Everything Is Strange

As far as he was aware of cultivation from the novels he'd read before, Asura concluded that the way of cultivation was to absorb Spirit Energy from the surroundings and filter out the one you choose to cultivate with, or convert other types of energy to that one if possible. The process would usually go so that one fills their body with energy to the brim and then compresses all that energy to a single point, raising their cultivation threshold. The gathering process was split into ten different levels and the process of compressing all that energy was called breaking through the next realm, and then repeating everything again.

What troubled Asura the most was that these cores automatically compressed energy he absorbed in a way that it gave him headache. He had been gathering energy for a minute and then slowly led that energy to the core in his heart, but when it came in contact with it, all the energy he had gathered compressed in a ratio 1000:1 and became another bright star in the endless space.

This meant that he had to gather a thousand Spirit Energy particles in order to form one multicolored particle. Although the quality and intensity of energy in that one multicolored particle was extremely high, this practically meant that his cultivation speed would be a thousand times slower than others', and not to mention that all three cores in his body had the same compression ratio.

If all of them had to be simultaneously cultivated, then that meant his cultivation speed would be three thousand times slower than others. While this meant that he would also be three thousand times stronger than someone on the same level as him, and very likely that he could challenge people about ten levels above himself, it still gave him headache and anxiety.

Asura: 'I wonder whether there are some secrets in this world that can help us raise our cultivation faster, otherwise we'll take an eternity to reach the same level as others...'

Another troubling thing is that Xia's situation was the same. He tried feeding a thousand energy particles to the white core in her heart and truly, it only turned into a single particle that appeared in an endless space of its own, merging with a pure white phoenix made of flames.

What Asura didn't know was that usually nobody except the owner themselves could see other's Soul Spirits, but because of his strange ability, he was able to see Xia's three Soul Spirits. His own were three dragons, while Xia's three each had a form of a Phoenix. Three Phoenixes - purple, white and black. The black phoenix's terrific aura was limited inside its own space, which made Xia seem like a harmless beautiful little girl on the outside, while in reality she had three monstrous Soul Spirits.

Asura once again felt the state of his own body and decided to test the last Soul Spirit - the one inside a black crystal core inside his belly. When his soul entered the space inside, he was stunned. This dragon had a pitch-black body, resembling a dragon-shaped black hole that devoured everything around it, regardless of what it was. It even wanted to devour Asura's Soul but when it felt the connection between its master and itself, it gave up the idea to devour him.

Asura: 'Holy shit! My own Soul Spirit wants to eat me... What a terrifying thing! It's like that black phoenix in Xia's dantian...'

Initially, he couldn't feel the presence or the shape of this Soul Spirit even with his newfound ability but he assumed it was also a dragon. That made him rather curious about it but now he knew the reason why. Whatever came in contact with it would get devoured and disappear, so it wasn't strange that the green dragon's ability didn't have any feedback - after all, it relied on Spirit Energy to feed the information back. If that Spirit Energy was devoured by something, of course it wouldn't feed anything back apart from emptiness.

But that emptiness in itself is a certain type of feedback - it means there's a danger hidden in that abnormality!

When this dragon merged with Asura, all the energy around himself started being restless and rapidly surged inside his body. He groaned and his skin cracked open, leaving visible cracks full of blood as Asura's body overflowed with Spirit Energy. All the Spirit Energy in their surroundings madly rushed here and rapidly got devoured as pitch black scale-shaped pattern started spreading across Asura's entire body. He felt a massive surge of Spirit Energy split into three inside his body and rush towards his three cores like water out of broken dam. Before he could do anything, Asura's body was brimming with Spirit Energy and it took several seconds for all that energy to be compressed and absorbed inside the three cores. When he got slightly used to this feeling, Asura quickly recalled his third Soul Spirit and started panting as cold sweat started coming out of the pores on his body.

He looked at his hand that just lost its scale-shaped black pattern and right now, there were only small wounds but in an endless number everywhere on his body. Once again, he used the ability of the green dragon Soul Spirit and observed the entirety of his body. It was a mess. The Spirit Energy that invaded his body was already compressed inside the three cores and it seemed the energy intensity in the cores was a point higher than before. However, all his bones had cracks and fractures and his tissues were badly damaged.

For his still underdeveloped body, such a flood of Spirit Energy reminded him of the feeling when that purple serpent forcibly used its own Spirit Energy to tear them to pieces, only this was even more terrifying as the Spirit Energy seeped into ever tiny part of his body. He was witnessing the monstrous self-healing ability but he felt the energy in the core in his head rapidly disappearing. This made him realize that the green dragon likely had healing-related properties. Either that, or the energy it contained was very beneficial for the body and powerful enough to boost the self-regenerative abilities to an absurd degree.

No matter how he looked at this situation, Asura was speechless. It's obvious that he and Xia are very, very unique and most likely the only two with such a case. Asura didn't know whether there were beings with two Soul Spirits, but he was very confident that there are none with three apart from the two of them. And not to mention, their three Soul Spirits were so goddamn special that he wondered if any other being could bear either of them.

The conclusion Asura reached in these short several minutes after waking up was the following:

- The Green Dragon Soul Spirit's energy was most likely what he knew as 'Life Energy' or vitality - the purest and the most fundamental energy for the existence of life in this world.

- The Multicolored Dragon Soul Spirit has extreme compatibility towards the elements of the world and can manipulate them at will.

- The Starry Black Dragon Soul Spirit has devouring properties and is an absolute no no for the current him, as he nearly died when he used it once.

Since all three Soul Spirits seemed to have risen one rank after the Spirit Energy surge when he merged with that black dragon, Asura was sure that all three became stronger, and most likely he rose in one level. If he tried using it again, he was sure he'd certainly explode this time. If it was stronger as he expected, then that meant its greedy devouring ability became even more powerful and his body wasn't able to bear it yet.

"Hnnn... brother, don't go away!", a soft voice full of sadness and distress came from his right side.

Asura quickly came near Xia and held her hand. As if stimulated by the warmth coming from his hand, Xia opened her eyes and saw a young boy with green eyes wearing a set of black clothes that had various intricate different-colored patterns and a unique design, as if the designer made these clothes to be worn by a God. Her eyes were focused on the young boy that seemed like a completely different person from before, but this time even more handsome as those clothes perfectly complimented his natural charm.

Asura noticed the absent-minded look Xia gave him and became confused.

Asura: 'D-did she lose her memories? No! That can't be! But then why is she looking at me that way?!'

He looked at Xia once more and suddenly noticed something that had been slipping from his attention for a while - she had clothes!

Glancing at his own hands without using the weird ability, he saw black sleeves with shiny dragon markings made from different colors that seemed alive as they moved within his clothes. The sight was weird enough for him to make an analogy to the river with fish swimming in it, where river was the black-colored robe and fish were these dragon-shaped markings slowly moving around. It's as if small dragons were trapped in glass.

The weirdest thing about these clothes is that they weren't made from threads but from liquid energy that reminded of a molten crystal. It's as if he's wearing a universe as clothes.

Xia's clothes were somewhat similar but instead of pure black, they had portions of black, white and purple, while markings on them were flames and phoenixes. On the back of Asura's clothes was a galaxy-like formation that housed three dragons, while Xia's back featured three phoenixes.

Xia: "D-... did you make these?"

Asura: "No. Since I woke up, both of us had these clothes, only that I didn't notice it until now."

Xia: "... *pff*"

Asura: "W-why are you laughing?"

Xia: "If you didn't notice clothes on us then what were you looking at?"

Asura: ".... you."

Not expecting such a reply, Xia felt her face become hotter as embarrassment took over, but along with it came heartfelt happiness and relief. She looked around and noticed the absence of everything that was previously here, while only the massive crater stood out from the rest of their surroundings. She felt the three Soul Spirits inside her and summoned them one by one, testing them out just like Asura did a while ago with his own.

Purple Phoenix gave off some kind of oppressive energy that felt like a polar opposite to the Green Dragon's Life Energy. After a few tests, the two figured out that this kind of energy should be called Annihilation Energy, since it turned anything it came in contact with into nothingness, similar to a very powerful acid. If it was slightly condensed then there would also be an explosion that would have an effect as anti-matter would when meeting matter, but without the resulting photon explosion. Such a violent energy was truly a polar opposite to Life Energy. Opposite of Life is Death - Nothingness, hence why they called this energy 'Annihilation Energy'.

White Phoenix gave off a radiance of a star and seemingly absorbed the light from the entire world, turning it into burning flames that could form anything as a byproduct of combustion. It's like these white flames were flames of creation, able to condense into anything. A unique property to these flames was that they could burn any type of energy and turn it into this pure sacred white flame, meaning that Xia could use any type of energy to cultivate, regardless of whatever it is.