Author's note

So, I really didn't manage to restore much in terms of buffer chapters. Most of this was because I have been pulling full time at work and also going to school. It is starting to look like I will have to just slow down the release rate to a steady 2 chapters per week. I will be trying to work up a formal schedule at some point, but for now expect the next chapter in around 4 days from now.

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Aerien’s POV

“Woooow! I thought so, but still! Wow!”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on already, or keep freaking out all over the place?” I yelled at Gaerien as my younger self while she flitted about the inside of my spirit. It was always a little strange for me to see her spirit projection looking so much older than her physical age on the outside, although it did seem that this projection was aging in reverse every time I saw her. Right now, she looked about like a 13 year old, although she was still dressed in the same fine white clothes lightly embroidered with violet like an understated display of wealth.

“Seriously Aerien! You have no idea how AMAZING this is, do you!?” She said, having teleported in front of my face. My younger self’s face, the one who had spoke. Meanwhile, my older self simply shook his head.

“Of course we don’t.” My older self said. “That’s why we need you to tell us!”

“Ok, ok, but still! This is just so amazing!” She said, making a sweeping gesture out toward the hodgepodge of floating rock and ice debris intermingled with fire and molten slabs of rock. A hurricane was visible just off to the right, pouring down great sheets of rain on the floating rocks and creating violent reactions with the fire balls that strayed too close.

I had always thought this state my spirit was in was a sign of how damaged it had become after the incident that placed me in my comatose state. However, Gaerien quite truly and honestly seemed to think otherwise, and I felt it was about time to get some answers.

“Are you going to tell us, or not!?” My younger self yelled at her in a cute tone that sounded almost like she was whining. “Ahhh! Don’t have thoughts like that old man!” She yelled at me.

“Like what!?” Gaerien asked, giving me a strange look.

“He thinks I’m acting like a little kid!” I pout.

“Well, you kinda are kid! You look younger than your real body outside now.” Gaerien teases.

“Hey!”

“It’s alright,” I say as my older self. “She’s just letting off steam because she’s still a baby on the outside, don’t let it get to you.”

“Hmm… yeah!” My younger self says.

“Oh, hey now!”

“Yeah, hey now!” My older self cut Gaerien off. “Just what were you trying to imply about me earlier with that look you were giving me?”

“Well… come on! It was a joke!” Gaerien says in her defense “I’m trying to get you to have some fun from your troubles, that’s all!”

“What look?” My younger self asks, and then begins to search our shared knowledge. “Oh my goodness! Gaerien! Nooo!”

“Ahh! Sorry, I guess that joke was a little too much for… you know what? Never mind. I’m just going to be burying myself if I finish that sentence.” Gaerien concludes. “Ok, yes! Moving on! You wanted to know what’s so impressive about this nice little set-up you got here, right?”

“Yes, let’s just move on. Don’t want to have to hurt any sisters here.” I said as my older self. Kidding, of course.

“Anyway, so, you said how your meditation is heavily based on the void as a concept, right?” She says. “Well, congratulations! It’s more than just a concept here. Your spirit, right now, looks EXACTLY like the void space between worlds. Well, the upper and mid parts at least, and of course there’s no giant phantom standing there… unless you count the void creatures.”

“Ahh… Ok. So, I guess that’s interesting.” I said cautiously. Gaerien looked a little exasperated though, as if she were expecting a bigger reaction.

“You REALLY don’t get it, do you!?” She demands. “Of course you don’t” She spits to herself. “You don’t have a clue about this cosmic stuff. Ok, listen. Your spirit has all of the same materials in it that are used to form worlds! It looks exactly like the primordial void from which all worlds are formed! Do you understand now!?”

“Haaaa.” I nodded as my older self. I didn’t really understand, but I was starting to get the picture as to why Gaerien was freaking out so much. It’s starting to sound more like this just might be too big for me to understand and digest this information in one sitting.

“So, does this mean that I can make a planet inside my spirit?” Of course, my less inhibited younger side is able to simply blurt out the first thought that comes to mind.

“I bet you probably could, if you want to take your cultivation in that direction. It would be a SERIOUS upper end cultivation if you did! Inner world is usually just supposed to be a metaphor, but actually creating an ENTIRE world inside of your spirit, that’s just crazy! But you could probably do it!”

“Would it have people on it?” My younger self asks. My older self feels like I am getting a headache just thinking about that.

“Well, I don’t know.” Gaerien responds. “I mean, it’s likely possible, you would really have to form it perfectly to do that though. There couldn’t even be the slightest error. But, if you really could, you would ascend instantly into godhood and not even need worshipers in the real world, all of your godly powers could come from within your own spirit! It would just be completely insane as a godly power! This is just an absolutely AMAZING meditation you’ve got here!”

“Ok, ok.” I interrupted as my older self. “You’re talking theory and possibility here, right? ‘What ifs’ and ‘could bes.’ What are the chances all of this is really possible?”

“I really don’t know, but even pursuing it ought to be a very good way forward for your cultivation. Actually, considering this IS pretty much the primordial void exactly, bringing order to the chaos of the void is probably about the only viable way forward. I mean, unless you actually LIKE the inside of your spirit looking like this.”

My younger self looked to my older self, completely swayed by Gaerien’s words. Of course, for matters like this, it was always my older side that did the thinking and made the difficult calls.

“Fine,” I said. “So, what will I need to do?”

“Well, the first thing you will need to do is arrange the elements. Preferably, they should be arranged into a world flow map design. That is, mimicking the way the elemental energies flow around a world. Actually, you’re already half way there with the way the charged energies are near the top region and then they degrade as they move lower. I’m certain the reason is because of this meditation of yours, it’s mimicking the natural flow of energies through the void, which is also probably why your spirit wound up looking like this.”

“No!” Gaerien suddenly stopped and directed an almost manic look at me. “No, no! This HAS to have been the intention of this meditation from the start! There’s no other explanation! You said your meditation focused on the four elements in addition to pulling energy through your spirit, right? This… this principle is EXACTLY why your spirit wound up like this! That’s such a perfect formula to create this situation, there is NO WAY it wasn’t on purpose!”

“Ok, Gaerien, calm down.” My old man self said. “I get that you’re excited, but you are REALLY starting to rile yourself up a bit too much.”

Seriously, I’m really starting to think she might have been better when she was just making rude jokes at my expense. Unfortunately, it looked like she was completely lost in a state of obsession. She didn’t even seem to hear me, and only continued to ramble.

“The energy flow method, that ‘void vacuum’ as you called it, that creates the flow of energy. Then, the elements meditation splits the energy into the constituent elements. It only needs the basic four, because the flow is handled by the up-stream and the down-stream of the flow. You don’t even need to think about the sub-elements like lightning and ice, those just form on their own as a consequence of the flow map and the interaction with the four. The up-stream acts as positive energy, the down-stream acts as negative energy. It really is the makings of a complete flow-map.”

After saying a bunch of absolutely incomprehensible words, she directs her manic gaze toward the large spirit body in the middle almost in a state of awe.

“There!” She says, pointing at the spirit giant. “You make THAT the center. Form the flow-map around that, and then you can make the world in its hands or something like that. No… wait! What if! Is it even possible!? Can you make a world in the chakras? That would be…”

“Gaerien! Wake up!” My older self had to actually go and grab her by the shoulders and shake her in order to snap her out of it. Seriously! I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this before!

However, her crazy eyes only wound up getting directed at me. She suddenly lunged at me, throwing her arms around my neck. “Oh my goodness! You are ABSOLUTELY the best sister EVER! This is just FANTASTIC! You’ve got the PERFECT meditation!”

Mine is perfect? But didn’t she say she had the same meditation the angels used? She’s still completely out of it. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder.

“Ow! Gaerien! What!?” I pushed her off me and rubbed my shoulder. She actually bit me! And hard enough to draw blood too! It was healing almost instantly due to this being a spirit form, but what in the world is she even doing!?

“Sorry! Sorry, I got a little too excited! My instincts from my old life must have taken over. Hmm… I wonder if I can still use my old godly powers, now come to think of it.”

Wait, what!? Instincts? Godly powers? Wait…

“Come to think of it, you’ve never actually told me what kind of goddess you were in your last life.”

“What!? Wow! No, that’s… I’m sorry, please, forget all of this, alright? I didn’t mean to bite you like that, I just got too excited. So, just forget it, please. It doesn’t really matter.”

I sighed. She’s right. It really doesn’t matter. If she wants to leave her past in her past, then that’s her business. Since my granddaughter's alive and unharmed, I have no regrets and no dwellings on my own past life. So, we are both ourselves in this life now. In a way, I had just broken an unspoken rule we had shared since our birth, that being that we have never really asked about each other as individuals for our past lives. Well, I suppose she had a bit of an advantage there though, she had been secretly watching me for God knows how long.

“Alright, fine.” I said, letting it slide. My shoulder had healed anyway, although this gave me some fear as to what teething might look like for her. “Anyway, there was something else I wanted to ask you about. It’s about my younger half. Her spirit was completely destroyed before, I had to rebuild it from scratch in order to revive her. However, now, she can’t run her meditation through it anymore.”

“Huh? Oh! Ok, let me see it!” She said. “I think I might know what’s happening here too, but of course I gotta see it first.”

Well, I suppose that’s somewhat assuring, considering that presumably she was right about my spirit assuming she wasn’t just BSing me this whole time. Well, she’s never given me reason to doubt her before. At any rate, both of my selves teleported to the left palm of my giant spirit manifestation. The little one’s manifestation was standing on the center of the upwarf facing palm, the blue of the child spirit almost vanishing in the same shade of blue of the giant spirit. However, somehow we were able to tell exactly where it was.

Gaerien followed behind us a moment later, teleporting in behind the child manifestation. “Ok, let me take a look.” She said, and then began levitating and hovering in a circle around it. “Hmm… yep, looks like all the chakra vessels are in the right place. You did excellent work for such a short time! I guess you must have gotten a lot of practice in with the big guy over there. Hmm...” She reached out a hand to it, hovering over the smaller spirit. “Wow! No way! You even properly tuned the energy already! I was half expecting the energy to be masculine since it was made by your male half, but… wow! It’s already showing feminine energy! This is some fantastic work here!”

I stared on with both my manifested personas as she kept hovering about the child spirit. Finally, she seemed satisfied and came back to meet us. “Yep! I found the problem!” She reported in a tone I thought was a little too happy. “The big one is your spirit,” she said, pointing to my older self, “and the little one is your spirit.” She concluded with the obvious, pointing to my younger self.

My two manifestations looked at each other, and then back to her.

“Ummm…” My younger self began.

“Is that all you’re going to say?” I addressed her in a stern voice with my older self, clearly prompting her to elaborate.

“Ok! So, the problem is that you are the one who made all the advancements in your cultivation.” She said, pointing to my older self. “You!” She said, pointing to my younger self, “have not made any progress in your cultivation at all. It’s probably a good thing you brought this up, because this is going to be another major issue you need to address. Right now, your cultivation is completely unbalanced. She’s also going to need to advance to the same stage that you are at! The reason she can’t get the energy flow for the meditation working right now is because she has done absolutely nothing to progress through the stages like you have. Don’t worry though, I’m sure she will pick it up quickly with you as her guide.”

“Well, that’s good to know, but… you’re refering to my other half in the third person again.”

“Whatever, you’re too stuck up about that.” She replies rather dismissively. “Anyway, what I’m saying is that her spirit being gigantic like this big one here before was not natural. This, right here, is the natural and balanced form her spirit should have. The state it was in before was the result of your two spirits being merged for the beginning of your life. The reason her spirit crumbled during your advancement before was because it was trying to advance both of you at once, and her spirit simply was not prepared for it where yours was.”

I furrowed my brows in annoyance at her continuing to talk to only my older self about my younger self right to my face. I could understand that the language was a little difficult to handle at times, but it felt like it was discounting half of myself.

“So!” Gaerien continued. “What this means is that the more the kid is in control, the more she will be able to develop her cultivation. According to what you’ve told me about it, she’s going to have to go through all the same training you did in order to develop her cultivation. The ‘feel of the elements’ and the other aspects of that combat cultivation method of yours. Might be a good opportunity to train the boys too! Although, I’m not really sure they are quite coordinated enough for any complex movements yet. Well, you can have a head start on them. She’s probably going to advance a lot faster than them anyway with the teacher built right into her head.”

I sighed deeply and decided to just let it go. She was in no state I could talk to her seriously right now. I would just have to get a calm word with her later.

“Ok, so, should I train myself first?” My younger self asked, kinda passively-aggressively emphasizing a point.

“Or should I align the elements first?” My older self asked.

“Well, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t do both, although you should probably not take the next step after arranging the elements until the kid has progressed a little.” Then, Gaerien suddenly snaps. “Oh! That’s it! Maybe if you work on gathering the same element the kid is working on, it might speed both of your efforts along at the same time! Build some synergy between the two of you, it should really work out well!”

I heard her language fluctuate toward addressing us as the same person for a moment there. I guess this is going to have to be my method moving forward. Have both of us talk to her at once. That way it will seem more natural to think of us as the same person. She probably addresses my older self as the main person because that’s the side that’s mostly doing the talking. I will have to fix that.

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Subscribers' comments of the chapter

"It's a good thing Aerien has Aerien to guide her through her cultivation. Otherwise Aerien would be totally lost in Aerien's spirit."

          -Vorquel

"I used the Aerien to train the Aerien"

          -NohVoha

"Turns into some old kung fu movie with the old master "When you truly know yourself only then, may you begin to know others."

         -Roy

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Well, ridiculous comments aside, Roy's statement is one that's true to an extent that I have absolutely no idea why that would be something isolated to martial arts culture. Shouldn't everyone be aware of that one? I don't really know, I grew up in a martial arts lifestyle. It just seems alien to me that this wouldn't be common wisdom.