19 What Are We, Really?

Asura and black-haired Xia explored the Soul World together, checking out every corner formed by the starry black energy. As they expected, there was nothing much to see here, just endless space. In reality, it wasn't truly endless, but compared to the two of them, the Dragon Soul, the white fox and a little planet, this space truly was enormous. All of them together were only a drop in an ocean compared to this space.

Asura: "Hey, is the size of this space what people call 'potential', in other words - how much you can cultivate your Soul before you reach the limit?"

Xia's brows furrowed as she nodded and fell deep in thought. Seeing her completely focused appearance, Asura didn't distract her. He was instead thinking about what he just said, which Xia confirmed.

Asura thought, 'Hmm... so that's how it is, eh? Then, how does one cultivate their Soul? Is it gathering energy like with Spirit Energy, or is it another kind of cultivation altogether?'

He raised his head and glanced at the space again. Unlike his previous Soul World, this one was entirely black with not a single star shining. After his old Soul World was broken by the raging energies and reformed by this strange existence which he named Dragon Soul, his Soul World was the same as infant's, completely empty.

Asura stared at his Dragon Soul hovering in the space as peculiar aura emanating closeness and pride appeared in the depths of his mind while thinking, 'I'll have to manually build my Soul World up, won't I? And there's also you... *Sigh*, I feel like this all will be pretty troublesome...'

His eyes left the Dragon Soul and he turned around, seeing Xia looking at him with brows furrowed, still completely absorbed in her thoughts. When he turned around and glanced at her eyes, she seemed to notice it and suddenly raised her head as their eyes met.

Xia: "You trully are giving me a headache, you know?"

Asura showed surprise on his face, "Eh? Why?"

Xia: "I'm trying to find a good cultivation technique for you, but nothing comes to mind. Your situation is unique, as there wasn't anyone before with a ... Dragon Soul."

Asura: "Oh, just that is giving you a headache? Isn't it fine as long as I can gather energy, why is a cultivation technique so important?"

Xia: "..... I wish it were that easy."

Asura: "?"

Xia sighed and shook her head, "You need a cultivation technique because various energies get absorbed into your body and when they meet each other, they collide and cause a strong repulsive force. The cultivation techniques usually find ways on how to circulate those energies separately so that they don't meet, or even if they do meet, cultivation technique developer needs to ensure that the rebound is within acceptable boundaries. That is why many, many sects guard their cultivation techniques with their lives. There are also those who focus on researching new techniques that are for open use, for those who don't want to join any sects, and those can usually be found at Spirit Academies. But those kinds of cultivation techniques aren't anything special in general."

Asura: "Oooh... is that so? I never thought it'd be that complicated. Wait, if that's the case, then why am I giving you a headache? Do you have many cultivation techniques?"

Xia: "..."

Asura: "So that's the case. Tell me more about them, let's decide together."

Xia: "*sigh*, I was too careless, it seems."

Asura scratched his head, not knowing what to say, and sat down on the empty space. "If it's not convenient for you to tell me about them, then don't bother. I'm sure that there's no tailor-made technique for me, so I will just have to make my own. What I want to do now is to see as many cultivation techniques as possible for a reference. But if it's as you said, then it may be a bit troublesome."

Xia pointed her finger to Dragon Soul and asked: "Say, what can that thing do?"

Asura: "Hm? Oh, it's a powerful little bastard, alright. It can control everything but it requires enormous amount of energy. It's truly a source of all headaches I have... Don't you know what happened a while ago?"

Xia: "Huh? Did something happen? My Spiritual Form only materialized recently, while you and that fox were checking out the micro planet, so I don't know what you're talking about."

Asura's face showed disbelief: "Seriously?! You don't know what happened here!?"

Xia saw the shock on his face and her eyes reflected the confusion in her heart. "N-no... Is everything alright? Quick, tell me about it!"

Asura and Xia sat down as he explained everything that took place until she appeared, telling her in detail about all the encounters that took place in a short time since they arrived in this world. The more she heard, the more her eyes filled with disbelief and shock.

Xia: "Three Soul Spirits?! Both of you??? And that thing there ... that's the fusion of your three Soul Spirits?!"

Asura saw how shocked black-haired Xia was and didn't know what to say. It was obvious even to him that the two of them were abnormal, but he didn't expect that it was to the extent such that even the all-knowing half of Xia was stumped.

Xia: "Y-y-you said... you could control all the elements with one of your Soul Spirits, right?"

Asura: "Ah, yes. That's the only core that survived inside this new Dragon Soul. The other two were emptied dry to rebuild my broken Soul World. I think I'll need to slowly refine them and then fill them up again."

Xia: "This is... a little bit too much even for me. What the hell?!"

Asura: "A-are we that abnormal?"

Xia's irritated eyes glued to his as she said, "Abnormal? That word can't be used to describe you two. You weren't supposed to exist at all! And that's when you had three Soul Spirits. What you created by fusing them should be impossible! You broke the rules of the world!!! By now, you should be dead. I really don't know how you survived, that's a miracle among miracles."

Asura: "..."

Xia: "..."

The silence lasted for a while, until Xia finally digested all the information she just got. From her reaction and outburst of words, Asura learned a lot. But the more unique he and white-haired Xia were, the greater the pressure he experienced. Would they be able to live a normal life if they couldn't use their Soul Spirits at all? He wasn't naive enough to think that they could spend their entire lives not using their Soul Spirits. At one point in time, they would be forced to use them, and that's when trouble will come their way.

Xia explained the layout of this world, and because he understood more, Asura felt how complicated everything became. They were on one of the planets in the Outer Celestial Layer. The immediate vicinity of the Spirit Star was called Celestial Realm and it was split in three layers.

Outer Celestial Layer is one of the three layers, made up of planets further away from Spirit Star, where Spirit Energy is on the thinner side. It didn't mean that the Spirit Energy was nonexistent, just that it was very diluted throughout the entire planet.

Inner Celestial Layer, on the other hand, was a layer which encompassed those planets near the Spirit Star, and where Spirit Energy was several hundreds of times thicker and more abundant than on the planets in the Outer Celestial Layer.

The third and also the richest part of Celestial Realms was called Spirit Star. It was the name of a massive planet that could be seen in the sky - the planet that Asura and white-haired Xia used for orientation. That planet had the densest Spirit Energy that was called Immortal Energy. It was a million times denser than ordinary Spirit Energy. Just like how the energy used by Divine Soul was a billion times compressed to form a single particle. And precisely here did Asura understand why they were abnormal.

Although they aren't cultivating on the Spirit Star, their three Soul Spirits condensed energy a thousand times. The effect is several times better than Inner Celestial Layer, although the speed would be slow. If they were on Spirit Star, they could absorb Immortal Energy which was Spirit Energy condensed a million times, which would give them a thousand particles for every Immortal Energy Particle, and there wouldn't even be a need to condense that energy like they had to do now, even though the cores did that in their stead.

Now that Asura forced the three Soul Spirits to fuse and sublimate, the base compression shot up from 1.000 to 1.000.000.000. The evolution was multiplicative. If he was on Spirit Star, he would have to gather a thousand Immortal Energy particles to form one Energy Particle for his Dragon Soul. Being in the Outer Celestial Layer made cultivation a million times more difficult.

Asura commented while absorbing all he heard like a sponge, "This... this is a lot of information... and it's the information that makes me sad."

Xia: "Well, you will need to adapt either way. You can't devolve your mutated Dragon Soul. Although you will use tears, blood and sweat to improve, your improvement would be monstrous. That's why I'm saying it's not all as dark as you see it."

Asura: *sigh*

Xia gave him four strange crystals. Three of them were silver in color, only differing in the runes on their surface, while the fourth one was golden-colored and had many small stars inside. "About cultivation techniques, I've found three for Xia... for the other me. As for you, here are all I have so decide which one you will use. If you are confident enough, you can also develop your own, but that's your own decision."

Asura's eyebrows rose in response, "Do you think I can develop a cultivation technique without understanding the ways of cultivation?"

Xia's lips reflected a mischievous grin. "Although you don't understand the way of cultivation, you have a much more valuable knowledge - understanding of laws of the world. Were you not a scientist in your last life? I'm sure you'll think of something. After all, you're The D-... you're a little devil."

Asura noticed her abrupt pause, but decided to ignore it. He knew there was a reason for why he was chosen out of so many to come here, and if Xia wanted to tell him, she would. Until she was ready to speak, he wouldn't force her. Besides, he already felt enough pressure to drown himself for a few decades - he didn't need additional pressure, at least not until he became able to handle the current one.