•••

Astrallis swung the sword from over his shoulder in an arc towards the head of the oncoming wild-boar.

As the blade and the wild-boar made contact, Astrallis felt his body give way, losing his footing, he flew back rebounding off the ground. He gingerly stood up covered in dust, wiping the blood from his mouth he looked towards the boar, and to his dismay, he found that, apart from a slight cut where the nodachi made contact, the boar was perfectly fine.

‘I am so weak. Even with my abysmal body strength, my skill with the blade is sub-par. If I had formed blade-intent already, I would be able to significantly damage the hide of this wild-boar, without the need to use Qi.’ Astrallis thought.

If anyone else heard this, they wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Astrallis still managed to damage an early stage Soul-Convergence Realm Demonic Beast, which generally can fight a realm above itself, with only his current body. Astrallis’ physical body’s strength is incomparable to the power which he can display when using his peak Foundational Realm cultivation base, but for an uncultivated body, it was a result which grandmother Anemone was quite pleased with.

Without his Qi, he is left with his Astral Body. The Astral God forged a crystalline skeleton for him during his creation, this skeleton is reinforced beyond comparison. The crystalline frame allows for a more natural flow of Qi throughout the body. Therefore Astrallis is able to enclose his body with Qi at unparalleled speed. His Astral Meridians work in conjunction with his crystalline skeletal form, further improving the rate of the Qi flow.

Astrallis suddenly had an insane conjecture, ’When I understand my Dharma Qi more, maybe I’ll be able to change my Astral Body into a Dharma body. Astral Qi shares similarities to Buddha Qi, so there may be a chance’, he looked towards the Demonic Beast, ‘I’ll leave these thoughts aside, for now, I need to deal with this.’

Astrallis repetitively charged towards the wild-boar, each time he was thrown back. ‘This can’t go on, I need to aim for its tendons in its legs’.

He stood there, sword drawn at the ready, waiting for the Demonic Beast to charge him. Completely unaware of the change in Astrallis. The beast charged towards him, as the creature came within striking distance of him, Astrallis dodged to the side while at the same time hitting across the tendons of the beasts’ right leg.

This time a result quite to Astrallis’ liking occurred, the beast fell onto its right side and slid across the ground. It stood up but it was noticeably weaker on the front right side of its body, a cut ran across the tendons on its right leg, a seemingly intermittent tremble of the leg informing Astrallis that his gamble proved correct.

Astrallis charged at the beast again, performing the same move but on the opposite leg this time. The Demonic wild-boar with its low intelligence just never thought to change its attacking style, always engaging in the exact same manner. Eventually, all the tendons of the front two legs were utterly cut through, reducing the animal to a state of immobility.

Astrallis bare-chested and bloodied from the fight walked up slowly towards the Demonic Beast, raising his blade towards its neck, “You are the first creature that I will kill, but you definitely won’t be the last.”

With that monologue, the now red-eyed Astrallis repeatedly struck down upon the beast's neck, he gradually cut his way through its throat while it struggled on the spot. Blood and flesh continuously landed on Astrallis, but that only made him cut even more violently.

Eventually, Astrallis started laughing in self-mockery, “I can’t even kill a Demonic Beast without my Qi, even with a pinnacle weapon of the universe. How pathetic.”

His emotionally pained voice rang throughout the clearing of the Sanguinary Felicity Tree, Grandmother Anemone and Bataar just looked on.

The wailing of the demonic beast was finally cut short.

Astrallis placed the sword back into the ivory sheath on his back, he made his way towards his Grandmother Anemone. Once he reached his grandmother, he knelt down on the floor and bowed towards her, “I’m sorry for failing you, grandmother and not living up to your expectations.”

His tears of self-reproach never stopped falling upon the floor, his voice and tears were only met with cold silence.

“Only polished jade can be admired from all sides and put on display.

Your three principles are in union, but the union is misaligned,

the answer is ahead of you.”

Astrallis looked up towards his speaking grandmother, but all he saw was a towering grey tree.

“Astrallis Ether, grandson of Anemone Felicity. Do you wish to embark on a voyage of felicity, experience the euphoria of ichor?” A disembodied voice rang throughout his mind, lighting a fire in his soul.

He subconsciously raised his hand and touched the red-sabre tattoo on the tree. Space began to spin around him, and before Astrallis could stop himself, he walked through the carmine void before him.

His body disappeared from the Astral Realm.

•••

“Oh, come off it, you sea-plant. You were almost keeling over in laughter while your poor grandson was pouring his heart out to you.” Bataar stared daggers at Anemone.

“How could I not be happy? He managed to kill a Soul-Convergence Realm Demonic Beast, without even cultivating a body-technique, he did that through his mortal body alone!” Delighted laughter soon followed Grandmother Anemone’s impassioned speech.

But her face soon became more soft and solemn, “I really didn’t know that he wanted to impress me so much, how does he not realise how proud I am of him?”, her voice trailed off softly.

“I only spoke in such a manner so that he would never become complacent, the sooner he realises that there is always more room for improvement, the faster he will ascend to immortality.”

“I understand, I just can’t stand seeing little Astrallis be like that,” Bataar replied.

“It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life.” A soft feminine sigh spread throughout the area.

“Anyway, Bataar do you want to go watch something fun? I’ll also be able to go see some old friends as well.”

•••

Astrallis soon found himself transferring through a space tunnel, all shades of red enclosed the warping tube. He walked on for an indefinite amount of time, and during this period Astrallis gathered his thoughts.

‘The incident with the boar was my first taste of failure, or at least not completing something with relative ease.’

Astrallis pondered, the more he thought about it, the broader his horizons became, “I see, although I must be confident that doesn’t mean I should always expect to come out on top. Although a goal of pursuing the peak of my power is sufficient, I mustn't only have my sights on the end goal and forget the path between; arrogance is not the Way of the Buddha. A carefree, but strong, attitude will suit my will much better.”

‘The Astral God was one who would roam the universe, and through that carefree attitude, He made great gains upon his Way of Astral; and from what I learned from Bataar, Shakyamuni was enlightened by the Astral God and created the Way of Buddha.’

‘I have used both their teachings and forged Dharma Qi, a perfect fusion of the two forms. Corporeal and incorporeal. But an innate part of my nature was also added to it.’

‘A nature that was most likely installed into me by the Astral God at birth. Grandmother has told me that I have the aura of a future monarch upon me.’

‘This monarchical aura allowed me to create Dharma Qi.’

With this new-found enlightenment, Astrallis felt a current weight lift off his shoulders, an easy going smile spread across his face. He subconsciously began to revolve his now unsealed cultivation base, the Qi within his dantian began to enclose itself around his Soul-Being. His dantian stopped absorbing world-energy and started consuming soul-energy, this is the mark of a cultivator advancing from the Foundational Realm into the Soul-Gathering Realm. A cultivator in this realm will absorb soul-energy and coalesce it into a Soul-Being, thus allowing them to break into the Soul-Convergence Realm.

But, Astrallis already formed a Soul-Being when he stepped into the Qi-Gathering Realm, so the soul-energy he absorbed went straight into empowering his soul-replicant.

The Soul-Gathering Realm and the Soul-Convergence Realm are known as the Two Soul-Realms.

An indiscernible aura emanated from Astrallis, one could only gather that he was in the Two-Soul Realms, but not the exact stage itself.

The aura gently withdrew back into his body.

At this time, an opening in the spacial tunnel formed, Astrallis followed the path and alighted from the spacial shaft.

•••