Aerien’s POV

 

Creating an entire new chakara system in a week. It turned out to be nothing even close to that simple. As it turns out, the speed at which you are able to assemble a new chakara is entirely dependent on how well you understand its function in the energy body. As far as that goes, the 9 I had created at first were the only ones I knew the full functionality of.

 

I wound up relying on Gaerien pretty heavily for this process. Each day she would educate me completely on the functions of 3 to 5 of the minor chakara, and then I would begin the process of constructing them in my duplicate masculine spirit body. It went far slower than the original 9 from the first day, my lower level of understanding about them actually did slow down the speed at which I could create them, and I also had to deal with the frustrated emotions of my younger self constantly coming back over our subconscious connection. It made it rather difficult to concentrate.

 

Fortunately, I had the help of the effectively infinite energy of heaven running quite smoothly and regularly through my masculine spirit body. Since it was newly constructed and lacking even the slightest imperfection, the energy flowed flawlessly and seemed to start taking on a will of its own the more minor chakara I constructed. It seemed as though each one of them became easier, and I wound up not even having to worry at all about the smallest nameless chakara nodes as they created themselves simply by the energy flowing through that section of the body.

 

After all of this, it took around 10 days for the whole thing to finally be finished. Once I had completed it, I stepped back, or rather, teleported back to the island in this void that had become my observation platform. From there, I took in the work I had done. The masculine body now stood proud and tall as its gigantic form. It was a natural thing to appreciate the hard work you had just done. However, looking at that nearly perfect form in contrast to the child feminine form next to it caused my heart to feel somewhat empty.

 

If I were to compare the form of the curled up child facing away from the Adonis like form that I had just meticulously hand-crafted free of all spiritual imperfections, it really made me feel bad. I had just spent 10 days working on the perfectly healthy one while neglecting the one that looked unhealthy at a glance. However, this whole thing was, in fact, for the express purpose of restoring this child’s spirit to good health. I had to first transplant my own energies out of hers and separate them before she could begin to recover.

 

It might have been my subconscious affecting it, but the ghostly female child form seemed to have tensed up as it held its knees over the course of the time I was working. The face had not taken on any kind of unpleasant expression, it was still as blank and neutral as it was when my younger self had first manifested it. It was only its arms, legs, and torso that showed the signs of tension as the fingers began to grip the knees more tightly and the arms were held more rigid as the elbows began to raise due to the tension of the supposed muscles working underneath.

 

This manifestation as though the feminine form was in pain had started to appear roughly 2 days into my efforts at separating our energies. I was unsure whether this was a result of the out of whack chakara system, or if maybe it was a result of the mental stress my younger self was feeling out in the real world. She seemed to have taken a particular interest in my mother, and without my wisdom as the more lived and experienced between the two of us she had decided to pursue her whenever she could, only to experience repeated rejection every time. This had grown to frustrate her quite a bit.

 

Rolwen and Levin managed to calm her down. While she may not have full access to my wisdom and maturity, she still had access to all of my knowledge. Because of this, she was still the one with the knowledge about the best exercises they could do to better themselves and speed their growth. They had often, over the course of this week and some change, cheered her up by talking about how they needed and relied on her to help them, and asked her what the next exercise was. Those boys had actually become quite clever in dealing with my younger self. I’d had my doubts at first, but it seemed to have worked out.

 

 My younger self had also proven to be a fair bit more mature than I had expected, at least in so far as it came to dealing with the boys. It seemed like she had grown rather familiar with them, which meant she knew how to act. However, it seemed most of this was actually an act. She did not want the boys to see her as a little kid, so she was constantly trying to act like me in order to prove she was an adult like the rest of us.

 

Unfortunately, she was only able to keep up this act in front of Gaerien and the boys. This was, after all, the only situation where she had seen me modeling what could pass for proper adult-in-a-child’s-body behavior. As soon as she tried to approach mother, she didn’t know how to act. Normally, when I interacted with adults in this body, I acted in a way that could be easily taken as something a child would do while also being just what needed to be done in order to achieve my objective. She did not have anything even close to those skills, so she ultimately only just wound up acting childish.

 

I smiled as I reminisced about those experiences I had felt coming back through our link and then took a more serious look at the chakaras that represented my younger self’s spirit form. Actually, if I were to compare it to when I began this process, it actually looked a lot better. The heaven’s chakara, which used to be a gigantic sphere like the sun of this inner world, had shrunk down to at least an extent where it was obvious it was centered over the female form’s head and the male form just happened to be close to it. Before, it was so large that you couldn’t even tell that.

 

It was still quite big, and still cast random bursts of energy everywhere in this inner space, but it had settled down a little and now seemed to direct most of the energy into the feminine spirit body, which then quickly passed through her system and exited through the sole chakara and straight into the more concentrated void positioned at the male form’s feet.

 

The chakara themselves also seemed more stable. The other 6 primary chakara had taken on a far more uniform shape and size. I could see them pulsing from time to time, an indication I had learned to mean there was some disturbance in the flow of energy that should normally be a steady stream, but this was a far-cry from the flickering and shaking they had done when I first saw them. They were indeed well on the road to recovery.

 

-

 

“Other” Aerien’s POV.

 

I sat on my bed with a giant grin on my face as I carefully read the information I was getting from my connection with the old man. I knew he was working on the final touches of his separate spirit body Gaerien had been helping him with. Once he was finished with this, he would be back to helping me again. It was not that I couldn’t do things without him, but I liked having him there.

 

He thought of us as both the same person and different at the same time. Until he started to do all of this last week, I had accepted that and I shared his thoughts on this. However, since he was separate from me for so long with me needing to do things with Rolwen and Levin and try to show them I could also be like a grown up without him, I was starting to see him more and more like a different person from me. That didn’t mean I became distant from him though, not at all. In fact, more and more I was starting to see him like a grandpa to me.

 

It seemed like he had forgotten his name from his past life. For so long, he had thought of himself as also Aerien. So, I guess that really is his name now then. But, he was also my grandpa, and he was the most important grandpa in the world for me. I really felt a lot safer when he was around, and I had missed having his consciousness constantly so close to mine. I had decided to put up with it on the first few days even though I didn’t like it. After a while, I got used to it. But now that he was almost done and could come back, I was excited and now I really knew just how much I had missed him and wanted him to always be around.

 

After a little while of paying close attention to the emotions I felt from our link, I felt the tense concentration of him focusing on what he was doing stop, and then it shifted to admiration. I knew exactly what those emotions signified.

 

(Gaerien!) I called out to my sister who knew a lot more about this stuff that I did. (He’s done! He’s done!)

 

(Huh? Who’s done?) Levin asked, having heard my outburst.

 

(She’s talking about her old life mind. He’s finished with what was making it so he couldn’t be part of her mind in front of us.) Gaerien told him.

 

(Hey! Help me go into my inner world thing! I want to see!) I demanded, getting a slightly uncomfortable look from Gaerien.

 

(Can’t you do that yourself already?) She complained.

 

(Noo… I don’t think so.)

 

(Well, you’re probably too excited for it anyway. Alright, fine, I’ll help you.) She looks back up to Rolwen at this. He was in the middle of helping her walk when I had called out. She communicated her intentions with body language, and then the two of them started walking toward the bed slowly.

 

(Mmmm… come on!) I complained at their slow pace.

 

(Why don’t you just pick her up?) Levin asks.

 

(She can wait.) Gaerien answers, sending a challenging look to Rolwen to warn him off of doing as Levin had just suggested. He gives a somewhat helpless look and just continues to help Gaerien with her slow toddling steps toward the bed.

 

(Stop treating me like a kid!) I yell at them all and turn and cross my arms. (Fine! I’ll do it myself!) I throw myself down on the pillow and begin to go through the meditation I learned from the old man, the same one we had used the first time when we went into Gaerien’s world. However, I couldn’t quite get my mind to calm down after all of that. Suddenly, I felt a more mature calm come over my mind. I knew I had taken too long. He was back now.

 

I could feel my dual-mind, not really a kid and not really an adult, re-asserting itself. Despite my younger self’s previous opinion that we were two separate people, as soon as the both of us were conscious in the outer world it was like the two of us blended into one and it became hard to tell where one mind ended and the other began.

 

I was still quite aware of the fact that we were two minds in the same body. However, despite the fact that the manifestations of our spirits were separate now, our consciousness was still like two halves of a whole when we were together and one of us was not fully asleep or, in the case of the past week or so, buried inside my inner mind.

 

My child self also quickly lost her interest in personally seeing the work I had done. As soon as we were combined, she gained all of the information in a flash as though she had seen it herself. I felt a wave of happiness crop up inside our shared mind as she appreciated the sight, but that faded quickly as she seemed to simply relax into me and the familiar sensation of being a part of each other.

 

I sat up and looked at everyone staring at me, Gaerien with a bemused face and the boys both looking at a loss for what to do. Even in my combined mind I got a little frustrated with how they seemed to be making fun of me, but I could understand it. Well, only a small hand-full of good solutions to this.

 

(Alright, looks like I was a little too slow.) I said with a slight pout, before looking up at them with a smile. This just made everyone confused, seeing such a sudden change in attitude. (What? Never seen a person front a different person…ahh… gah! I REALLY hate this body! Can’t even make a stupid joke to laugh off an awkward moment.)

 

(Personality? Hehe..) Did Rolwen just freaking chuckle after finishing my word?

 

(Oh, don’t you start with me!) I growl at him in challenge. This, however, just gets the entire group laughing at the spectacle of an infant trying to put on an intimidating face.

 

(Yep, she’s back to normal.) Rolwen says.

 

(Well, seems like Gaerien told you everything now.) I say, scooting myself over to the edge of the bed. I felt my younger self stirring in irritation at them laughing over my face like that, but I managed to hold back the frustration. I knew that face from the other side in my previous life, there really was something that was just hilariously cute about a baby’s angry face. I could understand why they couldn’t help laughing.

 

(Yeah, it was kinda weird seeing you act like a little kid.) Levin admits. Considering how I normally behaved before this whole mind-split thing, my younger self must have not really done as well as I had the impression of at acting grown up. Or rather, perhaps being teens and adults in kids’ bodies themselves, they can tell the difference.

 

(I hope you can accept my younger self.) I say, deciding to put on something more of a quiet sad face since I know a serious face would only look silly on this body. (She’s also part of me, even if you do find her hard to handle.)

 

(Ehh… it’s fine!) Levin responds (It’s just… weird! I mean, you’re…)

 

(Yeah, I know.) I cut him off. I do get it. I’ve been acting something kinda like a leader of this little group starting from when we were taken here to this house. They must have started to get used to me filling that role. The weird thing though is that I had my older self in that inner world for more total days than I had been their “leader.” So, it actually was a little strange that they were already looking up to me. Perhaps it was the fact that I was the most confident voice that knew what was going on in this world that was completely strange. The fact I revealed myself right when their world was turned upside down for the second time… or maybe third, probably helped as well.

 

(Anyway, what do we do next now that you’re out of there?) Rolwen asks.

 

(Well, that depends. Has Gaerien taught you any culti… ahh, that stuff?) I fix Rolwen with a glare that sends him into a fit of stiffled giggles.

 

(Umm… well…) Levin is the one to respond, beings Rolwen is a little indisposed at the moment.

 

(I talked about it, I didn’t teach them anything.) Gaerien says.

 

(She said that…)

 

(CULTIVATION!) Rolwen interrupts Levin in the middle of talking just to tease me, which is quite clearly exactly what he’s doing now.

 

(Hey! Rolwen!) Levin growls back at him.

 

(Sorry, hehe!) Rolwen responds. If I could talk better, I would probably snip at him by calling him a chuckle head at this point, but that was yet another frustration of this body.

 

(Ah, anyway, she said… it would actually be better for us to learn it from you because you had some kind of really good technique that was actually from Earth!) Levin continued, now that Rolwen’s interruptions were over.

 

(Yeah, what’s up with that!? Earth has cultivation techniques?) Rolwen said.

 

(Well, they didn’t work very well on Earth, but it sounds like they should work pretty good here.) I tell them. (I can’t really teach you much yet though. I didn’t know much about other… methods.)

 

(Cultivation techni…)

 

(You be quiet!) It was actually Levin who cut off Rolwen half way through his interruption this time. Seriously, what’s gotten into this boy? Seeing me acting like a genuine child must have awakened some teasing streak in him.

 

(Please be serious and listen.) I admonish him, feeling good about the fact that I have grounds to seriously criticize him this time. (Anyway, I didn’t know much about other ways it was done, but from what Gaerien says it sounds like my method is very unusual. It’s part of a martial art, and you actually have to train in the actual moves of the martial art in order to do the… thing.) I leave a large pause and actually direct an expecting half eye toward Rolwen.

 

(Uhh… cultivation?) Rolwen cautiously finishes the sentence, to which I just throw an open palm-up “as he says/case in point” gesture toward him. Somehow, he actually looks really uncomfortable when he’s actually asked to finish the sentence for me. The others also don’t seem to know how to follow up here. I, meanwhile, am quite content to allow the awkward silence to continue for a little while. Payback.

 

(Umm..) Rolwen begins to shift uncomfortably.

 

(Anyway,) I decide to jump back into the discussion now that the moment has passed. (I don’t think our bodies are ready for martial arts yet. I can teach you the five elements meditation, but it’s pretty much useless without the martial art with it. You can’t really understand it without doing the kata and learning the fighting styles that go with each element. The meditation won’t work right unless you can understand the feel of the elements.)

 

(Feel of the elements?) Rolwen asks.

 

(You’ll understand it better once you do some of the training. Anyway, it is probably better if we don’t even start that till you are ready to do the martial art. For now, how about more neural training so you are ready for that sooner.)

 

With that, our path for the time being was set.

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