Soul and Body.
A calm milky orb formed, and as a strange stream of constant white drifted into it, the man's eyes lit with a ferocious nature.
"Face a technique inspired from the higher races!"
His voice rumbled as he mumbled, but the Ancient man only responded with a shaking aura. The whole world shuddered, then like an echo of an ancient declaration, a massive blitzing strength began to form around that trident.
The air distorted and numerous booming shockwaves rang out, and before the white-robed man could even finish the move, a disheartening roar erupted out of the Ancient man.
"Strike-"
*BANG*
The entire looming sky that glowed gold paused. The air froze and then disintegrated. Everything became locked down in this strength, even the white orb that lay above that white-robed hand.
" Trident."
Then, with a whistling zoom, that trident got propelled right out of the Ancient man's hand. It couldn't even be seen as it disappeared from view and ushered a keen cry of fruitful killing intent.
Its speed was despair provoking and to most would mean instantaneous death. The only person who could vaguely still watch it was the white-robed man, and judging by its speed, he would have no time to finish his move!
The white-robed man's eyes trembled into disbelief and panic. However, this only instigated a suicidal action to erupt out of him. He, with resolute and bloodshot eyes, began to burn the five circles on his forehead!
A dense and sudden rupture of white light blazed into the sky. Following on, that slow stream of milky white energy that trailed into the orb suddenly accelerated to a disproportionate level!
"HEAVEN'S ORB!!"
His voice was hoarse and his face pale, yet he paid no heed to the consequences of what he was about to do and bellowed out a hair-raising roar!
The orb became rabid as it engulfed the fruitful energy that shrouded it. As it grew a strange force began to permeate the broken down sky, however...
*SPLATTER*
Even though the orb would only need a fraction of a millisecond to complete, he was still too late...
*WHOOOOOOOOOSH*
A shadow of something insidious blitzed through the white-robed man. Then, like a disconcerting realisation, a strange weakness shrouded the man. His face went pale, and as he watched that white orb that was about to complete shudder, his eyes trembled!
A glaring opening formed in the white-robed man's chest, and as he looked down, he saw his body disintegrating into fine dust...
A whistling boom rang past the man as a hole formed by his side. An array of intense waves were thus set off, where the entire earth began to shake and tremble from an extreme power that was slicing it. Slicing it like literal tofu.
The ancient man gazed at all of this without a change of expression. He lingered slightly on that orb that was in the process of breaking down, but only for a moment.
*THUD*
With blood-red eyes and a spurt of such blood, the white-robed man thumped onto the ground with half a torso. His face slowly etched with despair, and as the unending trickle of white blood drenched the cascading ground beneath, he went limp.
The five circles above his head had already devolved to two, and it wasn't ending with the massive loss of blood. If it was any other wound his cultivation wouldn't be affected and he could simply regenerate.
All mages knew that their cultivation was stored in their head, not in their body. Of course, if you are below the 4th circle then you will still die if your body gets mutilated, but those above can survive from such wounds.
However, this wound was etched with a constant and chilling aura. It disregarded its placement, and with an unruly drive, it sucked up the man's cultivation like a parasite on steroids.
This wasn't even the end of it, as by some horrifying occurrence, the man found that his cultivation was sealed! This means that even if he had his cultivation, with his body rapidly deteriorating and him being unable to fix it, he would still die!
This would be the case even if he was at his peak strength, as his body is still as vital as his soul. Without a body he would die, without a soul, he would die.
Cultivation is the fuel that allows you to produce earth-shattering power. Yet there is a lot more to do with it then such a simple fact.
If you think about the soul and the body, you would see that one is what holds the other. The body holds the soul. This body also fuels the soul, and what fuels the body? Cultivation.
However, there is also another factor that many may forget. That is that, whether you like it or not, the more you cultivate, the more your soul evolves. It is unknown why this happens, but it allows you to perceive the world in more detail.
Or, the world's energy in more detail.
What would be blurry would now become sharp with a simple increase in cultivation, and this allows people to comprehend more and more. Nevertheless, it is only a helper, and the only people who actually benefit from it are those who can't perceive anymore at an agreeable pace with the details they can already see.
They would reach a bottleneck of course, but with that level of comprehension, they would just need to increase their cultivation!
Those who are comprehending to the bare minimum won't find this helpful, in fact, it may hinder them! It is like being unskilled in a job, and as you grow a slow rate, you keep getting pushed into harder and harder tasks that you cannot handle.
These cultivators are actually getting too much information, where the very information of what they trying to comprehend will be blurred with even more which they cannot even begin to understand.
Its similar to learning a subject, where you start by learning the very basics. If you don't understand these you won't move onto the more advanced areas. However, if you were to increase your cultivation without comprehending, advanced details will begin to show with the basics.
Imagine a whiteboard where someone is teaching and wrote down '5 + 2 = 7'
He is in the process of explaining it to elementary children, but in the middle, he jotters down an algebraic equation.
'2x + 1 = 9'
Of course, these kids have no clue what that means and they will become confused. They can't differentiate between what they need to learn and what they need to ignore.
This teacher then decides to no longer explain and sits down. He leaves it up to the children on deciding what they should learn, and this is a problem. Because, what should they learn if they can't differentiate between either? They don't know how adding works nor do they know what an algebraic equation even is.
Then, like a madman, that teacher thinks for a second and rises to jotter down calculus. Whilst doing all of this he leaves the children to stare at the board. A board that was beginning to get hoarded with more and more confusing concepts.
What on earth do I do? This was what would go through their mind, as they have no clue on where they start and where they finish. It would be a muddled mess of incoherency.
This is the same for cultivators, as those who gallop ahead would eventually find themselves having no goddamn clue on what they are even comprehending. The path would become muddy and they would verge into stagnation for the rest of their lives.
There is a reason why everyone isn't just born with the ability to perceive the world. They need to gradually go up, otherwise, you would just trip over yourself. Nevertheless, there will always be expections, like Su Min who was able to handle a large increase in cultivation through the mystical effects of the Ancient One bloodline. One that, without even trying, would increase your comprehension as you increase your cultivation.
For people who already understand where they are to a large extent, they would be able to handle more chunks at once. This would benefit them instead of hinder. However, for those who go up on the ladder without bothering, it would, so to say, bite them in the ass.
So, without the body, your soul would dry out. This is the case for cultivators at a certain level, though, higher? Well, that can be considered a different realm completely.
The boy, watching this from afar, froze.
"N-no..."