The Universe is Innately Just - Chapter 323

Right after connecting with the sapling in his soul palace, the mysterious tree- once again- materialized outside of Fell’s body. As soon as he appeared, he illuminated the small courtyard with a sharp verdant glow that pulsed with vitality.

“What is a sword intent?”, he asked himself innocently as he pondered on the mysteries of the sword path. And as he fell deeply in an elusive thought string, he controlled sent his own sword intent through the sapling before sending it to his right hand holding Soldier’s Fortune. The sharp and constant influx of sword intent was magnified during its passage through the sapling, and by the time it attained his sword, the essence of that intent would have acquired a vibrant life characteristic.

To the semi-conscious weapon he had, that type of life based sword intent could be deemed as the most precious nutriment it could receive. Not only would the life characteristic in it raise the degree of formation of the sword’s spirit, speeding a process that would usually only happen with weapon of higher tiers. But was also helpful for its master, Fell, who had now an ample time to analyze the life characteristic the sapling of strength had given to his sword.

His eyes turned into slits, as his soul entered an autopilot mode where he would constantly generate a steady influx of sword intent. And during that focus, free time, his conscious- or soul sense to be precise- was entirely focused on decorticating the life element out of the sword intent released out of the small verdant sword-leaflet of the tree.

The origins of the tree were still mysterious in Fell’s mind, as he knew that it was a tool used by the civilization behind the godly entities’ forces, but had nonetheless put his entire trust in it as it was the sole reason behind his survival. Without it, his soul would have continued disintegrating until nothing would have been left from it.

Thankfully, with the sapling’s strength, he was capable of maintaining a constant influx of sword intent without feeling any feeling of fatigue appearing. Sadly, he came to soon understand that with the sapling at his side, fatigue would never be a hurdle he would face.

And that soon came to be true, as time passed and the duration of his focus on the modified life based sword intent of the tree augmented. The sole difficulty he faced was the terrible amount of that came with each loss of mental strength.

Strangely, the sapling didn’t immediately refill his mental batteries, but made it such that he would only be pushed through his limit before each refilling. Making it that even if he wasn’t specifically training, just the usage of his soul reserve ended raising his upper limit by a small margin each time it would be emptied to nearly a drop.

That was where the relentless intent passed on by his old consciousness came to play, and constantly urged him to push forward without any hesitation. The relentless intent had mixed with the entirety of his purple expanse, and represented nearly half of his soul palace’s matter.

“It seems as though the life element in the sapling’s version of my sword intent drastically reduces its destructive force…”, he muttered slowly as he couldn’t understand how a soft based sword intent could exist.

“Such sword intent must be a rarity in the cultivation world…”. He added in confusion, as he was radically aware that for a soft intent like this one to be born, the swordsman would have to have followed the way of healing through his blade.

A paradoxical path that would only be born under certain circ.u.mstances that couldn’t be forced by destiny. Yet strangely, he felt that such a strange path would heavily benefit his future progress in the slaughter-filled path of swordsmanship. In the end, the chilling yin birthed a twinkling burning yang in its cold gist. And the same was true for the opposite case.

Space and time were two indistinguishable lines that couldn’t be separated, with Fell being the perfect example to this case. The spatial element that had fused with his soul, not only made him specifically aligned toward Spatial Laws but also made him more attune that the norm if compared to normal cultivators. And when it came to rare, difficult laws, such as the main governing one like space-time, then even a small advantage would end result in a massive difference of understanding.

In the same way, the extreme yin birthed extreme yang, the sword path also seemed to be capable of that as under extreme slaughter might raise a blooming life from the bloodied puddle. In fact, the sapling’s vibrant life force came directly from the sea of slaughter inside of Fell’s soul palace, and made it possible for the mysterious tree to grow inside of a soul palace.

This fact was unknown to Fell, but during his journey inside of the Gigantic Tree, one of the major components of the success related to the fusion of his ego body and the seed of strength was due to the perfectly hazardous- chaotic- balance the ominous aura- he had absorbed- and his own soul’s energy- fused with the spatial element- had managed to form during the unavoidable calamity.

This strange, unexpected factor was what Thol’Yr had been looking for when he had tried speaking to the young cultivator. But in the end, the valuable information he tried looking for had caused him to lose the precious momentum of the battle, and with the last suicidal rush executed by Akainmhar. He had ended up giving his life to get revenge.

“There seems to be some kind of way that makes the sapling capable of transmuting slaughter- ominous- aura into potent wood-type energy.”, he thought as he felt that he was treading on the right track for the answer he was looking for.

His progress continued smoothly with the advancement of the moon through the sky of the Core. And before long, a change began appearing as Soldier’s Fortune began morphing under the constant influx of life-type intent.

The black mat colored steel of his sword receded quietly as it moved into a clearer color, and before long, Soldier’s Fortune soon turned grey before the changes related to its color stopped. But the changes happening to the sword, in general, didn’t come to a stop, as the sword’s pommel elongated slightly at the same time the grey colored blade turned longer and thinner.

In less than thirty-minute, Soldier’s Fortune’s shape and color had drastically changed, becoming an entirely different weapon than befitted its owner’s current need. Each change that happened to its architecture was meant to make the sword fuse with its owner with an even bigger synchronization. And by the time the physical change moved from the exterior structure of the weapon to its intricate internal structure, another thirty minutes were added to the limitless river of time.

The thin longsword glinted sharply as the new Soldier’s Fortune glinted sharply in the night. By raising the slenderness of the blade, not only did it give the weapon a water surface like cutting edge, but it had also raised its density to the upper limit.

Fell’s eyes opened, freeing his mind for a few seconds away from the living-nightmarish task of comprehending the law related to life, and laid quietly on his lap. The new appearance of his fated weapon entered his eyes, causing his iris to turn into pinpoint as he truly found the weapon beautiful.

As beautiful and fragile the weapon may have looked like in his eyes, the moment he regained the proprioceptive sense of his physical body, he immediately sensed the durability and the density of the crystal-like steel material his blade had turned into. His hand approached the- crystal shaped- bladed part of his sword, and softly brushed it with his fingers, getting a feel of his sword.

A soft ringing tone spread through the silent courtyard- where the only other sound came from the rustling of the blade-shaped leaflet of the illusory tree and the n.a.k.e.d tree planted in the dirt- coming directly from Soldier’s Fortune.

Suddenly, he grabbed his weapon in an attacking stance, and slowly moved his weapon through the air producing a near-silent but audible- weeping- noise that came from the air splitting in contact of Soldier’s Fortune invisible edge. Then in an abrupt manner, he raised the speed of his movement, and executed a clean swipe from his cross-legged position.

At the same time, the illusory tree behind him released a tremendous amount of life based sword intent that was smoothly injected in that attack. Fell’s mind blanked as the life energy released by the illusory tree rose in intensity. Blooming everywhere in the deserted courtyard as a change happened everywhere around Fell.

His sword slash didn’t take down any life, as even the n.a.k.e.d tree standing in his attack’s trajectory was left untouched during the performance. In the contrary, the life based sword intent was infused directly in the dried bark of the tree, and the next moment, life pulsed with potency through its crooked roots.

The effect of his attempt took time to appear, but with the passing time, weed and herbs began appearing on the ground around the tree. Followed by a verdant color that vibrantly gave life and clothing to the n.a.k.e.d tree that seemed at the end of its life.

The blooming effect of his life infusing attack didn’t stop there, and the next minute that passed in the courtyard could only be described in two words. A viral wave of life energy was induced by Fell through the deserted ground of the courtyard.

At first, it was only around the patch of dirt surrounding the lone tree, but soon extended past it, and before long, the entire courtyard had been tainted with a vivid green color that glowed under the moonlight.

“A sword can truly give birth to life…”, he muttered slowly as his eyes glowed under the clear moonlight hue.

He broke the connection he had with the sapling in his soul palace, turning the illusory tree standing behind him into glistening stars that made his way back to his body. He could sense that his sword had been overflooded with sword intent, and needed time to digest everything it had absorbed, especially when it had entered the last stage of the formation of a sword spirit.

Step as these couldn’t be forced, and could only slowly happen with time. And in the same way, a fetus would need time to grow, the same was true for a sword spirit. After this cultivation session, he could already sense that Soldier’s Fortune’s sword spirit had already entered the last steps of its gestation. In the same way, his ego body took time to fully form, even as the master of the weapon, he didn’t know exactly when his weapon’s spirit would awaken.

He decided to place Soldier’s Fortune near the sapling, planting it deep in the dirt of the small isle, right at the side of the growing sapling. And finally decided to move from his sitting position.

Fell rose to his feets, and patted the dust that had acc.u.mulated on his body before departing from the courtyard. Before leaving, he turned around, and gazed one last time at the courtyard.

When he resumed his steps, his face was marked with satisfaction as the image of the flowery courtyard would forever stay ingrained in his soul.

“I should probably go back to Sifiso.”, he muttered as he remembered the strange action he had done in front of the Old Manager. And just as the Old Man entered his mind, his aged figure appeared in the corner of the young cultivator’s sight.

He turned toward Sifiso, and his body suddenly came to a stop as he noticed another figure. One that caused his soul to tremble as filial piety made him want to bow down in front of the figure at Sifiso’s side.