Immortal Kingdoms

Inside the belly of the towering mountain, within the space of a dimly lit cave due to the sparkling waters of a fairly deep Divine Pool.

Wendy and Leonardo stood in the pool, naked. Unlike the other shallow pools, this one had a water level high enough to submerge them both from the shoulders and below, concealing some of the spring scenery that would have otherwise proved distracting.

While Leonardo was rather relaxed, a splitting headache was assaulting Wendy.

"What are you doing?"

"Doesn't your head hurt? I'm relieving the pain."

"How would your blood on my forehead help with this pain?"

Leonardo rolled his eyes and ignored her meaningless complaints. Was he supposed to say that she was feeling a headache because 108 strands of his spiritual energy, nourished by his soul, were now residing within her rudimentary sea of consciousness to form a soul pearl?

Although he couldn't allow her to take the risk of tearing her soul and sea of consciousness, Leonardo was thinking of a feasible way around that deficiency in the technique. Eventually, he concluded that if one wanted to cultivate this technique, one would have to start with it before their sea of consciousness took form.

In a sense, he would take advantage of her sea of consciousness being in a rudimentary form since she hadn't started cultivating yet, while simultaneously using the wisps of his soul as a foundation for her soul pearl.

The reason behind Wendy's periodic headaches would be the forming of the soul pearl that was taking root within her sea of consciousness. Long story short, Leonardo was cultivating an inferior, external soul pearl, and thereafter transferring its administrative rights to Wendy.

What Wendy didn't know was that this process was just as painful to Leonardo, if not worse.

He was willingly relinquishing control over 108 strands of his soul, but he had to maintain that air of nonchalance to avoid getting Wendy emotionally stirred up.

With the final symbol drawn on Wendy's forehead in blood, a complex diagram took shape. This complex diagram immediately severed the connection between Leonardo and his 108 strands of soul, causing his face to twitch in pain while conversely, a refreshing feeling swept over Wendy's mind.

The feeling was like the birth of a new universe inside her head, and she suddenly closed her eyes involuntarily, only to see a vast expanse of nothingness in all directions. Then, the energy she couldn't describe began to congregate and condense into liquid form, forming a clear blue sea under her incredulous gaze.

Within the depths of the sea was a translucent white pearl that was quickly gaining shape, and she could feel both familiarity and warmth from this pearl. Suddenly, she remembered the feeling of familiarity.

It appeared when Leonardo inspected the Divine Pool and every time she tempered her body inside one of the 107 Divine Pools prior to this one. Although she was yet to temper herself here, she still had that feeling the moment she stepped into the water.

The next moment, she opened her eyes in shock as her spiritual energy began to weave about outside her body, making her feel as though she had eyes on every part of her body, in the sky and the earth.

This feeling was far too marvelous.

"Wait… You…"

Wendy seemed to realize something from Leonardo's pale complexion. She wasn't an idiot, and she immediately connected two and two, coming to a startling conclusion.

"Here it comes," Leonardo whispered softly, confusing Wendy who was about to snap out.

During that moment of confusion, the entire mountain began to rumble as the multicolored clouds began to churn and tumbled in the sky. Before she could speak, pure thunderforce and multicolored energy rushed into the pool from every crack in the mountain.

Leonardo ignored Wendy and pressed a finger dense with spiritual energy into her forehead, that energy rushed into her soul pearl and took control of Wendy's spiritual energy, following a premeditated circulation path.

Chants that Wendy couldn't understand echoed in her head, and a sense of heavy drowsiness occupied her mind as she reluctantly closed her puffed, red eyes. Just like that, the multicolored energy enveloped Wendy, rushing through her pores, skin, muscles, flesh, blood, and bones, and finally wrapping her meridians as warm energies began to contract and establish ephemeral pockets throughout her system.

Before realizing it, a dense cocoon of multicolored energies encapsulated the woman.

Images of the moon, sun, and stars flashed on the surface of the cocoon, but there wasn't any presence in the image of an endless void. Then again, Leonardo never considered imparting the full Immortal Scripture to her.

"Fine, I'll reluctantly take you in as my disciple," Leonardo sighed as he watched these flickering images, somewhat anticipating what would someone with the anti-matter martial intent bring to this world.

BUZZT!

"And here comes the pain," Leonardo smiled bitterly as the pure thunderforce didn't rush at Wendy, but went past her and directly charged into his body.

Leonardo gritted his teeth and endured the stinging pain as a cocoon of pale blue lightning enveloped his body. Then, the image of a moon illuminating the space above the mountain, and a long halberd could be seen inside the moon. Below the moon, the image of a dimly lit sun appeared, each of the two images rotating.

One rotated clockwise, and the other rotated counterclockwise.

Looking from above the skies of the second ring region, 81 massive pillars of multicolored energy soared into the sky, hundreds of miles separating each pillar from the next as the energy was drawn to rotate clockwise.

Deeper in, 36 pillars of even denser multicolored energy rose into the sky, also separating by hundreds of miles, and the released energy spun counterclockwise.

The two energies rushed toward one another before clashing fiercely, their clash weakening their momentum enough to be drawn into the rotating moon.

Thereafter, half of this energy would be released into the world, while the remaining half would grind down the bloodthirsty armament and trickle it down into the dimly lit sun below.

While all of this was happening, Leonardo didn't even have the time to notice his increasing cultivation base as the pure thunderforce was mercilessly striking at his body.

This would be a long and painful tempering process that starts with the skin, then the flesh, then the muscles, then the bones, and finally the meridians.

Each process would take Leonardo down to hell as the thunderforce utterly destroyed his organs, and back to heaven as the pure worldly energy naturally healed these injuries, and the cycle continues.

However, there would be no remnants of thunderforce in his skin that would slowly provide him with a tan, as that power would be automatically assimilated into the ink-black threads of lightning within Leonardo's body.

As for whether this would be enough thunderforce to allow Leonardo the liberty of finally testing the potential of his black lightning, that would have to wait until this torture was over.

Just like that, one day became two, then three, and the region was silently undergoing a never before seen change.

…

Ye Tribe, Stone Forest.

The various leaders of the hidden tribes and their respective elders have gathered to discuss the matter of the Hidden Ancient City proposed by Leonardo.

They have been going back and forth for a week now, as not all are easily swayed from their stubborn ways.

Not many people have believed that Leonardo came from the higher realms as these were nothing but the words of one man, while some of the older elders began to bring up topics from the dregs of history, proclaiming that they cannot trust the people on the other side after being abandoned in the past.

While the discussions were heated, the sky suddenly dimmed and the ground began to shake, startling everyone.

The most powerful of the men and women climbed the high cliffs of the stone forest and looked in the direction of the distant Sky Mountains, their expressions uneasy.

One of the pessimistic elders muttered, "See! See! The heavens are being torn open! History is repeating itself!"

Under everyone's shocked eyes, the space twisted as one metallic behemoth after another phased into existence.

"Patriarch Ye, do you see this?"

One elder spoke up, her muddled eyes flashing with not resentment but regret.

"This is no time to idle around! At least, our tribesmen are all gathered in one location. Hurry, tell your warriors to spread out and not to draw attention to the Stone Forest, let us strike while they're unaccustomed to the environment!"

Patriarch Ye didn't think that this had anything to do with Leonardo, but he wouldn't sit here and argue with these old elders.

"What are we going to do?" Asked another Patriarch who already brought out his two massive bone broadswords.

"What else can we do? We buy time while we can."

"Time for what?" The man was puzzled.

Patriarch Ye didn't respond, he instead rushed on ahead toward the black dots far in the distance. Although he didn't want to admit it, the fact Leonardo could ignore the will and energy of this place already classified him as someone beyond this world.

"Spread out! Don't travel in groups and try to draw them into the thunderstorm rings!"

His powerful voice boomed far and near.