said and paddled more rapidly.

Wei Zhiruo turned her head back to look behind herself; an endless screen of fog had once again veiled most of her charted path. She turned to face forward and likewise, saw the mist shading her view.

Had she been reliant only on her human five senses, she would have no other way but to blindly chase a direction – and such a tedious task would have relented her to a destination eventually – but the time taken in that arduous journey would’ve been exceptionally long. She was glad she had her Spiritual Consciousness, which acted as the best of seers and guides, and reflected the whole view elaborately, as if the mist was there but also not and posed as no barrier to her eyes.

A few moments later, finally, she reached a close distance to the shore and dropped the oars. “We are here.”

She jumped down the boat. The shallow waters reached up to her knees, but the toughest part while treading over them was still the chilling, biting coldness that felt like knives piercing through her bones! She pushed forward attentively, so as to not lose balance while walking over the slippery mud.

“I don’t know how much more it will hurt this time, but the issue of Mana exhaustion, no, rather, its complete absence will be a major problem. I can only hope we don’t fall into a forced coma because of that. I just woke up yesterday, and then if I go back to sleep, I don’t think I’ll wake up anytime soon.” Wei Zhiruo sighed.

A few steps and she was close to the embankment. She put her two small arms over the shore, hauling her small body over with the assistance of the shore-side grasses, taking them as ropes. Her simple robe got noticeably wet, up from its hem to the waist and was now sticking to her skin. But the coldness emanating from it was the least of her concerns.

[Don't worry too much, Ama. It will just take four hours – and for that much you can try to live through. I am telling you, even without the Mana stones, or to say, that Mana liquid, we will be fine! My leaves are full of leftover energy from inscribing those Runes inside my body. One of the reasons I'm stretching my roots all around your Inner body and now all over your Outer one too so quickly is just for that. I am almost turning you into a sieve by doing all this – but know that if there is an energy shortage, I’ll send over all the energy I can muster to promote your growth! So don't be nervous about the whole process – it will be over before you even realize it!] Marr replied.

This reassurance, although couldn’t lighten much of Wei Zhiruo’s increasingly nervous mood, but it did cheer her up. She smiled a little, before setting out to find a secluded corner in the nearby abandoned courtyard to sit down and meditate.

She had made clear plans of what kind of hiding place she needed at this moment. It should be secluded enough that others don’t spot her instantly sitting there, if someone did stumble over here accidentally.

With this in mind, she walked and surveyed around for the best possible position. A while later, she did find it —an old willow tree, with its bark darkened with time and dust, and leaves too lush and green.

“Here. It’s a nice place for hiding.” Wei Zhiruo spoke. The willow tree had dug its roots through the brick walls of the courtyard, and now grew leaning over it, creating a dark, hollow space between the trunk and the wall, which was large enough for a small child to sit under comfortably. If she sat down in that gap, anyone who came this way would just see the trunk, and the lush willow branches cascading down. This way, she will have plenty of time to escape or hide somewhere else. But she was preparing for the worst-case scenario – this place was at a safe distance from both the rest of the courtyards as well as the pond and chances of anyone just stumbling upon her…it shouldn’t be that easy, right?

“I think we can forgo setting a barrier. Casting a Rune will take some part of my mind in maintaining it and I want to fully concentrate on Awakening...” Wei Zhiruo bent down under, and crawled deeper into the gap. The soil was dry and sandy, with the roots peeking out from the ground. As her hands brushed through them, a little bit of soil stuck in between her wounds, rubbing it open afresh.

[Umm…It really doesn’t look like a place people visit often.] Marr observed. [I think it should be okay…?]

“Well then-!” Wei Zhiruo huffed a little, and removed the brooch holding her cloak in place around her neck. The cloak fell down, which she gathered in a roll and simply threw it away at a little distance.

She sat down and regulated her breath to match the perfect rhythm and began to meditate again.

“Okay…let’s begin. I am ready,” she said.

“I am going to start.”

“Hmm.”

Wei Zhiruo felt her breath stop. She felt the pressure descending down over her shoulders and hastily straightened her pose to the right stance, forcing down all the pressure towards the center, just under her navel, and then from there into her limbs down into the soil.

Without a moment’s break, the pangs of pain seemed to echo from a tunnel of the past and now, had her heart in its monstrous clutches. She could feel it building up, hear its step reaching her, one step, two steps and soon it was here; she felt the pressure build up, recede and then instantly a poignant anguish of ephemeral kind gripped her heart. It dragged her down, pushed itself up and then twirled in a twisted, torturous sort of manner, reaching far down to the tip of her toes. It was sheer agony, and pronouncedly blunt.

She lost all her calm and with that her ability to speak, or cry out loud.

‘Get a hold of yourself, Wei Zhiruo.’ Piercing nails into her flesh, she awakened her almost, fainting mind.

"Huff, ha…!"

The pain of bone breaking and realigning was great, and that of rupturing inner organs was unspeakably horrible. Her mind was full of gushing red. Some blood entered her mouth and dyed her teeth red, filling up to her nose! She could only bend down and vomit out the blood to open some gap and breath…!

“I’m good. You go on. Don’t stop for me.” She warned Marr, who was busy regulating the pace of the transformation.

“I will. Don’t worry.” He replied sounding worried.

For a whole hour they both maintained the statue like stillness. Wei Zhiruo felt that if she dared to even move the tip of her fingers right now, she would shatter into countless fragments. When an hour of endless torment and most major transformation ended, only then did she straighten her back and said, “You’ve been too quiet for some while. What happened? Did you find something?”

“Err…uh, well, how should I put this…”

“Go on, don’t keep me waiting. You really did? That's quite surprising…” Wei Zhiruo leaned against the wall.

“I'd better show it to you. Close your eyes.”

“Oh...What is this piece of parchment?” Right in front of her inner eyes was a piece of yellowed parchment paper. Its edges were rounded, and it looked like it had been torn away from a book, with one side still supporting traces of tears.

“Read first. I found this in the collection called “Odd Tales of Wayfarer”. This anonymous author’s work was collected by your uncle's side of the family – my goodness, do they have a rare collection of skills! No wonder they, the Wallace's, successfully erased all traces of past major forces, becoming the face of the Eastern Bloodclan family. I think one of the reasons was their preservation of past heritage. You’ll feel the same when you look at this. It’s strange but coherent and has the same way of explanation and esoteric terms as that [Pure Energy Technique] that came from the Ruze clan. I am beginning to think that, both these skills may have a common origin and that book must have been brought by your ancestors. How it fell into the hands of the Ruze clan —that can be easily guessed.” By the end of his words, he was sighing loudly.

A white cat appeared besides the phantom floating image of the skill as Wei Zhiruo read it aloud –

「Skill rank: Heaven Level

Race: Created for human clans who have spiritual roots. This soul cultivation technique is non-exclusionary, that is, it doesn't forbid simultaneous cultivation of other soul, body or Qi cultivation techniques and also doesn't restrict cultivating other Qi Introductory Skills unlike majority that can be found today in the cultivation world.

Spiritual Roots Requirements: No requirements. Preferably wood yang spirit root. But others can also use it. 」

“…made for human-kind? Why would our Bloodclan be interested in collecting such a technique if it is just limited to the human race?”

"Maybe they lost the other complementary parts which might have worked for other races as well? Look, this skill has part two and three to it and we just have the introduction page with us. I am really getting more and more piqued by this." Marr squinted his eyes, while he carelessly brushed his whiskers with his paws.

"Never mind…We can never be sure about how many clan inheritances my mother let her clansmen steal, so let's forget about it. Now in this world, where are we going to find other parts? It says...With spiritual-roots? What term is that? I don’t think I have these in my body, or do I?”

「The Heavenly Star Formation

Soul Tempering Method:

(Heaven Level Soul Cultivation Technique)

This method mainly teaches you how to use your human bodily orifices to inhale in the spiritual energy, and open up six ‘apertures’ in your body using the ‘life-essence’ of the soul. The six apertures are mainly the six major points conjoining in a Stellar-field Formation, including: one point over the Spiritual Sea, one over the carotid artery, descending downwards in a straight line one should be over the flesh of Heart, another one onto the center of your back-bone, one over the Sea of Qi and finally over the seventh soul. This heavenly Formation uses your ‘life-essence’ as ink, your body-vessels as surface and arranges the best Spiritual Array to cultivate "Six Constellation Formation" inside your body using the breathing technique. Once a 'star-point' is successfully formed, it will circulate the soul energy all over the body in a closed formation, tempering its strength and purity as well as that of other organs attached to this Array. With these, you can strengthen your lifespan by regulating your body with life-essence, purify your soul level, and finally, enter into the realms of Qi cultivation when these six star-points are all fully conjoined.

Advanced level: To achieve best results, re-engrave the Array over the body after starting cultivation, using the spiritual energy from the dantian. The world’s heaven and its stars are divided into four corners and twenty-eight mansions. Use the following ‘real’ constellations from the traditional twenty-eight mansions to reinforce these six “soul-points” by arranging another array.

Dōngfāng Azure dragon – Xin star formation, Běifāng Black tortoise – Xu star formation, Xīfāng White tiger – Shen star formation, Nánfāng Vermillion bird – Liu star formation corresponding to ‘soul-points’ in Heart, Sea of Qi, one over the soul, and finally the one over the artery. For the last two points use the Firebird constellation for points on bones and Hai Shan for Spiritual Sea.

Usages: Introductory Skill for entering soul cultivation. When one completes all the six points, the soul will solidify into one level higher than the actual cultivation stage, increasing the ability of Spiritual Senses to become equal to triple the area of similar level Practitioner’s. The Sea of Consciousness widens, while the principal organs attached to this Array will turn into iron-walled vessels, impenetrable. If the soul is cultivated to Foundation level using the same technique, it can allow one to leave the body for a day and increase corresponding to the cultivation level. (For proper breathing art refer to first chapter) 」

“I don’t get it. There are too many foreign terms here.” Wei Zhiruo asked. “I understand the last constellation part – however they don’t look like anything in our own galaxy. These stars are too detailed to not understand that they all are some strange constellations of an alien civilization! But what does Spiritual Energy, Qi cultivation level, and that Sea of Qi or any of these even mean? Is there any additional explanation available?”

“That’s why there is a diagram attached to this.” Another more complicated diagram appeared in Wei Zhiruo’s inner eyes. It was a man’s body with marked spaces and explanations labelled against it. While on the sidelines, there were written notes on constellations and the star numbers and their origin. Also, a not so complicated breathing method. None of these were familiar to Wei Zhiruo.

“Look here. Here, is the Sea of Qi in this area where those strange roots are. Then that will make those roots, what this manual calls ‘Spiritual roots’-! And these roots are present in humans! You have it too! Heart, soul, artery, back-bone, and Spiritual Sea, we know these places.” Marr happily pointed out the major points.

“But we don’t know what spiritual energy is. It's most likely a substance like Mana, which cannot be produced in any way. Something that exists on its own or even forms nature, right?” Wei Zhiruo said. “I get what you want to show me —it's indeed an intriguing skill. But without Spiritual-energy we will not be able to fill these star-point’s up, or cultivate further. Let me think…,” but suddenly she stopped talking.

“Hush. Don’t talk to me and let me think.” Wei Zhiruo suddenly had an epiphany and stopped Marr from interrupting her thoughts.

Star Formation? Ability to use star-light to use it to convert into life-essence? What if that rumor was true? Would this really not be a ready made technique for her to cultivate her weakened soul state? She thought deeply and pondered over the risk of experimenting right now.

“Hmm…it's indeed possible to use the same pattern, but a different system entirely...”

The third stage of Awakening was a great guarantee. Its whole purpose was to make the soul perfect. Say, if this method doesn't actually work in her body, she will face a backlash on her soul. But there is the third Phase which will definitely heal the damage!

“Really? You’re not lying to me? Will it really help you?” Marr jumped up beside her looking excited like never before. His red eyes glinted in the dark, and shimmered. He knew what she was thinking.

“Really, and I am not lying to you. But give me time to refine the process a little. I just had a thought, but I will need a couple of minutes to deliberate over them. We still have one hour of the second phase and two hours of the third stage of awakening. It's plenty of time. Now, go back and get some sleep while I do the tinkering. I know you are tired. I’ll wake you up in half an hour.”

“Good. Call me up the moment you find a possible design. I just thought this technique would really suit us. If it really turns into one…”

“That would be like timely rain.”

“Just what we needed right now. Soul cultivation would need nothing like mana or spiritual energy, so it’s a good skill.” Marr finished saying and vanished into the air.