If you were to ask someone why body/soul cultivators are quite rare to see, besides the fact that humans naturally fear the unknown, which reflects in how many people give up in the soul path after getting to know that no one has gone past the Transcending realms, the other reason is that cultivating the body requires movement.
For animals moving is a natural instinct, the body path which enhances instincts is the same, that's why body cultivators are quite energetic, then we the we have soul cultivators whose focus is meditating, reflexing and comprehending the complexities of the soul.
That doesn't mean they are all smart philosophers or scholars, since everyone's personality which is linked to the soul is different, soul cultivators are the ones with the biggest variety in their files, from calm to hyperactive and eccentric or even crazy guys.
As strange as it sounds, cultivating both the body and soul is extremely efficient, since one requires you to follow your instincts, move and be active, while the other requires introspection and tranquility, so if you can balance both, the result is incredibly good.
That is if you are able to do so… which is proving to be a pain in the ass for Tiana.
Tiana whose eyes were closed as she tried to divide her attention, felt the spirit avatar she was trying to maintain as she slowly moved her body, crumble, every time waves of soul energy filled the whole place.
"Ah, can you two please stay quiet for a second!", she shouted at the black haired youth and the gray haired woman, who seemed to be having fun, based on their entertained expressions, naturally those two were Aster and Felicia who have been clashing their soul condensed weapons for a while.
Aster who blocked both Felicia's clawed gauntlets with his incomplete black sword soul weapon, turned to see Tiana before saying.
"Do you know why your parallel thinking is weaker than mine or your mother's, in my case honestly speaking my soul in general isn't normal, but what about Felicia, your soul cultivation isn't that far from hers and yet the difference between you two is like heaven and earth".
Tiana listened to Aster and she remained silent, it as true, both of them focused in the body path and used the soul path as their secondary, since Felicia couldn't advance anymore in the body path when she reached the peak of the Carnal Disaster realm, she put all her effort in the soul path.
In which the two of them started at the same time, naturally as someone who has lived and experienced more, Felicia had a small advantage in the soul path over her daughter, which ended in Felicia being currently in the Stellar Axys realm in terms of soul cultivation, while Tiana is in the Stellar Constellation.
You might think its due to their constitutions, being different, but according to Felicia, though their expressions, names and attributes are different, their energy constitutions are the same.
Aster approached Tiana and then crouched down in front of her, he then unleashed his murderous aura, which has been fed by the deaths of all the enemies they had fought so far, including practically everyone but Ley who escaped his hands back at the secret realm.
Tiana felt a chill running down her spine, every cell in her body screamed the same thing "run!", but then that dreading sensation vanished as if it never existed to begin with, and instead a warm and cozy feeling bathed her body.
"Mm?", she raised her head and a bit and was welcomed by the bright smiling expression of Aster, the one he always does whenever he is having a good time with the girls, which is basically always.
"You see my lineage is that of a dragon, dragons are pretty unstable beings, they are violent and lascivious, and my bloodline is evolving to be stronger than any other dragonkin that has ever existed, which means that if I were to let go even for a moment, I'll probably end up doing some crazy stuff", said Aster as he stood up before continuing.
"And so you would think I should have to become a monk-like existence, walk down the soul path to enlighten myself and be an upright person… but that would be running away from the problem itself".
"If your own power is trying to give you problems, then you just have to tighten the leash on it, negative feelings, just overwhelm them with positive ones, forced to be upright, screw that, act as you please and by doing that you will excel the core principle of soul cultivation, answering the question "Who am I", instead of being okay with "Who does this universe wants me to be", and that way your soul will become purer without the need of any meditation, simply by living".
Tiana was speechless, while Felicia's eyes were glowing, she didn't stop Aster from exposing Tiana to his murderous aura, which unlike her daughter, the mother could "see" pretty well, she is way more skilled in what seeing energies means, an ability her constitution grants the two of them, that's how she knew the kind of relationship Aster has with Lilia and Alice, as well as the fact that he could somehow manipulate the purity of spirit energy.
Aster gazed at Felicia and then said.
"There is a fundamental difference in the way you and your mother deal with your own situations, those strong instincts she has aren't being suppressed, she is controlling them, letting them grow and overwhelming them to use them, since they are a part of her, Eric is the same in that aspect, probably that's why we get along I would say".
"You on the other hand, are suppressing them only, and that is fine if you wish to be barely above average, your talent is enough to make up for that after all, but if you want to be truly strong, then that's not going to work".
Aster had finished to say what he wanted, so he returned to where Felicia was standing, he has been curious about something, when Felicia uses her soul cultivation, her hair gray hair turns black inked, her attribute is darkness, so it makes sense.
But Tiana's hair is half black and half gray, as if she couldn't decide which one she wants, hair color supposedly reflects one's attribute, it's not like is impossible to have more than one, but that often ends up in being decent in both but outstanding in none, not to mention Tiana's attribute is light.
Now don't make the mistake to think that darkness equals evil and light equals good, there a people with the same base of an attribute but there is none with the same attribute, each one has a different expression, just like how Aster's Rigel's flames purify while Aria's freeze.
Felicia saw her daughter sitting from afar, being lost in her thoughts and she smiled at Aster.
"Thanks for that", she mumbled with a genuinely grateful voice, this is the first time Aster has seen her not acting playful.
"Everyone has their own circumstances, but nothing of that matters in my family", answered Aster as he returned to where they were sparring with their soul condensed weapons earlier, not without stopping a second to look at Felicia's back for a couple of seconds.
Felicia smiled and then followed Aster, now Tiana had to digest Aster's words and take her decision, no one can help her in that aspect.
…
Aster faced Felicia once again, they were interrupted by Tiana earlier, so he has yet to witness how does she control spirit energy with soul energy, which is something he is eager to see happening, as it should be an impossibility.
Felicia saw Aster's expecting gaze and she giggled, the black-haired youth in front of her, was rather strange, being able to show so much different facets without feigning and still be himself, is quite amazing.
'It's not like he acts different with each person, but rather "who he is" covers all that, I guess he isn't bluffing when he says that his soul is abnormal', thought Felicia, she had to admit that this date has proven to be more amusing than what she expected.
"Now don't look at me like that, if you wait patiently, this older sister will show you something amazing~", she said as she jokingly winked at him.
Aster chuckled, Felicia was rather lively all of a sudden, well she is always like that, but that is a subject for another day, since Erick isn't here right now, and even then, he has no intention to say anything, unless she brings it first.
Seeing that her joke was well-accepted, Felicia smiled and then her body radiated that black soul energy of hers, it was different than Lilia's who has a red toned border, akin to her attribute which is destruction, Felicia's is purely black without anything else, and yet darkness isn't everything that there is to it, or at least that's what Aster thinks.
It took Felicia a moment to gather enough soul energy to demonstrate that ability of hers, at least that was the case for the naked eye, but Aster's who was using his spirit sense enhanced with his soul energy to the maximum of his capacities, noticed that as soon as her soul energy reached a threshold, it started automatically attracting spirit energy towards it.
"Oh, you can see it, your spirit sense seems to be better than mine, despite my soul being purer", said Felicia with a slightly surprised expression.
As the one whose soul energy was causing this phenomenon, she could feel it from the very beginning, but only see it if she used her ability, not with spirit sense yet.
With a wave of her hand, Felicia's soul energy "engulfed" the spirit energy which was dragged towards it and then she extended her hand towards Aster.
Aster didn't stop in the ceremony and grabbed Felicia's hand, he used his spirit sense to look into her dantian, just like he did once before, surprisingly this time he didn't have to put any effort to force his way into it and instead was "welcomed" by her dantian.
As always, Felicia's inner universe was different than others, it was a blank space with many black lights floating in it, she also didn't have a star core which should have been there regardless of her cultivation path.
But there was a difference compared to before, inside one of those countless black lights, there was a small amount of spirit energy stored.
Aster's eyes widened a bit, without retrieving his spirit sense from her universe, he turned to see Felicia, just to see her giggling at her.
"Amazing isn't it, my soul energy doesn't reside in the soul layer of my body, but in my dantian now that I'm a Mortal Transcending cultivator, so I can "imitate" an energy cultivator this way, of course the spirit energy I have stored isn't mine nor I can freely circulate it through my body like an energy cultivator, but I can do this…".
Felicia's free hand slowly coated in a mix of soul energy and spirit energy, the result is something Aster has never seen before, unlike Dragon Aura who uses "will", this used soul energy and its effects were unknown.
Or at least that was the case, until Felicia suddenly used her black clawed hand to attack her own arm, Aster was about to stop her, when he saw something outrageous, her hand passed through her arm, without causing the bloody scene Aster expected.
Needless to say but Aster was amazed at it, spirit forms are corporeal, even if it just a soul which is living outside of the body, there is a "feeling" to it, it can't go through walls and other physical objects like a ghost from the myths back at earth.
But Felicia was able to do something like that, which is unheard off, he didn't feel any space wave also, so she wasn't just tricking him with a visual illusion, her hand was passing through a physical object.
Felicia took her hand out of her arm and then the black "substance" was dispelled, she closed and opened her hand a couple of times before saying.
"Unfortunately, I can't do it with anything else but my own body for now, but once my soul condensation improves, I should be able to, I will break a lot of hearts in the future~".
Aster bitterly smiled, she meant it in a literal way, imagine being in a close combat and the hand of the enemy suddenly ignoring any barrier and then crushing your heart from within your body, that was one hell of a terrifying ability.
"Let's continue with our training then", said Aster.
"I'll be in your care", said Tiana, they took their distances and their soul condensed weapons spar continued.
But that wasn't all, while they fought in the real world, inside the survival zone of the monthly trial, two wisps of light one purely golden and another which was pitch black, wandered together inside a jungle area.
Judging by their smooth movements and the fact that they were even stopping and casually avoiding traps that appeared out of nowhere, while chatting, one would think they were veterans in this game, not first timers.
"I wonder if we can eliminate the other participants or we are just allowed to float around inside this place", said the black wisp to the golden wisp, judging by its voice, it was a woman's avatar.
'PK right of the bat, we might get banned or something', thought the golden wisp before saying.
"Well, there is only one way to know".
And so the two wisps deepened into the jungle looking for a volunteer to try their hypothesis.
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