Jia stared up at the sky as she relaxed in the waters of the Purewater Spring with Eui. The water wasn’t warm, but it provided a pleasant contrast against the frigid winter air that was close enough. The dense Purity essence of the spring soothed her right down to the soul—even though the water was cold enough to freeze a mortal to death.

“Do you think it’s weird that we can just relax comfortably like this when it’s so cold?”

Eui raised an eyebrow at Jia’s question, then shrugged.

“A little, sure. I remember when we were still pretty newly awakened, and the cold was still unpleasant. Now I barely notice it. We’ve come a long way.”

“Yeah...”

Jia’s thoughts wandered back to the reason for their voluntary confinement. They truly had come a long way. Jia and Eui had reached, then fallen from, then once again reached the absolute peak of mortality. Even if they stopped cultivating, they would live naturally for hundreds—maybe even thousands of years.

But they had no intention of stopping. Not that they planned to break through then and there, but there was no question that they would. How far would their path take them? And what would it mean for them when they crossed that boundary?

Jia had parts of the answer, but a nagging feeling in the back of her mind told her that it wasn’t yet time to complete it. So, to distract herself from such thoughts, she considered what to do about her current isolation.

“What about an avatar?”

Eui leaned her head on Jia’s shoulder and smiled sardonically.

“Oh, are we playing the non-sequitur game?”

“Come on, Eui—you know what I’m talking about.”

“Mm.”

Eui pondered the question for a moment. Jia could practically sense her thoughts now, even when they weren’t Yoshika—not just because they’d been together for so long, but because the line between them had grown increasingly hard to define.

“We’d have to be careful with it. Maybe combine it with Rika’s Hundred Mirrors technique so that it’s mindless on its own, but we can reach out and control it whenever we need to. That also gives Eunae her practice dummy—to kill two birds with one stone.”

“How is that an improvement over just manifesting an illusory body? It would have to stay within our domain anyway.”

“True. We could try doing it Yue’s way.”

Jia shuddered. Yan Yue’s astral projection technique allowed her to project her consciousness over long distances, connected to her by a narrow thread of essence. It was meant to be used in conjunction with her Melody of the Dreaming Moon to allow her to possess and puppet the bodies of the victims trapped by her song.

Back when they had first met, it was imperfect. She could only possess people within a very short range, and her astral projection left her extremely vulnerable to those who could sense the thread of qi and cut it off—causing severe backlash.

Since then, Yan Yue had refined her technique as she rebuilt her foundations from the ground up. As a unified cultivator, Yue’s control of the essence in her body, soul, and aura was much finer, and was further enhanced through applications of her domain. The result was a ‘perfected’ version of the technique that could project her soul far beyond the normal confines of her domain and possess her victims over vast distances.

Jia had experienced Yue’s technique first hand, and it would be terrifying if they weren’t now friends. And if Jia didn’t know about Yue’s critical weakness.

“No way! I still can’t believe Yue does that. Actually detaching her soul from her body? And people call us insane...”

Eui snickered.

“She leaves enough behind to keep herself alive, and her soul isn’t exposed as long as she’s possessing someone. It’s not too bad.”

“Yeah, except for the part where if anyone who can sense her catches her doing that without a body to protect her, she’s left her soul completely exposed. With that level of vulnerability, getting killed is the least of her worries.”

“And yet she immediately exposed that vulnerability to us the instant we reunited.”

Jia frowned. She loved Yue, but their best friend was far too eager to demonstrate her trust. She knew it was because Yue felt guilty about her history of betrayal, but it made her uncomfortable to have that kind of power over somebody she knew and loved.

“I kind of wish she hadn’t. Alright, let’s say we entertain that idea, how do we make sure not to expose ourselves to soul magic? There’s going to be a lot of xiantian cultivators around soon, and we can’t trust any of them.”

Eui flicked the surface of the water with her tail as she thought about it.

“Our domain isn’t big enough to cover the whole mountain, and even if it was it’d be super rude to our hosts to keep it spread out like that all the time. But maybe we can establish a sort of corridor that we can use to access the avatar in order to safely transfer our consciousness.”

“That might work. What if we get trapped while in the avatar?”

“We’re fucked, but that’s not different to being trapped while outside of the avatar when our enemies are as powerful as the likes of Yan De.”

Jia grunted in acknowledgement.

“Then I guess that last question would be whether it even accomplishes what we need it to. Sort of defeats the purpose if a tribulation ends up hitting the avatar while we’re in it.”

Eui pursed her lips.

“Good point. Though, speaking of tribulations—Heian!”

Heian’s human form manifested a few feet above the water and landed with a splash, leaving the girls sputtering. Eui wiped the water out of her eyes and scowled.

“Oh, you little brat! Come here!”

A few minutes of splash-fighting later, the girls settled down, and Heian joined their relaxing bath, nuzzled in between them contentedly.

“As I was saying. While we’re up here...do we want to try to give Heian her own body?”

Heian froze, her eyes widening.

“Mommy?”

Jia smiled and ruffled her hair.

“That’s not a bad idea, actually. What do you think? You’re part of the reason we even went down this path of avatars and artificial bodies in the first place. With everything we’ve learned...it might be possible.”

“What about the lightning?”

Eui frowned and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s definitely a concern. No spirit has ever survived the tribulation of embodiment, but we’re in one of the best places for it. We’ve got access to a lot of essence, and a place to draw formations. We’ll do everything we can to protect you.”

Heian’s face twisted into a conflicted grimace.

“I don’t know. I want to be whole, but...”

Something about her words caused a stir in the back of Jia’s mind, and Heian urgently grabbed her arm, shaking her head vigorously.

“No! Don’t think about it yet! I’m okay, Mommy. I can wait a while longer.”

Jia furrowed her brows—as usual, her spirit daughter knew more than she let on.

“If you say so. Oh! That reminds me—we were going to talk to your progenitor now that we’ve gotten better at understanding spirits. How come I keep forgetting to do that?”

Heian shook her head.

“Not yet. It’s not time.”

Eui cocked her head.

“What do you mean?”

The cat spirit glanced between her mothers and bit her lip.

“Um...I’m not part of her anymore. It’s probably important for you to talk to her eventually, but she’s not me. Don’t think about it too much—you told me not to let you.”

Jia blinked.

“I did?”

“Not with words. Please?”

Eui chuckled and hugged Heian from behind, picking her up by the waist.

“Fine, you little troublemaker—we trust you. But you’ve gotta help us figure out how to do this avatar thing without breaking anything or calling lightning down on our heads, deal?”

“Okay!”

Once they had a plan firmly in mind, it turned out to be quite easy to put it into practice. They already had all of the pieces necessary from the techniques they’d cultivated over the years and learned from their friends.

Meditating in the center of the plateau, Yoshika started by stripping Jianmo’s former avatar down to its basic framework. She still felt a little guilty about it, but it had made its decision, and she needed the divine essence.

Next was the physical body. As Ja Yun had taught them, the physical components could be almost entirely derived from their natural surroundings. The water from the spring even helped prevent impurities, thanks to its exceptional essence. They had enough wood left over from their previous attempt to fill in the rest.

Into the divine framework, they invested an image of their spirit form. This one didn’t need to disguise its nature, and it would feel good to walk around in her true form for once. She made sure to include each detail down to the finest level. Jia’s fangs and claws, Eui’s prehensile tail, heterochromic eyes in gold and red, and a glossy black horn slightly off-center to split her black and white hair.

Finally, she used the trick she’d learned from Rika to give it a shallow image of her mind. Not enough to gain consciousness on its own, but enough that it could draw from her domain to act semi-independently if she willed it.

This wouldn’t be a true avatar, like Li Meili, but it would be more than one of Rika’s illusory simulacra. A living puppet that could do little more than stand by and wait for Yoshika to control it.

Finally, she put all the pieces together, as she had with Li Meili. The essence construct transformed the crude assembly of wood and mud into flesh and blood, winding through the newly formed body to create a series of channels that mimicked meridians and settling in the core of the avatar to form a dantian.

When Yoshika opened her eyes, she saw her own face looking back at her blankly.

“So far so good. Though she needs some clothes...”

With a thought, she adorned her avatar in a set of humble practice robes from her ring that she’d kept from all the way back at the academy. It felt right.

Jia paced a circle around the new avatar, scrutinizing it for any signs of imperfection.

“It feels weird seeing ourself in person like this.”

Eui nodded in agreement, prodding the puppet’s cheek with her tail—which they both felt.

“Yeah. I mean, we’ve manifested illusions of it before, but...this is us.”

Jia knew what she meant. Somehow having their spirit form appear in flesh and blood was different. Especially when they could sense everything that it did. They’d been careful not to make the same mistake they had the first time they’d tested Rika’s new simulacrum—it would only act if they wanted it to.

Eui crossed her arms and frowned.

“Should we try...I don’t know, activating it?”

“I don’t like calling her ‘it’ like that.”

“Jia, the whole point was to not make this one a real person.”

Jia blushed and averted her eyes.

“Sorry, I guess I’m just not very good at thinking that way. You’re right, let’s try.”

With both of them in agreement, the avatar’s eyes immediately lit up, and she glanced back and forth between Jia and Eui, smiling.

“Hello me! Hello other me!”

Jia swallowed nervously.

“Hello uh...what should we call you?”

The avatar shook her head.

“Doesn’t matter. Yoshika works, I guess, but I’m working exactly the way you designed me to. We’re basically talking to ourselves right now—my part just comes subconsciously.”

Jia sighed with relief. She could sense that what the avatar was saying was true. It was also a very different experience from Li Meili. When Yoshika spoke, it felt exactly like Jia was the one saying the words. When she moved, it felt like Jia was the one doing it.

Experimentally, Jia made a few intentional movements with the avatar, and it came naturally—like an extension of her own body. With a thought, it returned to its blank-faced neutral state.

Eui whistled appreciatively.

“Well I guess we can call that part a success. Now we just need to learn Yue’s insanely dangerous astral projection technique.”

Jia slapped her forehead and groaned.

“Oh, she’s going to be so smug when we ask her to teach us that after how much crap we gave her.”