For the umpteenth time, An Fei wanted to ask a dragon why she had to be walking on the streets of a city.
Perhaps not necessarily any ordinary city, but a city of Bei Tang.
“Xilong, why do I have to do this again?”
“Recovery. Given your current state, this is the optimal method to recover to what you were once before, and perhaps your only chance at that.”
“Recover?” An Fei’s lips twitched in non-understanding.
“What is there to recover? My ‘state of mind,’ as you keep on repeating?”
The young girl tossed the few words around in her mouth as though they were articles of grotesque candy, but unexpectedly failed to expect an actual answer from the secretive scarlet dragon. When the words spoken in complete solemnness reverberated within her ears, An Fei’s mind crawled to a stop.
“Exactly – to recover your state of mind. Better yet, this is most certainly your last chance to form a mortal soul.”
For some reason, although she clearly knew that the scarlet dragon had no such intentions, An Fei felt as though there were a hint of sarcasm within the statement.
“Last chance to form a mortal soul?” the young girl repeated with a knowing scoff.
“So you also think that I don’t have a soul? You, that… that – unreasonable person – as well as everyone else, seem to think that I don’t have a soul, ah?”
The tide of civilians and cultivators passing along on either side of the young girl continued to increase at a steady rate, but nobody turned their heads at the unusual experience of a young girl arguing with the impassionate air, and waving her hands towards the skies in a flippant manner.
There seemed to exist an invisible divide between the young girl and the remainder of the street, for the people naturally made way for her movements without any conscious awareness.
Xilong closed its eyes as it cursed the choice of wording that had arose to its mouth in haste; there was no escaping it now. With a silent moment of deliberation, the heavenly dragon painted a beautiful picture with its glorified claws, but the words leaving its throat were brutal and callous.
“Yes, you currently lack a soul, nor do you have anything particularly related to it as well,” Xilong spat out.
“By the definitions you saw in the thesis within the <Assembly of a Soul>, your current state more closely mirrors that of a sentient existence, than a being with a soul.”
The scarlet dragon frowned as it wondered whether its words were too harsh for the circumstances, for there was a lack of response from the young girl. Just as it made the worrying decision to crane its neck to observe her countenance, An Fei released a light breath.
“Who cares about having a mortal soul? Anyways, aren’t I doing perfectly fine right now?”
Perfectly fine?
This – suffering the effects of a prolonged <Jolt> without any effort to cure – was perfectly fine!?
Even if it were said as a coping mechanism, such response was too much!
“You’re doing perfectly fine at the moment?” the scarlet dragon’s voice dropped by a few degrees centigrade.
“You are being kept alive by three different restrictions operating continuously and without limit. Numbing pain of all forms, increasing mental and psychological resilience and recovery, as well as concealing your presence from the mortal worlds…”
“Should these restrictions cease to stabilize your state of mind, you would be suffering from eternal agony; your mind would fall apart into incoherent mumbles, and the mortal world would completely corrupt your fate to become that of the Accursed Ghost – a miserable fate where only calamity awaits regardless of your actions! Tell me, Young Fei, does this sound perfectly fine to you?”
An Fei’s legs gradually came to a stop, and she raised a pair of trembling hands to cover her heart. The young girl felt the palpitations pulsate between the ribcage and into her fingertips, and gradually felt her fears diminish, but not disappear.
“There… are restrictions on my body? Why?”
“Because you were cursed! And don’t ask any further, your current state of being won’t allow you to handle such information!”
A certain young girl’s hands gradually curled into fists as the familiar annoyance crept into her heart. While she fought to keep herself calm, An Fei interrogated the dragon with as much might she could muster.
“If I can’t ask any further on that topic, why don’t you tell me why there are restrictions on my body! And since, from the way you described them, these restrictions don’t seem that harmful – why are you so concerned?”
The heavenly dragon’s claw twitched, and deeply wished it could deliver a powerful flick onto the disobedient young girl’s forehead.
Xilong breathed heavily for several breaths as it diluted its explanation as much as possible in its head, before deciding to respond to An Fei.
“Those restrictions anchor an identity to your state of mind – the identity of An Fei. Because of your… unfortunate circumstances, should the restrictions not be in place, you wouldn’t be An Fei anymore, but a breathing human girl with no consciousness,” the scarlet dragon played with its whiskers.
“While these restrictions allow you to be who you are as of now, that doesn’t mean the future will be the same. With each passing day, your state of mind is corroded by two factors – the constant oppression from the mortal world, and the restrictions anchoring your persona.”
“Naturally, the restrictions of the sanctuary should only be beneficial to you, and never harmful. Nonetheless, because you are neither a completed Immortal object nor a beneficiary mortal soul, prolonged interaction with a restriction formed from the purest of the Realm’s influences – the Divine Script – is incredibly toxic to your current state of self.”
An Fei’s brows tugged at her mind, and she pulled open a small blue satchel to retrieve a fresh and plump yuebing.
While she nibbled at the pastry to serve as a buffer for her heart, the scarlet dragon thoroughly brought her to an understanding of her circumstances.
The process was excruciating for both of them, for the scarlet dragon had to constantly discover new ways to dilute its words to avoid overloading the young girl’s persona, and An Fei struggled to remain in denial.
Put in simple and cruel definitions, An Fei was in a state just as the mysterious young girl had once commented; she lacked a soul, and could be better considered a sentient being, or perhaps an Immortal object of the Realm.
Though it wasn’t certain that she was an agglomerate being of senseless wrath and anger, it was indeed true that she lacked a soul.
The mysterious young girl couldn’t see it, Xilong couldn’t see it, and the unexpectedly kind yet startling Immortal youth couldn’t see it.
Should they search deep within her psyche, they would find lingering traces of what should have been a mortal’s soul, but why it had disappeared was another matter of grave interest – far beyond An Fei’s current capability to handle.
But since she was a soulless being attempting to live a life belonging to a being possessing a soul, it was inevitable for the mortal world to direct its intolerance and discontent towards her. It was only due to the restrictions that the Sanctum placed upon her, that An Fei was able to evade a lifestyle filled to the brim with an unlimited salvo of calamity after calamity.
But while her current persona could be characterized as an Immortal object, her current state was far too weak to be able to handle anything of the Realm, from the almighty Divine Script to even the most basic divine essence.
Should she come into contact with foreign elements of divine essence, her psyche would scatter into innumerable sparks of cognition without the sky-blue sanctuary’s protection.
The protection came at a great cost – the longer she relied on the restrictions, the more they would, in turn, corrode her persona. She would constantly lose control over her emotions, thoughts, and even her body, until she devolved into the manifestation described by the mysterious young girl who shared her appearance – a walking mass of unbounded anger and wrath.
Should she be unwilling to stay cooped up in the Sanctum for all eternity, that was the only fate that awaited her presence. By Xilong’s projections, only when she had “broken through” into the Divine Ascension Realm, would the Sanctum have completed constructing a soul to house her persona.
Unless, of course, An Fei steeled her resolve to follow Xilong’s instruction to the latter…
“Since you lack a soul – even that of a mortal, what we can do at the moment is to create a soul, however temporary it may be. That way, regardless of the quality of the soul, you can reduce the magnitude of corrosion on your persona until the Sanctuary completes constructing a soul for you.”
“Create an artificial soul? How?”
“Well, it is an arduous task. However, you can start by interacting with the humans on this continent… and meet that Immortal youth a few more times.”
“Him? I don’t know where he even is – and why should I meet him!?”
“Who knows? Maybe he could help you recover at a quicker rate.”
It had just scolded her for not taking her ‘health’ into consideration and to avoid elements of divine essence, and now she was supposed to meet an Immortal who was quite literally radiating off sheer buckets of divine essence?
How… contradictory…
The young girl and the heavenly dragon continued to bicker and argue as the day passed, refusing to stop until An Fei had unexpectedly managed to successfully rent a room at an inn with her shoddy enunciation and knowledge of Bei Tang’s prided language.
