PtM Book 16 - Chapter 24: Divine Law Spirit Stitching

1/3 this week.

Goooo!

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The excursion to the Tribulant Yin Demiplane was a great success in the end, despite the many misfortunes that had befallen them. Or was it because of the misfortunes they’d encountered? Otherwise, would they have found that cave and the mother hydra and the motherload of yin lightning crystal?

When accounting for resources gathered, like Wei Longshen’s yin spirits or Xing Tianlong’s yin lightning pool liquid, they averaged about 2.8 million points apiece. It was the highest payout for any single expedition to date.

Neither Huxian nor Cha Ming managed to obtain what they wanted on this trip, but points were an expensive solution to their problem. Cha Ming bought the ludicrously soul extinguishing spirit needle then proceeded directly to the library.

“You’ll need to be very careful with that book, young man,” Immortal Heartlock said to Cha Ming as he personally escorted him out of the library. It was already the tenth warning he’d given him. “I’ll tolerate no dog-earing of pages and will personally tan your hide if you drop so much as a drop of tea on them.” Forget the fact that it was impossible to damage such tomes by mundane means, or that fact that the pages were magically reinforced to prevent dog-earing. “It would be best if you went straight back to your residence and straight back once you’re finished. In fact, let me help you out.” Cha Ming blinked that the man had teleported him directly to his front door.

“Librarians,” Cha Ming muttered. “Every single one of them is crazy.”

“I heard that!” Immortal Heartlock’s voice echoed back.

Cha Ming cleared his throat loudly before entering his residence, which had grown quite a bit since before his second journey to the Tribulant Yin Demiplane. There was now a dining room in which a fruit bowl could be found.

The fruits were delicious, infinite, and allowed whoever consumed them to calm their mind and chase away heart devils. They were as effective as the soul healing incense he’d once used, if not better. Alas, time acceleration was a must, so he left the now-comfortable residence and entered the Clear Sky World.

According to Immortal Heartlock, stitching his body, law core, and spirit would be a grueling affair. The slightest hiccup could well kill him. He therefore took careful stock of the law-stitching grade soul recovery medicine he’d purchased, as well as the qi recovery and divinity recovering pills he’d brought along as well. Everything was top grade. He would not take any chances. If he succeeded, his soul would stabilize and he’d have bought himself time and great opportunity. If not… it was very likely that the trauma would kill him.

A little less than half a year remained before the twelve-year deadline, so Cha Ming wasted no time. “The Divine Law Spirit Stitching Scripture… is profound!” Cha Ming muttered as he felt the ancient book’s black and gold covering. The aura on it was ancient and incomprehensible, and simply touching it made his body, core, and spirit tremble with anticipation.

He could not identify the material the book was made of, but it felt rough like weaved wires and tough as a city wall. Forget dog-earing pages, he could probably throw the book into a collapsing demiplane and have it come out just fine.

The lock on the book’s cover was made of a soul-resonant gold inscribed with two sets of runes. The first was to protect the book from damage, magical or otherwise, and the second was to protect those not powerful enough to undo the lock from the book itself.

The lock was one of the most complex Cha Ming had ever seen, and it took the better part of a week for Cha Ming to open the book and peer at its first pages. They were cream-colored and smelled of cinnamon and funeral ashes. The text was written in the same golden coloring as the seal, and simply looking at the words gave Cha Ming a headache.

He read a single line, and the words dragged Cha Ming into the book – but then he woke and found himself gibbering nonsensical incantations. He couldn’t even remember what he seen inside the book, not even imprints or feelings or broad ideas.

He suddenly became keenly aware that this was the first time he was learning an immortal-grade technique in earnest without getting it spoon-fed to him by Ninesky. “Baby steps,” Cha Ming told himself. He wiped the sweat off his brow and lit up a stick of soul recovery incense before continuing his work.

Gaining even a bit of comprehension was difficult, and by the end of the second week, Cha Ming still couldn’t remember anything. But he was able to feel certain points on his body and soul starting to tingle.

At the end of the first month, he realized that these pins and needles were a few of the locations that needed to be stitched as part of the technique.

It took a full half year for Cha Ming to realize that half of these locations represented life, and the other half represented death. Each of them represented a location that would need to be stitched, and each stich had to be accompanied by a special seal.

Once he realized this, Cha Ming retrieved the two needles he now had in his possession. The first was the soul nourishing spirit needle that Sun Wukong had given him. The second was the Life Extinguishing Spirit Needle he’d purchased for two million points. It came in an expensive box that he might be able to resell for a thousand points if he looked around.

The first needle was very useful to all spirit doctors. It was filled with life and could heal many injuries without any additional techniques or treatments. The second was also useful to spirit doctors, but was typically used only by soul specialists, because using anything aligned with death and yin could cause serious damage if used improperly.

It was also an assassin’s needle.

Life and death. Two sides of the same coin. Black and white, perfectly balanced. The Divine Law Spirit Stitching Scripture aimed for perfection, and as such needed to conform to the rules of balance.

It was as he thought this that Cha Ming felt a stirring from Ninesky and the Clear Sky Brush. An odd look appeared on his face. Are you saying I can add these as a form? he asked Ninesky. She answered in affirmative.

Cha Ming was surprised. It was the first time Ninesky hadn’t directly added a form. He already had a paint brush, a staff, a knife, a hammer, a seal, a cauldron, and flame. The seal and the staff and the flame already had specialized forms.

The brush, according to Immortal White, would likely never change, as it was the treasure’s primary form. Assuming there would be nine forms in total, only two forms remained.

Though Cha Ming wasn’t sure how useful a spirit doctor needle would be as a form in the long term, and had no desire to take up another profession, it was a very good short-term pick. He was currently stitching his body, core, and soul into a single entity.

Being able to do so using a soul bound spirit needle as opposed to any other spirit needle would be orders of magnitude less risky. And given his current luck, he had no reason to hesitate.

“Go ahead,” Cha Ming said. “Add it.” The brush immediately sucked in both needles, and an eighth item lit up around Ninesky. It was a long needle, half white, half black. One half of the needle was filled with life, and the other half was filled with death.

He knew the needle’s name the moment it was completed: Yin-Yang Spirit Threading Needle. It was a good name. Very impressive. He’d need to tell Huxian about that one.

The needle had as many functions as he could think of, but a few came to mind almost immediately. The first was infinite splitting. Very rarely would he use a singular needle, since treatments usually required dozens at the minimum, if not thousands of them.

The second property was the life and death properties inherent to the needle. The needle would kill or heal anything it pierced, which included physical entities as well as soul entities!

Now that the spirit needles were soul bound, Cha Ming’s anxiety was greatly diminished, and he could wholeheartedly commit himself to studying the scripture. He spent the next half year discovering exactly what these life and death seals were and which ones he would need to complete the technique.

Life and death seals took the form of runic seals that would need to be applied just before piercing through a point with spirit needle. The Divine Law Sprit Stitching Scripture used a total of twelve life seals and twelve death seals. Each life and death seal had a corresponding pair that could be used as a guide whenever one attempted a spiritual stitching.

Time passed, and before Cha Ming knew it, two years had gone by. He’d remained in the same position for over half a year, not moving, not even breathing, pondering the complexities of life and death. Before him was a book that was open on its last page.

Cha Ming had spent many weeks on the last passage, which was currently glowing brilliant gold. There was a sense of struggle in his expression, an unwillingness to accept what he read.

But then that expression faded and was replaced with understanding. Cha Ming opened his eyes and smiled. The black and gold book closed, and a copy appeared inside his spiritual sea, ready to be utilized.

I did it, Cha Ming told Huxian. I finally comprehended the full scripture. I’m going to start now while it’s fresh.

Be careful, Huxian said. It’s your soul we’re talking about. Wouldn’t want any accidents happening.

Cha Ming entered a trance and transferred his awareness into his spiritual sea, where his soul was sitting cross-legged. Saying it looked terrible would be giving it too much credit. It looked more like a zombie than the person it was supposed to represent, and it was covered in countless stiches and tears. Several wounds on the soul were bleeding.

The next location he turned his attention to was the law core floating in his dantian. Four pairs of creation and destruction runes orbited the carved core. Each one of them projected a strong immortal aura that made the core incomparably stable. The core itself had eight colors – one for each of the five elements, white for creation, black for destruction, and gray for the Grandmist he couldn’t yet utilize.

Paying attention to many places simultaneously was normally easy, but not with a damaged soul. He split off a third portion of spiritual sense and focused on the core of his inner universe. Inside it was a large golden pool that stored his divinity. Above the pool floated eight sources that governed the laws of his inner world. Once again, there was one for each of the five elements, one each for creation and destruction, and one for Grandmist.

Cha Ming could start stitching from anywhere, in theory, but after studying the Divine Law Spirit Stitching Scripture, he felt that his inner world was the least fragile part of him, and therefore would serve as the best starting point.

He summoned a copy of the Yin-Yang Spirit Threading Needle into his inner universe and pierced the life portion onto the edge of his divinity pool while forming a life seal. He then summoned another copy of the needle and pierced a part of his dantian while forming a death seal. He shivered as an intangible link was created between both locations.

Cha Ming took great care in selecting the points he pierced. He did not stitch these spaces directly together but formed a preliminary link between them.

It took him a half year to place many thousands of seals that came together as a formation. He then inspected his work several times before turning his attention to his soul, the riskiest part of his endeavors.

This portion of the scripture involved stitching together his core and the boundary of his spiritual sea. It was tedious work, because his spiritual sea, like his soul, was sensitive and covered in cracks. Some seals were extremely painful to form and required him to take very long breaks.

Once this part was done, Cha Ming proceeded to the most dangerous part of the procedure – the joining. He formed a of spiritual energy within his spiritual sea. The thread was jade, the same color as his spiritual energy. Next, he did the same with his qi and procedure a mixed eight-colored thread.

He produced many such threads, then braided them together to form a thicker mixed thread, which he then weaved into eighteen of the thousands of seals on his spiritual sea and his core and began pulling them together.

An immense amount of pain tore through Cha Ming’s spirit as he began pulling them together. Cuts tore open on his soul, and many of the stiches on it came open. He’d already expected such an occurrence however, and had mentally prepared himself – it was only that the pain was orders of magnitude greater than even his worst nightmares.

There was no gain without effort, however, and a little pain was something he could deal with. Cha Ming clenched his teeth and continued pulling. He tugged one spiritual inch at a time and aligned his spiritual sea and his core until his soul and dantian were overlapping.

He then threaded another three groups of eighteen life and death seal pairs and solidified their connection, creating a half-fused entity. It wasn’t strictly according to procedure, but he needed to do this so that his soul would be able to endure getting dragged into his inner universe alongside his core.

His precautions proved wise, because he barely felt a thing when he threaded eighteen pairs of seals with braided divinity and qi, pulling his core just above his divine pool, therefore aligning all three entities.

The process went so smoothly that Cha Ming became suspicious. He’d been unlucky lately, after all, and things were going too well.

The next portion of the stitching process involved using divine law spirit thread, which he braided using threads of his golden divinity, eight-colored qi, and jade spiritual energy.

He prepared quite a few lengths of the thread before carefully pulling the three entities tightly together, where he would bind them permanently.

Precision was very important, because any slip-ups could cause catastrophic damage to all three of his cultivation methods. Cha Ming was therefore not too surprised when Huxian’s voice came out of nowhere. The web of fate twisted, and Cha Ming pulled a stitch a little too tightly. A tear appeared on his soul and jerked out a few other needles, creating a tangle in his otherwise perfect web.

Then he lost consciousness.

***

Cha Ming woke to find a guilty fox sitting in a chair. A cold shiver ran through his spiritual body. Thanks to his half-stitched state, he also felt it running through his inner universe and his law core as well.

“What happened?” He finally asked the fox.

“Um, I may have been too excited and distracted you,” Huxian said apologetically.

“How did I get here?” Cha Ming asked. “Outside the Clear Sky World? In your residence?”

“Oh I dragged you out from there,” Huxian said. “Your brush did not like that. Not at all. But I wasn’t satisfied with the cooking facilities.” He proceeded to spoon-feed Cha Ming spiritual soup. Really expensive spiritual soup to convey the depth of his apology.

“I should have expected something unlucky to happen,” Cha Ming muttered. “What kind of breakthrough?”

“A crafting breakthrough,” Huxian said. “No need to mention it though. It’s not that important. It’ll just make my ship that much faster.”

“Good for you,” Cha Ming said. “Heavens I’m stiff. I’m going to try standing up.”

“Don’t!” Huxian shouted, but it was already too late. He passed out and woke again three days later.

**

Cha Ming was not a spirit doctor, but it was clear that proceeding without acquiring some medical knowledge would be unwise. His expertise was currently limited to forming life seal and death seals and threading and pulling and poking with spirit needles.

To that end, Cha Ming hit the books in the library and began challenging the many stages of the crafting trials, with a focus on spirit doctor arts and their sub school, soul surgery.

He alternated spending time in the trial grounds and the Clear Sky World. The Trial Grounds had less time acceleration, but they had quite a few simulated facilities. The Clear Sky World, on the other hand, won out on time acceleration. It also had Shennong’s simulacrum, which he could use to simulate his own core, body, and spirit.

Time passed, and soon Cha Ming was passably competent in spirit doctor arts. He used what he’d learned to fix up key parts of his soul, untangled a few knots, then continued pulling all three spaces together again.

The appearance of Cha Ming’s core and spiritual sea had emptied out the center of his divine pool. And within his spiritual sea was Cha Ming’s soul. It sat cross-legged, covered in cracks and had two clear pairs of wings and a third pair of spectral wings. It was tied down to the ground using dozens of strings.

The tighter the connection grew, the more the statue-like soul solidified. Specks of starlight began appearing inside of it as his inner world fused with his soul as a single entity. Simultaneously, a law core appeared beneath his navel. It was eight-colored and covered in eight carvings.

Around his soul now floated the four black runes and four white runes that normally circled around his core. Above it floated the eight sources that controlled the laws of his inner world – they were the same sources as before, but they had shrunk down to fit inside this merged spiritual area.

These many things coexisted with the three spiritual seeds, which were now much better behaved given all the other forces coexisting with this space and lending it stability. One was gray, savage, and strong. Another iridescent and weak, but tender-hearted.  The last was faint, almost non-existent, but it alternated between pure white and pure black.

Cha Ming’s divinity pool had also changed. Instead of a solid pool of golden energy, the pool was now stratified. It contained three rings of very different and incompatible liquids. The larger outer ring was filled with golden divine energy. The middle ring contained eight-colored qi, which was apparently no longer stored inside his core, and the inner ring contained jade spiritual energy.

All three energies existed outside his soul, but at the same time existed within his soul. The core of his inner world, his core, and his soul were now a single entity.

This arrangement did not limit his spiritual energy in any sense – he could still utilize it, albeit painfully given his current state. But the core of his soul, the statue-like entity at the core of his spiritual sea, was now in the safe company of his world sources and his law runes. The barrier protecting his spiritual sea was greatly strengthened as a result, and the pressure of these items had forcefully closed many of the cuts and tears on his soul.

The next stage is fusion, Cha Ming thought, eyeing the three rings of energy. Only when I start fusing these three energies will I truly be able to take advantage of the Divine Law Spirit Stitching Scripture.