“Master, Master… Ummah, Ummah, Ummah…” Before Azalon could react, the figure sticking to his face showered his face with lots and lots of kisses. His hand clamped around the figure forcefully pulling it free from his face.

He looked at the figure in his palm and his gaze turned somewhat funny. It was a woman with dazzling beauty and devastating figure. The bright skin of hers was smooth and supple and a faint luster was shining off it. The perfect curves on the body, those slender and long legs that came out of the hem of her silver gown will make any man go mad with the impulse to explore them deeper and deeper. The small but prominent perks both on her chest as well as the back were emitting endless temptation. And the four dragonfly wings on her back complimented that beauty by radiating a divine aura off her body.

Azalon was simply speechless, and he involuntarily gulped a couple of times. “LILY?” his voice was slightly shaking with all the blood rushing up and down his body. He closed his eyes and forcefully took some deep breaths to calm his desire, and he opened his eyes to see that she was floating in the air.

Within the dark cave, her body slowly floated up. At this moment, the silver radiance from her body and the gold luster off her wings projected a sacred look that made all the previous profane thoughts fade out like smoke. Her eyes were closed as she continued floating till she almost reached the roof of the cave. She suddenly opened her eyes and two piercing rays of light shot out of her eyes.

At the same time, he felt something change within him, and a loud announcement startled him out of his stupor.

‘[Integral A.I. System LILY Activation Complete. Host Signature Detected. Link Up with the Host Initiated. Link Up Complete. Transfer of Administrative Rights to the Host and the A.I. System. De- Activating the Auxiliary Support System. BEEP. Restart of the System Complete.]’

As soon as the announcement ended, the rays of light shooting from LILY’s eyes dimmed down and she silently came down. He extended his palm and she landed on his palm. She watched him with her tiny eyes as Azalon too examined her.

She was only around 35 – 40 cm, appearing to be exquisite and yet, like a small doll. Her wings were tucked against her body covering her body like a golden robe around her silver gown. All in all, she was beautiful and sexy while being mature and cute at the same time. If she had been human sized, her beauty will make any man go mad with desire.

“Master! I missed you, Master. It has been too long and I could not contact you all these days. Master finally found a way to the problem and I could finally see you again.” Her cute face flushed red with her excitement as she kept on talking.

“OK, OK, LILY. Calm down. I too completely don’t know what happened but I am happy to see you too, LILY. But what’s with that appearance, LILY? How come it changed into this? An announcement told me that something influenced the program. Do the system logs have any record of them?” Azalon smiled as he felt nostalgic of the times where she was his only companion when he was holed up in that dark and lonely laboratory. She always found something to cheer him up with her antics, and his smile widened when he saw the cute figure standing on his palm.

“There’s something in the logs, but there’s something obstructing the system from accessing them. The system is still analyzing the restrictions but it seems that not all of the functions of the system has been activated, Master. Ah, Master, the Energy Reserves of the System are not capable of supporting those functions and they are currently in the deactivated state.” LILY reported loyally all that she found within her system.

“Keep analyzing them, LILY. But don’t allocate any unnecessary processing capacity for their analysis. Make it the secondary priority of the System. I have a hunch that the log records are important but cannot be understood that easily. We have to research some more.”

“Brain Wave patterns are a Match. Host Johnny Rex Identified. Administer Rights Invoked. Command Confirmed, Master.” LILY suddenly responded with a monotone voice that will activate whenever he invokes his Administrator Rights to change something within her system.

“Ah, LILY. Can you access the [Memory Banks]? If so, scan my memory and transfer all the information into the [Memory Banks] and any relevant information have to be assigned a separate tags and stores separately. And also troubleshoot the entire system and make a comprehensive report of your current condition and relay it to me. By the way, change the Administrator name from Johnny Rex to Azalon Wheld. That’s my name now and i want to leave the old me behind.”

“Task Established, Master. Queue Established. Estimated time for completion: 4 Days 9 Hours 12 Minutes and 7 Seconds. Task Completion Rate: 0.003%. Changing the Administrator Profile Requires Authentication.”

“Administrator: Johnny Rex. Authentication Password: motherlilianna.” Azalon responded word by word slowly and clearly, as any wrong pronunciation will destroy the Profile and LILY will not accept his commands anymore. It was a safe guard he built as he knew how dangerous LILY could be if she was used by destructive forces.

“Authentication Confirmed. Administrator Profile Changed from Johnny Rex to Azalon Wheld.”

He finished his talk with LILY, and then he was struck with a thought. How to explain these 2 Spirits with everyone? No one will believe if he said that he Awakened these Spirits all of a sudden, right? He could manage with the cub, but he can’t definitely explain LILY. He read about the Spirit Beast Rankings and that book that talked about the Rankings listed some low level Ranks as well as the few rare and powerful Spirits.

There are all kinds of Spirits but most of them will not have any potential to travel far on the road of Cultivation. The Spirits are mainly classified into 4 categories, The Assault System Spirits, The Defense System Spirits, The Auxiliary Support Systems and the Special or Unique Spirits. Each and every Spirit has its peculiarities and specialties along with their drawbacks, and the Spirit Rankings was considered to be the well accepted criteria to measure the value of the Awakened Spirits. There were no records of the Heavenly Demon Tiger that he Awakened but there was a record on the Fairy Spirits.

Fairy Spirits are categorized into Auxiliary Spirit System, as they can influence the Spirit Energy in the surroundings to converge around them and as such provide a Spirit Energy rich atmosphere for Cultivation. The Cultivators with the Fairy Spirits are generally eyed by the powerful factions as one Cultivator with a Fairy Spirit can provide Support to almost 10 Cultivators whether in battle or Cultivation.

So, how to explain LILY? Ah, no, before that, how to explain his Awakening at all? Hmmm… Hhmmm… Hhhhmmmmmm… HHHHHMMMMM?

“I CANT GET A SINGLE IDEA. AHHHH…” Azalon screamed making both the tiger cub and the fairy jump with surprise.

He gave up after banging his head against the problem for a long time. He vaguely recalled something but no matter how much he concentrated on that thought, nothing popped up. He can’t use LILY as the memory upload is still incomplete and only after the process has finished can LILY search through them for any information.

“Ah, I give up. If nothing else works, I will just ask grandpa for any idea. He said that he knew that pretty face bastard. He will definitely guess that this was done by that prick and do something to cover for him if not me.” Azalon lightly sighed and pushed the problem aside.

His face suddenly lit up with excitement as he watched the tiger cub and the fairy sitting on the head of the cub, and the repercussion of the existence of these two hit him for the first time after a long time. This… this… doesn’t this mean that he can advance to the next Realm? He can finally cultivate Spirit Energy…

He immediately sat down cross legged in the cave and regulated his breathing. The ripples in his heart gradually calmed down before his mind became clear of any distractions. Azalon concentrated on feeling the connections between his Spirits and slowly he surfaced in that bubble. But this time, he was not frustrated on seeing this bubble but instead excited.

With a thought, two light beams emerged from his body before coalescing into two spheres, one gray and one silver, within which the avatars of the tiger cub and the fairy could be seen. Two narrow and long tunnels extended from the boundary of the bubble and connected with the [Infantile Souls] of his Spirits.

He recollected what he read about the Soul Bridges and whatever he heard from the instructors in his family. The Soul Bridge is a connection extended between the Cultivator and the Spirit Energy present in the surroundings using the Spirit as a medium for conduction of the Spirit Energy. Azalon concentrated on the two Souls floating before him and he felt that connection between them.

He imagined the connection between them to be a long and wide tunnel and the tunnel extending from him to the Spirit and extending over to the Spirit Energy around him. Slowly he could feel the connection changing and expanding. He saw the rudimentary Bridge he made with the Soul Embryos change into something strong and durable, as well as wide and long. The changing Soul Bridge extended from the Spirit Soul towards him and he too willingly accepted the Soul Bridge to be connected with his Soul.

It took him a long time to create a sturdy and durable Soul Bridges with his two Spirits. He could see a wisp of Spirit Energy entering the mouth of each of the tunnels. The Souls of the Spirits slightly trembled when the wisp of the Energy passed through them. That wisp of Energy rushed towards him before entering his body.

Moments later, the Spirit Energy formed a small but constant stream as it continuously rushed into his body. But there was a slight difference between the two Spirits. The Spirit Energy from the Silver Soul was slightly more and concentrated than the Energy from his Tiger Spirit.

“So, this is what they meant by the number one Support System Fairy Spirit, huh.” Azalon muttered as he watched the disparities between the Energies of the Tiger Spirit and LILY.

The energy was being absorbed by his body unceasingly. His organs, muscles, tendons, meridians and even nerves were changing under the nourishment of the Spirit Energy all the way to the cellular level.

His strength started surging and his body was gradually shedding its mortal core, changing, becoming into something Azalon could never have imagined possible with all his knowledge and intelligence. It was a Realm that modern humans on Earth have never explored, even though there were vague ancient records of various legendary figures transcending the mortal body and ascending into a new Realm. Even then there were limits to their advancements as the Energy on Earth was scarce, when compared to the Spirit Energy of this world…

Azalon carefully absorbed the changes in his body, as he gave the Spirit Energy free reign to roam throughout his body. He was someone that has somewhat extensive knowledge on the early Realms of the Cultivation.

The first step of the Cultivation is to strengthen the body to its limits by training, and this level is the Spirit Novice Realm. Currently Azalon stands at the very absolute peak of the Realm with 2000 pounds of strength behind his fists. The next step is the intermediate step between the Spirit Novice and the Spirit Sense Realm. This step comprises the formation of the Soul Bridge and allowing the body to absorb the Spirit Energy freely to change the physique of a mortal into an Immortal Body. Under the nourishment of the Spirit Energy, the human body will be activated on many levels and that is something that should be left to the nature to do.

Azalon could feel his strength surging with the passing of every moment. 2200 pounds… 2500 pounds… 3000 pounds… 3400 pounds… the surge in his strength stopped only after it reached 4000 pounds! 4000 pounds! Even top rate martial artists back on Earth couldn’t imagine the strength of this 12 year old boy! And this is just the first level of the First Realm of Spirit Cultivation! One could imagine what strength one could gain at the end of the path of the Cultivation.

Only after Azalon felt that his body could not absorb the Spirit Energy anymore, did he take control of the Spirit Energy in his meridians and started refining it.

He circulated the Spirit Energy through all the meridians in his body for 9 times before guiding it to be stored in his Soul Root. The Spirit Energy slowly accumulated in his Soul Root forming a small vortex with his Soul at its epicenter. He continued refining the Spirit Energy in his body, and the vortex gradually grew in size and speed.

Azalon forgot about the passage of time, he forgot about his problems, he forgot about the very meaning of his physical existence as he immersed himself in that vortex of Energy in his Soul Root that was gradually enlarging completely filling up the Space.

Starting this moment, Azalon officially took his very first step on the path of Immortality. Who knows what the journey that this single step will signify for the world? Only Time Can Tell…