Earning Reincarnation

Alex's body and soul, which was suddenly struck by lightning, fell deep into an abyss-like rift as it passed straight through the its original realm.

If one was ask how this accident had occurred, there was probably no religion formed on Earth that could answer. Whether it was an occurrence like a godly miracle or holy blessing was unknown to all who witnessed it.

No, maybe blessing is the wrong way to describe it, since it was more like a curse brought by the devil himself.

One could say that he was banished from his original realm's cycle of reincarnation and was forced into the endless void between dimensions.

His eyes opened lifelessly as he looked at the empty space surrounding him, a feeling of exhaustion overcame his ethereal body, but he forced himself awake to look around his new 'body'.

'Where am I?' Alex thought as he looked around. He didn't know what was life after death due to his lack of forethought on such a deep topic.

His current circumstances were beyond his own life's knowledge and comprehension so he gave up trying to understand the empty space around him in order to think more calmly.

He felt extremely depressed and exhausted. After a long time of not being able to come up with a good explanation for his circumstances, he decided to sleep off his worries.

Alex didn't really care about the afterlife nor was he interested in the empty void around his new 'body'.

He slept soundly for an unknown amount of time while the depression in his heart slowly lightened as a result.

Once his emotions calmed down, he opened his eyes to look around again.

Even though he couldn't count how long, he knew some time had passed before he awoke from his slumber.

It was then after sorting out the emotions in his heart did he have the bravery to face the reality regarding what had happened to him when he was still alive. He stopped laying down in the empty void and sat straight.

'Hmm... I died... There is no doubt about it. The heart in my chest is still and without motion. Wait...! Is my lack of heartbeat the only thing strange?' He thought to himself as he floated in the colourless void with crossed legs.

A sharp light appeared in his eyes as he looked as his ethereal body closely.

He had the outline of himself before he died but didn't have the physical flesh and blood of a living human being.

It was more like his body was only the image of the person he once was before he died by his father's hands.

"Father...!" He called out while looking around but was responded with a deathly silence. Not even an echo could be heard from the void around him.

Alex felt aggrieved. He thought that his father would've also entered the void he was in yet found that there was nothing but silent desolation.

He also felt lonely from solitude... but as time passed, nothing changed..

In the spare time he had in the lifeless void, he decided to reflect on himself by training Tai Chi, a style of martial arts he mastered in the country of China.

It was a style of martial arts he used as a base for his self-created hybrid style: Harmonic Dragon's Angelic Halo.

He didn't throw any punches into the space around him because doing so would have no meaning. Instead he used a meditation form he learnt from Tai Chi to maintain his spiritual health.

Tai Chi itself was a martial art that improved the health of both mind and body so he usually practiced it in his free time. It had normally allowed him to calm his thoughts and cultivate his mental strength back to what it originally was while he was on Earth.

This time, unlike the many times before, the light in Alex's eyes calmed slowly as he meditated in a trance, the spiritual heart within him was serene.

The 'Dao' that existed in his martial arts may not exist, but after thinking about for quite some time he realised that might not even need an ambition.

As he regained his composure, his mentality changed as he felt enlightened regarding how he lived.

He closed his eyes before reaching out his hand towards the lifeless void that surrounded him. His fingers gripped onto the spacial fabric of void itself.

He'd rather disappear for all eternity than stay in such a place that filled him with loneliness. He made the decision that he would tirelessly reached out his hand to grab the void in order to rip open a rift for him to escape through.

To use the human body to rip apart the void was pure foolishness. It was impossible for a human to reach such a feat through the use of physique alone.

However, he was not using his body's 'flesh', he was using his soul open a rift.

To fight against the endless void as a mere 'spirit' was like an ant trying to fight against god. The gulf between them was so large that it was near impossible to overcome with just mere techniques from a Mortal Realm.

Yet he still chose to fight! It's not like he was trying to destroy the void surrounding him with his fists, he was just trying to create an escapable exit.

He switched his posture to the basic stance for Karate, a style of martial arts used for self-defence he learnt from the country of Japan, then he reached out towards the void around him once more with stern expression on his face.

Using only one of his hands at time felt like a waste of time to him so he decided to change into one of the most practical forms to use one's body to fight, a form named Meotoude.

In English, it translates to the term Married Couples Hands, and it was a form that used both hands in unison to attack enemies and defend oneself.

Instead allowing one of his hand to stay inactive, he used both hands simultaneously to grab the space in front of his body, his movements were extremely stable as he constantly repeated his meaningless actions.

He didn't know how long it took for him to 'feel' the existence of space itself, but he knew that 'time' was meaningless in the empty void where there existed no life nor death.

His ethereal body felt no fatigue as he moved using sheer willpower alone!

Time passed, and speed of his stable movements reached supersonic levels.

He experienced a feeling like flowing water through his hands, but had no way to affect the waters 'current', it was like he was trying to grab a river by holding the edge of the waters stream.

No matter how you thought about it, a man cannot hold a river with merely his hands, but he as a spirit wanted to break that logic so that he could escape.

It was a stupid and barbaric method of breaking out that could only be thought of by the insane, but he didn't mind one bit. This was due to not being able to think of an alternative plan... It was the only method he could think of!

It's not like there existed a 'smart' method to escaping an empty void.

He was below average at everything other than martial arts, so it is only natural that his solution to every problem was to use brute force.

To bend the world to his ideals rather than changing himself to adapt to it!

After an eternity of repeating the same movements, he opened his eyes with understanding and stopped his hands that had exceeded the speed of light.

He straightened his body and closed his eyes once again, then reached his hand in an ordinary fashion towards the endless void that caged his 'spirit'.

He grabbed down on the fabric of space before him the same way he had done before, but this time his movements made a difference as a massive rift appeared in the fabric of reality itself!

He didn't even look back at the empty void behind him as he walked through the rift. The training he had done in the void seemed to have tempered his heart. It allowed him to reach the level of fortitude and patience that would be incomprehensible to normal humans.

He tried to look around at the dimension he had traveled to after exiting the void through the tear in reality, but was greeted by a incident that would have made a normal person unable to respond. His ethereal body was hit by a sort of gravity as it fell.

A eerie realm that reminded people of the underworld appeared before him as his body fell straight towards a spring seemed to be the congregation of souls.

He didn't panic at this scene, and merely sighed in response since he couldn't tell where his fleshless soul would end up. He guessed that touching the river might harm him so he did all he could to avoid touching it.

He tried stopping himself by gripping space around him once more but found that he was unable to do anything to the reality around him,. It was as if he was forced to follow the laws this 'reality' had been placed on his soul.

He looked grimly at his hands before reluctantly allowing his body to fall towards the spiritual spring below him.

He entered the transparent waters of the spring with a splash, only to find that azure aura surrounding it was like a fiery lava that burned his mind!

If it wasn't for his abnormally strong willpower, his memories would have been wiped out through touching it.

He swam towards the nearest shore as soon as his body entered the auroral waters of the spiritual spring. His eyes were burning with mighty determination as he leapt out of the spring. It was only now did he realise how unwilling he was to let his memories get erased after his death.

'Why am I so hypocritical?' He couldn't help but ask himself as he lay on his back. The auroral waters of the spiritual spring unexpectedly didn't stick to his 'body' and returned to the spiritual spring as soon as he leapt out.

The spring itself seemed to be part of a strange entity as spiritual water returned to its original serenity.

Alex crossed his legs and meditated in order to calm down by habit. He tried not to panic and made sure to once again inspect his spirit. He found his past life's memories were mostly intact.

A few bits and pieces of information had been erased but nothing important was wiped away by the spiritual spring.

It was then that he realised that his soul seemed to have been altered despite not undergoing a 'Cleansing'.

He could feel that within his chest was a crystal made entirely of the strange spiritual water he had just drenched in.

'What is this thing?' He couldn't help but ask himself as he inspected it.

Considering what had just happened, it wasn't hard for him to figure out that the crystal within him was some form of 'Soul Energy'. A power that came directly from one's spiritual strength.

'This must be a crystallised form of Chakra!' He deduced from what he already knew. His Harmonic Dragon's Angelic Halo hybrid style only focused on bringing out the strength of the physical body, but the Chaotic Dragon's Demonic Horn was a lot more complex due to its centuries of refinement.

He once thought that Chakra was a myth considering that he had never actually 'seen' it before in his life.

It was said that in the past there were martial artists that cultivated the spirit rather than the body and called themselves 'Cultivators'. When he thought about all those legends and realised how his current logic had been destroyed by the fact Chakra exists, he experienced a powerful migraine.

'If Chakra actually exists, then doesn't that mean that the 'Dao' also exists? I could be wrong. Perhaps Chakra has nothing to do with the Dao..." He thought in denial. His heart was in turmoil and meditating wasn't much help, so he decided to explore this new world he crossed into by himself.

However, when he opened his eyes, he was even more shocked to discover that lifeless world around him had changed.