17 Cultivating the Soul

"Cross to the other side." The voice reverberated once again.

Just the pressure emitted from the words was enough to cause vibrations in Jack's soul. However, he wasn't in a hurry to obey the voice just because it was ancient. First, he wanted to verify his situation. After all, he hadn't had any good experiences with unseen voices.

"What if I don't?"

"The journey cannot begin… without a single step." Replied the voice. It was growing softer, as if the effort of speaking drained it of all energy and left it exhausted. Similarly, the life in the dragon's red eyes had dimmed a little. As such, Jack concluded that the voice belonged to the dragon itself and it wanted him to cross its massive body.

Yet, Jack didn't budge a single step and continued inspecting the massive body of the dragon. All observations seemed to prove that the dragon was completely immobile; even its breathing had stopped. Furthermore, there was no sign of a heartbeat, and a creature of such a size would definitely have a gigantic heart and, in this realm where there was absolutely nothing, its beating should have been heard from miles away.

Therefore, it was safe to conclude that the dragon was well and truly dead.

However, Jack had gotten in a habit of not taking things at face value. If the dragon wasn't alive, then there had to be another explanation for the glimmer of life shining inside its red eyes.

After some pondering, Jack remembered a book he had briefly chanced upon when categorising books in the Abyss library. One about spiritual beings. Spiritual beings were creatures of immense power who'd been forced to discard their corporeal forms in exchange for existing only in spirit. The advantages were few, and the disadvantages manifold.

For starters, a spiritual being could exist for eons without dying. They became immune to the passage of time, but they would be unable to experience growth; perpetually stuck in the state wherein they discarded their body. Additionally, they would be bound to an object for the rest of eternity. If the object was destroyed, so too would the spiritual being fade from existence, never to enter the circle of reincarnation. As such, no one ever truly chose to become a spiritual being unless absolutely necessary.

If this black dragon was, as Jack suspected, a spiritual being, then there were many questions that needed answering. Firstly, had it chosen to enter this state? If so, for what reason? If it hadn't been a voluntary state of affairs, then that could only mean that another entity had forced it to become a spiritual being. And that was a terrifying thought. Because if the dragon had been forced into this state, who had done it? For what reason? Why wouldn't they keep the dragon once they enslaved it?

And, finally, the biggest question of them all, the one question Jack had been asking himself for a long time. Who had put the Harmony of Everything in the Abyss library and to what end? Arguably, if anyone found it, they would keep it for themselves, just as he had, not leave it completely unprotected in a place frequented by the slaves of the thirteen archdemons of the Abyss.

To these questions, Jack had no answer, but he intended to find out the truth behind these matters.

That being said, that would be for the future. At that point in time, Jack still needed to decide whether he followed the dragon's indications or whether he left the ring and pursued another form of soul cultivation.

However, he quickly discarded that notion as he ultimately didn't want to give up on the Harmony of Everything. Although he had hundreds of tyrannical cultivation methods in his memories that could allow him to grow exponentially in strength, his instincts told him that he would regret stepping away from the Harmony of Everything.

And his instincts had never once failed him.

As such, he directed his spirit form to begin crossing the body of the black dragon, albeit tentatively and ready to retreat at the first sign of trouble. But that was an unnecessary precaution.

An invisible barrier stopped him from advancing further than a few feet on top of the dragon's body and, no matter how hard he tried to advance, the barrier wouldn't budge an inch.

"Inside." Mumbled the voice once more.

Inside? Thought Jack, and then, enlightenment dawned on him. The dragon was asking him to cross it, but not from the outside, but rather from the inside.

The thought made him even more sceptical, but he ultimately decided to follow through his original intentions. He was nothing if not determined. As such, he turned back and proceeded to walk passed the giant fangs that would take at least two hundred men holding hands to hug.

At first, he was careful, but Jack noticed that he could exit the ring at any moment. There was no restriction placed upon him and so any worries that he had been faced with, vanished. To gain something, you must take a risk, and he was gambling it all on the Harmony of Everything.

As soon as Jack crossed into the dragon's mouth he felt a soft warmth emanating from the very depths of the dragon's body, which extended far off into the distance like a massive cave. The source of the warmth was a series pitch black flames scattered all over the inside of the dragon's body which clung to him like glue. He directed his spiritual form forward and, with each passing moment, the warmth increased until it became completely unbearable.

Jack had barely managed to go passed the dragon's uvula when the heat was too much for even him to bear.

He smiled bitterly at himself for such a failure because he'd expected to go much further than that. What he didn't know, however, was that he had gone that far because of his already immensely powerful soul. Any other person wouldn't even have been able to go past the dragon's fangs on their first try. Not even one of the thirteen archdemons of the Abyss.

The pitch black flames on him burned at his spiritual form and caused him to feel the pain of his mind and soul burning as if they were put into lava. Jack felt as if he was being cooked alive in an oven without any possible escape.

But behind the burning, Jack discovered a miraculous feeling. His mind and soul were being constantly strengthened. In other words, the flames were refining the impurities in his soul and returning it to him before proceeding to burn another set of impurities. It was like the refinement of a divine weapon. The flames acted like a hammer and source of heat in the way that they strengthened his soul.

With a renewed sense of determination, Jack pushed himself forward another metre, then ten, only to stop after having gone fifty metres. He stopped because he couldn't go on any further even if he wished to. The black flames had all but devoured him, but the refinement his soul was going through filled him with bliss.

However, he knew he couldn't be too greedy and decided to experience the refinement at this level. After a couple of hours, his soul power had grown both in strength and purity, and so he decided to leave the ring.

Back in his body, he was surprised to find that his spiritual sense had expanded the radius that it once could cover and that he could even see things with greater detail within a short distance of himself. It was to be imagined what the benefits would be when he fully crossed the body of the black dragon.

The Harmony of Everything is truly a heaven-defying cultivation method. After one day of practicing it, my strength has already increased by leaps and bounds; and I haven't even begun practicing the method beyond its introductory passages!

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