The boat's heavy, wooden oars lay forgotten besides her feet, the only other object on that decrepit looking boat, while Wei Zhiruo sat observing a weeping beauty, who lay kneeling betwixt a patch of grass growing by the shore.
"Why is she crying like that?" A thought which had perplexed her for too long, was uttered askance. She asked but no one replied.
"...She is wet as well. Look at that place. Isn't that a pair of shoes floating over there? If I am not wrong..." Quite some distance away from herself and the shore, there were a pair of white, embroidered woman shoes floating over the pond surface. "...That splashing sound was her being thrown into the water, wasn’t it?"
Wei Zhiruo muttered mostly to herself. She observed, thought and tried to hold on to a conversation —any dry stuff that could just come out of her already scattered mind rolled off her lips. Lips which had grown increasingly dry and chapped.
As for the beauty— she wailed, lamenting by the shore. It was a tragic sight to begin with and easily allowed Wei Zhiruo to imagine all sorts of intrigue and drama that might have fueled the current scenario.
Looking over, Wei Zhiruo thought that the beauty's soaking and dripping hair and even her clothes — if it was any colder, they might have been covered by a layer of frost by now. But that girl kept crying, and crying silently, as if she couldn't feel the cold. Or those growing chills in the air as morning approached closer and was just around the corner was just Wei Zhiruo's own figment of imagination. The girl's skin though was turning blue.
Occasionally, the beauty would mutter something to herself, while the rest of the time she was quite busy wiping away her tears.
'Heaven's daughter...a shell?' None of the muttered sentences made sense to Wei Zhiruo.
Tears kept falling, streaming down the beauty's 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.
Its penetrating force recalled some not so fond memories in Wei Zhiruo's mind which she barely shrugged off.
'She doesn't look right. Has she gone insane? But not quite like it either— however, there is a little bit of glaring madness in there as well. Peculiar…'
Wei Zhiruo pried several emotions flashing over her features, yet still couldn't make up her mind what to do next. She felt it would be too unfeeling of her to just ignore this scene and be on her way.
But coming out had its own risks. Finally, after pondering on its pros and cons, Wei Zhiruo decided on not going out. After all, there was always a glaring probability that the girl might have known the original owner.
This wasn't some wild place; that girl looked like a demure, weak resident of this manor who had been clearly nurtured in comfort and peace all her life.
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?
"Never mind." Wei Zhiruo looked away decisively. "Marr? Can you hear me now?"
For the umpteenth time the same question reconciled with the breaking fabric of the night, and like several previous prodding's, this one too was soon lost, unheeded.
Wei Zhiruo frowned and then narrowed her eyes, stopping her palms from clenching into a fist due to a gut wrenching worry. Instead, she heaved in a mouthful of cold air, then released a deep sigh.
"It's Cold." Wei Zhiruo muttered. "It's getting colder...Marr. Hurry up, answer me. "
No matter what, she thought, eventually all things will fall in their rightful places. She just had to wait. If he is not responding to her now, she will wait for him to come back to her. Will she be disappointed in her wait? There was a chance of that...but she felt she wouldn't be.
"Yuemarr…?" She called again.
It was getting colder. Staying out like this 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 dark traces that looked like some kind of poisonous residue and hidden diseases of so many kinds that she had lost count just marking them out. All she surmised in the end, was that she would need to nurture the body for at least a year before it could even reach the level of a normally functioning human being!
And this was nothing in front of the wounds left in her soul. Travelling down here was definitely not like falling asleep in that accursed pond and then waking up here, today—no; it was more like she had pierced through a membrane that sucked away all her powers and strength and left her like a husk of her previous self.
It was so bad that Wei Zhiruo didn't even want to see what was wrong inside her Inner self! She was using her Spiritual Senses, and still could use it flexibly to reach a considerable distance, and this just became another of her excuses to not peer deeply inside her soul.
Now that she started thinking about healing, she found that it was going to be a very, very long and tedious project, and would definitely need some precious herbs and tonics to support it. Precious medicines needed money and this identity was so sensitive that to go out earning any amount was tantamount to revealing her strangeness to everyone. What else could she do in such circumstances? Actually, the solution wasn’t that hard to achieve - she just needed to merge with her bloodline completely…
She just needed to wait a couple more weeks till the process was done. After that, she could just nurture the vitality as she found it appropriate to do so.
"... you must be weak and tired right? But wait...if the bloodline's already merging, wouldn't that mean you too have started assimilating with this body? Don't tell me you are busy merging right now?! If you are not — then don't start, okay? It's hardly safe right here. At least wait for me to go back to my chamber. I think those mortal medicinal herbs can help us gain some strength. Since this world has humans, there must be some sort of similarity in the nature of herbs..." Wei Zhiruo said. "We can search for those…"
She thought deeply, as many names started running through her mind. Angelica, wolfsbane, Talons of the Red Rosefinch, and Aster starwood, Auburn Dust leaf and a pinch of coral residue...and this just made a small pot of 'healing' or rather, energy boosting potion...did any of the Runes support internal healing?
But even after waiting for a long while, when she didn't hear any reply –all those herb names, Runes and past annotations got jumbled up in a mix of fear and apprehension. She panicked.
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 —dreams and nightmares, reality with no boundaries and senses that lied...she could hardly take out her mind from all that! She just somehow sat still, rubbing the bumpy surface of the wooden canoe, obsessively tracing, retracing its rough texture. It felt wet and sticky, and felt obnoxiously irksome.
"A'Marr…? Cannot you say a word...to me?"
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.
And that beauty...she was sucked into the background of heavy noises, a scene being enacted from a play, running in the theater with no sound or movement —just a cold glimpse of an alternative reality. If reality was somewhere near in her clutches...which Wei Zhiruo doubted.
Growing colder and colder, Wei Zhiruo looked up into the clouding sky and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time.
"Who would've thought that just a while ago it was a clear night?" She mumbled distractedly, whispering under her breath. "Will it be clear tomorrow?" Or will the rain once again submerge her melancholic, hazy mind in its retelling of poignant tragedies?
"Maybe...maybe not." She was betting that it would be a clear, warm day full of sunlight and warmth, and fresh breeze, and the smell of popping flowers and drooping vine-blooms.
Why?
Because Marr was not a figment of her imagination, Wei Zhiruo urged. He was here and when he was close, how could that day be a gloomy day? After all, he was her companion, her Blood-seed that talked and thought and accompanied her like…forever. How could he…desert her like that? 'Let it be a warm, sunny day A'Marr. I am begging you,' she looked up and solemnly urged.
To Yuemarr, Wei Zhiruo knew her words would have reached him even if she just thought about it inside her head. But she wanted to hear his reply, his voice. Confirm that what was almost fantastical was definitely not a piece of her imagination - or a longing that had maddened her to her roots!
Her Blood-seed, the carrier of her bloodline and inheritance, was here —inside a new body, which was undoubtedly full of human blood. Amazing, wasn't it? It was almost a bizarre miracle.
Her human-self had somehow retained a bloodline, which was strictly passed down through a pure family line with no exceptions.
Marr and her had been together since birth. Although, she only knew of his existence only after she was four and nearing her own Awakening ceremony, but after that, they had never been separated.
At first, he was a tiny seed sleeping in her soul. He didn't know how to talk, and thus, would send her broken 'flashes' and snippets of images formed in her own Inner eyes or thoughts, to tell her what he wanted, what he liked or disliked. And when he could talk, her days were full of his random chatters.
What books he liked, and which tree smells 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 dozing in forever — he used to chatter all the time!
When they walked in the capital city Finsmeave, he would always bubble and chirp inside her, absorbing all he saw, memorizing whatever he could —he was the source of curiosity that had colored much of her own world. He used her senses to build his own land of imagination, felt what she felt, and rejoiced in them. Everything they did, had been done together.
It felt so empty, when she couldn't hear him talk like that. But it was okay now - at least he was still alive.
Wei Zhiruo shrugged away most of her morose thoughts and kept rubbing her palms together to generate some heat. She even rubbed her face a few times, but found that it was of little help. Her body was getting colder.
She didn't know why, but she didn't want to go away. She thought about calling a few more times.
"If it doesn't rain tomorrow —what do you think are the chances of me getting out of this manor? But first, it would be better to see what other places in this mansion look like —what do you say? And meet some people. I don’t know why I still have some of the ability of the original owner of this body, but language shouldn’t be an issue. When I was talking with that maid I clearly understood what she was telling me, and even knew how to talk back. No language barrier means...it's just a matter of increasing more knowledge about the 'common sense' related to this world. And reading—have I become an illiterate person? I don't know. What do you think? Should I go out? Will others recognize me, or find something strange about me if I do so?"
Wei Zhiruo could hardly predict other people's responses. What if there really was someone very close to Original soul? What will she do to explain her changes to such a person?
"If I didn't have some of the remnant memories from this body, I would have completely given up on continuing staying here," she said. The language, the expressions and mannerism – these are just the basic things to assimilate with the rest of the world. And to continue to fit in while using this identity — she needed to master all of them quickly. Thankfully she still had these and enough time to digest them without arousing any suspicion. But there was no certainty that she wouldn’t be discovered by anyone.
Especially when this identity was so... sensitive and mysterious.
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 for her isolation. Her eyes.
Wei Zhiruo's brows scrunched together in a frown. 'Strange, isn't it? How come they are still so blue?'
All the people in Jinghai she saw today had brown, black eyes. But her body had blue ones —a blue which was almost Cerulean, hardly any different from her past self.
Did this symbolize anything? She had her past bloodline, and her eyes were blue too...but she was definitely a human!
Maybe the answer to all these doubts lies in the sealed memories? What was the seal for?
"Marr, at least tell me about this seal? It definitely is akin to an ‘Obliterate’ Rune I learnt. Why is that, when I think about it, my head starts hurting? Don't tell me it was used to lessen my guilt about overtaking this body –? Marr?" She prodded and prodded, till her ears were tired of hearing her own cracking voice.
When she was losing all hope —finally a thought mixed up with the huge river of her internal thoughts, slowly gained strength and became audible. She heard him, Yuemarr, growing increasingly louder.
[Can you be quiet for a minute? Let me concentrate in peace, will you?! Can't you guess that I might be busy doing something important? Why are you chattering so much for-? You can just meditate and see me for yourself here—why don't you just do that instead of asking me to talk to you? It takes so much energy to make myself heard in your endless junkyard of thoughts! Don't you have any idea about your maze of a mind?] An angry voice sounded inside her head.
'Finally, he talks.' Wei Zhiruo felt herself losing all her unsettled fear in an instant. Her body eased up, the taut lines on her forehead settled down on their own and 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 right away, if only he was right in front of her at this moment!
"Say it again?! Chattering endlessly, am I? I wouldn't have called you again and again like a senseless puppet if you replied to me even once! Otherwise how do you say, should I make it clear to myself that I am not just imagining things and talking alone to myself? Can't you just meow a meow, a little nyah would do to! Send me an image for god sake! Don’t tell me you are so busy that you cannot even spare a moment to reassure me —a person who thinks you are dead? At least let me know that I am not losing my head by imagining things. Can't you do even that?" Wei Zhiruo retorted angrily. She felt her nose burning with an astringence, as did her throat, blocked with hard to swallow feelings.
[You wouldn't have to feel this way if you had the courage to come inside and see me. You just had to meditate. Meditate, okay? I am in your body —not too far away is that?] A slightly defensive voice replied.
"Good! Now I am a coward too! I haven't even started on your behavior today. Whole day - Marr. You left me alone for such a long time – and all this while I thought you were dead! At least you could have said something to let me be reassured! Just a notice like, 'Ama, I am still weak, I cannot talk to you right now, so let's meet later' would have done. Is that hard? 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 other than that you died and left me alone? Tell me, what should I make out of this behavior?" Wei Zhiruo felt suffocated at this kind of first meeting. She didn't want to be so emotionally charged and out of control, but every word just stumbled out of her heart on its own.
But Marr didn't seem to be aware of her overwhelmed state. Or even if he was, he clearly refrained from making them apparent. As usual, he retorted, saying —[That I might 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! It's not an empty word. I am really, really busy right now! You are undergoing a late Awakening, for God's sake woman! Give us both some time to deal with this first, okay?]
Marr's words finally distracted Wei Zhiruo enough to bottle up her frustration.
"What do you mean? Second Awakening?" Wei Zhiruo sniffed and asked.
[Yes. Our second Awakening. Like the one you had in your previous life when you turned five? You will see soon– let me do my things. But also— I need you in here, meditate and see inside and sort out these red-roots of mine. Don't keep mopping up all the time! Get busy.]
Wei Zhiruo raised one of her eyebrows but didn't reply. She said —
"I still don't feel that kind of tumultuous change inside me. Yuemarr? What do you mean we are going through another Awakening?"
[It's in your inner body —! Like I said, meditate and see for yourself. I am not talking to you right now - you lose your mind once you get frustrated. 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, sighed. She knew she was in the wrong. So she brushed away the rest of her anger and finally stopped brooding and got to work.
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 muscles and bones. All its joints were as clear as was the red flowing liquid in those, fine thread like blood-vessels— her human blood running in a human body.
She had learned what a healthy, fully functional human apparatus looked like. And her current body could hardly be called a healthy one. Dark elements were plaguing the blood vessels, as did some other sort of dark spots intermittently sticking to her spine. What they were she couldn't tell. But they felt pretty 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 away from her trance, a little alarmed. Seeing that it was nothing but an owl lunging down on its prey, a wild mouse, she relaxed her stiffened nerves.
"There is no obvious modification in my biological systems — the heart, lungs and spleen, kidney and the guts, almost everything is working the best they can in my battered down condition. I am still, positively, a human. Even if it's a second Awakening, as you said, it can only be the first phase... I don't understand. Why now, Marr? Couldn't we have arranged for auxiliary herbs or other such things before plunging headfirst into this? This body cannot suffer the pain of a second Awakening right now."
[What do you think? Did I want this to happen to us? Of course not!] Marr couldn't help retorting defensively to this, sounding incensed. [You cannot blame me for something like this! No, no, no. You saw those Runes too, right –? Yes, it's because of them! I was in my half-awakened state when I just started absorbing them and kept doing that without considering my limits. I wasn't awake so don't judge me. I swallowed quite a large chunk of it in the end. And because of that I couldn't help pushing us to this... It was either the Awakening or us getting a life threatening shock from excessive absorption of energy! So I- I chose Awakening and here we are. I am not defending myself for this choice but I am having a hard time too- okay? So please, please help me sort this out, Ama! I am begging you, okay?] By the end he almost sounded like he was crying.
"You absorbed those Runes? Don't tell me you can do that? I always thought you just liked to absorb negative energy and those filthy miasma like stuff inside the Abyss — those dark elements. I don't know what to say… Marr, let's have a detailed conversation later – and you will tell me every other skill of yours that you've kept secret from me, alright? I know you think they are useless, but let's not be too sure okay?"
Wei Zhiruo knew that if he had this ability, and never discussed it, it could only mean that he thought it was useless. But now it sounds like his idea of what is useful and useless might not always align with hers... Since this was the first such case, any future loss could at least be averted by knowing his abilities in detail. She will have to have this talk.
She hastily stopped herself from sidetracking, and pierced her palms with her nails. In a few minutes her human blood had almost dyed her palm red. She was going to use her blood as a medium to write down very low level Runes.
[Actually, this is news to me too. I hardly knew I could do that before this, never felt the desire to swallow Runes...Believe me. Something seemed to have changed in my half awake state. But never mind this for now. First, help me sort out these roots– I can hardly see where I am going. I have infiltrated my roots all over your Inner body, and now it feels like a maze in here! It's just so overwhelming for me to do this all by myself. Even if it's the first phase, I am panicking with all the stuff lining up one after another! I feel like I am bursting out with energy and I cannot even halt this process!]
"I say, you deserve it! You could have given me a hint, or a sign but who told you to be a hero and decide things on your own?" 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 Rune of [Conceal]. At least this could give them some protection and privacy — even if they remained here in broad day-light, no one could find them behind this huge barrier.
[Tsk. It was too late when I woke up. By the time I understood what was happening it was too late.]
"How many Runes did you get? Did you make a copy of some of them and stored them away inside yourself? Don't tell me you did the thing you do with those books —copying a normal book is very different from trying to imbibe a magical Rune, you know that right? You wouldn't have done that to yourself...you did? Marr? You could have killed yourself by doing something like that! Rune's are made of the purest form of energy, and those inside that overlapping space —those were virgin Runes! They need to be mediated with other things like chains and links of comprehensive thought and understanding, even before one starts comprehending their essence! It's a tough task. What did you do?"
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[I don't know —I cannot remember clearly what I did there. I cannot be sure of how many!]
She knew it. How could he have suddenly been pushed to this juncture if he hadn't done something irreversible? She rubbed her forehead and asked —
"Don't be playful Marr. Be factual. How many —you give me a number so I can prepare my mind. Are you going to explode?" Her mind was already exploding with worries.
[I don't know! Would you believe it when I tell you, that I unconsciously imprinted almost all —as in I locked their essence in my body somewhere—and did that for almost all of them too? And...I think I copied and impression of the rest which I couldn't imprint? I don't know how I am even alive right now. Sigh! Agh -! We should be dead but aren't and now all those Rune's are sealed in your body somewhere that I cannot reach and that place is completely foreign to me. The drop that imprinted everything is now sealed away in a certain mysterious part of your inner body, while taking along with itself that humongous Rune collection. I don't know whether to congratulate ourselves for this sheer stroke of luck or mourne that there is nothing else we can do now…! Anyways, now I cannot call it back myself or seal it up to alleviate our present situation. That's it. Now, I have told you the truth. D-Don't beat me to death.] Marr's frustrated voice almost felt like he was too numb to even cry anymore.
Taking a deep breath, Wei Zhiruo stifled the urge to pound someone's head flat and instead asked, "There is a place inside my body where you cannot reach with your roots? Why? Does it have something to do with the seal on my memory?"
[No, 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 obliterated 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! You can guess how much pressure we were under at that moment. We could have died that very instant, stifled inside the womb, but you just happened to remember that Rune called 'Obliterate’ also has a function to act on the soul and memories. It's just that it needed much energy to carve that Rune over your soul —how else do you think you lost every trace of your previous cultivation? Anyways, you pulled it efficiently enough to lessen some of the weight to not just end up bursting like a balloon! I don't know how many memories you permanently discarded or temporarily shelved but we went dormant ever since. You can examine things later when we are done here. But the place I mentioned, where my drop is sealed — it's somewhere inside your Inner body. Maybe your previously Awakened bloodkin body didn't have this, but this new human one does — strange right, I know. I can only feel where that blood drop is right now; neither can I reach it in there, nor can I call it out. ] Marr replied exasperatedly.
"Two months old -? An embryo in the womb — and 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 just me all along? What kind of sick situation is this?" Wei Zhiruo said. "And I was almost beginning to feel like a thief for taking away someone else's life! Now I feel like an idiot for not guessing it all. I have such saturated blue eyes —humans usually don’t have such rich and deep eye colors!"
[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 imagine — one moment I am in deep sleep and the next I have managed to put ourselves in such a fix. When I woke up, I was suddenly so full of energy that if I didn't vent, we would have exploded by now! I could only think of making myself grow faster, and faster and then I just pushed us to our Awakening instead! It's all my fault — as you said, if only I didn't think I could handle all this by myself or even alerted you a bit. Maybe we could have done something else? I feel bad just thinking about it right now.] From his self blaming soft voice, Wei Zhiruo could almost imagine his drooping cat ears and tails. She instantly softened and began to reassure him.
"As you said, you weren't even awake yet. You are not alone – to be blamed as such. It was my impulsive action too, okay? Without thinking of consequences, I started chasing that thing into the Rune Formation — it could have been something worse! What if it was a dead-end, a space fault instead? I didn't think of anything but just plunged headfirst into it. Doesn't that sound suicidal in the hindsight? Maybe it will all turn out for the best? At least now, we will not be human anymore after this Awakening."
[I hope so.]
While she was talking, she slammed the freshly drawn symbol with her palms. A yellow Rune shaped in the same way as the Character she had drawn with her blood, sprang up instantly.
It was circumscribed inside a little more elaborate concentric circle, with motifs of strange men and women, twisted into a symbolic stance of worshipping a sun, etched in its outer circle in pure golden lines.
Wei Zhiruo directed the Rune overhead, then loosened her control. She chanted a release-word under her breath and then a strong invisible wall formed linked to the Rune, like a bubble shaped golden 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 for meditation. With her two still bleeding palms connected together, her eyes closed and back straight as a pine tree — all her Spiritual Consciousness was concentrated in plunging deeper and deeper into her own self.
Everything grew silent. Her surroundings, her own echoing thoughts — everything became a blank canvas for her to paint.
Wei Zhiruo looked down into her human blood circulation system using her inner eyes. The various blood vessels were all properly circulating —no lump or clogging was spotted; 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 was seen. A strangely distorted sense of loss filled her as she had grown used to seeing her different colored blood. But she didn't stop there for long, and plunged headfirst further down.
Another layer was penetrated.
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 sparingly —these were definitely those particles she absorbed tonight. Star-light.
She still felt some of them trickling through the pores of her skin, and filling through the rest of her body. They never settled, but each wash of their running self generated warmth and a fulfilling feeling in her heart.
But it was different from past life. She felt that those white dots were not only warming up her bones but were also healing her malnourished bones? Doubtfully, she stopped and lingered over them.
Starlight covered all of her bones in a thin layer of white light film, while small dots trickled down and penetrated into the pores and filtered inside the marrow. She felt its warmth, and became sure that her body was healing from...within?
Wei Zhiruo observed this process for a while, trying to guess why it was different from before. Starlight particles could also heal? Why didn’t it do that in her previous life? Was this function specifically restricted to the human body or what? She had never heard another clansman ever speak of this phenomenon —and no doubt, there were many humans in her bloodclan!
'Another bewildering stuff…'
Wei Zhiruo didn’t stop for too long. She let herself fall deeper and deeper – until she, her inner eyes more specifically, opened up to 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 but a complete self nevertheless.
This was what she had crafted herself, a small mirror of her outer body. This self was meditated, and forged with her deep understanding of her previous body, each muscle, each bone at a time. Now —it felt like a relic of the past.
Strangely enough, now this inner image of herself had the same appearance as her current self, but the clothes she was wearing —that intricately carved headwear fanning above like plumage of a firebird, covering her forehead and top of her hair, huge earrings falling down to her shoulders and the necklaces carved with clan symbols that hung all the way down to her waist, which was again wrapped in a belt of beaded symbolic accessories— all of these were the same things she had worn on the day she died. Her coronation dress.
"A Coronation dress-?"
Suddenly an echo reverberated in the silent water. A memory, perhaps. A warm embrace, and a slightly floral note of spring touched her, pulling strings of her mind as it recalled herself as she played beside a woman who weaved a flower crown. The meadow was vast and full of sunlight...
"Yes —it should have been embroidered by the very hands of your mother, but since you place so much love on your auntie, how could I have disappointed you, my love? So I made it myself— green silk for your budding warm heart like the lushness of spring, and red, from red-tailorbirds thread, symbolizing your fiery will. And finally —gold threads made of old golden dust, because it's auspicious. When you turn twenty, I will place a Sapphire and Ruby Crown of Empress on your head, and then you will kiss my hands and I will lead you to the throne, where my brother, your father, will hand the royal staff and seals. Just ten more years, right? Your cousin is more excited to be pledged as your guardian knight—"
Wei Zhiruo stopped in time before she lost all control. She looked over and deliberately retraced the familiar gown.
It was the dress reserved for her coronation. Since she feared she might die during the sacrificial ceremony, she donned the most elaborate court dress, a huge flowing gown embroidered with clan totems, to remember a past identity that everyone had crushed and stamped with their feet. It was green, bright and vibrant, full of red flowers and golden threads embroidered lovingly by her dead aunt.
But now, it appeared here as a manifestation of her Inner body, flickering and transient. Like a regalia of a distant clan that was no more. Of people that were left behind in dust...
Wei Zhiruo let her sight flow down inside 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. Major of all was the vessel that flowed with life essence, and another that flowed with the body's internal energy —both intertwined seamlessly.
However, her bloodline had now 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!
"Oh my—!"
For twenty years of her past life, she had seen it sprout from a tender seedling to a proud stalk, but for unknown reasons it had stopped growing bigger after reaching the size of a bamboo stalk.
Now, it proudly stood tall as a young parasol tree, lush and fluttering with leaves and branches. Its leaves were a color of blood-like red but were now shining with bright white starlight particles, rustling in a wave of mysterious rhythm.
She picked one fallen leaf to see it up close – the veins were so well formed she couldn’t help but gasp out aloud. It was as clear as real tree leaves! And it had captured so many star-particles too! For how many years had it been silently absorbing those starlight? She couldn't tell.
And branches — there were so many of them; heavy boughs laden with lush and luxuriant leaves swaying all around.
"You look…thriving. I've never seen you like this before! Now I have changed my mind, this-this is hardly any disaster for you, but more likely a blessing in disguise. You broke through your previous level." Wei Zhiruo couldn't help sighing with satisfaction.
A few red blood-like drops emerged in her field of vision. The flying red liquid bubbled up a little, and then took a form. It fell over her shoulder and turned into a cat with fur white as cloud and purest of ruby red in his eyes. Marr looked particularly aloof and proud, with his head only bowing down to touch his master. He snuggled and complained—
"I am just holding myself back from rushing all out, you know? Look at all those jumbled up red lines in there? It's like a weed conquering everywhere! I am running and running like a headless chicken, unaware where I should go."
"Don't worry, I will help you with that. Leave everything there to me and go do your thing. Just don't forget to call me when you are ready to push into the Second phase, alright?" Wei Zhiruo assured him, rubbing his head, and watched him fly 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 red roots.
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 of her previous life —they were essentially different organisms to begin with. But...it was still quite hard to wrap her minds around it. The difference was subtle, but over-present everywhere.
Although she hadn’t cultivated very complicated Body Art and Technique, like a full-fledged Mage, she had still been a very successful Rune maker. Her Soul Art was peerless. Once, she didn't even need to use a medium to write Runes and was able to write them with the sheer strength of her thoughts!
Whatever she had learned, she had used up to strengthen her body, and fortify its various parts. Now looking at a completely weak self, which wasn’t even strong enough as her toddler self of past life — she did feel the tumultuous result of changes, bared right in front of herself.
"Alas! It's going to take time..." To get her top-strength back was a distant dream right now.
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 after the fall of her clan. She was running away to save her life, but she hadn’t forgotten to give them a blow.
"What was it called? Something like [Pure Energy Technique] right? These intertwining vessels carrying Internal energy- they looks the same as in that chart —the meridians and apertures are almost the same. The technique said it carries Qi — another word for Internal energy. Do you have an impression?"
"Not right now. Maybe a little bit —hmm, is it that thing you stolen from your grandfather's collection? Do you want me to send you the image from that scroll? I think I know where I stored it away...wait a second."
"Oh...sure."
"Great! Found it —here you go!"
"Thanks Marr." Wei Zhiruo smiled and thanked, and saw the image floating in her mind's eye.
She looked at the yellow parchment paper full of blotches of many kinds, some of which looked like dirt. Moths had eaten most of its corner and some words too, but overall it was still legible. 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. For a moment she even thought whether she had been hoodwinked and stolen some other document!
"Let's get started —shall we?"
Wei Zhiruo first matched all Qi meridians and their apertures she saw with the parchments.
There were some twelve main meridians joined with thirty six principal meridians running from head to toe, thin as a human hair. These were those found attached to muscles and tendons, a few connected to her bone marrow and spinal cords, as well as to her head; some were connected to her other internal organs from her heart, kidneys to her lungs and spleen. 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 familiar. Oddly familiar. It's not our first time reading this technique, so why is that? Where have I seen something like this…before?" Wei Zhiruo mumbled. She felt it was odd that she could hardly recall what this technique was about. After struggling a couple of minutes, the answer flashed in her mind. "Aah...now I see. Nature Mage Eruthmys – was it? I think I read one of his treatises called
"Why do you think it's strange? The Middle World and the Cuiping world are still in the same galaxy aren't they?"
"Yes, since both the places are still inside the same galaxy, we can imagine why humans would resemble each other right? Obviously all other fringe races — like our own clan, elves, dragon-kinds, beastkin, merkins, and those avians who are sentient and know cultivation — not one of these races has something like these meridians in our system. Think about it — if you take that there was some sort of internal migration in ancient times, and all humans might have originated from a single source, it's understandable. I can wrap my head around that fact. But look — twelve meridians again. A spitting image of this technique and Rujen! Why does this body, now in a different world, have almost the same Qi circulatory system like the other two worlds?"
Wei Zhiruo said and continued —
"It makes sense that humans of the Cuiping world, or those humans in the city of Mages Oplehema in the Middle World are the same. Almost all inhabitable planets in the Sagittarius galaxy have humans. They may claim to have come from different sources, but there is no valid proof of that. Some trace their origin to fallen gods, some to even chaos — but who knows where they actually came from? I just don't understand, why does this resemblance even reach out to this completely new world? I am sure we are not inside the Sagittarius galaxy anymore; the sky is completely different from how it would be if we were to be on one of its planets. Are we near it, somewhere close by and still in the same universe?"
"I don’t think so." Marr deliberated. "I cannot feel the same kind of resonance as I did in our universe. You are not as attuned to celestial forces as I am so you wouldn’t feel it, but, when we just came here, I remember feeling suffocated and strangled as if we were fishes thrown out of water! This feeling didn’t recede until we were unconsciously sucked in inside that embryo. I think it was fortunate that it happened. The feeling I got from the surrounding was akin to us having intruded into someone else's home! No bloodkin will feel this way in his own world! We were born amongst the stars, our natural habitation is the endless space and universe! Just travelling to a different galaxy would never make us feel so…unwelcome. I bet this place is different, a different universe altogether!” Marr replied.
“Is that true? So we can never go back to the Middle world again?”
“I don’t think we can.” A slightly hesitant Marr replied.
“That's sad. I was hoping we could try travelling all over the Middle world this time and even to those faraway regions of elves and dragon-kinds. We could have revisited Abyss and spent some time there too…”
Both of them simultaneously fell silent while doing their own things.
“At least we are alive.” Marr observed, clearly trying to divert her mind. "From the turn of events in those last days, I was even fearful that we would be torn to pieces, souls shattered."
“Emm...We can travel in this world too, right? Let's just do that after we are done Awakening. Live a free, unfettered life for the rest of our lives." She said and then started counting the apertures and special nodes in the meridian, shrugging away the sense of loss brought out by this new revelation.
"There are too many of these nodes —four hundred specially marked ones that are precisely like the parchment mentions. Out of them all, three hundred and sixty five are more prominent than the rest. And now, because you have made a mess and infiltrated almost everywhere with your roots, there is no counting some hidden ones. Eh— there must be more hidden ones I think. Okay. Let's start straightening your red roots out."
Wei Zhiruo observed and then started pruning the red threads. She would tug out any excessively dominant roots, leaving just a single red thread merging into one meridian. But for the principal twelve — she left a few more rooted there.
She found a few hidden points and mapped them in the chart, calling out to Marr to send his red roots into the specified points and merge them.
"What use are these meridians, anyway? After all, we cannot rely on technique . The technique is so cryptic that it's useless to work it out." Marr still didn't understand why they needed so much time to understand this new system.
"It's not useful right now —but who knows when an opportunity comes our way? Usually, it's judicious to just grasp your own strengths and weaknesses so that you don't let a good opportunity slip away from your hands. Did I make sense to you?"
"Hmm...I can imagine that fine."
After Wei Zhiruo was done, doing whatever she could, she felt the changes in her human body and asked, "Did you examine the Sea of Consciousness? Has it changed too?"
"No, I didn't. I was too busy to think of that. Do you want to?"
"But are you in control, right now? You won't go feral on me, will you?"
"Nah- not right now." Marr embarrassedly looked around in his cat-form and said sheepishly. "Your help greatly decreased the pressure on me. I just sorted out my roots surrounding your soul, so it's good here. But I was going to ask you —do you want to see the place where the blood drop sealed away itself? I found that it's a place near your navel."
Wei Zhiruo thougt about observing the nearby Sea of Consciousness first instead, so she said, "No, let's see the changes in the Inner World first. Do you think it's still in the shape of the Central House of Knowledge? With all the books you copied in there? You spent countless nights stealing into those strictly guarded treasure houses and buildings just to store away that rich collection of scrolls and books. It will be a great loss if everything is gone —you spent so much effort to craft it out like that!"
"I can just do it all over again. To tell you the truth, I am not even that sad." Marr floated around her in his red drop form.
In a second, they were both floating over the Sea of consciousness. Wei Zhiruo with her inner eyes and Marr with his real body. What they saw there, completely shocked them, subverting all their previous notions!
"Let me rephrase it — it hasn't just changed but drastically altered. Did we use up all our luck or what?" Marr exclaimed.
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 actual part of their previous Inner world.
A tall three story building with an emerald dome shaped roof. Its walls were made of the toughest kind of black obsidian which was considered a great conductor of all kinds of magic. It still retained all those ancient, undeciphered Rune's etched over all its visible surface which Wei Zhiruo in her short span of twenty years of life never got the chance to decipher completely.
But the Runes now floating all over the sky were completely new!
“These must be some of those you just absorbed tonight. Thank goodness it just changed and enlarged the sea of consciousness. We could have been in a coma or, worse, dead.” Wei Zhiruo observed those flying Runes and felt a shiver of relief running through her spine.
"So...true."
From being a building on land, the towering obsidian palace had changed to an architecture floating over in the air. Clouds of different colors and mist surrounded it, some flowing around it like a pool of water, some falling down into the behemoth of an ocean, underneath, like a waterfall.
Marr tried to grasp the cloud. He changed to his cat form and walked over the misty ocean. "It feels real, but it isn't. It's still an illusion, or rather, soul like energy's creation—thank goodness. It would be a mess if a new world opened up in your mind!"
"It is definitely it, the soul power. Just like that building we made with it. Maybe that space does impact people in different ways — It said, "you will be born anew". My guess is that it wasn't just a phrase to dramatize its effect, but rather... it meant it literally. Rebirth? What does rebirth entail —changes and enormous changes, life shattering changes. This, isn't it pretty much that?"
"Yes it is...with this much condensed energy, we can just spend ages just deciphering some of the rules working over this place."
Then next, they both floated down the Core, near the navel.
"What is this?"A puzzled Marr asked loudly. "Are you still human? Why do you have roots growing in your body?"
Before their eyes was a small space opened up near the navel, it wasn't big enough like the Spiritual Sea, but was still spacious. But the whole thing looked astoundingly bizarre.
"They do look like roots." Wei Zhiruo dumbfoundedly echoed. "Of course I am human, there is no doubt about that. Maybe humans in this world have these things growing here —we didn't have this space within us prior to this , so how could we know what this is for? It must serve a purpose."
She reassured Marr and carefully took note of the mysterious space and roots growing inside it.
There were five colorful roots, each entangled with the other. They looked about the same size, yet, each had its own individual aura. An ice blue one emanated chill, while another black colored one was full of ominousness. A bright, shining white one emanated softness, as if it was healing its surroundings. The dark and the light roots were almost merged, coiling together. And in such a naturally balanced way that neither allowed another to become dominant! The other two were quite difficult to find out too, entangled in a mess. But one of them was pure green full of vitality, and another a red color, almost burning its surroundings with heat!
All of them were of similar length, coiling together. And interestingly, all the meridian's coiled down together as if taking these roots as their core!
"Strange...!" Marr looked around for a while and then muttered. "The blood drop is not here. It should be somewhere here, but that space hasn't opened up yet. Only these roots…are growing."
"Don't you think they kind of symbolize a specific element?" Wei Zhiruo however, intrigued in the study of newly found roots, interrupted Marr. "Look—that red is clearly burning fire, and the green is lush greenery, wood, and then the white must be light and, clearly the black one is darkness, right?"
"Ahh—Yes, and the blue one, ice. Two from Five Basic elements and three from Five Special elements?" Marr said.
"Yes I was thinking the same. It's strange and familiar."
"Anyways...I don't know what these are but we don't have enough time to search for answers right away. Ama, I feel we might go into the Second and Final phase of Awakening back to back —the force inside me is building up again. You should get ready."
Wei Zhiruo turned away from the roots and said, "Are you sure? Okay, I know. Don't worry about hurting me and extend your roots as far as you can. You can alter everything here —but don't touch this space on your own. I have a feeling that there is a hidden mystery to this place and it's very important. Try to not change anything about here, if you can."
"Heard you. I will take care of that. You are heading to the shore next? Amaranthus, be careful not to be spotted."
"I will. Don't overexert yourself, okay?"
"Umm…"
Wei Zhiruo took a last glance at the magnificent roots and then prepared to get out of her meditation.
For one, she needed to reach the shore quickly enough before Marr was completely finished with the first phase. "I will be quick —wait till I find ourselves a good hiding place."
But before heading to her destination, she stopped and thought for some while and then went back to draw a [Preserve] Rune over the opening of the space using her Spiritual Senses as medium, and then sighed and woke up.