Forming a [Dao Partnership] was different than what I had experienced when I had bonded with Storm and Toi. There were similarities. Blood was involved, and Dharmic essence was filtered through a lens of ritual and power. There were also differences. The need for sexual release and a Cultivator’s Oath was the most significant.

I would have preferred to form this partnership in private, but Clement and Alpha both vetoed that idea. There had to be witnesses to the joining. Witnesses who would swear their own Cultivator’s Oath that the [Dao Partnership] was true.

Cien and I were both females, which would have already forestalled the ability for coitus, but we were different species too. We didn’t have the biological organs to interact in any meaningful way.

That meant we would have to satisfy ourselves or make use of another biological imperative to comingle our sexual energies.

Many versions of Alchemy pills allowed for potency and organism, proving that Alchemists spent more time on this issue than on any other remedy. Proof that even Cultivators, individuals with complete control over their bodies, occasionally needed a boost.

Cultivators past the Immortal Realm had grown past the desires of the flesh. So, when those occasions occurred where they needed to replace their progeny because of some misfortune, this world’s version of Viagra was needed.

Thankfully, public masturbation wasn’t needed to generate energy for forming a [Dao Partnership]. Although the process we decided on wasn’t much better. The Hindel didn’t have sex, not like Elves. They were more akin to fish in this matter.

The female expresses eggs, and the male releases sperm to fertilize them. The Zygotes were immediately placed inside the Pod’s containment field where the children were raised, left to flourish and grow in an area set aside for their development.

Cien would release an egg during the ceremony, and I would control my body’s reproduction system to add my own egg to the mix. An egg infused using my Qi energy. At the Nascent Soul Realm, I had complete control over the entire scope of my biological processes, including menstruation.

I would control my body to engage in a highly sped-up menstrual cycle, sacrificing one of my eggs for the ritual. The two eggs would merge and be sacrificed to give birth to our [Dao Partnership].

It might not be very comfortable to get your period while a few people are watching, but it beats the alternative. I did wonder if the containment field the Hindel used to protect, nourish, and allow their fetuses to develop would work for Elves.

I made a mental note to research the possibilities after this.

I had no plan on having children at the moment, but if that ever changed, knowing that I could use the Hindel containment abilities to bring the child to term would certainly be something I’d consider. As a Voice, Queen, and Cultivator, the danger to any child I might become pregnant with was not worth thinking about.

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If the Hindel could protect them, that risk was all but eliminated.

Cien and I had sat in the middle of an array that would collect the diverse energies we were releasing. Once blood, spirit, sexual energy, and the harmonics of our Oath were collected, the array would transform the gathered Qi into pools of affinity-attuned energy for us to Cultivate.

During cultivation, we would complete the final step to create the [Dao Partnership]. We would augment our aura with the [Dao] that we were practicing, giving each of us a chance to glean whatever similarities might exist between the two [Dao] and assimilate those similarities to enhance our own [Dao] while constructing a bridge that linked us together.

A bridge that was the basis for our partnership, one that would allow us the chance to examine the other’s [Dao] time and time again to perfect and enhance our understanding.

I thought that Cien and I might better grasp our [Dao] than any other [Dao Companions] the Elves might have encountered. But even if I was wrong, the Gestalt mind was going to allow me to face future tribulations with little to no risk. The gains should be staggering if we meditated on our [Dao] during those tribulations.

I would keep that thought to myself. And if it worked out that my surmise was correct, I would make sure to keep that secret even from Cien. I did not want to see the Empire or another polity with fewer morals than the Empire try to force the Hindel into partnerships to take advantage of that benefit.

I could envision Cult members and Demon Cultivators forcing a [Dao Partnership] on a Hindel. They would keep them chained and enslaved, only allowing them a glimpse of freedom during a tribulation. If they could murder babies and children, slavery of another race that could benefit them in their desperate search for Immortality was a certainty.

The experience itself was surreal. In the same manner, as the bonds I had formed before, it was like reaching out and clasping hands. A connection formed, but there was a clear delineation across that connection. A difference between them and me.

With the [Dao Partnership], the connection was more, deeper. Every aspect of who and what I was, crossed that divide between me and them to become us. Our body, soul, and mind forging, the isolation and loneliness of being an individual subsumed in the creation of an aggregate.

One became two, two became three, and three achieved unity through the [Dao]. As we merged, we achieved enlightenment and recognized that two are part of that one. We were one, but we were also two and individual. And this insight, this convergence of fates powered by the [Dao], allowed for the companion bond to be forged.

This truism strengthened the base of the pillar my [Dao of Movement], and the island that pillar had been formed around. Everything was in motion and would remain that way until the Universe’s heat death and the long winter of darkness is all that remains.

I underwent an epiphany as I realized that even in that event, even with the Universe expanding and black holes finally collapsing until all energy was evenly distributed across the vastness of the void, the [Dao of Movement] would exist.

The [Dao], if nothing else within the Universe, was eternal. And by embracing the [Dao] and understanding the fundamental truths that each aspect of [Dao] offered, a Cultivator could grasp immortality.

The advancement into the unknown realms was more than an increase in Cultivation Realm; it was acceptance and attunement to [Dao] itself. A Cultivator would reach such a profound understanding of their [Dao] that they would make it a part of themselves.

Reaching immortality. Reaching a higher level of existence. A place beyond the limits of the physical world. That state beyond was a place of concepts, soul, and mind. To embrace the next stage after Immortal Venerable was to leave the body behind.

To ascend and look past the trivial concerns of the heat death of the Universe to step into the true path of Immortality.