𝒐𝐕𝓵xt.𝓬𝐎𝔪

The seed of ice that bloomed inside Mira’s soul slowly began seeping into her soul’s shell. It started with just a piece, but as the World Core swallowed more of the white mists from the demons, turning them into fuel, more ice began to integrate with her soul.

“Urgh!” Mira grunted in pain, gritting her teeth so hard that blood seeped out of the corner of her mouth. Transforming her soul into a block of ice wasn’t an entirely conscious decision, so she wasn’t expecting the intense pain to come along with it. She was just letting her thoughts flow as they transformed her soul on their own.

Before long, Mira’s soul, which had looked more like a white eggshell, was completely frozen solid. Normally, if someone froze their soul like this, they would die almost instantly. The soul is a vital and delicate part of one’s body. Turning it into a block of ice wasn’t much different from turning one’s brain into ice!

However, although blood dripped down Mira’s lips from the intense pain, her cheeks were still rosy, and her complexion fair.

‘It seems like my soul and ice were able to merge together perfectly, creating something new.’ Mira thought as she spectated everything from a third person’s view, ‘Is that one of the benefits of using the World Core?’

Mira knew she was right, but she didn’t realize just how extraordinary the World Core was for its ability to do this. The World Core didn’t touch the foundations of her soul. It merely merged it with her Absolute Ice Dao, setting it on a path different path than it was supposed to go down.

However, that was only the beginning of the series of changes made to her soul.

Soon after, two different elements sprouted out of the ground, ones Mira wasn’t expecting.

Earth!

The Earth element sprouted at the bottom of her soul outside the ice, along with fire, but it wasn’t Mira’s Yin Fire. The two elements swirled around each other until the earth melted down into magma.

The World Core used more and more souls to keep adding to the magma, and within minutes, a pool of it had formed at the bottom of Mira’s soul. Yet, surprisingly, Mira didn’t feel any pain when it touched the ice, nor did it start to melt.

The two elements existed side by side without affecting each other.

‘Hmmm~ Interesting. I wonder why my subconscious created magma in my soul. Is it because of my Magma Dragon Body or something else?’ Mira wondered, but she didn’t do anything to stop it.

If she were consciously controlling everything, she definitely wouldn’t have done either of the first two steps her subconscious took, but that’s why she let go of the control. These decisions weren’t something a person would make and were instead decisions that her Dao felt would lead her in the right direction.

‘I wonder what’ll happen next,’ Mira thought as she saw the World Core shine again, ‘If it were me, I’d cover the magma in a layer of ice, but I have a feeling that’s not what’s going to happen.’

Mira was right; ice didn’t cover the magma. Instead, a thick layer of Earth did! It didn’t merge with the magma, either.

Although the bottom of the earth was red-hot, like it was going to melt, it never did. The two existed in perfect harmony within her soul, even though Mira didn’t understand why they were there.

Mira’s expression became a bit awkward as she now began to question whether her decision to let loose of the reigns was the correct one.

‘A-Alright! Earth… Earth is fine. That’s one of the elements under my control, so I guess it makes sense why it would be here. Maybe my Dao wants to create a mini world in my soul or something.’ Mira thought while biting her lip.

This was a crucial moment in her cultivation journey, and she didn’t want to fuck it up!

‘Maybe… M-Maybe I should…’ She didn’t get to finish that thought as something crazy happened.

Almost her entire soul went black!

There was only a little spot above the earth where it wasn’t dark, but everything above that was pitch black! Even she couldn’t see anything while spectating everything from the third person with her consciousness!

It was as if a black hole had just appeared and sucked all the light from her soul!

‘W-Wha-?! What the fuck?!’ Mira gawked at the scene! She could still see her scythe, the Firmament, the demon souls, the World core, and Elenei’s egg inside her Soul Sea, along with the earth and magma, but the rest of her soul had disappeared. That was almost 90% of her entire soul!

‘What just happened?!’ Mira panicked a little as this wasn’t how she expected this to go. Nothing made any sense, and now, she wasn’t even sure what to do.

‘Do I intervene and stop it, or just let everything play out naturally?’ She questioned, but it only took her a split second to decide.

‘I’ll let it play out. I don’t even know the reason for all these actions. If I try and stop it carelessly, I might ruin everything and be more lost than I am now.’

Although she thought that way, that didn’t mean she was any less nervous. This was her soul, after all! Just a single fuck up, and she might die, or worse, become mentally handicapped!

However, the mysteries didn’t stop there as the World Core absorbed more and more souls, using them as fuel to create… something…

Mira didn’t know what, as whatever the World Core was doing happened in darkness.

Still, that didn’t mean she was completely clueless. With her connection to the other elements, she could feel that the World Core was using all of them in some way.

Whether it be Fire, Wind, Water, Lightning, Yin Fire, Yin Lightning, and Earth?… maybe? Something felt off when she last felt it using the Earth element, but she didn’t know what. However, other than that, she could feel that all of those elements were in use.

She just didn’t know why they were there or what they were doing.

By the time the World Core was finished, most of the demon souls she had collected were gone.

‘Damn! Who would’ve thought the World Core would be so costly? I’m only affecting my soul, yet it consumed so much! It really makes one wonder how much energy an entire world consumes just to stay ‘alive’.’ She chuckled at the thought, as, of course, a World Core wouldn’t be cheap to use.

Mira had calmed down as she waited for her breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm to finish. Whatever her subconscious and Dao were doing didn’t affect her state of mind anymore. While everything may not make sense to her now, she was sure that she’d be able to unravel these mysteries in the future.

However, it wasn’t over yet, as the thing that gave the Nascent Soul Realm its name still hadn’t appeared.

‘That should be next, though. I’m almost out of souls, and I don’t see what else the World Core could add without forcefully stretching out my soul.’

Mira was half-correct in her assumption, but this time, the World Core didn’t consume any souls. Instead, a torrent of Qi converged toward Mira’s position, creating a massive cyclone above her head! The Qi shot through her meridians, into her core, and up to her soul, where an intense river of Qi appeared.

That river soon diverged into three streams: One went to her scythe, another went to Elenei’s egg, and the last one…

Well, the last one created an illusory version of Mira!

However, there was a slight difference between Mira’s actual body and this one. That is, this illusory one looked like Mira if she were suddenly turned into a 1-year-old baby!

She still had 9 tails, though she couldn’t see their colors as this was just an illusory version of herself; everything else about her looked exactly the same… Just in the form of a baby.

This was Mira’s Nascent Soul!

In the world of cultivation, Nascent generally means embryonic, infancy, or pure. So, the Nascent Soul Realm technically means infant soul realm.

In this realm, one forms a baby version of themself in their soul, which is the reason for its name. Though, it’s not the only reason…

Unfortunately, Mira didn’t have time to think about the meaning behind the name, as something happened right after her Nascent Soul formed!

Her Scythe [Manifestation] went wild and wrapped around one of the Nascent Soul’s arms. Then, within seconds, a large, black scythe formed in that hand!

On the other hand, ice shards circled around her arm, which soon transferred to the rest of her body as pieces of armor slowly appeared around her.

After a light set of ice armor was made, the Nascent Soul lifted her hand and aimed it at the ground. Finally, with the help of the World Core and the last remaining souls, she shot out a torrent of ice onto the Earth.

This continued for a few minutes until an ice hill was created, which reached the edge of the darkness. Thus, completing Mira’s breakthrough into the Nascent Soul Realm.