Eva slowly stood up from the Throne of Dread, her movements carrying only the slightest trace of stiffness before she quickly adapted to the flawless body she now possessed, every movement flowing naturally as though the body itself instinctively knew what she wanted to do before she even acted.
For a few quiet moments, she simply stood there.
Then...
A bright smile slowly bloomed across her face.
Without another thought, she suddenly ran forward, laughter escaping her lips as she dashed across the barren planet, occasionally stopping only to curiously look at her hands before continuing once again, unable to suppress the excitement filling her heart.
Although she had once possessed a physical body as a Unicorn...
This was completely different.
Walking on two legs.
Holding things with hands.
Feeling fingers move exactly as she wished.
Every little action felt new to her.
She stretched her arms, lightly jumped into the air before landing with effortless balance, then repeated it several more times while curiously trying different abilities one after another, gathering streams of energy within her palm before dispersing them with a single thought, occasionally laughing to herself whenever something worked exactly the way she imagined.
More than anything...
She was fascinated by Ash’s body.
Every movement felt unbelievably smooth.
Every action was executed with absolute precision.
There wasn’t the slightest excess force, nor the smallest delay between thought and movement, as though the body itself had already reached absolute perfection, responding flawlessly to every command without wasting even the tiniest amount of energy.
It truly was.....a Perfect Existence.
Only after quite some time did the excitement in her heart gradually settle down.
She slowly let out a deep breath before looking toward the endless sky above, the smile on her face slowly fading as her expression became calm once again.
"...Time to begin."
Before starting, Eva teleported next to the ’Throne of Dread’ and gently rested her hand upon one of its armrests.
With nothing more than a single thought, the magnificent throne dissolved into countless crimson particles before quietly disappearing into the surroundings.
Maintaining it continuously consumed nearly one-fourth of Ash’s total energy, and there was simply no reason to waste such an enormous amount when all she needed was a place to sit.
She lightly tapped the ground with her foot.
The barren earth immediately trembled as countless rocks and metallic ores rose from beneath the surface before rapidly gathering together, reshaping themselves into a simple stone throne.
Although it lacked the majesty and overwhelming aura of the Throne of Dread, it served its purpose perfectly while consuming almost no energy at all.
Satisfied, Eva slowly sat down.
She then raised Ash’s right hand and gently moved it through the empty air, her fingers gliding effortlessly as though writing upon an invisible canvas, causing brilliant golden letters to emerge one after another before burning themselves directly into the fabric of reality itself.
The runic inscriptions continued appearing without pause, each newly formed rune flying outward before taking its designated position, gradually spreading farther and farther until they quietly covered several kilometers in every direction, weaving together into an enormous runic formation hidden.
The barren planet remained exactly the same.
Yet anyone observing this place from the outside would find absolutely nothing unusual, because every trace of energy, fluctuation, aura, and even the slightest disturbance would never leave the bounds of this formation.
Of course...
Such concealment wasn’t absolute.
If someone overwhelmingly more powerful arrived, the formation would still be seen through.
Eva quietly thought before adjusting her posture into a lotus position atop the stone throne and slowly closing her eyes.
Her mind, which had evolved far beyond the limits of any ordinary living being after becoming an Akashic Spirit, calmly began processing countless calculatios at the same time.
She calmly organized every thought before naturally arriving at the only reasonable conclusion.
With every unnecessary thought cast aside, Eva completely calmed her mind.
From the information Ash had obtained from Henry, there existed three best methods capable of tempering and strengthening the Soul, namely the Law Refinement Scripture, the Soul Reforging Method, and finally the Trinity Soul Scripture.
Ash had already passed the complete plan down to her, and she had refined and finalized the order in which everything would be carried out.
"Run Trinity Soul Scripture."
{Running Trinity Soul Scripture...}
Unlike ordinary Soul cultivation methods that strengthened the Soul directly, the Trinity Soul Scripture cultivated the Soul indirectly by drawing upon the Body and Mind.
Whenever either of those two aspects became stronger than the Soul, the excess would continuously nourish it, allowing the Soul to grow steadily until all three gradually reached equilibrium.
Although the process was painfully slow, it was also one of the safest and most stable Soul cultivation methods ever created.
As the technique began operating, faint streams of mysterious energy quietly flowed out from every corner of Ash’s body, while another portion emerged from the Immortal Seal residing within his consciousness, both gradually converging before silently seeping into Ash’s Soul.
The refinement...had quietly begun.
Several moments quietly passed.
{Scanning...}
{No abnormalities detected.}
{Proceeding to the next technique...}
Without wasting another moment, Eva calmly gave the next command.
"Run Soul Reforging Method."
{Running Soul Reforging Method...}
The moment the technique activated, a blade formed entirely from Will quietly manifested before Ash’s Soul.
Eva’s expression immediately became incomparably serious.
This was the first truly dangerous step.
Even the slightest mistake could permanently damage Ash’s Soul, something neither of them could afford.
With absolute precision, she carefully guided the invisible blade before gently separating a tiny fragment from the outermost layer of Ash’s Soul.
The instant the fragment separated...
A sharp pain rippled throughout Ash’s Soul.
Even through their synchronization, Eva could clearly feel that pain, yet Ash remained completely motionless, his gigantic Soul continuing to sit peacefully in the Rune Space while comprehending the endless sea of Runes as though nothing had happened.
Only after confirming that his Soul remained perfectly stable did Eva quietly continue.
The tiny Soul fragment slowly drifted out through the center of Ash’s forehead before gently descending into her lap, where she silently received it with both hands without ever opening her eyes.
Taking another slow breath, Eva softly issued the next command.
{Activating... Wheel of Samsara...}
**
[Flame of Samsara — Wheel of Samsara]
• Wheel of Samsara —
**
The very next moment, a gigantic wheel quietly manifested behind Ash’s body and the stone throne, its enormous circular frame divided into four equal segments, each occupied by a completely different colored flame that burned silently without producing the slightest amount of heat.
Eva gently raised the tiny Soul Fragment resting upon her palms.
The Wheel slowly began to rotate.
The first segment arrived.
A blackish-red Flame of Destruction immediately engulfed the Soul Fragment in an instant as the fragment gradually began breaking apart, Small amounts of imperfection hidden deep within it being mercilessly reduced to nothingness.
Just before the Soul could suffer irreversible damage...
The Wheel rotated once more.
The blackish-red flames quietly disappeared, replaced by crimson-blue Flames of Rebirth that gently enveloped the fragment, restoring every damaged portion with astonishing precision until the Soul became whole once again.
Without stopping...
The Wheel continued rotating.
Pure white Flames of Purification silently wrapped around the Soul Fragment, burning away the impurities.
A few moments later, the wheel rotated once again.
Gentle verdant-green Flames of Life bloomed around the Soul Fragment before continuously pouring an incomparably pure life force into it, nourishing every corner of the newly reforged Soul until it gradually became stronger than before.
This...was the modified refinement process of the Soul Reforging Method.
The original Soul Reforging Method was designed to temper the Soul through repeated refinement. The process relied on a flame capable of directly burning the Soul while precious resources were continuously used to repair the damage after every cycle.
It was an extremely dangerous method, but it was also one of the most direct and effective ways to strengthen a Soul.
The greatest difficulty, however, did not lie in the technique itself.
It lay in the user and finding a flame capable of refining the Soul.
Throughout the entire refinement process, the user had to maintain absolute control over the Soul-burning flame, carefully adjusting its intensity every single moment.
The slightest mistake could burn the Soul too much, permanently damaging it, while too little intensity would render the refinement completely ineffective.
Fortunately...
Ash possessed the Immortal Flame.
Even more astonishingly, through the Wheel of Samsara, the Immortal Flame could freely transform into four different states, each carrying a completely different property: destruction, rebirth, purification, and nourishment.
No one had ever imagined that a single Soul flame capable of performing all four functions could exist.
What originally required the user to repeatedly stop the refinement, heal the Soul with precious resources, and carefully continue the process had now become a seamless cycle, with the same flame destroying, restoring, purifying, and nourishing the Soul one after another without ever interrupting the refinement.
With Eva’s absolute precision controlling every minute fluctuation of the Wheel of Samsara, the refinement reached a level of perfection that even the original creator of the technique would have found difficult to replicate.
Yet...
Eva still hadn’t finished.
While the Soul Fragment quietly underwent the four cycles of refinement, she calmly placed another card upon the table.
{No abnormalities detected.}
{Proceeding to the next technique...}
"Run Law Refinement Scripture."
{Running Law Refinement Scripture...}
Brilliant golden glyphs emerged from Ash’s body one at a time, before gradually flowing toward the Soul Fragment, silently passing through the Flames of Samsara without suffering the slightest damage before gently entering the Soul itself.
The moment each golden symbol merged with the Soul...
It immediately dissolved into countless particles of light before perfectly fusing with every corner of the fragment, while the four Flames continuously acted as catalysts, accelerating the fusion process and ensuring that not even the slightest instability appeared.
Originally...
The Law Refinement Scripture utilized the Laws of the World to temper the Soul.
Those Laws would slowly become one with the Soul over an unimaginably long period of time, strengthening it little by little until a qualitative transformation finally occurred.
Ash, however...had rewritten the very core of the technique.
Instead of utilizing the Laws of the World...
He replaced them with Runes.
Combined with the Wheels of Samsara acting as the perfect catalyst, the originally slow fusion process was accelerated countless times while becoming even more complete than before.
Naturally...
This wasn’t a completely new idea.
Throughout the endless Infinite Dimensions, countless geniuses had attempted something similar.
Every single one of them...had failed.
Running two supreme Soul cultivation techniques simultaneously required an absurd amount of concentration and calculation, while controlling the Flames with such microscopic precision only increased that burden further.
A single mistake would destroy the Soul completely.
But that problem simply didn’t exist for Eva.
Her existence as an evolved Akashic Spirit was fundamentally different from everyone else.
If this had been the Eva from before her evolution, maintaining such an overwhelming mental burden for even a few moments would have been exhausting overtime.
Now...
She felt nothing at all.
Three supreme cultivation techniques were now operating simultaneously upon the same tiny Soul Fragment, each performing a completely different task while complementing the others with flawless synchronization.
Once the refinement reached completion, the fragment would naturally return to Ash’s Soul and merge back into it, permanently increasing the overall quality and strength of the entire Soul before Eva will separate another tiny fragment to repeat the entire process once again.
The cycle would continue...
Again and again.
Until Ash’s Soul finally underwent its ultimate transformation and became a....
A Divine Soul.
{No abnormalities detected.}
{Proceeding to the next phase.....}
**
A/N: If this Chapter feels a bit slow, let me know. It’s mainly setting up Ash’s future cultivation foundation, so I can speed up the pacing if most of you would prefer that.