Hiding behind a cover of lotus leaves and their fluttering flowers, and with her head peeking through the stalks of water-side reeds, sat Wei Zhiruo on her small canoe. Its oars lay forgotten besides her feet, the only other object on that decrepit looking boat. Wei Zhiruo sat, observing a weeping beauty, who lay kneeling betwixt a patch of grass growing by the shore.
“Why do you think she is crying?” For a while this thought perplexed her and so she asked aloud. No one replied.
“...She must have fallen into this pond –look at that place, isn't that a pair of shoes floating? Was she thrown in there? You cannot just fall down by yourself so far away from the shore like that. What happened here...?” Wei Zhiruo was mostly mumbling to herself. She observed, thought and tried to hold this conversation with herself.
The beauty, lamenting by the shore, looked wretched. She looked like someone who had just drowned and resurfaced. Her soaking and dripping hair and even those clothes - if it was any colder, they would have been covered by a layer of frost by now. But the girl kept crying, as if she couldn’t feel the cold. Or those growing chill in the air as morning approached closer. Her skin though was turning blue.
“She has been crying for so long—poor girl. She is going to catch a cold if she keeps doing that.” Wei Zhiruo observed this mostly for herself.
Occasionally, the beauty would mutter something to herself, while the rest of the time she was quite busy wiping away her tears. But they kept falling, running down her fair cheeks down onto the ground hastily losing their traces therein. She did whimper a few times, but then suddenly broke out in an unexpected sort of laughter. Its echo haunted the night; as did the tear drops that seemed to penetrate the fabrics of her reality, and fall piercingly over some silent, still waters.
She didn’t look right. There was obviously something wrong with her. Has she gone insane? But not quite like it— but right, there was a little bit of madness in it too.
Wei Zhiruo pried several emotions flashing over her features, yet still couldn’t make up her mind whether to go out and meet. Should she go do something to soothe that girl, or remain in hiding? Finally, after pondering on its pros and cons, she decided on the latter. After all, there was always that probability that the girl might know the original owner of this body.
This wasn’t some wild place; that girl was definitely a resident of this manor. And most importantly, Wei Zhiruo could feel her blood resonating with that girl’s. That only happened between blood relatives.
What if that girl asked her what she was doing here instead? Should she tell her the truth —that she was out hunting for something invisible to most human eyes? Or that she entered and lost herself in a strange space, getting out of where it almost took her half the night? Who will look insane then?
“Marr, talk to me please. Say something.” Wei Zhiruo tried to distract herself. But, no expected reply came. At this, she narrowed her eyes, stopping her palms from clenching into a fist. She heaved in a mouthful of cold air, then took a deep sigh.
"It's so Cold." Wei Zhiruo muttered looking away. “Should we go back now? It’s already past most of the night and there is no sign of it moving out. Maybe it's not even in this space right now -?”
Moreover, she still didn't know clearly whether that Rune over that hexagonal structure would lead her to an actual space, or whether that space was even related to those invisible peering eyes. She could only come back another time to find these things out - there was no hurry. All things will eventually fall in their rightful places.
It was getting colder, staying any longer would be extremely taxing on her body. If she caught a cold, she would be bed-ridden for most of the week. Heavily malnourished, her body was suffering down to her bones. It was stunted and rigged with wounds and hidden diseases of so many kinds, she would need to nurture it for at least a year before it could even reach the level of a normal human.
It would be faster, if her original bloodline started merging with this human body first. Then she would heal all these deep wounds along with those over her soul - in just half a year’s time. But that was still a long project, and would definitely need some precious herbs and tonics to support it. Precious medicines needed money and this identity was so sensitive.
“Marr, are you really weak and cannot reply back, or are you busy merging? If you are not - don’t start now. It's hardly safe right here, at least wait for me to go back to my chamber. Don't overexert yourself right now - I'll see how we can get some of those mortal medicinal herbs here. Since this world has humans, there must be some sort of similarity in the nature of herbs...” Wei Zhiruo thought deeply, many names running through her mind. Angelica, wolfsbane, a talon of red rosefinch, and Aster starwood...and this just made a small pot of 'healing' medicine...
But even after waiting for a long while, when she didn't hear any reply –all those herb names got jumbled up in a mixture of fear. Wei Zhiruo rubbed her shoulders with her palms to escape the cold. Her heart, though, was growing colder by the minute. Apprehension, fear of losing something after gaining it, and that deeply entrenched familiar fear of finding that she had just been imagining things in her head —she could hardly take her mind out of that, and just somehow sat still, rubbing the bumpy surface of the wooden canoe. It was wet and sticky, and felt obnoxiously irksome.
Chilling breeze seemed to be sneaking up closer to her, rubbing their hands over her shoulder and wet and naked feet to make her feel their presence all the more. She felt the numbness of the cold already making her muscles stiff, and hard.
A cloud of fog had imperceptibly flown closer to her and built this towering maze of views: some peeking bushes of wild reed peeking down closer at hand here and trees cowering down at the shore over there, a vast carpet of rippling black waters underneath and a wide expanse of blue-black sky hanging overhead. Nearly everything was still, and frozen. A creeping stillness reigned, as fog stole closer and closer rolling down like a tumbling river of smoke.
"Who would've thought that just a while ago it was a clear night?" She mumbled distractedly, whispering under her breath. She didn’t need to lower her voice, as her surroundings were completely shielded behind an invisible film of her Spiritual Consciousness. But she couldn't make herself talk aloud.
It was not a figment of her imagination, she urged. It was her companion, her blood that talked and thought and accompanied her like…forever. YueMarr, to whom she was talking to, Wei Zhiruo knew it would have reached him even if she just thought about it in her mind. But she wanted to hear his reply, his childlike, soft voice. Confirm that what was almost fantastical was definitely not a piece of her imagination - or a longing that had maddened her to her root!
Her blood, the most mysterious heritage she had after being born a bloodkin. They, Marr and her, had been together since birth. After all, Marr, which manifested from her blood, was a part of her body. When he didn’t know how to talk, he would send her images and when he could, her days were full of his random chatter. They didn’t need words to convey their thoughts to each other. Ever. But they talked like friends.
What books he liked, and which tree smells the best to him, and which birds and flowers she should look at once more, she knew it all. What kind of sky’s blue he preferred the most, and which sunlit day he wanted to remain living in forever - he used to chatter all the time. When they took their usual walks in the capital city, it would always bubble inside her, absorbing all he saw, memorizing whatever he could.
It felt so empty, when she couldn’t hear him talk like that. But it was okay now - at least it was still with her. Her past body’s blood —which should have been burned into oblivion by the sacred fire upon her death, it was once again flowing in her new body. How he had managed this feat, she could only ask him later.
Wei Zhiruo kept rubbing her palms to generate some heat. She even rubbed her face, but felt that it was of little help.
"Will it rain tomorrow? If it’s clear, it would be great to go out and see what other places in this mansion look like. And meet some people. What do you think? Will others recognize me, or find something strange about me if I did that?"
Wei Zhiruo could hardly predict other people’s responses. What if there really was someone very close to Original self? What will she do to explain her changes to such a person? If she didn’t have some of the remnant memories from the body, she would have completely given up on continuing her stay here. The language, the expressions and mannerism – these were just the basics to continue to fit in using this identity. So many secrets were hidden in plain sight.
A child of her age doesn’t have a close maid to look after her, her courtyard looks dilapidated and almost half emptied out of its utilities; it wouldn’t take a genius to guess that there was something wrong with her current identity. But what was it? Has her mother offended the family, or what else could a seven-year-old child do to earn such ostracization?...but there was something else that struck her mind while trying to think of reasons. Her eyes.
All the people in Jinghai had brown, black eyes. But her body had blue ones –a blue which was almost Cerulean. Like her past self. Did that mean anything? She had her past blood, her eyes were blue too...but she was definitely a human!
Maybe the answer to all these doubts lies in the sealed memories?
“Marr, at least tell me about this seal. When did I do this to myself– and why? It definitely is a Rune. But when I think about it, my head starts hurting. Did I seal my memories about something? Don’t tell me it was to lessen my guilt about overtaking this body –Marr?”
[Can you be quiet for a minute? Please Ama? Let me concentrate in peace will you? Can’t you see that I am busy?! Why are you chattering so much for-? You can just meditate and see me for yourself - why don’t you do that instead of asking me to talk to you outside. It takes so much energy to communicate right now. Can't you think of that on your own? What are you doing Ama?] An angry voice sounded inside her head.
‘Finally, he talks.’ Wei Zhiruo felt herself losing all her unsettled fear instantly. Her body eased, then her anger started bubbling up. Her eyes narrowed down into a slit, and her fist clenched hard. She would have thrown a few fists at someone’s head if he was in front of her at this time.
[Say it again?! I am chattering? I wouldn’t chatter so much if you would just reply. How would I know I am not just talking to myself, if you wouldn’t reply even once? Can’t you just meow a meow, a little nyah would do to! Send me an image - for god sake. Let me know that I am not losing my head and just talking to myself! I could at least make sure that you are not dead yet!] Wei Zhiruo retorted angrily.
[You wouldn’t have to feel this way if you had the courage to come inside and see me yourself! You just had to meditate to find me, I live in your body- not too far away is that?]
[Good! Now I am a coward, too right? I haven’t even started on your behavior today. Whole day - Marr. You left me wondering alone for such a long time – and all this while I thought you were dead! At least say something. Just a notice like, ‘Ama, I am still weak, I cannot talk to you, let's meet later’ would have done. But you didn’t even squeak. I checked my soul when I woke up this morning, you were nowhere Marr. What else would I have thought?Tell me Marr, what should I make out of this?]
[That I must be in a dormant state–? Did that thought ever cross your mind? But let's not argue right now - I told you I am busy! Not now, Ama. You are undergoing a late Awakening for God’s sake, woman! Give us both some time to deal with this first!] Marr still didn’t come out to meet her but his words finally distracted Wei Zhiruo enough to bottle up her frustration.
“What do you mean? Second Awakening?”
[Yes. Our second Awakening. You will see soon– let me do some things first. I need you in here, come inside and sort out these systems for me. Don’t keep mopping like that! Get busy.]
Wei Zhiruo raised one of her eyebrows but didn’t reply.
“I still don’t feel that kind of tumultuous change inside me. Yuemar? What do you mean we are going through another Awakening?”
[It's in your inner body - meditate and see for yourself. I am not talking to you right now - you lose all your thinking ability once you get angry. Did you hear me say ‘meditate’ even once? I am busy Ama. I'll come to you when you are in the right state of mind.]
Wei Zhiruo, finally stopped prodding. She spread her Spiritual Consciousness and looked down at her widespread palms using her Inner eyes, peering past its outer flesh, looking through its tendons, its bones and muscles. All its joints were as clear as was the red flowing liquid in those, fine thread like blood-vessels – her human blood.
There were also those red cells floating, and those fine nerves working just fine in another nervous system. She had learned what a healthy, fully functional human apparatus looked like. And it could hardly be called one. Dark elements were plaguing the blood vessels, as did some other sort of dark spots intermittently sticking to her spinal cord. What they were she couldn’t tell. But they felt ominous.
Wei Zhiruo eyelashes fluttered, flapping in the white mist—just then, an owl hooted quite close by and flew over her head, hastily diving into the sea of fog. She looked up, breaking from her trance, a little alarmed. Seeing that it was nothing but an owl lunging on its prey, she relaxed her stiffened nerves.
“There is no obvious modification in my biological systems - the heart, kidney and the guts are all working as usual. I am still, positively, a human. Even if it’s a second Awakening, it is still the first phase. And there is no elaborate ritual or prayers to the ancestor, no chant, no soul guidance, and we are not five-year-old kids! With not even a shred of Mana in the air, how do you think we will manage to awaken at present? There is not even a drop of Liquid Mana crystal to support us when we get exhausted – why now, Marr? Couldn’t we have arranged for auxiliary herbs or such things before plunging headfirst into this? This body cannot suffer the pain of a second Awakening right now! We are going to die.”
[What do you think? Did I want this to happen to us? Of course not!] Marr couldn’t help retorting to this, sounding incensed. [You cannot blame me for something like this! You saw those Runes too – yes, it’s because of those star-formation in that space. I was in my half-awakened state when I just started absorbing them and kept doing that without considering my limits. I have imprinted quite a large amount too. Now I cannot control myself! I am having a hard time too-all right! So please, help me sort this out, Ama.]
“You absorbed those Runes? Don't tell me you also have this function? I always thought you just liked to gobble up those negative energy and those filthy stuff inside the Abyss. Marr- Lets have a detailed talk later – and you will tell me every other function of yours that you’ve been hiding from me, alright?” Wei Zhiruo couldn’t say what she was feeling at this new revelation. She had always known that Marr didn’t like to work hard or to focus on details, but this was a complete misunderstanding on so many levels.
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She knew that if he had this ability, and never discussed it, it could only mean that he thought it was useless. But his idea of useful and useless might not always align with hers, right? Since this was the first such case, any future loss could at least be averted by knowing his abilities. She will have to have this talk.
She hastily stopped herself from thinking too much, and pierced her palms with her nails. In a few minutes her human blood had almost dyed her palm red.
[Actually, I hardly knew I could do that! Something changed in my half awake state. Or maybe we both changed – I will tell you about it when you come inside. But first help me sort out these systems – I can hardly see where I am going right now. I have infiltrated my roots all over– your Inner body now feels like a maze. It's just so overwhelming for me to do it all by myself. I feel like I am bursting out with energy and I cannot even halt this process!]
Wei Zhiruo started drawing a rune with her red palm, rubbing it against the rotten wood of the canoe. A circle, a few strokes to form a Character. At least this could give them some protection and privacy - even if they remained here in broad day-light, no one could find them.
“How many Runes did you absorb? Did you imprint some inside you too? Don't tell me you did the thing you do with those books? You cannot make a copy of Rune and store it in yourself Marr, you will kill yourself doing something like that. Those Rune's are made of purest form of energy, it needs to be mediated with other things even before you start comprehending their essence! And those in the space were virgin Rules, Marr!”
[I don’t know – maybe I already did.]
“Don’t be playful, Marr. Be factual. How many, give me a number. So I can prepare my mind. Are you going to explode?”
[Would you believe it when I tell you that I unconsciously imprinted all of them - and copied the rest which I couldn't imprint? I don’t know how I am even alive right now. We should be dead but aren't and now all those Rune's are sealed in your body somewhere – that place is completely foreign to me. Only a small drop of me fell in there and sealed itself away taking along with itself that humongous Rune collection. Now I cannot call it back, or seal it up to alleviate our present situation.] Marr’s voice almost felt like he was crying.
“There is a place inside my body where you cannot reach? Why? Does it have something to do with the seal on my memory?”
[No, that’s a completely different story. In short, that seal on your body is for your own good, it just lessens the weight of your soul. You might have sealed up all the memories of our coming here, but there was no other way. You were a mature soul and we had been sucked away inside not even a two months old human embryo. I don’t know how many memories you permanently discarded or temporarily shelved but we had been dormant since. You can examine things later when we are done here. But that place I am talking about - it's hiding inside your Inner body. Maybe your previous bloodkin body didn’t have this - but this new human one does. I can only feel where that blood drop is right now. I cannot influence it or ask it out.] Marr, exasperatedly replied.
“Two months old -? An embryo in the womb - not a human child? Are you sure Marr? Don’t human souls inside the embryo only form after three months have passed? That means that there was no original soul in this body? Was it me all along? What kind of sick situation is this?” Wei Zhiruo kept talking. “And I was almost beginning to feel like a thief. Now I feel like an idiot for not guessing it all. I have such blue eyes –”
[You tend to overthink, I know. I know you were alone, I am sorry for waking up so late and making you feel so bad all this time. But I couldn't control myself. Ama, can you believe it - when I woke up, I was suddenly so full of energy that if I didn't vent, we would have surely exploded by now. I could just make myself grow faster, and faster and then I just pushed us to our Awakening! It's all my fault –only if I didn't think I could handle all this by myself. I feel bad just thinking about it right now.]
“As you said, you weren’t even awake. It was my impulsive action of chasing that thing into the Rune Formation - it could have been something worse. Maybe it will turn out for the best, at least we will not be human anymore. After the Awakening.”
While she was talking, she slammed the freshly drawn symbol with her palms. A yellow rune sprang up instantly. Wei Zhiruo directed it overhead, then loosened her control. She chanted a word under her breath and then a strong invisible wall formed linked to the Rune; like a bubble shaped dome, completely isolating the canoe and Wei Zhiruo sitting over it.
Only after she was sure that the wall was affixed and stable, did she sit down in meditation posture. With her two still bleeding palms connected, her eyes closed and back straight as pine trees, all her Spiritual Consciousness was concentrated in plunging deeper and deeper, into her own self.
Everything grew silent. Her surroundings - a blank space. And even Marr.
Wei Zhiruo looked down into her human blood circulation system, the various blood vessels all properly running; the blood itself was red and human. No cerulean pigment, nor any trace of Mana dots and particles flowing in them, charging it with zealous energy that slithered like licks of thunder. A strangely distorted sense of loss filled her. But she didn’t stop there for long.
The body that was made of flesh and blood, her heart and other organs were still very human. Her skeleton, on the other hand, was shining brightly full of white dots blinking– these were definitely those particles she absorbed tonight. Star-light.
But it was different from past life. She felt those white dots not only warming her bones but also healing her malnourished bones; covering all bones in a thin layer of white light film, they penetrated into the pores and filtered inside the marrow. She felt its warmth, her body was healing from within. Wei Zhiruo observed this process for a while, trying to guess why it was different from before.
She then let herself fall deeper – and here opened up her Inner body. Her outer shell was now shadowed in darkness, as another wide space appeared in her inner eyes. She, as an omniscient observer saw her Inner self as a phantom, transient. She let her sight flow down inside this transient body, still at the same light pace – but this time, with a specific direction in mind as she wanted to see her core, her own soul.
The inner body, like the Outer one, had all kinds of complex looking circulatory systems. All of these systems were hanging in a void. But by this moment, her bloodline had completely conquered these parts. Those fine red filaments seemed to have penetrated everything and were running wildly everywhere. Its red thread became the most dominant force inside, as it entangled, penetrated and rippled in like a spider’s web linking itself with each object therein.
Wei Zhiruo followed these fine red threads, as she dug deeper and deeper into the center and appeared inside the core area.
What appeared in her field of vision was her soul, with its past wounds, and now a towering root of a red tree encircling it, enveloping and shielding it from all sides. The tree itself wasn’t huge, its trunk was as round as her present body’s waist – but even this was a great advancement!
For twenty years of her past life, she had seen it sprout from a tender seedling to a proud stalk, but for unknown reason it had never grown bigger than a young bamboo stalk. Neither in girth, nor length. Now, it stood as tall as a young parasol tree, lush and fluttering, its leaves blood red but shining with bright white starlight particles. She picked one to see it up close – the veins were so well formed, as clear as real tree leaves. And it had captured so many star-particles! And branches – there were so many of them, heavy boughs branching out and luxuriantly lush leaves waving in a rhythm. Her soul had been completely covered in a layer of impenetrable roots.
[You look…thriving. I never saw you like this. Now I have changed my mind. This is hardly a disaster for us, but feels more like a blessing.] Wei Zhiruo couldn’t help saying. A few red blood-like drops emerged in her field of vision, they fell over her shoulder and turned into a kitten.
[I am just holding myself back from rushing all out. Look at all those jumbled up red lines in there? It's like a weed conquering everywhere.]
[I can help with that. Leave everything there to me and go do your thing. Call me when you are ready to push into the Second phase of Awakening though.] Wei Zhiruo assured, rubbing the head of the kitten, which soon flew away turning back into red drops merging with the huge tree.
Wei Zhiruo didn’t remain in the Core area for long. She flew back where she had observed those vessels.
Although she had deeply checked this body once before —she didn't actually study the energy system stemming inside. She knew it was going to be different from her actual body –they were essentially different organisms. But...it still was hard to wrap her minds around it.
Wei Zhiruo tried to remember a similar looking image. Yes, it was in the past...her mother's clan had this stored away as a secret method of cultivation. This was one of the things she had raided before setting out on her space journey.
"What was it called? [Pure Energy Technique]? It looks the same as in that chart —the meridians and apertures are almost the same. They said it carries Qi –the body's vital energy."
[Do you want me to send you the image from your memories?]
"Oh yes, sure. If you could spare a moment."
[Found it —there you go!]
"Thanks Marr." Wei Zhiruo saw the image floating in the void. She looked at the yellow parchment paper full of blotches of many kinds, moths had eaten its corner. When she first saw it, she found it hard to believe that those Ruze people were so bad at preserving their clan's greatest inheritance. If she wasn't careful, she would have even missed it because of its battered state!
"It's always good to store information. You never know when you might actually need one." Wei Zhiruo sighed and started concentrating on her job.
She first matched all Qi meridians and their apertures. There were thirty six principal meridians running from head to toe, thin as a human hair. These were those found in muscles and tendons, a few connected to her bone marrows and spinal cords. Twelve others joined with the principal ones, and these were connected to her other internal organs, from her heart, kidneys to her lungs and other parts. And then there were thirty nine peripheral meridians, their thickness not even as good as a spider's gossamer. They branched out everywhere!
"This looks essentially the same as those vessels drawn by that human mage, remember? Nature Mage Eruthmys? He drew the vital vessels in humans of the Middle World. Yes, it's essentially the same. A few differences in some peripheral meridians. Could it be that humans from all kinds of realms had the same kind of internal evolution? Humans of the Cuiping world...those humans in the city of Mages Oplehema in the Middle World ...almost all habitable planets in Sagittarius galaxy have some or other kind of humans. And they all claim to have come from different sources. It would have been great if I cross-checked this fact when I was in Opal Town. Now we might never know if Oplehemic humans were biologically the same as Cuiping World humans."
She distractedly summarized and then started counting the apertures and special nodes.
"There are too many of these– four hundred special nodes, out of which three hundred and sixty five are more prominent than the rest. And now, because you have made a message and infiltrated almost everywhere, there is no counting some hidden ones. Okay. Let's start straightening your red threads out."
Wei Zhiruo observed all the meridians and nodes, special apertures and points and then started pruning the red threads. She would tug out any excessively dominant thread, leaving just a single red thread merging into one meridian. But for the principal thirty six, she left a few more.
She found a few hidden points and mapped them in the chart, calling out to Marr to send his red threads into the point and merge with it. Like that they spent most of the night just sorting out the jumbled up meridian, and their points.
“But there seems to be something different about here. Marr, can you feel it too?”
After she was done, doing whatever she could, sorting and pruning the threads from completely turning the Inner body into a maze, she felt the changes in her human body. “Did you observe our Inner world? Has it changed too? My Spiritual Consciousness is working like it did back then, maybe the world we created is still here?”
[I didn't. I was too busy to think of that. Do you want to go in now?]
"But are you in control, right now? You won't go feral on me will you?"
[Nah- not right now. Your help greatly decreased the pressure. I just sorted out my roots surrounding your soul. But about the change —I think I found where it went. That drop. It's close to your center, right near under the navel. Should we go see that first?]
"No, let's see the changes in our Inner World first. Do you think it's still in the shape of the Central House of Knowledge? With all the books you had absorbed in it? It will be a loss if everything is gone —you spent so much effort to craft it out like that."
[I can do it all over again. At least we have this chance –if we died, who would have cared for it?] Marr floated around her in his red drop form.
In a second, they were both in the Inner world.
“Let me rephrase it - it's not changed but drastically altered.”
[What in the hell happened here -?]
An enormous blue ocean thundered with rageful waves, while a sky full of spiraling Runes almost blinded them. There was also the familiar looking corner, that they both knew as the part of their Inner world.
A tall three story building with an emerald roof. Its walls were made of the toughest kind of black obsidian, Rune's etched over all its visible surface.
Now from being a building on land, it had changed to an architecture floating over in the air. Clouds of different colors and mist tumbled like water, some falling down into the behemoth of an ocean like a waterfall.
[We didn’t construct any of this in our minds right? They were added because of those Runes.] Marr tried to understand.
“Hmm. It was definitely a new addition. Maybe that space does impact people in different ways - you remember “ you will be born anew”? I guess it wasn’t just a phrase to dramatize its effect, but rather... it meant literally. What does rebirth entail - changes and enormous changes, life shattering changes. This - isn’t it pretty much that?”
[Yes you can say that too. Imagine if that drop of myself didn't get sealed inside your navel, would we have blown up and become another kind of space full of Rune's?]
"What kind of horror story are you telling right now! I get goosebumps just thinking about that. Let's not go into the details shall we? Let's see what that place near the navel is or if I can go inside." Wei Zhiruo instantly quipped and turned away to get outside of her Inner World. "At least, unlike humans, we still have this part of us intact. Do you think humans have this space in their mind?"
[According to the same Ruze manuscript, a human can open up something like this if they grow stronger. They call it 'Sea of Consciousness'.]
"Is that it? Ah- I remember reading about it. There is also that Middle World concept of "Consciousness field" right? We need to relearn so many things. Since that building is here, the books will be here too. Let's get back to deep cultivation when we are done with Awakening." Wei Zhiruo sighed out loudly.
They both floated down to the Core, then near the navel. Wei Zhiruo's Inner eyes saw the opening. She surrounded Marr with her own consciousness, and then they both successfully entered the space there.
[What is this—?]
"They look like roots." And they felt so familiar. For a moment they both remained silent and observed the spectacular thing growing inside.
Five colorful roots, each entangled with the other. They looked about the same size, yet, each had its individual aura. An ice blue one emanated chill, while another black colored one was full of malaise. A bright, fully shining one emanated softness, as if healing. The dark and the light roots were almost merged, coiling together. The other two were quite difficult to point out —one was pure green full of vitality, and a red one almost burning its surroundings.
All of them were of similar length, coiling together.
[The blood drop is not here. It should be somewhere here, but that space hasn't opened yet.]
"Why are there so many colored roots in a human body? What even are these?"
[I don't know but we don't have enough time to search for answers. Ama I feel we might go into the Second and Final phase of Awakening back to back -the force building up is too much. You should get ready.]
"Are you sure? Then go. Don't worry about me and extend your roots as far as you can. Alter everything —but don't touch this space on your own. Maybe there is a hidden mystery about this place. My instincts are saying that these are good things."
[Heard you. I will take care of that...love you Ama.]
"You too Marr. Don't overexert. Always call me when you think you cannot carry on. We can think of something. Don't sacrifice yourself for me okay– I don't like seeing you do that."
[Umm]
Wei Zhiruo took a last glance at the magnificent roots and then came out. For more protection, she drew some [Protection] Rune's over the opening of the space. She took a sigh and then once again returned to the Core.