Chapter 52: 49. Severed Souls

"The fracturing is made more evident by your bronze death core," Gene says matter-of-factly. 

"Yeah, about that. What does that even mean? And what do you mean?" We have circled back to an earlier question of mine, leaving me in awe of Gene's ability to lead a discussion.

"The next stage of awakening advancement is templar. After that is sage. Instead of cultivating essences and building your soul, sages seek to reforge essences into an even more energy-conducive apparatus. There are three stages to reforgement, one stage for each essence. Your entire being changes. The spirit, body, and mind become more one.”

The cultivator, Adam, has reached twenty-seven levels of essence training. The new shadow image is godlike compared to low page-ranked Adam. Pale energy courses through his entire being. His eyes are bright with unfathomable depths. His body is absolute power. 

"At this height of cultivation, the only way for Adam to progress is to reforge his soul." Following Gene's words, the perfect specimen before me becomes even more perfect. His soul is more attuned to death mana than before, and there is a deeper connection between the three essences. Adam looks more whole.

"This process of reforgement transforms your essences into higher tiers allowing cultivators to harness mana more naturally. Reforged cultivator's body, mind, and spirit become weapons and tools of their own.

"The more your soul reforges, the denser the mana you can contain within. As you solidify the mana within, your soul emits a metallic hue. The refining of your soul is the next step of cultivation. The ruler stage has three levels: bronze, silver, and gold.

“The difference between you and Adam is that your soul is fractured. Adam and other cultivators at the ruler stage have a complete soul. When adam refines his soul, his whole being morphs to the bronze rank. In your case, only a part of your soul, the part bound to death mana, has reached the level of bronze."

Beside Adam, a shadow image of me appears. I am roughly the same height as Adam, maybe a little shorter. My body is thicker and more muscular. My skin and hair are much darker than his. Objectively, I am more handsome too. Where Adam looks like he trained to be strong, I look like I am inherently strong.

Looking closer at our differences, I start to notice our souls. Adam's entire soul has a bronze hue to it. Even after inspecting it further, his core summary is entirely bronze. On the other hand, mine is just one section with a bronze hue, the second layer of my core.

Even though my body looks stronger, I am nowhere near Adam's power level. His soul is more the embodiment of mana than mine by leaps and bounds. I can almost sense death mana eagerly waiting to serve Adam, whereas I am only able to use the energy.

"I sense you can see the differences between you and Adam." Gene finally speaks after allowing me to observe her conjured images. "Even though you are both in the Ruler stage, you will have a long ways to go before you are on the same power level as an ordinary cultivator. Especially if you plan to bind different mana for each layer of your fractured soul."

The new insight crashes into me, and I feel like I am standing in the ocean, tossed about by the relentless waves. What have I done to myself? Am I cursed? Stranded in the ocean, I feel insignificant. I am at the mercy of the waves and have no way of moving forward. I can swim as much as I want, but I will still only be in the ocean's depths. 

Breathe. I tell myself. Just breathe. 

I probably look like a mess as I confront the information I just received. Gene, thankfully, is giving me time to process, knowing that I might need a moment to come to grips with my future progression. It makes sense why Gene focused initially on the awakened stage now. Even though I have reforged my soul three times now, my power level is closer to that of a cultivator on the awakened stage. Even in terms of progress, I am still in the stage of absorbing and binding mana. Man, I really messed myself up.

Breathe. 

Does this actually change anything? Not really. Sure I am not as tough as Adam. However, Adam isn't even real, so that comparison can drown out for all I care. And maybe my way forward is going to take longer. Really the distance to where I am trying to get hasn't changed. My path forward was always going to be this long as soon as I woke up on the desert floor. Only now, I am less ignorant of the distance I will have to travel.

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I continue to methodically breathe, allowing the exercise to give a natural pace for my mind to process and handle information. 

If anything, the information Gene has given me has set me in the right direction. I just need to swim in the direction given until I am no longer out of my depths. Besides, swimming in the ocean is much better than walking in the desert. With that thought, a silly smile creeps onto my face. "Gene," I call out to the shadow shaman lingering nearby, giving me some space, "what else can you teach me?"

***

For an unknown period of time, I trained in shadow under the tutelage of what probably was once the strongest shadow mage of her time. Gene taught me how to refine my cultivation for both of my bound energies. She explained how I could bring others into my shadow realm. With enough strength, I could have control over them there.

While I trained with Gene, Shade was more eager to laze about than do much of anything. More often, my totem was in wolf form sleeping in an abandoned house. Every time I interacted with him, Shade feigned interest long enough to placate me before sauntering off to a new lounging spot. I didn't mind much. It could be that Shade needed some recovery time from its previous life. I let my totem be and focused on the training Gene was offering. 

I learned her way of fighting with the staff; she even gave me techniques to add to my archery skills. She taught me how to use shadow for popping in and out of a battle. When she felt like I grasped the shadow step technique, she taught me how to combine shadow daggers with the steps. More practice was devoted to shadow steps and shadow summons. 

At first, I was imprecise. I practiced over and over well past our training sessions. Eventually, I honed both techniques. 

Gene clapped her hands. I disappeared into my shadow. 

Two claps. I reappeared behind her with two knives. 

One clap. I'm back in my shadow. 

Three claps. I appear out of my shadow twenty feet away from Gene, bow in hand. I disappeared as soon as it was fired and watched as it flew through my instructor's spirit. 

We repeated the exercise until stepping in and out of my shadow was a thought. What was only a small dagger is now two long knives of solid shadow. Not only can I conjure knives out of shadow, but I can also pull out arrows. With all my improvements, it wasn't until I could add shadow enhancements to Bo that Gene gave me a nod of approval. 

All during the training, Gene answered questions that popped into my mind. I asked about my empty cores and if she had any advice on how I should cultivate them. She agreed that it would be a wasted opportunity to not absorb different energies in each core.

A few elves could cultivate two energies, and some talented templars could manipulate connected energies. But a cultivator with eight empty cores is not something she had heard of. 

We discussed in-depth the perks gained from essence training and how to utilize them more fully. Perception, according to Gene, was one of the most important essences of the spirit or any of the essences. Cultivators could read basic information about the world and other cultivators. With enough perception skills, they could even mask their presence. When she found out I hadn't been using the skill outside of sense, she practically went into full ghost rage mode. 

Immediately we shifted our focus onto perception training.

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