4 Chaotic Butterfly

Li Xiang absolutely hated the sensation of information being directly imprinted into her mind. She could feel a searing heat strike the core of her soul, and an ear-piercing noise rang in her mind, conveying what seemed to be a mantra, yet the contents were indecipherable.

Almost as if the unknown voice recognized her inability to comprehend its intent, the voice repeated itself over and over, with increasing volume each time. Li Xiang could perceive several strands of divine essence enter her soul, with each containing an infinitesimal amount of information that it simply attempting to interpret a message or establish communication was purely too stressful for the suffering girl.

Eventually, Li Xiang could piece together the contents of the mysterious voice's screams. Piecing the miniscule strands of information together and attempting to sound them out, the girl silently recited "Heaven…Core….Auxiliary…Configuration…Load". Finishing the recitation of the fragmented mantra, the spiritual core within her heart cavity instantly trembled, then spun in reverse.

Very quickly, the divine essence produced by the rotating Heaven Core lessened to a degree the girl could withstand, and much to her surprise and delight, the voice ringing in her ear ceased its nagging, and large amounts of profound symbols materialized before Li Xiang's eyes, before rearranging themselves in a more suitable format. This time, however, she did not have to run her fingers over the symbols to understand their meaning, the complete and original information could be quickly interpreted.

From what was presented before her, Li Xiang could partially understand her current situation. The formation of a Heaven Core depended on the amount of divine essence absorbed upon the immortal's creation; the more absorbed, the higher chances of a spiritual core capable of interacting with the Divine Sprit Vein being created.

The opposite was also true, for immortals who could not form a Heaven Core due to the low amount of divine essence absorbed would only be able to form an isolated spiritual core, a core which its maximum output of power depended solely on the cultivation of the immortal.

These immortals would also cultivate to the best of their abilities, hoping to increase their strength to its maximum. The ridges on the Heaven Core relied on the amount of divinity the immortal could ever attain, with the Progenitors forming forty-two ridges, with the First Progenitor capable of utilizing around half of the Forefather's strength when he was at his peak. Unfortunately, no explanation about the golden, crisscrossing inlay in each ridge was given, much to her disappointment.

As she finished reading the introduction to the Heaven Core, the visible array of divine symbols disappeared, with a new collection replacing the prior; the contents this time was on the cultivation of immortals.

Cultivation for immortals was vastly different compared to mortal cultivation. Mortal cultivation relied on absorbing worldly qi from the environment, refining it into its base spiritual attribute, then compressing and assimilating the qi into their bodies and soul.

Pleasantly, mortal cultivation allowed for mortals to leap in strength and longevity the more worldly qi they absorbed, with the strongest mortals able to destroy minor worlds with a single palm, and transverse between worlds at will. Frankly, however, mortal cultivation was nothing but a mere waste of time and effort. The conversion ratio from raw worldly qi to its base attribute was outright horrendous, with almost all of the absorbed amount being ejected back into the environment.

Moreover, the infusion of spiritual energy into the soul was a drastic mistake, for it associated the mortal's soul with the environment, and would be identified as part of the natural world; when the mortal died, his soul would disintegrate into the attribute similar to the absorbed spiritual energy, and would be unable to reincarnate. His body and cultivation would turn into objects with spiritual energy, which other mortals used to assist their cultivation. Truly an unfortunate end, and a perfect waste of resources.

On the other hand, cultivation for immortals focused on improving their property of conception. As each immortal being was created using a singular concept as its foundation, be it an emotion, process, or material, immortals lacking a sufficiently powerful spiritual core could increase their proficiency in that attribute, hence allowing the amount of accumulated divine essence to increase.

Combat among immortal beings primarily resided on the magnitude of their Authority, and whether they had a sufficient spiritual core; any martial arts were optimized for efficiency, as there already existed maximum potential depending on the user. Unfortunately, though immortals could indeed strengthen themselves to unimaginable heights, a single-ridged Heaven Core would still triumph whatsoever.

To Li Xiang, the existence of the Heaven Core was quite intriguing, yet she could sense a dangerous premonition that using the core could lead to drastic consequences. By activating the core to establish a connection with the Divine Spirit Vein residing in the Immortal World, pure, unadulterated divine essence would be transmitted to the core, compressed, then made available for the immortal without any restrictions.

The faster the rotation, more divine essence could be channeled at once, and the number of ridges engraved onto the core would increase the maximum output. The gold inlays formed channels in which divine essence could transverse, similar to the systematization of meridians and spiritual veins mortal cultivators relied upon.

These channels could be dedicated towards a single technique, or be combined to produce a destructive power exceeding the original limit of the immortal's spiritual core. What Li Xiang help apprehensions over was when wars occurred among immortal domains; from her observations, the immortals she had encountered so far, except for the World Tree, acted extremely similar to humans. So similar, that any of these immortals could step into a mortal town and never be exposed.

If one spiritual core could produce so much power, what would happen when hundreds of immortals fought in a battleground? How much destruction would that ensue?

With a shudder, Li Xiang dispersed all thoughts from her head, before staring at the amassed symbols before her. Thoughts about war had no relation to her, as she was practically confined here until the tree meted out her punishment, nor did she have any intention of joining a war.

Watching these symbols disappear, she waited for another set to materialize before her, just like the previous occasions. Seeing that there was no response after several minutes, Li Xiang turned her attention onto her Heaven Core, and willed it to materialize before her.

Her Heaven Core appeared in the form of a ball no bigger than one chi in diameter, and she could observe twenty-three grooves in the ball leading up to a single hollowed point on the top. Looking at the point, Li Xiang guessed that something was missing in her spiritual core compared to others, as the hollowed portion of the sphere seemed to be a container for some object that the divine essence would concentrate into.

Was it her soul? Li Xiang commanded the core to rotate horizontally slowly, to observe the flow of the divine essence. Sure enough, the divine essence rushed through the ridges towards the hollowed section of the sphere; upon reaching it, the essence pooled, then disintegrated with a violent explosion as the divine essence scattered during compression.

Furrowing her brows, Li Xiang confirmed that something indeed was missing, which she guessed was the component that allowed the divine essence to compress itself and actually become usable; this would also explain why she felt so much pain when operating the core, since the dispersing divine essence wreaked havoc in her internal organs by the explosions.

Once more, Li Xiang commanded the Heaven Core to rotate, this time at a much quicker pace without restricting its direction of rotation. Once she felt the divine essence was about to explode once more, she quickly visualized the form of a ball composed of formless divine essence. To her pleasant surprise, the divine essence didn't explode, and instead rushed out towards the space ahead of Li Xiang and compressed itself into a rough outline of a ball-shaped object.

As the object became more tangible, she then tried manipulating the shape; to a square, then a triangle, the mass of divine essence obeyed her thoughts without a single fluctuation of disaster. What if I gave it form? Li Xiang then visualized a ball made of cast iron; the amassed divine essence rapidly took assimilated the properties of cast iron, then fell onto the ground with a loud thunk.

Pleased with herself, Li Xiang looked at her appearance. Her now flawless looks were hindered due to her dirtied and raggedy clothes; she immediately visualized a dress made of soft purple spider silk, with little frills on the sleeves. Directing her thoughts at the cast iron ball on the ground, the ball shot up into the air, before transforming quickly into her desired clothing, which the girl squealed in happiness before catching the dress with both arms.

Examining the dress, however, Li Xiang's expression quickly darkened; the dress was not a permanent manifestation, for it would dissipate into strands of divine essence once she deactivated the spiritual core. For the dress to remain in permanent existence, she would need to solve the problem of the missing segment of the core. To her dismay, she would need to stay in these clothes for quite a while longer.

Turning with dejection back towards the spiritual core, Li Xiang stiffened with surprise as the divine symbols once appeared before her, and this time, condensed into a physical tome that landed before her feet. Looking at the cover revealed that the tome was about the general concept of the Divine Script, the language of immortals. Engrossed in reading, the problem with her clothes was instantly exorcised from her thoughts.

The Divine Script was truly a language like none other; a single word or symbol would manifest a physical phenomenon. A single call for light would illuminate the surroundings, and the effects could be manipulated by providing advanced parameters.

There was no need to infuse any divine essence to produce such an effect, though limitations still applied; a single statement could consign mortal worlds to destruction or creation, though the effects would be dampened significantly in the Immortal domain. Integrating the Divine Script into martial techniques produced intriguing effects.

As the divine language didn't require a vocal command and could be written into the air with divine essence, immortal cultivators could form supporting or primary arrays in the middle of performing a technique. What the Divine Script was not used for, surprisingly, was communication between immortals, though it was reasonable; a single debate in the divine language would possibly cause catastrophic effects.

The tome then provided details on the various sizes and shapes of the Heaven Core, as it appeared in a myriad of forms most suitable for the user; sword, shield, spiritual beast, the Heaven Core only appeared like a dull sphere when it was still ownerless.

Though Li Xiang did form a Heaven Core, it was not a conscious product and was not bound to her soul, as the divine fountain in the residence was the actual creditor of the spiritual core. To claim ownership over the Heaven Core, she would need to fuse her soul with it, thus filling in the dent on the sphere. With a thought, she willed the Heaven Core to operate at maximum capacity, then contemplated for a while before making up her mind.

"Become mine."

With a violent tremble, the rotation of the spiritual core intensified even further, and the divine essence formed a massive whirlpool instead of gathering at the hollow on the top. The whirlpool expanded with each second, and soon Li Xiang was swallowed up into its depths, before starting a cycle of contraction and expansion. With each cycle, the whirlpool diminished in intensity, before vanishing altogether, leaving only a large white cocoon of divine essence.

-

All of a sudden, a small fist punched out of the cocoon, followed by a surge of divine essence that rendered the white shell into nothingness. From within the obscure light of the surge of divine essence, a young girl dressed in a light purple dress casually emerged with a lazy expression on her face.

The ball-formed Heaven Core was nowhere to be found, and there was nothing else different about Li Xiang except for her dress and a pair of massive butterfly wings, with a height of two meters and a wingspan of three. The wings were of a black tint and were extremely thin, with scarlet and golden veins extending from the base of the wings, with a small dot decorating the interior on both wings.

The dots were violet in color, and from within a bloodthirsty aura could be perceived, one desiring to end all life and bring chaos into the delicate equilibrium of the world. As her identity carved itself into the air by the Divine Script, a mortal had finally completed her transformation into an imperishable immortal being.

"Unaffiliated Divine, World Tree Chaotic Butterfly, Li Xiang,"