Something felt different, but Yoshika couldn’t quite place her finger on it. The experiment with the Melody of the Dreaming Moon had been mostly successful, but the end of the dream had left her very confused. She remembered the conversation she’d had with Rika, but it felt bizarre. When her spirit halves had pounced on her, she had split into two different selves—representations of her cores? She could remember being the inner demon that she had once confronted, and she could remember being the tennin that—in hindsight—had probably been the form she’d taken to confront that demon in the first place.

But the memories were strange, like her mind had been her own, but not her own at the same time. She had no words to describe the feeling, and the closest approximation was the way that she felt under the influence of Eunae’s powers. Perhaps it was what being intoxicated on drugs or alcohol would be like,but she’d never had that experience herself.

After the dream, she felt different. She was herself again, of course, but something had changed—her spirit halves had left something behind after their surprise possession. The most obvious change was Rika. Sitting across from her, Yoshika no longer saw her best friend—tall, tan-skinned, and muscular—she saw another sister. Like Jung or Narae, Rika was part of her family now on a fundamental level that Yoshika hardly understood. She knew that—subconsciously or otherwise—she would never hurt Rika. It would be safe to practice joint meditation with her.

The other changes were more subtle, harder to grasp. Yoshika expected that she’d be picking apart the revelations left behind by her inner spirits for quite some time to come. The only thing she knew for certain was that the Steps of the Stalker technique was not yet finished—there was something more to it that she was missing. The sound of Rika’s voice brought Yoshika back to the present.

“I have no idea.”

Yoshika looked up at Rika with a start.

“Pardon?”

“You asked what just happened? I don’t know either, and I was kinda hoping that you could tell me.”

“Oh! Well, as we said, exploring one’s soulscape is a strange experience—like a lucid dream.”

Rika nodded in agreement.

“It really was kind of dreamlike—you said that I have one of those too?”

Yoshika shrugged her shoulders.

“You should—though it might lack definition if you haven’t been making a concerted effort to build it. When you cultivate, does most of the mana you draw in get lost?”

Rika frowned.

“Now that you mention it...”

“That’s your domain building up your soulscape. Next time you cultivate, try focusing your domain inward and concentrating on your inner world.”

Rika smiled stiffly at Yoshika.

“Ah, there it is. You do realize that nobody has any clue what you’re talking about when you give advice like that, right?”

Yoshika crossed her arms and pouted.

“Yue always understood!”

Rika stood up and brushed herself off, chuckling ruefully.

“Yan Yue is almost as much of a cultivation freak as you two. Ah well, I’m used to it by now. I’ll figure it out eventually, so I appreciate the pointer. Speaking of your incredible teaching prowess, I wonder how Yun and the kid are doing.”

“Good question.”

Yoshika stood and dropped the privacy spell, then had to hold her nose at the sudden assault on her senses. Ja Yun and Narae were right where they had been left, their brows furrowed in intense concentration as they meditated. However, dark black beads of sweat were continuously forming on their skin, filling the wagon with the unmistakable stench of corrupted essence. Jung was fussing over them with a washcloth and a bucket of disgusting black water—desperately trying to wash the sludge off of them. Jung gasped as Yoshika and Rika came into view, then gagged once before composing herself and fixing them with a desperate, pleading look.

“Oh thank the ancestors! I was so worried when I couldn’t wake you—what’s happening?!”

Yoshika responded in Jia’s voice, trying her best to keep her own confusion out of her voice as she tried to calm her older sister.

“It’s fine, this is part of the awakening process. You did well not to disturb them.”

What went unsaid was the fact that it was not normal for them to be slowly sweating the corruption out while they meditated. Narae’s spiritual awakening should have allowed her to simply expel the corruption blocking her meridians out through her breath, and even Ja Yun’s physical awakening should have expelled the corruption through her pores—among other less pleasant places—much more rapidly. Whatever was happening to the two of them now was unprecedented, but Yoshika wasn’t about to tell Jung that. Still, she needed more information, so as she took over the washing with Eui’s body, Jia’s sat with Jung to get to the bottom of things.

“How long were we meditating, and when did this start?”

Jung’s panic subsided a bit under Jia’s soothing voice and calm demeanor, and she nodded quickly as she tried to explain.

“It’s been—oh, I don’t know—most of the day? It was getting late and I thought you’d all be hungry when you finished so I went to get some food from the camp. By the time I got back, there was this awful smell and they were—”

Jung gestured vaguely at Ja Yun and Narae. Yoshika nodded slowly, keeping a hand on her sister’s back to calm her.

“Did you try to wake them at all? Or disturb them in any way other than cleaning them up?”

Jung shook her head.

“N-no—I remember that you told me that it’s unwise to interrupt cultivators during meditation. That it can be dangerous, so I left them alone—and you as well. I thought about trying to find someone else to help, but I don’t know anybody and Lady Hayakawa is so intimidating...”

Yoshika grimaced—she had thought that Jung would be fine surrounded by friends, but she hadn’t considered that if everyone was meditating, her sister would be effectively left alone.

“Sorry about that—that was careless of us. We shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Jung shook her head.

“It’s fine, Jia—or, Yoshika? I can take care of myself, but please tell me what’s happening to my daughter.”

Yoshika frowned internally, carefully keeping her actual expression neutral. She didn’t know what was happening. Though it was a bit frivolous, she tapped into the strength of her domain to accelerate her thoughts with Absolute Awareness. With a bit more subjective time to think about it, Yoshika swept her domain across Ja Yun and Narae, taking in every last detail about the essence surrounding them.

Her first concern was that they had somehow managed to instigate a joint awakening such as the one that she had experienced. While things had worked out quite well for her, dual cultivation wasn’t something she was about to start recommending to people—especially not a child like Narae. Besides, sharing memories could be a rather traumatic experience for the unprepared. Luckily, Yoshika could see that their auras were clearly separate and distinct. It was unlikely to be a coincidence that they had both awakened in the same way at the same time, but at least it wasn’t a result of joint meditation.

The second thing Yoshika noticed was the incredible rate at which they were drawing in essence. It was no wonder the awakening was proceeding so slowly—the pair of them were each drawing in essence at three times the rate of a normal initiate cultivator, and there wasn’t enough mana in the air to accommodate both of them.

Lastly, both of their auras seemed to be undergoing an unusual fluctuation. In Narae it wasn’t as dramatic, but clearly different from the typical awakening of a mage’s mana sense, but in Ja Yun, the changes were extreme. Ja Yun had the aura of a third stage mage—and quite close to the peak of houtian, no less. It was an extension of her mind, bright and powerful, and fully under her control. Even Yoshika’s domain was unable to violate the sanctity of such an aura—only suppress it. However, the changes it was undergoing now would make it more than just an extension of her mind—connected directly to her body and soul on a more fundamental level. Not a domain yet, but a transitionary step between a mage’s aura and a true domain.

Were they awakening all their disciplines at once? Ja Yun was already a mage, though. Whatever was happening, the solution was simple enough. Yoshika returned her thoughts back to normal speed, and by the time she responded to Jung’s question, barely a heartbeat had elapsed.

“They’re fine. Normally awakening happens more quickly than this, but there’s just not enough mana. We’ll fix it. Rika, can you take over here?”

Rika nodded as Yoshika handed the washcloth over to her. Without hesitation, Yoshika summoned drawing materials from her dimensional ring, and began to paint a formation around the inside of the wagon. She was silently grateful for all the practice she’d had with formations over the past week. Yoshika had learned more in that research blitz with Dae than she had in the last two years of self-study combined. Rika eyed her with a frown as she painted arcane sigils on every surface of the carriage.

“That doesn’t look like a normal mana gathering formation. What are you doing?”

Yoshika shook Eui’s head.

“It’s not. It’s far too late for a mana gathering formation. This isn’t a standard formation, we’re kind of making it up as we go.”

Jung’s eyes widened in alarm.

“What? You mean you don’t even know if it will work? I’m not sure I like the sound of that...is it safe?”

Yoshika gave her big sister a reassuring smile on Jia’s face.

“It’s fine! Nothing in this formation is dangerous or has the potential to be. If it fails, it will just mean nothing happens. But if it works it will keep any essence from leaking out and maintain a balance of elements inside.”

Rika raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Uh, isn’t that sort of the opposite of what we want?”

“It’s fine, you’ll see.”

Once the last glyph was in place, Yoshika jump started the formation with her own essence and an invisible bubble of mana containment snapped into existence around the wagon. Both her faces lit up with excitement.

“Perfect! It works—now all I need is...”

Yoshika’s voice trailed off as she mentally searched her dimensional ring for what she needed. After a few moments, she held out a hand and dumped a small pile of glowing round stones onto the floor—mana cores. Rika’s eyes almost bulged out of her skull as she gawked at the pile of high quality cores.

“What the hell?! Kami, where did you get so many?! This is a small fortune!”

Yoshika chuckled wryly.

“Two years fighting beasts in the wilderness, remember?”

She carefully did not mention the fact that she’d searched specifically for the minimum number of high quality cores that would combine into a neutral balance of mana. She still had hundreds more stashed away. Jung gasped at the sight of the cores—she’d never seen them before.

“They’re so beautiful! And—a small fortune even for cultivators like yourselves? What are you going to do with—eep!”

Jung yelped as one of the cores loudly cracked. With an exertion of will—and Eui’s version of Earthen Domain—Yoshika pressed down on the cores until they each began to shatter and dissipate one by one. It was the most basic and common use for mana cores—though not something that Yoshika had ever practiced herself—breaking them down and simply absorbing as much of their essence as possible. Of course, thanks to the formation and the careful balance of cores, this was a much more carefully controlled way of doing it. Within moments, the area within the formation had a mana density that would put even the academy’s Forbidden Peak to shame.

The effect was almost instantaneous, as Ja Yun and Narae greedily absorbed the energy released by the cores. Narae was the first to wake up, crying out in pain as her pores were overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of gunk they had to expel.

“Aaah! Ow, ow, ow! Ugh, gross! What’s that smell? Wait—urk!”

Narae retched and vomited a stream of vile black goop into the bucket that Rika had been using to soak the washcloth. Jung was on her in a moment, rubbing her back and making comforting sounds—completely ignoring the coating of gunk covering her daughter.

While that was happening, Yoshika checked on Ja Yun, but whatever metamorphosis her aura was undergoing needed more time yet. She turned back to her sisters, beaming happily.

“Congratulations, Narae, you’ve just made history. You’re the first person ever to directly awaken as a unified cultivator!”

Narae looked up from her bucket and coughed miserably, black sludge dribbling down her chin. Yoshika grimaced and looked away.

“Uh, but first let’s get you cleaned up...”