In the end, we failed to reach the staircase leading up to the third floor of Leila's cultivation garden.
A disappointnt for sure, but one that was warranted by another worry—that we spent quite a lot longer in this garden than we were supposed to.
Sure, we didn't reach the level Leila suggested for us, but…
But she couldn't know we planned to redo our entire cultivation from scratch there, could she? And judging by how our resistance to the pressure of that place grew with our cultivation, it was quite possible that while boasting cultivation between the eighth and ninth rank of the mortal stage, we had the qualifications to go all the way up to the third floor!
"You know, I still wonder what's there," I admitted as we calmly walked back the very sa path through the maze we took before, simply following the now right wall of the maze while enjoying the rare opportunity to just… walk while holding hands.
"Maybe we could ask about it once we get out?" Claire suggested, cutely leaning her head over her shoulder before gracing with one of those killer, bright smiles of hers. "Then again, I'm not really sure they would want to tell us. I can very well imagine them going…"
Claire twisted her face in a poor, haphazard attempt at mimicking an undisclosed mber of her clan.
"If you want to find out, you better get good enough to figure it out yourself," she screeched, pretending to be so sort of old hag… or maybe an old uncle?
"Heh," I laughed out a little, just enough to show my genuine reaction while keeping it on the low end of the volu in fear of disturbing the eerie sanctity of this place. "Why is it that I can picture them saying it?"
The rest of our trip back the way we ca from transpired mostly in silence, as we simply enjoyed each other's presence, both by holding each other's hands but also as a benefit of our—now reinforced—bond.
"And there we are," I muttered when we moved all the way back to the entrance of the second floor, where the pressure of this place was all but gone. "Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder how our cultivation will interact with the spiritual energy that we will encounter on the floor below," I ntioned.
Right now, the entirety of our cultivation was based not on the spiritual energy itself, but sothing much denser, deeper, appearing to be the law of said spiritual energy.
Yet, contrary to the law of humans which was created on top of society, civilization, and all the other crap humans ca up with, the law of spiritual energy was much closer to sothing like… well, gravity. A law that preceded the thing that it governed, giving it shape and limits within which the subject of the law had to operate.
Right now, if I were to unleash my cultivation, rather than working on the spiritual energy directly, I would rely form up new shapes of the law itself, shaping not the force but the fra to which it had to abide. Or, to put it in a more direct and commonly referred example, rather than creating fire and then condensing it in my hand to create a fireball, I would create a fra of the spiritual law that would force the free mana in the air to take the form of the condensed ball of fire, one I could freely manipulate from then on.
This difference changed how our entire cultivation operated, forcing us to give it so ti and effort to retrain our habits and muscle mory. And yet…
'This is all but a theory of mine,' I thought while taking a deep breath, not sure what to expect from what we were to soon encounter on the level below. 'Who knows what will happen once we put it to a test…'
Breathing out, I locked my eyes on the open doorway seemingly inviting us to leave now that we ca as far back. Or, to be more precise, I locked my eyes on the stairs directly behind it… and the looming aura of the unknown that awaited at their bottom.
"It's going to be fine," sensing my doubts, Claire pulled on my hand, only to then wrap her whole arm around mine, sneaking it over my arm's back before coiling it down over my hand, where she intertwined her fingers with mine, all the while putting the weight of her body over my whole arm.
This weight, however, served to soothe my senses rather than burden my muscles, allowing to imrse myself in Claire's delicate softness and the warmth of her flesh, as opposed to the looming darkness of what lay at the bottom of those weird stairs.
"Shall we?" Claire asked, turning her head just enough to let her eyes reach my face, while giving a proper angle to see her small, encouraging smile.
Seeing Claire's face, I could feel my worries lt away.
'I really am a simple man, huh?' I thought.
Five years ago, if anyone dared to say sothing like that to my face, I would take it for an insult. A year ago, while I focused just on survival in the cutthroat society of the modern world while desperately attempting to catch up with what felt like everyone else, I would just scoff at the remark before moving on, having too much on my head already to bother with so low-flying insults.
Right now, however, I took this aning not as a self-directed critique… but a simple acknowledgnt of the fact.
"What are you smiling so widely for?"
Noticing the change in my expression again, Claire took two steps ahead only to then turn on the spot as she ca to face properly.
"It's nothing," I stated while reaching out to brush my fingers over her cheek before moving my hand to put away a stray strand of her silk-like, slightly curly, brown hair, locking it behind her ear only to bring my hand back and rest it down on the very cheek I'd just caressed. "I just noticed how easy it is for you to make happy, relaxed or…" I took a mont to think my words through, "or put in any ntal state you would desire to do so."
Hearing this, Claire took a step back as a single hint of concern flashed in her eyes, proving that while reinforced, our bond still wasn't powerful enough to always let both parties involved in it know the other's intentions.
"Is it… bad?"
Judging by the look on her face, Claire wasn't really sure what to make out of my words, growing all the more confused when she just couldn't add them up to the gentle devotion I was showering her face with.
"Why would it be bad?" I laughed out, more to make it even easier to discern Claire's doubts than to make fun of her worry. "It just shows how simple I am, to be perfectly happy over just the smallest elents of our relationship," I stated as I retracted my hand and then looked over Claire's shoulder and at the looming abyss of the stairs behind her.
Once again, for the uncounted ti, I took a deep breath before slowly exhaling it out. And as I fully retracted my hand from Claire's cheek, I brought it up and offered it to her.
Even though our cultivation would likely ensure a smooth road down the stairs… I still wanted to hold Claire's hand as we challenged them. As we returned to the sect. And as we, once again, had to face the convoluted rules and customs of this forgotten part of the world, too stuck in its centuries-old ways to see the nearly unlimited potential for growth the two of us discovered by a total accident, by doing away with what we knew as the norm. Discover hidden tales at empire
"Shall we?" I asked as my hand reached the peak of its route, holding it in place in silence as Claire took a mont to first smile before raising her hand and matching mine as she dropped just her fingers down on my open palm, a connection that soon evolved into a proper hold and then reached its true, ultimate form as we, once again, intertwined our fingers and turned to face the stairs.
For all that I'd built up this next part of the return to be in my head, however, walking down those stairs I felt absolutely… nothing.
Not even the strain of changing the elevation, sothing I had to compensate with my muscles for, ca to bother . My montary inability to control my strength didn't seem to be a problem either, with the material those steps were made from easily withstanding the weight of not only my flesh but all the energy that it carried with it.
Just like that, we made our way down to the first floor of the garden, a place so filled with spiritual energy it had to be the best place to cultivate… to all those who failed to see the benefits of the subdued atmosphere of the second floor.
There, I also realized that my fears, as logical and reasonable as they were, turned out to be unfounded… or rather, in stark contrast to the reality. For not only didn't the mana of the garden assault our cores with an overwhelming power in a bid to rapidly fill all that was left within our current limits to the brim… even as we tried to actually absorb so of it, neither of us ended up successful in doing so.
"It seems like we are only able to cultivate the power of the spiritual law from now on," I ntioned, voicing my observation out to make it feel, seem more tangible than it really was.
"That indeed seems to be the case," Claire sighed, a hint of disappointnt present in her voice, as our future suddenly appeared to not be as simple as it would be if we could still use spiritual energy to cultivate.
'The question is, do the benefits of our current cultivation outweigh the hardship we will et in trying to find sources of the spiritual law?' I thought, only to then squint my eyes when… sothing just didn't feel right about the mont.
At first, I looked around, eager to figure it out, only to soon realize that it wasn't sothing that I saw that put in my current alerted state.
No, it was the distant echo of a noise that sohow managed to make it inside the garden, a place that was supposedly designed to keep all the outside distractions… well, to the outside.
"That noise…" I muttered, only for my eyes to lock on the huge, solid-wood doors that separated the cultivation garden from everything else in the clan's compound.
"Is it just , or is it coming from the outside?" I asked, not sure if it wasn't just my tired brain playing tricks on .
"That seems to be the case," Claire confird my suspicions before taking another step towards the garden's exit while tightening her hand over mine. "Just…"
She hesitated for a second before gulping her saliva down.
"Just what could be the reason for a ruckus so massive, we can hear it from here?"
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