Feeling The Dark Soul, Spirit Formation Realm!

Returning to his Master's abode, Heian Ciemnosc walked for a few minutes before reaching her meditation room. However, she wasn't there. Heian Ciemnosc thought for a little, and after not sensing any left messages around, he exited her meditation room and walked to wherever she was. It didn't take long for him to find her cultivation room, where she was sitting cross-legged in front of the door. However, she wasn't sitting on the empty blackness, but in midair, with her usual cold indifference as her eyes were closed.

“Master,” Heian Ciemnosc said, feeling slightly guilty even though he could tell his Master didn’t mind even now. Indeed, Lady Calisneia opened her old eyes. Only they were tired and seemingly exhausted. Although Heian Ciemnosc had no idea how she could be like this, he didn’t ask and continued to feel guiltier. His Master looked at him, her eyes gaining focus as she softly smiled, pampering the guilty child.

“Don’t fret now. I won’t spank you anymore. You’re my grown disciple. If I do that, I may disturb Little Milyy’s cultivation. Come, accompany me. You will breakthrough here until the Second Step. Some opportunities for you to know the world might arrive by the time your secluded cultivation ends. At that time, if you don’t want to lose out, you better start cultivating now. You’ve lost too much time on the test.”

“Yes, Master,” Heian Ciemnosc lowered his head at the mention of the test taking so much time. However, Lady Calisneia’s gaze softened even more as she extended her left hand and lifted his face by pushing his left cheek with the back of her fingers. “Don’t feel like that… You have made me proud by showing your nature, keeping to it, and defending the Academy’s prestige in front of many little babies out there.”

“You’ve also shown your growth in places you didn’t know you were still a kid. Now that you have a fatherly figure, for the first time, perhaps. You can’t act like an idiot everywhere. You are not fickle, so start choosing where the ‘garden’ you will eat from… comes from.” These last few words made Heian Ciemnosc feel ashamed. Indeed, his Master’s eyes were everywhere.

“Thank you… Master,” feeling that coziness inside his chest, Heian Ciemnosc felt like a baby again, wanting to sleep in Lady Calisneia’s bosom and embrace. He woke up before becoming addicted to such a feeling, looked up to his Master whose tired eyes gently gazed upon him, and decided to spend only 2 weeks with Elena before entering into full-blown secluded cultivation.

At least until he felt he needed to come out. After all, if he wanted to cultivate until the end of times, he would be able to do that, keeping himself away from harm’s way. However, this world wasn’t just one place here and another there. It was ginormous. And staying in one place, thinking everything would be fine there, was the same as asking for death in a world of conquerors. A world of endless conquest and cruel passage of time.

“Mn,” Lady Calisneia nodded and opened her cultivation room’s door. Instantly, Heian Ciemnosc felt an impossible and deathly quality and amount of pure energy ‘stare’ at him as if daring the little ant to enter into the lava. But with a swift sensation, Heian Ciemnosc felt the sensation dissipate as he looked at his Master, thankful. He could feel her unique ‘energy’ surrounding and protecting him.

Hushash~... … Step, step, step, step. Tap, tap.

Heian Ciemnosc walked inside behind his Master’s floating body, sitting cross-legged in the air. When he reached what seemed to be the middle of it all and saw his Master float down to land on the empty blackness, he followed suit and sat beside her to her left. Lady Calisneia didn’t say anything as she again closed her eyes, and everywhere turned silent. Knowing that Milyy was busy breaking through, Heian Ciemnosc felt everything was significantly more quiet today.

After a while, he began cultivating, taking in pure energy from his surroundings. The deathly and overbearing pure energy around was being diluted and separated from the rest before being shooed away, leaving only that which Heian Ciemnosc could take into his body to transform it into his dark Power Energy. He felt his cultivation was already about to chain away from the Crabstynian realm after dual cultivating with Elena so much.

“Explain to me the Defiant Step, not its realms. Leave that for later. Just its first realm and what it is known throughout the world as one of the few steps leading towards the peak of the world. Go on, start,” Lady Calisneia’s voice abruptly sounded. Heian Ciemnosc was only slightly startled before immediately starting, accepting his Master’s challenge to hold his breakthrough until the moment he could finish explaining.

“The Defiant Step is the Second Step, where any person can reach small catastrophic power levels just by traversing its realms. In this Step, every cultivator without an Art is the same as an ant. Without an Art, even a Mortal weapon, without equal energy infused into it, will be deadly to the cultivator. Without an Earth grade weapon, a cultivator in this Step is below ordinary, and one with both can only be called ‘cultivator’ and not Genius.”

“What makes one a Defiant is what matters the most in this Step. Naturally, coincidentally, purposely, or not, this Step is also the one where every cultivator’s true nature comes out the most and defines their future through the higher steps. It remains in the Third Step, where the actions and words one took in the Defiant Step are valid and the foundation of one’s existence below the Sixth Step.”

“When in the Third Step, the choices back at the Second Step are highlighted, showcasing the cultivator’s potential and determination. If one differs from it, it is easily spotted. Most of the time, the people who transition with the latter path are looked down upon. Only those who can successfully change are seen as unique in the world. So far, there are no more than 100 people in the world who managed to do this. All of them became Lords, including the last Lord.”

“Although the Great Sage didn’t go through this, it is said his strength was as great as a Lord from back in the day. But the Soul Emperor had declared, after the former’s death, that the Great Sage couldn’t compare to the last Lord known in the world. That is to show how important it is to go through the Second Step, as it would influence the Third Step and even show slightly in the Fourth Step. It isn’t until the Fifth Step that this Defiance is resolved… as they, instead… become.”

“If I tell you my daughter was shy but adventurous when I found her, would you believe it?” Lady Calisneia suddenly said, just as Heian Ciemnosc felt his body about to implode, the chains impeding the breakthrough were already cracked up, and the layer protecting such ascension was suddenly stable. Heian Ciemnosc looked at his Master, only to see her peaceful, light, thin smile and contently closed eyes. After a while of being stunned by the sight, he responded. “Yes, I do, Master.”

“Milyy Purr is very different from how you described her to be in the first place. I’m sure she was tough to deal with when growing up. I can only imagine Master’s helplessness back then.” Heian Ciemnosc said, his words honest as he suddenly felt at ease, peaceful, and not in a hurry to breakthrough. His Master’s laughter sounded, not sounding like an old woman’s, as she said amidst her laughs. “Hehehe-hahah, it was indeed. Hehe- hah hah hah.”

“But Master, I do not need this kind of empowerment. Such changes aren’t useful to me. I am only staying true to myself. it’s all I care about, ever since my first time experiencing exile.” Then, Heian Ciemnosc said a while later, when his Master’s laughter calmed down, and her usual cold indifference returned. However, his Master suddenly said with a light, teasing tone. “Are you sure about that?”

“...?” Heian Ciemnosc frowned with eyes closed. He opened them to inquisitively look at his Master, only to see her look down towards him with her eyes upturned and a little grin from the right corner of her mouth. “Little Heian Ciemnosc, even though you do not notice yet, can’t you tell there’s more to yourself than coldness, emptiness, dark Power Energy, and devouring other living beings so primitively?”

“!!” Heian Ciemnosc’s eyes didn’t widen, shrink, or tremble, but he did become shocked as he heard his Master’s words. She didn’t stop and continued, “You can not only feel love, but you also are capable of… ‘holding’ this much from others. You aren’t unnecessarily cruel as most powerhouses are in their young days. Yet, you have the best talent and capabilities to reach the peak even if you don’t come out for a million years. I might as well be extinct if what I said is wrong.”

“... See? Even the world seems to adore you,” after waiting for a protracted period of time for something to occur, only so that nothing happened, Lady Calisneia’s light smile enlarged a bit. “Maybe you can’t see it because of your locked Soul. Today, you will feel it. Seek within you, my disciple. Search and find whatever it must be. You need not wait for anyone or anything. Your path might very well be that Change.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

‘Master…’ Heian Ciemnosc looked dumbly towards his Master with round eyes and a fool’s face, which his Master smiled and closed her eyes to before returning to meditate. Heian Ciemnosc slowly felt his insides churn and twist. The chains, layers, and any obstruction inside his body began changing!

‘Urggh- guwwwaaaaaaaaooohh!!’ Heian Ciemnosc’s mind started trembling. He started turning into a crazed teenager who couldn’t even speak through his mouth or via Spirit Sense fluctuations. His breathing became ragged and shortened as if his lungs were gone. His eyes slowly squinted like his Master’s had done just now. When he closed them, he appeared in his inner body once more. Heian Ciemnosc’s inner eyes pried open at once, looking into the vast and endless darkness within himself…

Shua shua…. Shua shua!!

The soul, his dark Soul, his Soul was moving!

RUMBLEEEEE RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~~!!!

Heian Ciemnosc couldn’t feel it, but his Master, who was still in the real world, did. She just smiled and flung her left hand in his direction from below to up. This mere movement of her body seemed to envelop everything. The empty blackness, the Blackotia Kingdom… the entire Universal Land under the Heraxle Clan’s rule. At once, it seemed as if an extra layer of reality, laws, and truths was added to that of nature’s.

It wasn’t conflicting with nature but simply posing over it. And for whatever reason, instead of becoming apparent to everyone and everywhere in the world, nature seemed to conceal Lady Calisneia’s actions as not a single ripple of Elemental particles was altered during this process. Heian Ciemnosc continued cultivating and breaking into the Crabstynian realm.

At this moment, inside his inner self, Heian Ciemnosc saw his dark Soul twist with his blinking eyes, fluctuate with his every breath, and shook whenever his lips moved without sputtering a word. As he looked at it, on and on, Heian Ciemnosc’s sensation of his body was still there. He could feel his body beginning to breakthrough, but not only that… Even his All-Devouring Force Chronicles innate Supreme Art was stirred!!

Would he evolve it now? Would his body become mightier?!

His fingertips and nails felt it, the throbbing of his inner body as if it wanted to come out and expose itself to the world. It seemed as if the most fundamental nature within his body were about to come to light. His body’s muscles, flesh, skin, bones, and even organs, such as his eyes and hair, were shaking uncontrollably, sweeping through the air as if there was no air akin to space.

Dark veins coursed with dark blood, flowing through the ends of each strand of his hair, discerned even amidst the pitchest-blackest of his hair and heavily contrasted within his pale skin. There was an incoming pain, however, one that also came from the purest depths within his heart, mind, and… Soul!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH- KWUAAAAAHG!!” Heian Ciemnosc forcefully inclined his head backwards and roared into the empty black skies! Lady Calisneia was still meditating and calm even after Heian Ciemnosc bellowed. But she still felt her skin numb at the agonized sound of his roar. She didn’t pay any further attention to him after that.

‘!!’ On the other hand, Heian Ciemnosc’s inner eyes opened, and he felt something was wrong! Although his body seemed about to evolve and his Claws Out grew, they suddenly stopped increasing! Not only that, the sensation from his body abruptly turned into bubbles. His body felt like smoke as it all vanished, and the evolution was… canceled!

‘This…?!’ Heian Ciemnosc wasn’t crestfallen or hopeless. But he felt a sudden strenuous void in his body as if something was unaffectedly impossible. He couldn’t evolve his All-Devouring Force Chronicles to the 4th level. But he suddenly felt something different… something dissimilar as well… through his Soul!!

“Ha-” Heian Ciemnosc’s mouth finally opened as he felt his cultivation base soaring into the Spirit Formation realm, finally becoming an expert only one realm behind the First Step’s peak realm. Under his breath, he muttered as his darkest eyes turned wholly pitch-black. “The Broken Crystallization realm. One fuses their whole body, and being, into one, solidifying it to become a Broken Crystallization cultivator after forming their Power Energy cocoon.”

“Those who fail to breakthrough die. But those who failed and survived the failure are instead called the ‘Ruptured’. These cultivators have to go through the 5 Ruptured realms until they can, once again, break into the Second Step. During this process, they are not in the First or Second Step but are empty in the middle. Those seven realms have battle prowess within the Broken Crystallization realm only, called the Torment realm, the Dispirited realm, the Shades realm, Hell realm, and the Abyssin realm.”

“However, although the Broken Crystallization realm is already in the Second Step, it doesn’t mean they can use Neutral Energy. Only those in the second realm are able to. Those in the Second Step’s first realm are still gods compared to ants with the First Step’s peak cultivators.” Heian Ciemnosc said. His face abruptly twisted in pain as he felt his Soul stirring. He was already over explaing, so he focused on stabilizing his body… But suddenly!

… … … … … … … … …

The world, as it is known, became silent. So deadly noiseless it could genuinely deafen all living beings in the world… if it wasn’t because it felt more like an illusion than anything else. To the Blackotia Kingdom, it felt as if the lights in a room had suddenly flickered for less than an instant. And to those in its spatial territory, they merely thought they had seen through their spaceships or space stations and gazed into a section of the universe without stars on sight.

This sudden phenomenon, indeed, lasted for only less than an iota of an instant… But Lady Calisneia felt she had lived another life in the pure darkness. As she became engulfed in this sudden intrusion into her everything, she could only see herself and Heian Ciemnosc within this pure darkness…

… … … However, far away in several different places in the world, amidst this iota of an instant, which shouldn’t have been felt by anybody, eyes appeared amidst the darkness, illuminated as if too powerful to be hidden. While the rest of their bodies were perfectly engulfed. Old, clever, intelligent, young, beautiful, with fighting spirit, wise and bestial eyes blinked open when darkness intruded, only for it to disappear before they could really notice… … …

“...” Heian Ciemnosc calmly continued stabilizing his cultivation base. His eyes closed as he intertwined and semi-intertwined his fingers, as always, made him look exceptionally enigmatic with his dark coat on as it hid his emblems. Lady Calisneia was no longer looking at him, but she felt her body losing less vigor every second. In less than 10 minutes, Heian Ciemnosc’s cultivation base was beyond-perfectly stabilized in the Spirit Formation realm 1st stage!

Swish, rustle.

He stood up, feeling his hands, dark Power Energy, and Spirit Sense soar to immense heights after breaking through. Just as one’s Power Energy techniques, skills, or attacks can reach a range of 100 kilometers, as long as they didn’t meet a strong gust of air or many. Otherwise, they could keep sustaining it with their Power Energy with a trace of their Spirit Sense left within the technique, attack, or skill.

Still, they could only keep their Spirit Sense stable within that move for a certain period of time, depending on their Spirit Sense talent. When one broke into the Spirit Rebirth realm, this would become much easier as their Soul would be unlocked if it wasn’t fortuitously done so before. It wouldn’t go as far as 100 km yet, but it would go several tens of kilometers and only lose speed and momentum. It wouldn’t be as deadly by then, but it could still be used. And when massively attacking an enemy with tens of thousands of Spirit Rebirth realm cultivators, one could destroy any non-extensive protective array formation in a single day.

The sight of hundreds of thousands of Power Energy attacks or higher raining from one place to another, arching and falling on some people, or landing on something could only be described as world-breaking, even for the Third Step cultivators, closest to the Godly power. However, Heian Ciemnosc’s Spirit Sense… was already 80 km long! He could feel 80 km around everywhere he sent it would appear in that little head of his, and the vastness left him feeling mighty, powerful!

However, something caught his attention at last. Even though his Spirit Sense was already vastly absurd for his cultivation base, he still couldn’t detect anything outside his Master’s cultivation room. He relished in the sensation of emptiness everywhere slightly more before Lady Calisneia brought his attention to herself with a few words.

Before, she had become apprehensive and lightly praised Heian Ciemnosc in her mind as he didn’t seem dispirited after failing to evolve his body tempering Art. She spoke with a soft voice, but that still carried authoritative hints through their master-disciple relationship.

“Sit back down and employ the Soul-exalting Old World parchment’s methods as I’ve told you, each of them. Become familiarized with each. You will use them when breaking into the Spirit Rebirth realm. That way, your Soul’s potential will be enhanced to its utmost at the Step you are in, from thereon.” Lady Calisneia received a nod from Heian Ciemnosc as he hurriedly returned to her side and sat, obediently listening to her as he repassed the parchment’s methods.

He employed them with his Spirit Sense and dark Power Energy only since his Soul was still locked. As for his dark Power Energy, after breaking through, it had gained such intense quality and amount. After all, he could now draw it along from his Spirit Image. Which Heian Ciemnosc now believed that was himself. The tremendous might his dark Power Energy carried was many times that compared to before, and the amount dwelling in his Dantian region had been multiplied so many times he could almost be sure he could beat hundreds of Heian Ciemnoscs in the peak of the Crabstynian realm.

This power his dark Power Energy had become. Although he felt itchy to go out and fight until his solidification addiction was calmed down, Heian Ciemnosc resisted it and endured the desire so he could stay and cultivate with his Master. A long time was bound to happen.

…