Everwood Farm.
“The path of mind cultivation, huh?”
Aksai murmured to himself, staring blankly.
He was seated under the demon tree, one of its wood vines connected to his tailbone, providing a constant supply of life force.
He had sent his woodland creature clone back to Acarnis a few minutes ago.
He had received all the memories from his clone, detailing the latter’s last 30 days in Acarnis. From these memories, Aksai learned everything his clone had experienced.
First, Aksai realized that the world of Acarnis wasn’t as shallow as he had once thought. Many Aether practitioners could go toe to toe with Foundation Building Experts from Dadangar.
There were also a large number of Core Formation-level Aether practitioners. Aksai suspected that the world housed a fair number of Aether practitioners who could only be dealt with by Nascent Soul Realm Kings from Dadangar.
For once, Aksai was glad that he was not the one doing the exploration and that it was his clone taking the risks. He had established his foundation only recently. Forget about battling with Core Formation Lords, Aksai was sure he would not be able to deal with anyone in the late stages of the Foundation Building realm or anyone from Acarnis with equivalent power.
Aksai believed in the idea of suppressing others with his cultivation level. He liked punching below his weight so that he could always come out unscathed from any confrontation. He didn’t want to confront someone who was obviously stronger than him in terms of the cultivation base. He hated the idea of fighting tooth and nail with someone just for the sake of survival. Instead, he liked bullying the weak.
Thus, one could say that Aksai had learned his lesson after losing his first clone in Acarnis. He asked his woodland clone to be careful and put some more aura-hiding talismans and some other mechanisms on him to raise his chances of survival.
***
That being said, Aksai was very intrigued by the path of mind cultivation. He hadn’t heard anything related to it in Dadangar and knew it could be a game-changer if he could integrate the Aether Wisp into his path as well.
The first realm in mind cultivation was known as Wisp Awakening. Completion of the Aether Awakening Ceremony was a prerequisite to entering this realm. Practitioners learned to perceive their Aether Wisps and understand their forms and abilities.
They would then develop a deep connection with their Aether Wisps, allowing for initial control and manifestation. Basic manipulation of Aether Wisps for simple tasks and minor enhancements was possible once practitioners had established themselves in the first realm.
Since the Wisp Awakening realm was the first realm in the mind cultivation path, Aksai couldn’t help comparing it to the Spirit Refining realm of Spirit cultivation. In the mind cultivation path, practitioners could cast spell domains as soon as they managed to control their Aether Wisp with sufficient ease.
The second realm in the mind cultivation path was known as Wisp Blooming. Mastery of the Aether Wisp was necessary to enter this realm, which focused on enhanced meditation and the training of mind, body, and spirit. Many privileged Aether practitioners in Acarnis used personalized AetherTech enhancements to speed up their progress in this realm.
Integrating the abilities of Aether Wisps into daily life and combat came naturally to those in this realm. Achieving harmony between the practitioner’s soul and their Aether Wisps became paramount, augmenting their overall mental and physical capabilities. Aksai believed that the armored man and woman who had killed his first clone were in this realm.
The third realm in the mind cultivation path was known as Wisp Mastery. Aksai did not have much information about this realm because his woodland clone was not qualified to know anything about it. He believed that the Aether practitioners in this realm were as strong as Core Formation Lords.
As for the Aether practitioners who had exceeded the third realm and entered the fourth realm, known as Aether Ascendance, Aksai’s woodland clone had heard many legends about them in Acarnis. These mighty beings were treated as overlords in Acarnis and were the ones leading the world government against foreign invasion. They were very popular among the masses of Acarnis.
It was very difficult to interpret the realms of mind cultivation using the concepts of Dadangar.
For example, he couldn’t break the Wisp Awakening or Wisp Blooming realms into initial, mid, and late stages because there was no way to distinguish them using regular methods. As such, there was no way to keep track of the intra-realm progress unless Aksai used the methods of Acarnis.
Aksai also did not have any mind cultivation techniques in his possession yet. He was not sure if integrating the concepts of the mind cultivation path into his Spirit cultivation or body cultivation would bring some form of complexity.
There were also many missing links for Aksai that he had asked his woodland clone to fill in the coming days. As such, Aksai did not rush to conduct the Wisp Awakening ceremony for himself.
Aksai was sure that bringing together the concepts of the mind, body, and spirit and creating a trifecta was going to benefit him in some way as he progressed on his individual path. However, he didn’t want to leave anything to assumption. He was a careful man and needed to make sure that he avoided pitfalls.
As far as he knew, he would be the only Spirit cultivator combining the ways of three distinct paths to create his own cultivation path.
As a progenitor of this path, Aksai would have to face many troubles that nobody else had faced.
So he asked his woodland clone to gather as much information about the mind cultivation path as possible.
Aksai also made sure that his control over the woodland clone remained intact before sending him back to Acarnis.
The concepts of mind cultivation were completely foreign to Aksai, and he did not know what kind of effects they would have on his clone.
As such, it was better to place additional restrictions on the clone while using it as a guinea pig.