I opened my eyes to find myself in a dimly lit space. There was a rough stone ceiling above me. The floor beneath me felt cool to the touch, but not to an uncomfortable degree. The air itself felt comfortable.
Where the hell was I?
I sat up to look around. For some reason, I was in some kind of wide corridor made from gray stone. To my left, the corridor stretched off into the distance. It curved to the left as it went, so I couldn’t see the other end. To my right was a rough stone wall that marked the end, or the beginning, of the corridor.
Brass magelamps hung from the corridor’s walls at strategic locations, giving enough light to just barely see by. The light was a warm yellow.
There was writing carved into the long walls of the corridor. I took a closer look at the words, and realized something interesting. The words carved into one wall were in Spirit Tongue, while the words carved into the other wall were in Common Tongue. It was difficult to make out what they said due to the dim lighting, but I recognized both scripts.
I tried to get a clearer picture of my surroundings with my divine sense, but found that I couldn’t. For some reason, I couldn’t use my divine sense. More than that, I felt weak. It was as if I were a mortal again. It was as if someone had sealed my cultivation, wrapping metaphysical chains around my being. It was an unsettling sensation. The last time I felt like this was back on Spirit Earth, when the Blossoming Lotus Sect punished me for killing a fellow disciple.
The disciple in question had been a traitor. However, his uncle had been a sect elder. The uncle used his influence to punish me, justifying it by saying that I acted with “recklessness” and “haste” when I killed the traitor myself instead of letting the sect handle it. The sect leader gave me a slap on the wrist by sealing my cultivation and having me work as a menial servant for a year. The uncle tried to kill me multiple times over that year, but my first Masters were still around at that point and they protected me.
So I was in an unknown location, weak as a mortal and unable to use my divine sense. Great. Just what I needed.
The last thing I remembered was sparring with Leroy to test out my new limits after reaching the Second Rank of body cultivation. We fought in the rain, since I was too impatient to wait for the storm to clear.
Since I was almost at his level, Leroy stopped holding back and fought me with all of his strength. He kicked my ass, but it wasn’t as one-sided as some of our previous spars had been. I even managed to almost break through his shield spell, which was further than I had ever gone before that.
After that, business continued as usual and everyone settled down for the night. So how did I go from Sturm Hill Hall, to wherever this place was?
A groaning sound caught my attention. I looked to find a girl laying on her back next to me. She must have appeared out of nowhere, because she wasn’t there when I first looked around. Even stranger was the fact that she looked like my twin.
At first I thought the girl was Kaylee, but a closer inspection revealed that she looked almost identical to me rather than my sister. The girl had the same build as me, tall and lean, with my beautiful and delicate features. Her hair was the same length and color as mine. She even wore the same clothes as me. The only reason I could tell that she was a woman was that she had slight feminine curves.
I blinked several times as I looked at a gender-bent version of myself.
The girl’s eyes opened. Like mine, they were storm gray.
“What the hell?” the girl asked in a very familiar voice. She sat up, rubbing her forehead. “Where am I?”
“Aurora?” I asked her in disbelief.
She looked at me and blinked a few times.
“Gabe?” she asked. “What is going on? Where are we?”
“I had hoped you would know the answer to that question, considering your current state.”
“What do you mean?”
I nodded in her direction, and Aurora looked down at herself.
“Ah!” she screamed out, scrambling backwards until she hit one of the corridor’s walls. “What happened to my body? Why do I look like this?”
Aurora examined her body, patting herself all over with her hands. She then realized she had hands and looked at them.
“My claws!” she wailed. “My beautiful claws! And my scales!” She gave me a pitiful look. “What happened to my scales? I feel naked without them.”
I found that statement funny since she was fully clothed.
“You’re in a human body now,” I said. “Somehow.” I frowned. “One that’s a female version of mine. I think it might be because of our familiar bond.”
Aurora’s own frown deepened.
“Aw!” she said. “I hate it. I miss my sleek and slender form. Can this body even fly?”
To test this out, Aurora stood up and jumped. The ceiling was high enough that she didn’t hit her head on it. Her face crumpled with disappointment when she fell back down to the ground. I was just impressed that she had adapted to a human body so fast.
I stood up as well.
“You really don’t know what happened?” Aurora asked. “The last thing I remember is helping you reach the Second Rank of your body cultivation technique before falling asleep.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “The last thing I remember is going to sleep for the night. After that, I woke up here.”
I looked around. I didn’t see anything that revealed any clues about what this place was, or why the two of us were here. However, Aurora’s current form was a significant clue in and of itself.
I kept that to myself for now. I wanted to see more of this place before I voiced my suspicions.
“How do we get out of here?” Aurora asked. She walked over and knocked on the stone wall that marked the end of the corridor. “Since I’m in this stupid flesh and blood body, I can’t go through stone anymore.”
She looked back at me, a pitiful expression on her face.
“How do you people deal with being so heavy and sluggish all the time?” she asked. “I feel like I’m lugging around a giant rock; only that giant rock is my body.”
“Oh, there are benefits to having a physical body,” I said. “Especially for those who practice a body cultivation technique.”
Aurora pouted.
“I just want my old body back.” She looked down and scowled at her current body. “I hate being stuck in this lump of meat and bone.”
I shrugged.
“To each their own,” I said, before nodding towards the rest of the corridor. “Want to explore the rest of this place?”
“Is that a good idea?” Aurora asked. “I feel so weak right now. What if we run into something dangerous?”
“I have a hunch that we won’t.”
Aurora studied me for several seconds, before nodding.
“Lead the way then, Gabe.”
The two of us headed down the corridor, walking side by side. It continued to curve to the left. No other corridors met this one. It was just a single corridor that seemed to go on forever.
Magelamps placed at regular intervals illuminated the corridor, revealing the writing on the walls. On one side was Spirit Tongue, on the other was Common Tongue. It was quiet. The only sounds I heard were our footsteps, as well as Aurora exploring her newfound body.
There weren’t any scents in the air, not even dust. That made no sense. In fact, I smelled nothing at all. Odd. I sniffed myself. Still nothing. It was as if there was nothing to smell. Either that had been an oversight, or something was messing with my sense of smell. If my suspicion was correct, it could be either one.
“So, this is what it’s like to have breasts,” Aurora said, fondling herself.
I stopped in place and gave her an incredulous look.
“What?” she asked in a defensive tone. “You stared at Annabelle’s chest all the time, so I always wondered what the big deal was.” She looked down at her own chest. “I’m starting to see the appeal.”
“I don’t stare at Annabelle’s chest all the time,” I said, my tone defensive as well.
Annabelle just gave me a look of disbelief.
“You can’t lie to me, Gabe,” she said. “I can see through your eyes, remember?”
I rolled my eyes and continued down the corridor.
“One thing that I’ll give physical bodies,” Aurora said. “Every sensation is much strong-…”
She then let out a sound that was a mix between a yelp and a moan. I stopped and looked at her again. Aurora’s face was red, and she wore a shocked expression on her face. She held her hands to her sides.
“What happened?” I asked, though I had an inkling.
“Nothing,” Aurora said in a rush. “Nothing happened. I was just surprised at how sensitive a physical body was.”
I gave her a wry look.
“I see that you’ve discovered one of the joys of having a physical form,” I said. “Congratulations.”
I resumed walking. Aurora caught up to me.
“If it feels this good,” she muttered. “No wonder humans go at it like rabbits. I’m surprised people don’t do it more, to be honest.”
I shook my head. A spirit discovering the pleasures of the flesh was something I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
The two of us continued on our way, until we came across a door made from white stone that blocked our way. Well, I called it a door, but it looked more like a solid wall with what looked like two sliding tile puzzles carved into it; one on the right and one on the left. I assumed that solving the tile puzzles would open the wall/door. In my experience, that was how these sorts of things worked.
The tile puzzle on the right contained symbols and writing related to wizardry, while the tile puzzle on the left contained symbols and writing related to cultivation. From what I could tell, solving the puzzles required a certain level of knowledge in both.
For me, solving the cultivation tile puzzle was child’s play. Hell, I already knew the solution just by looking at it. I reached over to touch the cultivation tile puzzle. However, before I could, a tiny spark of lightning arced out and zapped me. I sucked in a breath and waved my hand around to ease the pain.
“Gabe!” Aurora said. She grabbed my hand to take a look at it.
“Don’t worry,” I said, giving the tile puzzle an annoyed look. “It just stung a little. It didn’t hurt me that much.”
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Aurora frowned at my hand.
“Why did it zap you?” she asked. “It looks like a puzzle. Aren’t puzzles meant to be solved? How can you do that if you can’t touch it?”
“I suspect I’m not the one who is supposed to solve it,” I said, nodding at the cultivation puzzle. “Why don’t you touch it?”
Aurora arched an eyebrow at me.
“After what happened to you? Why would I do that?”
“Just humor me, please.”
Aurora narrowed her eyes at me, before nodding. With some trepidation, she touched the cultivation tile puzzle. Nothing happened to her.
“That’s odd,” she said with a frown. “Why did it zap you and not me?”
“As I said, I’m not the one who is supposed to solve it,” I said. “You are.” I touched the wizardry tile puzzle. It didn’t zap me. “I’m supposed to solve this one.”
Aurora looked at it.
“Oh, the solution to that one is easy,” she said. “You just need to-…”
I held up a hand to silence her.
“These puzzles are tests,” I said. “Telling each other the answers to our respective tests defeats the purpose.”
Aurora tilted her head.
“Have you figured out what this place is?”
“I believe so, yes.” I gestured to the corridor. “This is a dream. One created by Master Tempest.”
My familiar frowned.
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
“Think about it.” I listed off each point with my fingers. “The last thing either of us remember is falling asleep and ending up here somehow. You’re in a different body, one that mirrors my own. Neither of us can use our powers or abilities. The lack of any smells. It all fits.” I gestured to the both of us. “Either we’re in a shared dream, or some powerful being kidnapped us, changed you into a human, and placed us in this location for some reason.”
Aurora frowned.
“Okay, let’s assume that you’re right and this is a dream,” she said. “How do you know Lord Tempest is the one who brought us here? It could have been someone or something else.”
I nodded to the wall with Spirit Tongue carved into it.
“Master Tempest is one of the few people I know who is both powerful enough to pull something like this off, and who knows how to speak Spirit Tongue,” I said. “It could have also been Lady Terra, since she’s your mother and we’re surrounded by stone.” I made a so-so gesture. “I suppose it could have been someone else, but I don’t think it is. I mean, why would they? What would be the point?”
I walked over to the wall carved with Spirit Tongue characters and took a closer look at the words.
“Besides, these words describe beginner level cultivation ideas and concepts.” I looked back at Aurora. “Something like that is useless for me, but beneficial to you. It’s a learning aid. ”
Despite how much she had helped me so far, Aurora didn’t know all that much about cultivation. Everything she had done so far had either been instinct or a result of her inherent nature.
However, I imagine she knew a lot about wizardry. While her power and her memories were sealed, they were still there inside her. I doubted she needed to learn anything more about wizardry. If she did, it wouldn’t be down here in the mortal realm.
I nodded at the other wall, the one containing Common Tongue script.
“I imagine that that wall is the same, but for wizardry,” I said. “In short, this corridor is a lesson for both of us, and the puzzles are tests.”
As soon as I said this, the words on the walls lit up, illuminating the entire corridor. They shone with an electric blue light. A moment later, the light faded away and the corridor turned dim once again.
“That’s as good a confirmation as we’re going to get,” I said. “Unless Master Tempest himself shows up and explains things to us.”
Which I doubt would happen. When we last spoke, Master Tempest said that we wouldn’t be able to speak openly for a while. Still, couldn’t he have sent word somehow or done something like this sooner?
Oh well. I wasn’t going to complain further. Divine beings operated on a different time scale. A few centuries meant nothing to them, let alone a few weeks.
Aurora put her hands on her hips, still looking a little doubtful.
“Okay,” she said, still frowning. “But why am I here? You’re Lord Tempest’s disciple. I’m just your familiar. Why did he include me in all this?”
I smirked at her.
“I think your appearance is the answer to that one, Aurora,” I said. “We’re one now, remember? I am you, and you are me. That means you are Master Tempest’s disciple now, or at least close enough that he’s willing to bend the rules for your sake.”
Honestly, I should have thought of teaching Aurora alongside my disciples. It just never occurred to me. Perhaps it was because she was a former divine being herself, and therefore didn’t need the help; at least, that’s what I assumed.
“Plus,” I continued. “He is your step-father, if you think about it. Lady Terra is your mother. As her husband, he’s your family.”
Aurora’s eyes widened at this.
“Oh.”
I gave her a playful slap on the shoulder.
“Come on then, Aurora,” I said. “We should get started.” I grinned at her. “Or would you prefer it if I called you Dusk?”
Aurora and I never really talked about that particular revelation. Her original name was Dusk. I found it fitting, since Aurora meant “dawn”. The one time I brought it up, she told me to knock it off.
“My name is Aurora,” she said, slapping my shoulder in return. “Whoever I was in the past, that’s my name now. It’s the name you gave me, and I’m keeping it the same way you’re keeping the name Gabriel Sturm.”
I nodded in acknowledgment of her words, before the two of us headed back to the beginning of the corridor to begin our lesson.
----------------------------------------
Several hours later, I took a break and laid down on the ground and let out a groan. My head hurt, and my body ached. Given the level of pain I felt, a part of me wondered if I was in a dream realm after all. It felt so vivid and real. Still, this place being was the only explanation that I could think of that made sense. A dream created by a divine being mirrored reality so much, it might as well be a world unto itself.
Aurora and I had spent the last few hours reading the words carved into the walls of this stone corridor. It was annoying and difficult, since the words were so small and cramped. We had to assume uncomfortable positions in order to read many of them, which left out bodies cramped and aching.
Not only that, but the words were difficult to make out in the dim lighting. If I could use my divine sense, reading the entire wall would be a breeze. I guessed that was why Master Tempest had sealed it; he didn’t want me to speed through this lesson and rush ahead.
At least I wasn’t alone. Misery loves company and all that.
Joking aside, Aurora’s presence was a boon. While she may not remember what she knew about wizardry, she knew quite a lot. Several times, when I faced something I couldn’t quite understand, asking her a few questions was enough to dissipate my confusion. I did the same for her whenever she got stuck.
More than that, she was just good company. I always felt at ease with Aurora, and her presence reassured me. Well, most of the time. Since she now occupied a flesh and blood body, even one just in dream, she also spent time exploring what that meant compared to just being a spirit. This led to some awkward questions.
I caught her raising a hand to her lips a few times, exploring their sensitivity.
I wondered if this was what it was like to be a parent dealing with a teenager going through puberty. Flameclaw, my adoptive daughter, had been a cat spirit beast. While raising her had presented its own challenges, puberty was not one of them. By the time she achieved her human form, she already reached adulthood.
Thinking about Flameclaw put me in a wistful mood. While I enjoyed my life as Gabriel Sturm, there was a lot that I missed about my life as Immortal Celestial Thunder. Flameclaw was a big one. Worry wormed its way into my heart, and I wondered what happened to her after I died. She achieved immortality about a thousand years after Celestial Hound and I had, and joined us in our war against the Golden Dragon.
Did Celestial Hound kill her after he killed me? Or had she escaped and somehow survived? The two never really got along all that well. They were always jealous of each other, though they never let their differences get out of hand. However, if Celestial Hound betrayed me, I doubt he would have let Flameclaw live.
Still, my adopted daughter was a wily cat. She was difficult to kill, and had a habit of surviving situations that would have killed most people. A part of me believed that she actually had nine lives. If anyone could survive Celestial Hound’s betrayal, it was her.
That didn’t stop me from worrying about her.
Each time she escaped what would be certain death for most people, she ended up paying a high price for it. In one case, she had her cultivation base shattered and it took me almost a century to help heal her.
A moment later, Aurora joined me on the ground with a groan of her own.
“Ugh,” she said. “I hate this. Having a physical body sucks. It aches, and it’s so uncomfortable sometimes. I'm glad this is only a dream.” She started fondling her chest. “These are pretty fun to play with, however.”
I looked away from her with a shake of my head.
“How are things going on your end?” I asked her, more as a distraction than anything else.
“They’re going well,” she said. “I assume. It’s odd. I already knew a bit about cultivation after observing you and the others for a while, but there were some things I just couldn’t quite get. The words on this wall answered several of my questions.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help if you didn’t understand anything?” I asked her.
Aurora didn’t respond right away. I looked to find her facing away from me.
“It was embarrassing,” she mumbled after a while.
“Excuse me?”
Aurora turned to look at me with a scowl on her face.
“It was embarrassing, okay?” she said. “I have all this knowledge about wizardry, knowledge that I don’t even remember knowing, but I’m a complete novice when it comes to cultivation. I hate it.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, before chuckling.
“I understand how you feel,” I said, looking at the stone corridor’s ceiling. “Thanks to my previous life’s memories, I have all this knowledge and experience about cultivation. I’m used to feeling like an expert. However, when it comes to wizardry, I barely know anything at all in comparison.”
“Exactly!” Aurora said, sitting up.
I looked at my wall, so to speak. The lesson picked up right where my education in wizardry dropped off, just after I got kicked out of the Solarian Imperial Academy. Ever since that day, I had focused on cultivation almost to the exclusion of all else. My studies in wizardry and magical theory had stagnated.
Despite this, the words carved into the stone wall more than made up for it. I had learned more about wizardry during these past few hours than I had in all my years in the academy. While the words were difficult to read, the knowledge they contained was easy to understand.
My comprehension skills played a part in this of course. I was a former immortal after all. However, the words represented the distilled essence of wizardry, as seen through the eyes of an expert. And if there was anything I didn’t understand, I could always ask Aurora for clarification.
Master Tempest was a cultivator from Spirit Earth, but it was clear that he had spent enough time on Lumina to master wizardry as well. With someone like him as my teacher, I wouldn’t fall behind.
The biggest benefit, however, was how the words changed my mindset. Wizardry and cultivation were based on different, though related, laws and principles. If Grandfather Gabe’s words were anything to go by, they were compatible despite their differences.
Wizardry focused more on controlling the world outside of oneself through spells and magic circles, while cultivation was a form of internal alchemy that focused on achieving higher and higher states of being. While wizards wielded a great deal of power, that was it. They lived longer lives than regular mortals, but they themselves were still mortal. It was impossible to achieve immortality through wizardry, thus making it inferior to cultivation in the long run.
Even before I regained the memories of my past lives, I just viewed wizardry as a means to achieve power. That was it. After all, in order to grow stronger, wizards just needed to form new mana veins in the form of threads and Circles.
However, after reading the words on the wall, I realized that this might not be the case. While it wasn’t obvious, I got the sense that there was more to wizardry than I previously realized.
Despite my dismissive attitude, forming new mana veins wasn’t an easy endeavor. No one on Spirit Earth managed to figure out how to do it. If they had, they hadn’t shared this knowledge with anyone else. The best they could do was widen their mana veins in order to increase their control and power over mana, which was crude when compared to forming new threads and Circles.
Mana veins were an integral part of cultivation. Without them, a cultivator wouldn’t be able to control mana or circulate it throughout their being. Hell, mana veins were integral to living. Everyone had them, though only those with higher quality ones could cultivate or become wizards. They were a fundamental part of one being, and connected one’s soul to one’s body. In a way, they also connected the soul to the physical world.
From a certain point of view, mana veins could be considered part of one’s soul. If that was the case, what did it mean to form new mana veins? To form new threads? And what did it mean to form Circles? Was it a way to strengthen one’s soul, or strengthen the soul’s connection to the body? But if that was the case, why were wizards so physically weak?
Mana veins connected the soul to the body, which meant they were also a part of the body. Strengthening one’s mana veins and forming new threads should have an effect on one’s physical form. Yet, as far as I knew, wizardry remained as weak and squishy as regular mortals no matter how powerful they became, even ones that focused on internal magic.
In that case, what were Circles? What if they weren’t artificial mana veins but something else altogether?
Despite the name, Circles weren’t actual circles. They were only called that because they formed complete circuits throughout the body. If one compared the Circles to the circulatory system, forming the First Circle was like strengthening and improving one’s blood vessels. Forming the Second Circle was like creating an entirely new circulatory system in addition to the original one.
Or maybe the nervous system would be a better comparison, since practicing wizardry also enhanced one’s mind.
The biggest clue to this mystery was the fact that forming new threads and Circles increased a wizard’s ability to control the ambient mana within the environment, which was one of the reasons why they also had better mystic arts than cultivators.
Did forming new threads and Circles allow wizards to become more attuned to the world around them?
All these questions swirled around my mind, but I didn’t have the level of knowledge necessary to answer them. While I could speculate, thanks to my vast knowledge and experience with cultivation, that was like a chemist trying to muddle his way through upper-level physics. Sure, some of what I knew came in handy, but I needed to learn more about wizardry if I wanted to know the answers to my questions.
Still, all this knowledge would be useful after I finished repairing my Second Circle and could form new threads again. I was very much interested in seeing how forming new threads and Circles would affect my soul, if at all. Since I had the soul of an Immortal, I wasn’t sure if it would.
That was for later. For now, it was time to get back to studying.
“All right,” I said, getting up. “Break time’s over.”
Aurora groaned in protest, but she stood up as well. Soon, we were back to reading the words on the wall.
My dream body continued to ache, and I heaved a sigh.
It was going to be a long night.