Cemani Life Cycle Art

Age: 9 years.

The wind blowing in the flower garden lifted the fallen dry leaves from the top of the frangipani tree. It revealed two little figures sitting and enjoying the sunset.

The humid tropical breeze was blowing softly, cooling the atmosphere. It might have been a bit warmer if there hadn't been heavy rain in Teduh City last night. But the weather in the equatorial region is sometimes unpredictable. At least they didn't have to worry about snow or windstorms.

Del stroked Kylia's head, which was no longer bald. Her soft golden hair covered her once bald head with wrinkled black skin. Now Kylia's hair had grown one inch long.

Del knew Kylia was having another nightmare, evident from how tightly she hugged Del and the tears streaming down her cheeks. But Del wouldn't wake Kylia up; it was a process she had to go through to complete her soul.

Although painful and terrifying, Kylia had to keep having nightmares. The more frequently she had them, the better, as it meant her body was becoming more capable of receiving her strong soul. But Del would be the first person she saw when she woke up, so she knew she wasn't facing her nightmares alone.

Currently, they were both nine years old. Del's body had grown taller, and his hair had grown longer. Chika never forgot to cut Del's hair short and comb it neatly, perhaps too neatly.

At first, Del, who was used to having long hair, had a bit of a problem with his short hair, but Kylia seemed to like Del's short hair more than his long hair. As a result, Del didn't have to argue with Chika before cutting his hair.

However, Del had a bad feeling that Chika was using Kylia to make him powerless and obey all her orders. It wasn't that Del didn't trust Kylia, but sometimes Chika could be more cunning than she seemed.

"Why... why... why..." the soft moaning voice came out of Kylia's lips.

Her eyes were still closed, so it wasn't her conscious words but something she brought from her dream. Del really wanted to know what happened in Kylia's dream, but he didn't have the ability to enter it.

Moreover, he had a bad feeling that forcing his way into Kylia's dream would be very dangerous.

From the looks of it, Kylia still needs some time to recover from her nightmare. Del takes advantage of this time to meditate, closing his eyes and entering his consciousness.

There he sees a black sphere, like ink on a white paper. That black sphere is his Point Star.

The Point Star seems to have swelled beyond its capacity, with cracks appearing on its smooth surface. This is the result of the internal energy that Del has forced into the Point Star.

With the supply of D nutrition, Del can train his martial art to the highest level. Currently, if he doesn't hold back his power, he can destroy a tank with one blow. All the internal energy he has accumulated is always put into the Point Star.

And it's true that the Point Star keeps getting bigger and bigger until it shows signs of stopping. After Del puts in more internal energy, the Point Star will not increase in size but will expand.

Del knows that he only needs one more year's worth of internal energy to make the Point Star explode. After that, his cultivation will begin, and he will no longer be just a martial artist but also a cultivator.

Along with that, new problems begin to arise, namely the energy needed to support his cultivation.

His current body will absorb all energy such as mana and Qi and convert it into K nutrition. Although K nutrition is powerful and can help with the development of Kylia's Sacred Seed, Del cannot use K nutrition himself, or rather, he does not know how to use it.

Therefore, Del needs a new form of energy that is not transformed by his body into K nutrition and can be used for cultivation. Based on the example of internal energy that he can use to make the Point Star explode from within, Del focuses his research on energies that can be directly absorbed by his body.

Unfortunately, this theory is still not perfect because Del does not know for sure what the true strength of his body is. That's why Del is waiting for the Point Star to explode first before continuing his research.

However, Del has already perfected his new cultivation technique. He calls this cultivation art the Cemani Life Cycle Art.

There are three major realms of Cemani Life Cycle Art: Point Star, Nebula Cycle, and Star Cycle. Del has successfully deduced Point Star and Nebula Cycle, but he still needs some more data to complete Star Cycle.

However, Del is not too worried because he feels that Star Cycle will open up on its own when he reaches the peak of Nebula Cycle.

The initial stage of Cemani Life Cycle Art always begins with Point Star. Point Star has only one minor realm, Point Star Breaking. In this stage, Del must make Point Star grow beyond its capacity by filling it with internal energy.

When Point Star absorbs internal energy beyond its capacity and explodes, it will form scattered cosmic gas and dust clouds. Del's body is an Ayam Cemani Body and has characteristics similar to space.

So when Point Star explodes from within, Del's body will not explode along with it. However, the space inside it will expand along with the cosmic gas and dust clouds. Although the space inside Del's body has limits, with the martial arts he has learned, Del deduces that his body will remain strong enough to withstand it for a certain period of time.

At this stage, cultivation will enter the second major realm, Nebula Cycle. After being absorbed by Point Star, internal energy will be transformed into different unique materials. However, when Point Star explodes, these materials will become Hydrogen and Helium, the two main ingredients for forming stars.

"Del..."

Kylia's voice wakes him up from meditation. Del looks down to see two golden eyes staring at him. There is still water in Kylia's eyes, so Del wipes it away with his thumb.

A few months ago, the black lump of flesh that covered Kylia's eye disappeared. Del was so happy to see both of Kylia's golden eyes at once. As a result, he sometimes feels lost in those golden eyes and doesn't want to let go.

"You're awake," Del says.

"Hmm..." Kylia nods. "Did I disturb your meditation?"

"No, I was just contemplating the Cemani Life Cycle Art again," Del replies.

"Have you found the right energy to support your cultivation?"

"Unfortunately, not yet."

"Okay..." Kylia ponders.

It seems that this nightmare is different from the previous ones. Although Kylia looks calm, Del knows that she is busy thinking about something.

"What's wrong, My Fate?"

"Nothing... I just think I remember something from my dream," Kylia presses her ear to Del's chest, smiling as she listens to his always calm heartbeat.

"Do you remember something?"

"Yes..."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"..."

Kylia's face suddenly turned red, then she stammered, "I... I think I saw you?"

Her sudden change in tone made Del flustered. "You saw me? Why are you unsure?"

If Kylia truly met him in a dream, she wouldn't forget. It wasn't because of Del's high narcissism, but that was how it should be.

Although Kylia only saw the tip of Del's hair, she would surely know if it was Del's, and vice versa. Their relationship was that close.

"Hmm... I didn't see you directly, but I just felt like you were there," Kylia nodded.

"What do you mean?"

"I felt darkness and..." Kylia looked deeply into Del's eyes, "...loneliness," she said while stroking Del's cheek.

Del nodded, understanding what Kylia meant. Kylia didn't see Del's form, but she felt what Del brought - darkness and loneliness.

"Del..." Kylia hugged Del again and put her ear against Del's chest.

"Yes?"

"If one day I'm not what you imagined, will you still stay by my side?"

"..."

Del remembered a romance article he had read. It was written that women liked to play what-if games like "If I were a chair, would you still love me?" or "If I lost one of my hands, would you still love me?"

When Del read it, he only laughed because he was sure there would never be a time when he was stupid enough to engage in silly question-and-answer games like that. But the reality was like now.

Not only once or twice did Kylia ask such questions to Del. And every time, Del had to rack his brain to find the right answer because a flippant answer would only lead to a fight between them.

For the umpteenth time, Del was grateful for his decision not to make a great harem. Del only answered seriously when Kylia asked, but if it was another woman, there might be a possibility that there were corpses of women who died from asking silly questions in every inch of the Flower Garden Orphanage.

"Why are you asking me that?" Del tried to gather strong data to analyze.

"I feel like in the past, I wasn't a good person. Maybe in a previous life, I was a terrible monster."

"..." Del felt that the data he had gathered was sufficient. With his computerized brain, Del quickly analyzed the data and tried to find the right answer in just a split second.

"Kylia... I don't care if you were a monster in your past life. I will always be with you and by your side. If you want to kill someone who is innocent, then I will dig their grave and eliminate the evidence.

"Kylia, you also know that in my previous world, we had different moral values from this world. For cultivators, humans are just like ants, they can be crushed while walking casually. So you don't have to worry about that.

"Besides, if one day I do kill someone who is innocent, then I am sure you will help me dig the grave and eliminate the evidence."

Del looked at Kylia, waiting to see if he passed the test or not.

"Thank you, Del," Kylia said, hugging Del tighter.