Chapter 4: The Enlightenment
It has been a long time since Ying Yue was stuck at this black hole.
After the endless suspension and being stagnant, she now had enough energy to open her eyes, and that she tried.
Opening her eyes for the first time since she got here, she felt her heart thud as an indescribable scene laid before her.
All theories in Astrology books in the empire hoped to sketch a scene and probability of what was inside this gigantic void. All those speculations were proven to be futile as Ying Yue observed her surroundings.
This place was like a magic land, different colors of lights twinkle as they seem to make her understand that they were alive. On this big pool of darkness, countless of twinkling lights and small particles of matter all fell onto the ground forming pathways. Among all this, what really got her attention was the giant white blobs of lights that emit a brilliant golden glow.
Ying Yue then discovered that those golden glows were the energy that attracted her when she was about to dissipate.
Staring at the one beside her which nursed her soul to how it was now, she felt a pull that made her feel like the light was enticing her to come closer. And so she did.
Stretching her arms out to touch the light. The moment her finger made contact with the brilliant light, a warp occurred.
She felt like her lungs were on fire and it was getting very hard to breathe. Just when she thought she was about to die of suffocation, she landed with a loud thud on the ground. Exerting her effort to sit up, she felt an urge to vomit as she was hit by vertigo.
When the dizzy spell subsided, Ying Yue took a look at the place where she landed. She was in the middle of an Island.
The Island was very beautiful like the one found in the 21st century when the beauty of nature was natural and not scientifically made, with rows of coconut trees, white sand, and blue sea.
Making her way to the blue water, she stared at the reflection of her face, yes, it was still her, nothing has changed. though that physical body was gone her soul still looked the same. She then stood up to find anything useful that could give her a lead as to why she was sent here.
Walking along the white sand Ying Yue felt how wonderful it could be if she was able to live her days here but she have to go back and fix the consequences her curse brought forth. However, one day if she was given a chance, this might be a place where she might want to rest.
Ying Yue walked for an hour with nothing and no one in sight. This place looked remote thus maybe there was no inhabitant on this island. Ying Yue decided to just sit down and think about life instead when she heard a huge splash from the sea.
A dolphin jumped up as if to entertain her. This made Ying Yue laugh and she decided to watch the show for a bit.
As the dolphin jumped and twirled, Ying Yue saw a huge shadow in the water and it was getting bigger and bigger as it neared the surface. Her instinct told her that the little dolphin was in danger.
Ying Yue's instinct to protect was triggered. As a daughter of Zhi Ruo, she can manipulate elements at will. Though she was currently very weak and can only control a few meters of space, it was still good enough to save the little one.
With determination, she lifted her arms and stared in concentration as she manipulated the area where the little dolphin was. She lifted the little dolphin to the air using her left hand then aimed a few water bubbles which she froze in her right hand towards the shark that was about to eat the dolphin.
It all happened in a blink of an eye.
The shark was wounded and had to surrender so it swam away as far as possible. Ying Yue stared at the little dolphin, making sure that the area was safe enough, she brought it down in the water. The little dolphin looked at her as if in gratitude which made Ying Yue smile.
Then she felt her soul light up, forming a golden light that swirled towards the area between her brows. That was when Ying Yue felt her whole being enveloped in a comfortable warmth and there was a vague feeling that something was starting to awaken in her.
But before she could point out what it was, she felt the earth quaked and the water trembled. Countless of bolts of lightning struck the area where she was. Then she felt herself floating followed by warping of her vision.
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In an enclosed void with countless lights dancing and twinkling around, a young girl fell into the pathway breathing hard. She was pale and looked worn out. She gasped for air as her chest heaved violently.
"Bao'er, what was the progress of the experiment this time?" Ying Yue asked in a trembling voice
Light burst forth from the center of her brows then flickered as it answered, "Yueyue, the amount of good karma converted is bigger than the one we got the last time." A child-like voice resounded in the void with hints of happiness as it spoke.
Ying Yue smiled at that while she stabilized her breathing. She asked for the data from the blob of light in front of her.
Bao'er is a spiritual consciousness she created after countless trials and errors she did with those giant golden lights.
She also discovered that those lights weren't as simple as it looked, as they were, in reality, wormholes that bridge the void to a parallel universe.
When Ying Yue first experienced being sent to her first parallel universe, she saved a dolphin when it was about to be eaten by a shark. She was shrouded with golden light that swirled to the middle of her brows. Then a red dot manifested that looked more or less like a bindi before she was ejected from that world.
After that encounter, Ying Yue recuperated then started her experiments by entering the wormholes around her. Through her various experiments, she was able to conclude important details.
First, that warm golden light was Spiritual essence made from good karmas. Those spiritual essences were able to make her stronger and at the same time help her recover bits and pieces of her memory.
Second, her memory was not lost but was sealed. It can only be unsealed when she has enough spiritual essence to break the seal apart. Just like having enough strength to break open a door or a gate. She didn't know who sealed her memory but she felt that the disappearance of her parents and the seal in her memory were linked.
Third, those parallel worlds have consciousness. It was proven on her first try that when she used a power that did not belong to that particular world, it triggered the defense that the world's consciousness erected. She was then ejected from that world.
From then on, she made Bao'er. Bao'er was her limiter as well as her information bank. It can connect to the information stored by the world's consciousness by using its affinity as spiritual essence. The world's consciousness then treated it as a being made by heaven and earth that awakened its own awareness.
Bao'er would then be able to tell which among the beings in that world were favored by heavens that can give off enough good karma for her to convert as spiritual essence. Hence the well-known sons and daughters of fate or what they call protagonists in novels that were archived as historical artifacts from the 21st century in the interstellar world.
To gain good karma, she has to do good deeds that are beneficial to the protagonists. The more life-changing, the better.
But as a soul from another world, her presence brings forth a great danger of being noticed by the world's consciousness so she let Bao'er look for uninhabited bodies that she can possess. She was successful but after a while, the body would explode.
As a soul that was way too powerful than the body, the body caves in as it cannot take the leakage of the pure spiritual power being emitted by her. So Bao'er's task was to limit her spiritual power by triggering the memory of the body then incorporating it as her own. She will then fall into a slumber as the body slowly adapts and upgrades to accommodate the power she has.
Though this sounded easy the truth was it was not. Even though the success rate of occupying the body this way was high, the disadvantages were also significant.
As a new resident of the body, she can only act like how the original did, and if she wanted to change it, she can only do so gradually without alerting anybody.
As an immortal who lived countless identities, it was easy for her to help the soul have a better life and the good karma produced would be comparable to that of the sons of fates, however, she has to start from the very bottom then gradually become better.
Like for example, if Ying Yue wants to play an instrument but the original cannot play it before she occupied the body, then there was no way for her to play it immediately and blame it to whichever reclusive master. It will just alert the world's consciousness and the risk of being ejected would be very high.
So if she really wants to, she can only "learn" it from the start then gradually get better and better.
Ying Yue absorbed three-quarters of the earned spiritual essence then left the remaining to Bao'er as it was still a growing child. The bigger Bao'er gets the better her chances of claiming spiritual essence then the time for her to come out of this void wouldn't be too far off.
It will just be a matter of time then that she will be able to help the people she needed to help and find out what really happened to her family during the dark era. It will just be a matter of time then…