Chapter 6
Shanggu Julong looked into Lou Tian's eyes and could see his straightforward heart. He didn't know why Lou Tian readily chose to accept his offer, but he could see that he had no malicious intent in his heart. For now that was enough for Shanggu Julong.
"Now that you have all made your decision I will explain to you a little more about what you will experience. As I said before Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian will have their spiritual powers sealed away inside of their respective souls. This has to be done so that all of your souls are at the same power level. This will allow me to combine your souls and implant them in Chen Zhen's sea of consciousness. After doing this I will stay around for a little bit to protect and guide Chen Zhen on his initial path of cultivation. During this time Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian will be in a deep slumber. Your souls being as powerful as they are will receive some damage from the sealing process, but the damage will be very minor and the slumber you will enter will help you souls to safely recover. Your souls will awaken of their own accord. The time it takes for this to happen will depend on how freely and openly you enter into this process. I will need you to completely open your souls to me. However much you hold back will determine how long it will take for you to awaken because your soul will have received more damage during the merging process. After you awaken you will be able to start cultivating your souls. For you to process in your cultivation you must all be on the same level before a breakthrough will be possible, so you will all have to put in equal work to progress in your abilities. As long as Chen Zhen allows it you will all be able to take control of Chen Zhen's body at different times, but I must repeat only if Chen Zhen allows it.
Chen Zhen after Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian awaken I will leave to take care of my own personal matters. I will leave them to help guide you on your martial path. Do not look down on their guidance. Both of them are prodigies in their respective clans and have centuries of knowledge and experience to help train you with. You will have to learn to trust each other as you would trust your own self. What happens to one of you happens to all of you. Learn from each other, even though Chen Zhen doesn't have knowledge of the martial path the same as the two of you, the knowledge of his world in other aspects is far advanced of our own. Just because his spiritual power is non-existent doesn't mean he not able to teach you in other ways."
After explaining this to the three of them Shanggu Julong waved his hands pulling the three of them together into a mist bubble. Shanggu Feng felt a sharp pain in his sea of consciousness before he heard Shanggu Julong's voice in his head telling him to relax and allow his control. As Shanggu Feng opened his sea of consciousness more and more to Shanggu Julong the pain gradually reduced to a dull ache before he finally lost consciousness.
Lou Tian told himself that this is what he wanted and tried to
With Shanggu Feng's and Lou Tian's sealed souls in his hands Shanggu Julong approached Chen Zhen. Chen Zhen was very afraid because he didn't know what Shanggu Julong was talking about. He had no idea what a sea of consciousness was let alone how to open it completely to someone else. He could hear the screams of pain from Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian even though they tried to hold it in. Thinking of how powerful these two were, how could he survive this insane ordeal? As Chen Zhen was beginning to panic and hyper ventilate Shanggu Julong stood right behind him holding the two sealed souls.
"Chen Zhen I know you are very afraid right now but I promise you this is for the best for you. I will remove all the feeling from the rest of your body so that you can relax but your mind must be awake thru this entire process. Do you understand me?", Shanggu Julong's mellow and soothing voice penetrated into Chen Zhen's head in an almost hypnotic fas.h.i.+on.
Everything around Chen Zhen slowly went dark, he felt as if he was floating in outer s.p.a.ce except it was devoid of stars. As he began to relax a blurry figure was slowly taking shape in front of him. As this shape became more clear and distinct Chen Zhen could feel a sharp pain begin to radiate from his glabella for a long time before it stopped.
"I have just helped you to forcefully open your sea of consciousness. Even though it is open you will still need to learn to access it on your own in the future. Right now I need it open to complete merging your three souls together. As I said before I need you conscious for this entire process. Pay attention to me and do exactly what I say and this will be relatively painless for you. But if you lose consciousness this will fail and you will all perish here and now. Are you ready to begin?", Shanggu Julong asked.
Chen Zhen was extremely curious as to what was happening it was hard for him to focus completely on Shanggu Julong. He wanted to explore what exactly his sea of consciousness was. When Chen Zhen was in school he developed the ability to multi-task in his mind. During his college studies he would listen to the lectures of the teachers while studying side notes on the web during cla.s.ses. It helped him to stay at the top of his cla.s.s thru out college. So as he was listening to Shanggu Julong another version of Chen Zhen appeared in his sea of consciousness and began to explore this strange new world that existed inside his head. Shanggu Julong knew nothing of this happening. Even though he helped Chen Zhen to forcefully open his sea of consciousness Chen Zhen was still fully in control of this area. So Chen Zhen's clone was not detected by Shanggu Julong because Chen Zhen chose it to be that way. While Chen Zhen's clone was wandering around Chen Zhen sat down in front of Shanggu Julong.
Shanggu Julong took the two sealed souls and placed them on Chen Zhen's head. As he did so be began to chant an incantation that was slow and rhythmic at first but gradually became louder and seemingly chaotic. Chen Zhen at first focused on Shanggu Julong's voice trying to at first understand what he was saying. But as Shanggu Julong's voice increased in volume a great pressure enveloped Chen Zhen's mind. It went from feeling like a terrible migraine to a pain so intense all Chen Zhen could see was a white light behind his eyes. Chen Zhen used every ounce of his being to endure this but he felt himself losing consciousness fast.
Just when Chen Zhen thought he would pa.s.s out Shanggu Julong 's voice broke thru his pain and whispered to him, "Think of the things most important to you right now. Find strength in the ones you love the most."
As Chen Zhen heard this his wife's face was the first to appear in his mind. She was standing in front of him and he was holding her hand. His daughter and son appeared next. The family was holding each other's hands forming a small circle. As he looked at his family Chen Zhen felt a small suction force pulling him from behind. It was trying to separate Chen Zhen from his family and take him away from them forever. The stronger the suction became the stronger Chen Zhen held onto his family. Whenever he would start to feel weak and think his grip would fail, he would look at his family and his resolve would be strengthened. This cycle repeated for Chen Zhen an unknown number of times, while this was happening Chen Zhen's clone was absorbing energy from Chen Zhen's body and feeding it into his sea of consciousness. It didn't know how it was doing this but it felt…. Right. Chen Zhen's clone could tell that Chen Zhen's life was in danger and it instinctively did something to help out.
As Shanggu Julong was merging the souls together in Chen Zhen's sea of consciousness he only had enough mental energy to spare to give Chen Zhen that one warning, after that he could only rely on Chen Zhen to make it thru. Even though Shanggu Julong understood the theory behind merging the souls together, the practice was much harder then he first a.s.sumed. Shanggu Julong could feel that Chen Zhen had come close many, many times to failing. But to Shanggu Julong's surprise Chen Zhen would suddenly spike with a mental strength ten times his normal peak. When ever this happened it made things easier for Shanggu Julong for a while. By the end both Chen Zhen and Shanggu Julong were both mentally and physically exhausted. Before he ran out of complete strength and pa.s.sed out the last thing Chen Zhen here was Shanggu Julong utter, "Success….!"