Chapter 5: The Shadows

It all depends on the person and their understanding of their force and what they wish to achieve with such strength.

For me though, I still wasn’t sure of what I had in mind, but there was one thing I was sure of , I wanted to devour but not to be controlled by it but to control it’s very essence.

The first think I needed to do though was cultivate my first wisp of force and build an [Astral Core].

Following the [Astral Force Basic: Cultivation], I allowed my mind energy, now known as [Astral Sense] to flow around me and try to communicate with the darkness and shadows around the dark cave.

Maybe because it was already dark, the process was short and without any problems, after I felt the connection to the same darkness that made me feel at home, I tried to pull a wisp of it into my body through my nose or ears or any other orifice that allowed entrance into my internal structure.

The wisp of darkness, listened obediently at first, it entered via my nose, sank into bloodstream, and flowed through my heart, down my aorta into my iliac branch bifurcation right below my dantian area where it suddenly went berserk.

Instead of forcing it to listen and do as I wish for it to, I suddenly got a feeling that my old body would probably be torn to shreds if I dared to force it to do something.

Thinking along those line, I instead divided it into two and let them circulate my bottom limbs before building a small circular whirlpool using the two threads once they reached my dantian area once more.

This time around I didn’t face rejection instead I felt a pulling force engulf my whole body, I felt my blood and energy getting siphoned in a very quick pace, before I could even stop this process that had clearly gone out of hand, the very family darkness visited me once more, instead this time around it was cold and lonely.

“Hahaha, don’t tell me I died after getting a chance to become something bigger than even my own dreams?!” even though I was screaming such words and other, well.. more vulgar ones, the cold darkness still remained, and when I was about to give though, a single thought suddenly hit me.

Wasn’t my affinity [Shadow] didn’t that mean that I lived in darkness and was actually loved by it? If so then why would I find it cold? Was it because I have always known nights to be cold or was it because I am actually rejecting this darkness that I fear would take me away from my chance at a life that was worth living?

I thought of many ideas and reasons but in the end of it all, there was one decision I could make, that was to actually embrace the darkness that I feared and turn it into my ally that would be always by my side.

And so I went into super dumbo mode..... I gave up on thinking, yup ,I stopped doing anything and simply let myself be part of the loneliness and coldness that existed around me.

I let go of any thoughts of rejection and just let my feelings consume me, I felt the coldness of the night, I felt the coldness of a hot summer day under the shadows of a tree, I felt the pleasant peacefulness of a night without stars, I saw many faces of shadows and darkness in itself.

It was then that it hit me, darkness, was never a bad thing, no, no force of nature was ever bad, they simply functioned according to their predestined and decided laws.

In fact I realized that just meant [Shadow] itself was only a part of darkness, and darkness encompassed a vast world of laws and power that would one day be something I could hopefully peer into.

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From such thought’s I gained a secondary ambition, I wanted to see, I wanted or possibly even control over the laws that govern the very darkness that constituted our worlds.

It was during such a time that my consciousness returned, and with it a sharp and piercing pain that made me feel as if my abdomen was stabbed by a long and uneven knife, not just stabbed though but twisted so gruesomely my intestines turned along as well, tearing their fragile bodies apart.

It was so painful I started looking for the old tigress, simply because I didn’t want her to see me crying, I was about to shed a tear, no, not just one tear, a full bucket of tears.

Seeing that I couldn’t find her, I let myself free, I let it all go, I cried and my voice croaked and crackled along with my pain, even though all that did little to elevate it, instead it seemed as if the small dantian I was creating felt insulted and spun even faster.

It was another hour or may even another century or a second before the pain stopped, and when it did, I felt a new force of vitality permeate my body.

My bones creaked while my muscles stretched thereby allowing more blood to pump to that area, this also allowed the rest of my body’s blood flow to increase since my heart was pumping more blood, and it wasn’t just any blood, it was blood filled to the brim with Astral Force.

An energy so potent, I felt my tired body grow excited and full of vitality. A few moments later after I was done enjoying the energy circulation and my body growing younger or rather more robust, I was welcomed by a stink so bad and disgusting I wished I could take off my very skin and throw it outside the cave.

“Ugh!! Old man you smell disgusting.” watching the clearly disgusted old tigress that had just come in with her cane and Lilly following closely behind her, I smiled subconsciously.

My smile didn’t last long though since Lilly, told to do so by her grandmother decided it was a proper and well thought of idea to splash cold water on me.

Even though I had my complaints, I quickly swallowed them when it was clear that Lilly had been changed by this old Tigress, she had turned into a tiny tigress herself, with her small hands on her waist and a brush with soap near the bucket she was carrying.

I have no idea why she came here carrying two buckets, a part of me feels like these two already saw me shed tears earlier, but I will not confirm it. I do not dare to.

I firmly believe that as long as you do not see something or know about it, it does not exist.

Since they haven’t said anything I won’t either, but the brush and the water the young pup had with her said everything about the painful brushing I would be going through.