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“First I will place an array of blades before you, considering your talent, many of them will resonate with you. When a resonation occurs, the blade will vibrate and move towards you,”

Grandmother Anemone informed Astrallis.

“After that, I will impart to you my greatest blade techniques, but before all of this, you will explore the secrets of your body. Only by understanding yourself, through yourself can you achieve perfect harmony,” Although she said this rather willfully, the amount of love in those words was indescribable.

“Asta’er, come sit on my lap.”

When Astrallis sat on his grandma’s lap he seemed to melt into the cosiness, ‘Why is grandma’s chest so large and soft?’ Astrallis thought inwardly. Grandma Anemone just smiled as if she knew what he was thinking.

“Place your hands on mine.”

As he placed his hands on hers, he began to feel exceptional clarity and subconsciously sank into his dantian. He started to observe his soul-replicant and noticed a whisper of soul-essence within, he moved towards it and touched it.

A soft-voice whispered into his ear, “The formation enclosing your Soul-Being is called the Shakyamuni Carnate Black-hole Array, this is a naturally forming primordial array that I found when travelling the universe, there are only two of them in existence. I was not able to use it, and after an indefinite amount of time of analysing it, I realised the only time it can synthesise with a being is at birth. It allows one to refine essence into Pure Qi but also holds great capabilities towards the Way of Buddha. Although I use Astral Qi, Buddha Qi holds many similar properties to it. Both encompass everything, and stretch on indefinitely; both are within everything and everyone. Remember you have my Astral meridians within you that is all the information I will give you. It is up to you to find yourself.”

‘Shakyamuni Carnate Black-hole Array, according to what the Astral God said, it's something created between heaven-and-earth, and now it’s in my body. All I’ve been using it for so far is to refine pure Astral Qi, but now that I have been enlightened on the Way of Buddha, I should be able to do the same.’ Astrallis began to ponder on this new found information provided by the Astral God.

‘There are two Shakyamuni Carnate Black-hole Arrays, I wonder who has the second. The way the Astral God spoke, made it seem he only ever owned one of them.’

‘I seem to have always had Buddha Qi within my Shakyamuni Carnate Black-hole Array, I just never knew how to use it. But the array seemed to have felt my desire to succeed during the ascent of the stairway, and in conjunction with the harmony I have for the Way of Buddha it provided a cultivation technique, the Shakyamuni Manifestations. But I, being unaware of the fact that I had Buddha Qi subconsciously used Astral Qi, and as a result of their similarities, I was able to use it as a replacement. Astral Qi being something that pertains to the soul allowed my mind to link with my body, my natural aptitude for the Way of Buddha made things even easier. This all allowed me to connect my three principles; the mind, verbal and body. When I connect these three, my comprehension increases and my cognitive ability increases manifold.’

As Astrallis began to ruminate over the information and his body, he began to realise there was no need to be apprehensive of the strength within his body. It was his, all he had to do was understand it.

‘Astral Qi allows one to strengthen the soul, and I’m sure the Astral God has left some soul-techniques to use for both the attack and defence of my Soul-Being; I just need to reach a high enough level to use them. I’ve used Astral Qi in a rather rudimentary fashion while sparring against my• mother, but I always felt that the damage it did, in reality, was not what it should be. Now I understand that it was never meant to be used to damage the physical but rather the spiritual, from the Soul-Convergence Realm upwards my Astral Qi will be imperative in fighting. No one in my sect was ever able to help me with Astral Qi, so they probably felt it was normal.’

With this new realisation, he got to work. The black-holes in his dantian changed from gold in colour to teal.

Essence began to form around Astrallis’ body and enter his dantian, and into his Shakyamuni Carnate Black-hole array, from there it was refined into a teal Qi.

This teal coloured Qi was Buddha Qi. The teal Qi began to enclose his body, much to his Grandmother’s delight.

Many animals around the lake began to dance happily around the duo, while the flora beneath them started to brighten in colour; many new sprouts of flowers started to grow around them.

He was inwardly surprised by the Buddha Qi around him, he felt as if he was one with the nature around him. He felt the emotions and nature of the animals, at the same time he realised how Buddha Qi could break down the very corporeal matter of an entity. As he observed the animals around him he began to notice flashing teal runes within in them, ‘Karmic Seeds’, Astrallis had no idea where that term came from, he just thought it was natural. With his Buddha Qi, he was able to control the karmic seeds within the beings and realised if he willed it he could break them. Astrallis immediately stopped his actions, afraid of damaging the creatures.

He turned towards his grandmother and was almost blinded. An uncountable amount of karmic seeds were within her, because of these seeds there was an ever-increasing corona of teal around her.

She, realising what Astrallis was doing, began to release her aura, the corona of light started growing in intensity. Eventually, the entire realm was shaking as a result, with her corona eclipsing everything. As soon as she did it, she withdrew it back into her body.

She gave a doting toothy-grin to her grandson, “I see you have noticed what practitioners of the Way of Buddha call ‘Kharmic Seeds’. They are within everything, I also saw a look of fright on your face; it seems you came to the conclusion you could break down those karmic seeds as well. The higher one's understanding of the Primordial Way the more karmic seeds will form within their bodies, by destroying their karmic seeds you will weaken them. Of course, they can regenerate these seeds after a bit of cultivation, but this is only if you do not have the intent to kill. A Buddhist is a scary being, at the same time one has nothing to fear around a Buddhist as they hold no nefarious intentions,”

“A Way of Buddha practitioner can also use the nature around them to heal themselves if the circumstances are so needed. But in the process, the nature around you will weaken. Buddhists generally tend not to do this as they are pacifists by choice. Of course, this healing is nowhere near what a Way of Life cultivator can achieve, but it is efficient enough,”

“Come little one, there is so much more you must test.” She gently placed her finger on his head, and he went back to pondering in his dantian.

Within his dantian, Astrallis floated there ruminating over himself for days on end, his grandmother’s touch keeping him in a permanent sense of enlightenment.

After a week of sitting on his grandmother's lap, Astrallis came to a sudden realisation, ‘I have both Astral Qi and Buddha Qi, incorporeal and corporeal. The Astral God also said the Shakyamuni Carnate Black-hole Array is beyond anything I could imagine, so mixing the corporeal with the incorporeal may even work…’

He immediately put his hypothesis into action; a gold and teal Qi began to form around his body. His Grandmother gave an approving nod seeing this.

One by one he refined both Astral Qi and Buddha Qi from the array, he moved the set of Qi towards the centre of the display. He gently combined the two Qis and from within an emerald colour began to radiate, an overwhelming majestic aura began to spread from within. But, just as fast as it came, it receded.

‘Failure.’

‘There needs to be a nucleus for this amalgamation to occur, and an auxiliary to keep the power. There are eleven black-holes which formed from my Five Viscera and Six Bowels; an odd number. I’ll move one of those black-holes towards the centre of the array to be the focal point for these two Qis. I’ll set the first black-hole to only refine Astral Qi and second black-hole to only refine Buddha Qi, and so on and so forth.’

Once Astrallis had set up the array to his required specifications he began to absorb essence through the black-holes into his Soul-Being and from out the specified black-holes, Astral Qi and Buddhi Qi came. The two Qis moved towards the centre of the array and were absorbed by the central black-hole; an amalgamation of Qi that would define Astrallis’ future began.

Observing from outside, Grandmother Anemone began to notice a subtle change in the two Qis he was emanating. The colours of the Qi; one gold and one teal began to gently meld into each other. A slight emerald sheen began to appear.

A fantastical aura above all else began to appear around Astrallis, much to the delight of his Grandmother. With the appearance of the ever growing emerald aura, the atmosphere of a ruler began to emanate from him but at the same time a character of benevolence as well. One would feel the fear of standing before the ambience of an absolute monarch but at the same time feel everything will be alright due to his benevolence.

At this point, there was only one colour enclosing Astrallis; a brilliant emerald colour. Soaring in a flame-like manner towards the heavens; he subconsciously stood up, flaming emerald wings began to appear on his back with a wingspan of four metres.

With a flap of his wings, he flew into the sky leaving an emerald path of flame-like Qi. His wings made out of Qi seemed to manifest into reality, unquestionably corporeal in nature.

Eventually, Grandmother Anemone couldn’t control herself, and hysterical laughter began to resound throughout the mysterious realm, it was so intense it broke through the mysterious domain right through to the summit of Mt. Evanescence. All the people on the plains and in the pavillions felt a shiver run down their spines when they heard the maniacal laughter resonate from the summit of the mountain; at the same time, a faint incorporeal pair of emerald wings manifested over the enormous mountain. Illusions of stars and nebulas began to form in the sky, at the sight of these divine manifestations the laughter reached an all new height.

A cosmic grey tree with red leaves formed under the large emerald wings, gently supporting them. It was as if the tree was saying to the wings, “I will forever support you in anything you do.”

With that, the two manifestations receded back into the summit of Mt. Evanescence.

‘My dear sweetheart, that spectral image of your wings in the sky was a sign of something being categorised by the heavens. Everytime something new comes into existence, never before seen, the heavens catalogue it. You have done something at the age of five, that I only managed to do after hundreds of millions of years. And the excitement I feel now is incomparable to when I achieved it.’ Grandmother Anemone internally mocked herself.

Astrallis landed on the ground, the two emerald wings receded back into his body forming two large emerald tattoos on his back. The symbols were emerald in colour with gorgeous feathers covering them.

“Put on some clothes, silly. Looks like I need to give you some new clothes that can handle your new Qi. What will you call it?” She asked Astrallis as she pulled the future monarch in for a cuddle

“Dharma Qi. It was an amalgamation of Astral Qi and Buddha Qi. They both share similarities in that they encompass everything, they go on indefinitely, and they are within everything and everyone. What one missed the other one had. The one could damage the corporeal but not the incorporeal while the other was the opposite; through the right methods they gladly accepted each other and formed Dharma Qi,” Astrallis informed his Grandma.

“Clever, I like it. The Buddhists have always believed that there was a similar quality held within everything. They called it Dharma. What a fitting name, Dharma Qi. Attacks both the spiritual and the physical,” Grandmother Anemone nodded her in appreciation.

“I will now be able to advance my cultivation through the Shakyamuni Manifestations, it is first and foremost a cultivation technique. One designed to fit Buddha Qi but unintentionally did so for Astral Qi too, Dharma Qi can use it as a result of this,” Astrallis told his grandmother.

“Good, I don’t need to search for a suitable cultivation technique for you. Now, the Sanguinary Felicity Body-Art is the last thing left for you to practice, but this will come when I feel your body has reached an adequate level.” His Grandmother said as she placed her head on his and started admiring their hair together, with this the two narcissists took a much-needed break.

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