A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

"This is getting confusing now. I don't know which is stronger again between soul cultivation, body cultivation, energy cultivation and bloodline cultivation. For me, bloodline cultivation which have to do with physique conjuration is limited in power. Just one or two physiques and some abilities. That's all. It's many times useful in battle, but it's very useless in front of a soul cultivator. Unless that person can produce a physique related to the soul. Then body cultivation which is strengthening the body to become nearly indestructible, to the point where one's body would become even more resilient than a peerless-quality, god-tier divine armor is only useful in battle too. One would have vast physical strength and can desolate worlds with their power of might. But still, they are useless in front of a soul cultivator. Also, despite their powerful bodies, they would still die. Although their flesh wouldn't decay as it has become like a supreme, deity-rank primordial artifact, their soul would cease to exist when their soul-existence periods runs out. They can't achieve Immortality with this technique." Alex said and exhaled.

"Then that brings me to energy cultivation and soul cultivation. For energy cultivation, one have to cultivate all the energies of this world to have just that one chance at true Immortality. But that is nigh-impossible as the amount of time one's soul can exist would run out and one would die. Only soul cultivation would give one that chance at gaining eternal life. Even if it seems evil as one would snatch people's bodies and absorb their soul, it gave one the ability to simply exist forever. That is the strongest. To be undying and unaging. Haha!" he said and grinned.

Then he brought his attention back to the book and continued to read.

"To cultivate the soul, one have to enter into harmony with soulforce energy. This energy is an ethereal energy that abounds around us. But it is an energy that's very difficult for one to attune one's perception to as it extremely elusive. It vibrates from one frequency to another. It doesn't have a fixed frequency. It is ever-changing. That's why there are not much soul cultivators in the world. To give an example of it rarity, in every hundred thousand cultivators, there would be only two to five soul cultivators."

"Damn!"

Alex shook his head. This was getting more interesting to him.

"And to cultivate the soul, one must have cultivated any form of realm-energy. It is a prerequisite to cultivate soulforce energy. Then when one achieves attunement to this energy and absorbs it, one instantly gains the ability to see the area in their head where the soul is. Then they can move the absorbed soul-energy into the soul inhabitation realm where they would infuse their soul with it. So with time, one's soul would change from it formless state to a corporeal state. It becomes like a tangible body that can be felt and touched. This stage directly tallies with that which happens when one breaks through into the heaven adept stage. In this stage, one would gain soul-sense ability which is a type of field-scanning ability related to the soul. Also, one can split one's soul into many parts to create soul clones. These can hijack bodies of humans, beasts and non-humans and turn them to one's armies."

Alex's eyes sparkled. He felt he was right about soul cultivators being the strongest. They could create armies that would be under their absolute control. They don't need to fight. Their armies would do the fighting for them.

Alex who had become very excited because of what he read skipped the introduction part and went to the soul cultivation technique part.

He read it many times over to understand it. When he felt he had understood the technique, he stowed the book back into his dad's spatial necklace.

Still sitting in the cross-legged position on the ground, he closed his eyes and focused on his surroundings.

Then he began to recall all that he read about the soul and soulforce energy.

"Soul is formless and soulforce energy is ethereal. The soul of a person is an embodiment of life that lacks true form and resides within the body of such person. Since soul makes us exist since without it, we can't live. Then soulforce energy can be called subsistence-energy or existence-energy. It continues our existence unlike lifeforce energy which gives us vitality and regenerative ability..."

He contemplated the soul and soulforce energy in his mind. He tried to understand it essence so that he could perceive the frequency it vibrated in. But as an energy with ever-changing frequency, it was very difficult to attune to. It was very elusive.

Alex didn't mind this. He just continued to comprehend.

Few hours later...

Alex's eyes opened and he inhaled deeply. He stood from the ground and left the cultivation hall to the residence he and Jake shared.

On getting to the room, he saw Elena and Jake discussing. He just smiled at them and rushed to the bathroom to shower.

When he came out, Jake had gone.

He wondered were Jake went to.

"Where's Jake?" He asked Elena.

"He went out. He didn't mention were he was going to too me" Elena replied.

"Oh. Okay" Alex said.

Then he sat on the bed beside Elena.

Being someone with poor communication skills, he became quiet. But in his mind, he was trying hard to think up a topic to discuss with Elena.

And unfortunately for him, Elena knew about this too. So she just waited with a smile in her face for Alex to talk. She didn't want to be the one to raise a topic they would discuss on.

After a while, Alex managed to produce one.

"Uhm, Elena.. Have you ever had a boyfriend?" Alex asked.

Elena was surprised by the question.

"Well, yea..." She said and before she could talk further, Alex suddenly cut in with an "Oh! You once had a boyfriend?"

"Yes. And his name was Danny. But our relationship didn't go that far. This was because his family moved to a higher world. We were once the two strongest family in the state. But one time, his great grandfather made a breakthrough to a higher cultivation realm and so, because of more cultivation resources to be able to break through to higher cultivation stages, he made his entire family move to another world where cultivation resources would be abundant for their continuous and smooth breakthroughs. I am sure Danny must be in the peak-phase earth adept stage or even the heaven adept stage now. And we were once in the same cultivation stage." Elena replied in a melancholic tone.

"Oh. Do you miss him?" Alex asked.