Arbor turned his head around and noticed a beautiful man with golden hair and green eyes walking towards his direction. This man has a pleasant smile on his defined face. Haoshe is dressed in a green robe with golden stitching. The neck lining and belt are golden and give off a small luster. On the left chest and the back, the same tree that Thalli, Sol, and the rest have on their own clothing.
"Ugh…Hi," Arbor hesitated, "who are you?"
"Arbor!" Sol, Vulcan, and Telum snapped.
"Hey now, hey now. Easy. I guess you all have not told him about me?” Haoshe looked around at the group whom all shook their heads in response. “ Arbor, I am Ma Haoshe. You can think of me as," he clarified, "your adoptive father persay. First off, congratulations on taking your first steps on the never-ending road of cultivation. As a congratulatory gift I will answer three questions that you may have.” Haoshe sat down on the newly formed seat at the table.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Master Mo." Arbor began after adjusting his state of mind and appearance. Arbor stood up to clasp his hands and bow was found himself unable to lean forward after clasping his hands, an unknown force prevented him from moving. Fear began to grow in Arbor’s heart.
"Enough with the formalities. Simple call me Haoshe or Mo. Your elders, you could call them, still insist on being formal after these thousands of years that they have been with me. Its unneeded."
“My first question is pertains to me being here. From my experiences here in this forest already, I can tell that my birth in this world or realm is not natural. Almost like I was brought here on purpose. So, why did you choose me of all the people on Earth?”
“Well, let me explain one thing to you first before I answer your question. My explanation might answer a couple of your other uncertainties while I am at it.” Mo began.
“In this, chandelier of realms, there are a total of two hundred and fifty seven realms, counting this one. The universe where I pulled you from, also known as a forgotten realm, is just a small grain of sand in comparison to the beach. Try to wrap your head around what I’m about to tell you. Imagine the entire universe you grew up knowing being a single landmass filled with a plethora of species. This is just the size of a few lower realms. Each of the realms are structured differently, while a few are comparable in appearance. Do you follow so far?” Haoshe paused.
With his jaw dropped and eyes wide, Arbor struggled to understand how such a thing could be possible. Is how can a landmass be so large? The abundance of possible adventures and places Arbor could go to started to race through his mind.
“I sincerely hope that your mind has opened up a little bit as to how small of a scale you were using when you thought I selected you over everyone else on your small planet. I picked you out of one, well that's a fairly large number to say. Think of ten to the power of one thousand as a rough estimate for you to understand how many other living beings I could have chosen from. ” Haoshe added.
“As to why I chose you, I think you all will realize after the ceremony to reveal your soul spirit.” Haoshe waved Arbor over to an open area.
As he waved, the stump that Arbor was sitting on started to move towards a flat piece of land just twenty-five feet away. Formation markings filled with symbols of many shapes, letters, and line designs appeared on the area around Arbor in a circular pattern. Pona stepped forward with her arm raised a small strand of essence left her hand and activated the formation, illuminating the circle with a dim white glow.
In the center of the circle, Arbor is sitting down with his legs crossed and his hands cupped over his knees. He was instructed to sit still and that the process would be harmless. He is trying his best to keep still, but his excitement is causing him to jitter endlessly.
'I can't believe this is actually happening. It's just like some of those books I use to read.. I will be able to move mountains, call upon the wind and rain, and fly through the sky. This is all so sureal.' Arbor thought to himself.
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"Hey, I'm not dreaming, am I?" Arbor asked his seniors.
"No sweety, this is as real as it appears to be!" Pona reassured.
The essence in the area started to spiral towards Arbor and insert his body right above his waist where his dantain could be found. All of the symbols and patterns were lighting up, signifying that the formation was active.
This is the process of allowing the essence in the area to enter the dantain. A high majority of those who break through the mortal realm are not accustomed to gathering essence into their body. Thus, this type of formation was created to aid them in the process. The body is not capable of housing the energy of the essence when it is born. Thus, as the body gets tempered by training and the essence in the air, a dantain starts to form inside the body. When the dantain is finished being built the breakthrough of the human shackles occurs.
A quarter of an hour later the lights around Arbor began dimming down. The formation had served its purpose
"It's a pleasure to meet you, my name is Magana.You are my sex slave now little boy." A mysterious masculin, but feminine voice sounded inside Arbors head. This caused him to scream and jump in fright. This was the first time Arbor had someone talk to him mentally. The spectators gave a puzzled look at his actions. A small giggle came from Vulcan.
"As mischievous as always," Tellum mumbled as he let out a laugh.
"Calm down Arbor. That was just Vulcan who spoke to you. As cultivators we have the ability to do an infinite amount of things, granted you have the power to do so. Speaking telepathically is something you are not able to do yet. That will come later down the road when you start to strengthen your soul." Thalli spoke as she made her way towards Arbor. She placed her right thumb on his wrist and sent her soul into his body. Once she was in, she helped talk Arbor through the process of how to do introspection.
A few minutes passed by before she retracted her soul and stood up. "Just as some of you had already expected, his soul spirit is a tree. It is not any basic tree though. Arbor, why don't you show us? Do just as I taught you."
Arbor took a deep breath then nodded. He closed his eyes then tried to project his spirit. He started to get frustrated after the eighth try. After seeing the anger in his body Telum got an idea.
"Hey kid, there's another way your soul spirit can be projected. why don't we have a go." A voice gibbed, bringing Arbor back to his senses.
Opening his eyes, he noticed Telum staring at him with a spear and a sword in his hand. His years of training instilled a second nature inside of him of what to do. Arbor pointed at the spear, signaling that is the weapon he wanted to use. Telum tossed it his way. Arbor moved towards the spear as it was in midair, caught it, and starting to fight Telum. Of course, Telum had suppressed his strength to Arbors level.
Telum knows that he must push Arbor to his outmost limit for his soul spirit to come out. Immediately Arbor was being ferociously attacked, which caused him to be on the defensive side. The battle started to heat up to the point of a life and death battle. This is a first for Arbor. Cuts appeared all over his body, blisters and calisters appeared on his hands, and his legs started to ache.
Minutes had passed an Arbor now had miniscule cuts all over his body. Each cut was superficial on slightly grazing the skin. This showed to mastery Telum had over the sword. 'Is this the strength of cultivators? I feel so empowered, I would be invincible back on Earth.' Arbor thought to himself. His movements got lackadaisical.
"Focus!" Telum barked.
He started to realize how bad he was losing and started to fight seriously. After a couple of parries, Arbor had finally gotten a chance to counter attack. Whether it was from his own skill, or Telum letting him, Arbor did not know, but he knew that he needed to take this chance to push get back at Telum. Now that he was on the offensive he started to use around ninety percent of his power. Unfortunately, that got him nowhere and he realized this. He took a step back to gather himself.
"Maximum effort," Arbor murmured before starting a barrage of attacks. Ten minutes passed by before Arbor felt that he could no longer continue fighting. At this moment, Telum advanced towards Arbor with the intent to kill. Fearing for his life for the first time since he has been reborn, Arbor screamed at the top of his lunges, hoping that it could save his life.
Suddenly a translucent tree hovered above Arbors head. The trunk stood tall with a bark that hand slivers of golden light and flowers sprouting from it. The branches were thick and lengthy, with vines draped over them that hung halfway to the bottom of the tree. The leaves are different shades of green and gave a small shine and feeling that their edges were as sharp as any blade. At the base of the tree a small indistinguishable animal could be seen curled up in a little ball.
"Utterly exquisite." Haoshe exclaimed in excitement..