Nolan couldn't remember what had been written on the monument, but he distinctly recalled the words that had rung throughout his mind after he'd suffered through the torturous process of integrating the foreign knowledge into his memory. The voice had said that in the end, everything that existed was nonexistent. Infinite Space was vast and empty, riddled with tiny pockets of reality. By making use of the void, one could traverse these realities, these instances of being. Somehow, this loose logic made perfect sense to him, and yet no sense at all.

  Nolan sat down on top of the ashes, though flinched as he felt something beneath his right thigh. Perplexed, he dug out a tiny wooden talisman that had been sitting at the centre of the ashes.

  There's no aura? Back when he'd first come to this glade, even Uncle Grey hadn't sensed the small, thumb-sized slip of wood that had been resting within the monument's remains.

  What's the deal with this thing? There weren't any words or carvings on the piece of wood, nor did it emanate any sort of aura. Still, Nolan was positive that it was a very powerful talisman, or something along those lines. Maybe if I extend my consciousness into it? All he had to do was focus his spiritual sense on the object with all his might, which required him to let his guard down and put all of his efforts in to examining the piece of wood.

  He looked around the little glade with vigilant eyes, eventually relaxing as he assured himself that it was impossible for anybody to get the jump on him. Everybody here was a friend of his, after all, and only Ian and Nyla could make it this far from the original glade.

  Alright, let's see what there is to see.

  Closing his eyes, Nolan threw all of his focus at the wooden slip that was firmly pinched between his thumb and finger. I don't sense anything, so why do I feel like there's something in here?

  It happened when he was focusing intently on the centre of the slip. Unexpectedly, he could suddenly see an odd scene despite the fact that his eyes were closed, similar to the sensation of projecting his consciousness into his spiritual space.

  He didn't move, since his first instinct was that his consciousness had been sent into some foreign space without his knowing. It seemed as if he were standing within the same glade that he’d just been in, only he was floating a few metres above the remnant shrine. Confused and out of sorts, he made to scratch at his nose but felt nothing when his finger slid against his skin.

  "Alright, what the fuck?" he snorted, though he quickly fell victim to an invasion of unease. Sitting a few paces below him was his own body, which was slumped over and leaning against one of the shrine’s walls around the spot where the ashes were.

  Unease turned to dread as an echoing laugh announced the presence of an unknown person.

  "To think that you actually came back.” A middle-aged man with waist-length hair suddenly appeared within arm's reach of Nolan, transparent in the same way that Uncle Grey was.

  "A lingering spirit?"

  "Yes, and the founder of the martial skill that you inherited here." The man had a proud demeanor that proved a strange contrast to his narrow face, slim eyebrows, thin shoulders and piercing grey eyes. "When you first showed up here and made contact with my inheritance monument, I was truly astounded. To think that after all these years, somebody actually showed up here at these inheritance grounds. Just as that old fox predicted…"

  "Old fox?"

  "The master of the first technique you inherited. It’s why your aura is so similar to his.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The master of the Ancestral Body Technique? Judging by the man's tone, it sounded like he'd had a poor relationship with the one in question. That didn’t matter, however, since Nolan was beginning to suffer from a rising sense of alarm. Looking down at his hands, they had the same ghostly appearance as Uncle Grey, and the strange man before him. "Hey, why am I like this? What was that talisman I just picked up?"

  "Is your condition really such a mystery? That’s how all lingering spirits look."

  "Wait, you mean I'm dead? What happened to me?"

  "Well, you're not dead yet, but you will be if you don't reconnect your soul to your body within a few hours."

  Panicking, Nolan asked, "How do I do that?"

  "Like this."

  The man shot downward with a blur of grey, disappearing into Nolan's body where it sat slumped against the shrine's inner wall. Dread washed over him as he saw that his body’s fingers were beginning to twitch.

  Realizing what was happening, Nolan willed his ghostly consciousness to fly down into his unmoving body, though he sailed through it in the same manner that Uncle Grey often did when he came into contact with solid objects. Willing himself to rise back up into the air, his mind began to race. How the hell did things take such a crazy turn? Terrified, he watched as his body stood up and began to stretch, laughing loudly in an excited, grateful manner.

  "All these years…" the man began to cry, a disturbing scene to see as Nolan watched someone else’s tears slip out of his own eyes. “Who would have thought that the talisman I left behind would have ended up saving me in the end?"

  "Hey, wait!"

  “No hard feelings, lad. Truly, if there was any other way…” After saying that, the man began to walk away, but then stumbled and decided to sit down. "Hmm," he said, ignoring Nolan and pinching his chin in thought. "As I suspected, my soul isn't compatible with an Ancestral Body, even if it’s only in its infant stages. I guess I'll need to take some time to fuse my soul with it in full." The man let out a perverted version of Nolan's laugh. "What's a few days, after all that time?"

  "Hey!" Nolan tried to enter into his body once again, though the result was the same as before. Whirling around and hovering about a metre off the ground, Nolan snarled, "You fucker! Stop that!"

  Suddenly he was about twenty metres above the ground, his ghostly body locked away within a cage of golden light. This is…a spiritual arrayment?

  Down below, the man that had stolen his body let out a disinterested yawn and quickly sat down to meditate.

  "Okay, where was I?"

  Nolan, on the other hand, was freaking out as he saw that the screams that left his mouth were silenced by the strange atmosphere contained within the cage. All that escaped his nonexistent lungs was a tiny whisper of sound, one that harboured more fear than any other utterance that had ever left his lips.

  Nolan watched as a light wind began to emanate from his body, which was sitting cross-legged on the knee-high grass of the open field. Just as the winds began to intensify, the tattoo on Nolan's left forearm burst into a brilliant flare of red light, at which point the man stood up in shock and stumbled backward.

  "This is…a soul bonding arrayment?"

  The man looked around with alarm and almost instantly created and activated an arrayment diagram that conjured a three-dimensional cube of cyan energy, which completely enveloped him. This happened as a dozen arrows of golden energy smashed down upon the barrier, breaking it and causing the ancient cultivator to dash backward at Nolan's fastest speed. He had activated the Tranquil Void Step and was using it as efficiently as possible to avoid another onslaught from overhead, this time in the form of hundreds of powerful spears, all of which disappeared before they could hit the ground as soon as they missed their target.

  Just as Nolan had been wondering if he would ever get to have a good old time with Nyla again, Uncle Grey had appeared within the field with an abrupt flash of red light. This happened as soon as the unsuspecting enemy had attempted to fuse his soul with Nolan's body.

  "Who are you?" snarled the man. "You're not one of the Martial Progenitors that helped to make these grounds."

  Uncle Grey looked over at Nolan and frowned. "Do not worry, dear disciple. This man’s spirit is being rejected by your body. He should be having a hard time controlling it."

  "Humph, you think someone of your level is enough to—"

  "Look who's talking!" snapped Uncle Grey, who conjured up dozens more spears of light after a masterly display of momentary diagram design. These spears were made of extremely dense spiritual energy, bolstered by a noticeable amount of the surrounding Origin Energy. "You're just a measly spirit!”

  The missiles bombarded the ancient cultivator, though no explosions or impacts of any sort took place. The other man managed to dodge all of the attacks by vanishing and reappearing about twenty metres away, as if he'd somehow teleported to another spot. Remarkably, all of the spears blinked out of existence the moment that they were about to hit the ground. Nolan realized that Uncle Grey was taking care not to destroy the entire area.