New Beginnings

"Thank you, Human, for fighting so hard for the sake of the planet and all who depend on it", an undiscernible yet familiar voice sounded to Leonidas. He knew exactly who this was.

"Gaia?!", he tried to communicate but the voice continued onwards.

"I can only send you back in exchange for my own Divine Spark. I'm sorry. We did all we could, but it wasn't enough. We need more time. You need more time."

"Wait Gaia, No! You can't waste your divine spark on something like this. Please, you'll die...", Leonidas tried to exhort but his words seemed to fall short. His soul was penetrated by divine energy that felt warm and bright almost as if it was a reflection of Gaia herself.

Alongside this energy, he felt a stream of information enter his soul space. The history of the entire planet Earth. From its birth as two Giant celestial bodies crashed into each other to form the Earth and the Moon. To the formation of the first oceans and islands. To even the first living beings ranging from single celled photosynthesizing cells to the smallest fish. Leonidas watched through millions of years of evolution as the origin of every single organism known to man was laid bare in front of him.

"Teach them all I taught you. Protect them for my sake. But live for your own sake.", the voice said with a hint of melancholy, desperation and helplessness.

*crrRRrckckckc*

A spatial crack appeared above the battlefield and Leonidas' soul was sucked into it. The space around Leonidas' soul was now color less and lifeless. The space he found himself in was space-less and time-less. He was in the Spiritual Energy dimension. But he had no idea about anything that was happening around him.

Leonidas was still occupied with absorbing the huge stream of information coming from the fragment of the Divine Spark that Gaia had given him. His soul strength reached a new level that was previously unimaginable even to him. Gaia, being the spirit of the earth, was linked to the souls of every living being and as such would experience lifetimes upon lifetimes. He was experiencing the lives and deaths of every organism that ever lived on Earth. Of course his understanding of reality would reach a new level. The fact that his intelligence, wisdom, creativity, and brilliance would also achieve a startling change was something he would find out only later on.

Like this *Time* passed. But it was no time at all. After what felt like billions of years to him, Leonidas finally gained awareness and used his spiritual senses to look around. He was met with *Nothing*. This *Nothing* was not an absence of things, but more of a presence of Profundity everywhere around him. He felt incredibly small and insignificant. He needed to find a way out of his situation.

He looked inside of himself and his Soul Space was as he left it. But a glowing white sphere could be seen in the sky. Golden glowing Runes could be seen floating around and rotating around the sphere. This was the fragment of the Divine Spark that was left inside him. He felt complicated emotions when his awareness looked over the glowing sphere.

"I can't believe she used most of her Divine Spark to open a path to the Spiritual Energy Dimension and even left behind some of the divine spark. If it wasn't for this, my soul would have been ripped apart by the Profundities contained in the Spiritual Energy Space.", Leonidas thought to himself gratefully.

According to his inherited memories, Energy Dimensions not only contained pure energy of that nature, but they also contained Laws and Rules on how the energy could be used. These Rules manifested themselves as Runes to people who observed them using *Energy Sight*. Because these Rules are everywhere, they interact with each other, creating Rules and annihilating Rules all the time. This chaotic atmosphere has the ability to destroy virtually anything.

Leonidas was lucky he had the Divine Spark. Otherwise, he wouldn't have even know when his soul got dissipated. At the same time he felt weak and pathetic. If he wasn't so weak he would have survived and with his research into cultivation progressing it would not have taken him too long to create a system of cultivation that could be applied to any human being. He also felt regretful because Gaia had been almost like a dear friend to him.

"As long as I have this fragment I should be able to try and revive her. It's just that I'm still too weak to even begin handling divine energy. I need strength."

Leonidas did not dare dally, he continued looking around and finally found what he was looking for. In a corner of his Soul Space, was the linking end of a chain made of Spiritual Energy. After investigating his memories, this was precisely what he needed to get out of here.

"Spirit Anchor!"

Leonidas could hardly contain his excitement at this discovery. The Spiritual Energy Dimension was time-less. Which made it the perfect medium through which to travel through time. As long as someone had anchored some instance of time in the physical plane, they would have the ability to use their soul to travel to that instance in time as long as they were able to brave the dangers of the Spiritual Energy dimension.

After finding this he felt much better. The spirit anchor was connected to whatever time he was getting sent back to. As long as he tugged the anchor on his soul space he would immediately be transfered in time and space to a physical body and start cultivating in preparation for the alien invasion. He started moving his awareness to the chain stopped suddenly.

A crazy idea hit him at this time. All the laws and rules floating in the outside of his awareness. It would be such a waste if he left without even trying to comprehend them. He needed a way to accomplish his goals.

He looked around his Soul Space. Apart from the glowing white sphere in the sky there was a sea of spiritual energy. It looked clear and transparent and the white light radiating from the sky made it look even more beautiful. He decided to try cultivating normally to see what happens.

He used his spiritual energy to create an image of himself in his soul space. This was a thought form of his soul which had his looks from his streamline eyebrows, his dark pupils to his angular jawline. Besides that it resembled Casper the Friendly ghost as it had no legs to speak of. Leonidas did not care about that at all though as he began the process of soul cultivation.

Cultivation in the physical plane had 4 processes of energy manipulation. Guiding, Purifying, Resonating, and Absorbing. Cultivators would use their own energy to create an array which guides energy from their surroundings into their own bodies.

After guiding the energy, the energy had to be purified of any residual nature or resonance it previously had.

Energy in the world has its own resonance, while every existence has it's own unique resonance. If the energy does not resonate with the practitioner it will return to where it came from, that is why it is important to remove its precious resonance through purification. Of course purification would require the use of another array. This is the most difficult process, and depending on the ability of the cultivator, the energy lost due to errors could reach up to 80%.

After completing the purification, the energy gets implanted with the unique resonance nature of the practitioner. This also requires the use of an array. Afterwards, the new energy would share the same *origin* as the practitioner this enabling the practitioner to absorb it. Absorption is the most natural process, almost like blinking or moving a finger. The energy would have been a part of them already so moving it according to their desires would be easy.

Leonidas spent time contemplating. According to his understanding, the Spiritual Energy Dimension had the purest energy, so there was no need for the purification stage of cultivation. But what he wanted was to understand the profundities hidden within.

He made a decision.

"What if I expell all my spiritual energy and force it to assume the resonance of the dimension, then reabsorb it and use it to change the resonance of my own soul... That way profundities will be able to flow through me unrestrained and I might be able to gain some deeper understanding of Rules!!"

If Gaia was here to listen to this she would have slapped him across the face. His idea was dangerous and stupid. Expelling your own energy could have disastrous effects. And changing your own soul's resonance was an even bigger taboo. A soul's resonance was linked to its *shape*... It's origin... If he changed it too much he might not be human anymore.

But would Leonidas listen? Nope. He had always been someone who pushes the boundaries of what was acceptable or not. His inventiveness and brilliance had even impressed Gaia herself. He was a true genius. A mad genius. And he knew it.

He looked at his memories and found 2650 runes for spiritual energy manipulation (Sorcery). It didn't take long for him to create an array configuration which would allow him to expell his energy but keep it linked to him. And he managed to keep the array at tier 3 complexity!

What did that mean? Array circles have growing complexity depending on the command that is being sent.

A single command, like *APPLY FORCE OF 10N FORWARD* would be tier 0. This would manifest itself as a rune.

An interlinked command consisting of multiple runes would create a circle. A command like *APPLY FORCE OF 10N WHENEVER I ACTIVATE THIS CIRCLE* would be Tier 1.

An interlinked command consisting of multiple circles would create a plane. A command like *CREATE A POSITIVE POTENTIAL AND A NEGATIVE POTENTIAL AND INSPIRE A LIGHTNING ARC* would be Tier 2

An interlinked command consisting of multiple planes would create a sphere. This is Tier 3. Every level, the dimensionality and complexity of the arrays increases and creating a stable array becomes increasingly difficult. Even the *Blackhole* array he executed for 5 seconds before his death was merely a Tier 5 spell but it was capable of wiping out half a continent in that time. Leonidas' talent was enormous in conceptualizing new ways to put runes together and create new spells.

Leonidas expelled his energy from his soul sea. His soul sea was now dried up and he felt his energy being purified by the chaos outside. He felt a searing pain worse than the pain he felt on his death but he kept going. After being purified and forcefully resonated, the energy, which was a pale clear color, was now colourless. It spewed resplendent lights as it merged with the surrounding energy.

Leonidas knew that it was now or never. He immediately controlled it to enter his soul space. But the energy was slowly losing resonance with him so he had to be quick. He waved his thought form arms and the energy merged with the walls of his soul space. The walls of his soul space started shining with the same resplendent lights as the purified energy. His soul space was being refined. It was working!!

He ignored the searing pain and continued moving the energy all over his soul space and merging it with the walls. Tears would open up periodically, but the light from the glowing divine spark would heal them. He continued doing this until there was no energy to control anymore.

"Phew... Okay. Now let's begin!"

He resonated his soul hoping to find something. He immediately felt a connection with his soul and the energy outside. He was ecstatic. He immediately tried controlling it to enter his soul space. The energy entered comfortably and easily and he continued refining his soul and increasing his resonance with pure spiritual energy. Whenever he would run out of energy he would stop. And then do it again. Everytime he started over he would realise that he had way more control and resonance with the dimension itself!

After what felt like trillions of years of refining, his soul space looked vastly different from before. It use to be pale blue color, but now it was a light grey. Runes could be seen occasionally on the walls. Even runes he had never seen before, beyond the understanding of even Gaia herself.

His soul sea shone with a transparent golden color. In the sky, there were now two different glowing spheres. One was the divine spark while the other was the a glowing black mass. Runes could be seen all over the surface. Leonidas chose to call this the soul spark and would investigate it further in the future.

In those trillions of years, in his attempt to comprehend the soul spark, he had come across 70 million unique runes and expanded his understanding of sorcery beyond what anyone was possibly capable of. All 70 million runes were now floating harmoniously in his soul.

He could have cultivated his soul strength but chose to stay at human level in case his mortal core could not handle the strength of his soul. After gaining everything he came to gain he felt it was about time to go back.

"Okay, it's time to leave. I wonder how much time she managed to gain. It's probably 50 to 60 years... I hope it's enough"

His awareness returned to the chain. He tugged on it and felt his awareness become black all of a sudden.

"~~what's happening? Did it fail?"

He opened his eyes. And then he realized that he had opened his eyes. He was beyond the moon.

"Gaia, I could kiss you right now!!" he thought to himself. He looked around and noticed something wrong.

"Why are my hands so small?", he said out loud. There were teenage children around him but he couldn't be bothered. He looked at a book which had his name on it. *Journal of Leonidas Mira*. He immediately opened it and read some journal entries. He couldn't help but scream in disbelief.

"This book... The date?! 2012?! I went back 150 years?!"