I wasn't the one to overanalyze things when I had the ability to just test them out. And so, just like when I tried to give this minuscule amount of energy inside of a spin, I now tried to slightly excite it.
The failure of my first attempt didn't make hasty at all.
I knew just how important this very first step would be, and so I had no plans of rushing it.
That's why, at first, I only tried to poke around this spinning energy a little, searching for the best angle to affect it.
But how could I excite this energy hidden deep inside of my heart if I quite literally didn't have even a single iota of spirituality beyond that very core I was trying to excite, with the room I was in only mirroring the state of my spiritual reserves?
'Well, you never know until you try,' I thought, only to raise my fist… and smack it down against my chest, as if I wanted to plunge my fist into my very own heart.
My consciousness… twitched.
It felt as if my soul just beat up in a way my heart normally would, as if this self-inflicted strike carried my heart's job and purpose over to the rest of my body.
'Again.'
Intrigued, I raised my fist again and struck down on my chest, this ti - just a little bit harder.
And again, my consciousness twitched, as if… as if trying to reach up and expand to fit so sort of a mold… only to then collapse back under its own weight and due to the lack of natural stretchiness to its essence.
But while I could feel that my attempts were bearing so fruit… it still wasn't enough!
'Should I go all in?' I gulped my saliva down as I asked myself, my fist slowly clenching as my arms moved away from my chest, preparing for another strike.
Yet, right as I was about to bring my fist down over my heart…
"No! Stop it!"
Breaking her focus, Claire rushed forth and grabbed at my fist with her insanely feeble hands.
Even though we were both much weaker, making it hard for to hurt her with an accidental move… I could still recall how she felt just a few hours back in ti. And right now, with her hands desperately wrapped around my fist, she felt… fragile.
'Wait…'
With my thoughts shifting to Claire, I suddenly imagined her doing exactly the sa thing, banging her chest with her fist like she ant it, caring not for her health and safety all in a bid to test so random theory…
'Oh shit…'
Just like I didn't like the scene that appeared in my head, I could tell Claire wouldn't like its mirror version either. Yet, even though she already stopped in my tracks, Claire didn't stop there. Instead, she pushed forward, using my fist as sothing to pull herself up on only to then press herself down against my chest.
"Even though we've lost our bond," Claire climbed up to match our eyes before losing her sights on my face as she whispered right into it, "I can still sowhat tell what you are thinking, you know?"
For a mont, she remained silent, simply staring into my face, as if to ensure her words got through my ongoing focus.
Yet, the very mont I blinked a few tis, slowly coming back out of the well of determination I found myself in, Claire slid right back down my chest, only to hug herself into it.
"And if that's what you want, I know just the way to do it…"
Before I could even react, Claire wrapped her arms tightly around my back, securing herself a spot directly on my lap.
I had no ti to react… when I felt it again, sothing stirring the minuscule amount of energy deep at my core. Stirring it much harder than I managed to do it by slamming my fist into my chest.
'What the…
'Once again, I had no ti to react. And before I knew it… the world proved my earlier guess to be right.
We were in an empty room, with not a single iota of spiritual energy in it, and our own cultivation fully dissipated away. In other words, there was no energy for to absorb and condense… and yet, sothing started to react to the growing intensity of the minuscule amount of spiritual energy in my core. And before long, I could feel sothing… actually filling up!
It felt just like absorbing the spiritual energy… but different.
'Well, it only makes sense, there is no spiritual energy in here whatsoever,' I thought, gritting my teeth as I allowed this strange, non-present force to fill my cultivation up in place of the spiritual energy itself.
At first, I instantly attempted to redirect so of this energy to reinforce Claire's core… only to realize that there was nothing for to reinforce. From the very beginning, before we could establish even the slightest bit of cultivation ourselves, Claire already made use of a certain, habitual reaction of mine from when she would mount my lap.
Using my obvious reaction to the familiar sensation, she then managed to sohow sneak herself just in the right position to then throw her hips down, reuniting our bodies right as she used the minuscule energy left in her own core to excite my own spirituality.
Normally, doing so would likely equal to Claire losing her ability to cultivate whatsoever, with the very source of the movent of her spirituality now gone, spent to affect mine.
But that's where our deep connection and dual cultivation ca in clutch, instantly transforming both of our individual cultivations into a shared one, transforming the excited core of my cultivation into the excited core of OUR cultivation instead.
With this connection established, we just… hugged each other, only to then keep reinforcing the excitent within our shared core while allowing this strange, non-present form of spirituality to fill us up.
With the rate at which this process continued, we would fill up the first stage of our cultivation in a matter of one, maybe two minutes, but…
But, just like the strange energy we were filling up on had absolutely zero presence when compared to the normal mana I was used to, it also occupied pretty much no room in our tiny spirituality reserves, stretching the cultivation process from a single jiffy into quite a long stretch indeed.
And so, we just… sat down on the floor of this weird garden, cuddled into each other, patiently absorbing the energy we couldn't even understand, the energy we couldn't even notice.
But the differences didn't end there.
Normally, once we would fill our cultivation up, we would have to take our ti to figure out the ins and outs of the next stage so that we could achieve a proper, complete, and wholeso breakthrough, one that wouldn't limit our potential growth for the future.
One could say that the process of advancing one's level of cultivation, as developed by all the cultivators of the past—so of which both lived and shared their knowledge with others all the way to this day—was a strictly determined path. You fill your reserves of spirituality to their limits, figure out the concept necessary to increase your storage through reconceptualizing it, and then attempt to put your theory into practice by filling up the new shape, the new kind of reserve you modified your existing one to be.
If your theories were even remotely correct, the process was quite likely to succeed, allowing you to establish yourself within the higher realm of cultivation.
Right now, however, as more and more of this strange energy continued to fill our bodies, we soon reached the barrier between the two cultivation realms of Qi Gathering and Qi Condensation… only to then keep going as if nothing happened!
In fact, we continued to cultivate for the next several hours. And if we were to translate the amount of this strange, invisible energy we'd absorbed into standard mana, we would've long since reached the fifth stage of Core Foundation at the very least!
Yet, after what felt like several hours of doing nothing but cultivating this strange, unnoticeable energy… we only managed to reach the opening stage of the Qi Refinent, by actually condensing all of the energy we'd gathered into a form so much thicker, we could actually start sensing its presence.
It was different than the mana we were used to, much more solid, packed with… energy?
Comparing the two was like comparing a flake of snow with the face of an ice mountain taken straight from a glacier's edge at the North Pole!
While much more robust by its nature, this energy also proved to be increasingly difficult to handle and operate with, limiting just how much we could grow in one go.
In the end, it was the Qi Refinent stage, barely the third step on the path of mortal cultivation, that we ended up at when we could cultivate no more and collapsed down to the ground, breathing heavily from all the burden the weight of our new, remade cultivation put on us.
"Thinking about this… I guess there really was a reason why your mom wanted us to co here," I muttered, struggling to produce even a single word as I waited for my new, reford spiritual energy to slowly revitalize my body, granting enough strength to pick up right where we left off and continue the process.
This was what we were in the spiritual world for, after all.
Not for the politics with Claire's maternal clan. Not for the feast with all sorts of treasures the clan would display to share and brag about its might.
We were in this part of the world only for two reasons.
For Chihiro to reunite with his wife, and for us to cultivate with the local, much purer energy.
And now that we finally took a step in the right direction ever since our visit began… I couldn't help but feel a little greedy.
"What do you say if we take a short rest and then…" I gulped my saliva down, fully aware of just how ridiculous my next words would sound.
"And then, try to climb up to the garden's third floor?"
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