"Thought Or Telepathy"
"Character Communication"
"Loud Speaking"
"Emphasis 'On' A Word."
Madara: A New Journey
Red reflects on the reflective surface of a dimly lit chamber from a circular rune carved into the stone floor. With a flash of light, a solitary and feminine figure steps out in small stumbling steps before entering the bosom of a larger more masculine figure that seemingly expected her arrival with open arms.
She steadies herself and gently pushes herself from the figure's embrace. "Senior Second Brother..." Red flushes the woman's checks and she becomes submissive.
The man before her is Wang Shi, a wickedly handsome and regal man with long and straight platinum blond hair. A crimson and golden ornament decorates his head with robes to match. On top of his robes on the left arm is an armour that starts at the shoulder and extends all the way to his hand, his fingers covered in sharp and pointy claws.
Faltering in her statues, she quickly bows deeply before her senior second brother to whom she holds great reverence and devotion. "What happened Junior Sister, you're injured?" He asks in a compassionate matter, ignoring his superior statues and showing genuine concern.
"Senior, we encountered a powerful adversary on the task handed to us. Our Tenth Sister along with our Ninth, Twelfth, and Fifteenth Brothers have perished." Venom laces her words as she thinks about that strange man she fought and how he disappeared in smoke after wounding her greatly with a final attack.
Subtle anger flashes in the woman's soul as the second disciple opens his lips to speak. "What became of this adversary?" A powerful pressure causes the woman to shudder, a distinct feeling of drowning takes over her soul before it vanishes when he notices the strain he's accidentally causing his junior sister.
"He disappeared, I could not find any traces of his presence. The task was accomplished." Suddenly a finger lands on her forehead. She is startled but relaxes and closes her eyes, submitting to the soul search in the face of dominating force everything goes blank.
After a moment, Wang Shi drops his fingers as she recovers with a pale face. His eyes sharpen to a glint and a cold sweat momentary appears on his forehead. Memories from a long time ago surface as clear as still water and focused glint shine in his eyes.
During his second dozen millenniums of life, after just settling into this world and reshaping it, the three disciples and their master rested, for the task they had just accomplished was no small feat. On the fourth day of their rest, it ended. He recalls the terrifying beings that attacked that day.
It's in that recollection that causes him to shiver and perspire, because the person his junior sister fought, had very similar eyes to them. After hiding his emotions, he turns around and leaves, but not before speaking over his shoulder. "Come" With that said, an ethereal hand takes the women behind him.
Meanwhile, Madara's foot touches down on a green meadow perched on a cliff's edge overlooking the horizon ahead of him, despite being to so high, he is still looking up at the monumental formations of the Hollow Lost Wing Sect, the largest sect in existence and directly under the control of the infamous Realm Lord.
Gravity warps around unnaturally around the structures of the grandest proportions. Covering the entire surface area are palaces that extend billions of feet from the cave surface. Although the cave is more narrow in this area of the Celestial Cave Realm, the distance from one side to another can only be described as a solar system.
The Hollow Lost Wing Sect is - in essence - an entire solar system, with a medium-sized blue star resting in the middle like a chandelier for the countless floating continents and mountains beneath. Because of the grandiose nature of such a sect, it appears close even at a distance, but in reality, he's still a literal lightyear away.
It is hard to not have the jaw hit the ground. In his true homeworld or even his world in this timeline, there was nothing that could even compare in the slightest to the majesty. The concept of a single entity controlling such a structure seems nearly impossible, so it's no wonder he'd be slightly awestruck at the immensity of such a creation.
After recovering from his shock and widening his view of the world, he steps off the cliff and disappears. A second later, almost a lightyear away, an object travelling at ludicrous speed crashes into an intangible barrier. The barrier flashes and becomes visible for but a moment and the scale is indescribable.
He scoffs at the barrier. He could break it but that would be too noisy and attract unnecessary attention. He takes this time to bite into the tip of his finger to draw blood. Kneeling down to draw some lines on the ground, a black rune is drawn into existence and when he lifts his hand, it merges into the grass and vanishes.
He stands up without a second look. His eyes flash and when his vision returns to normal he is on the other side of the barrier and already halfway towards the mountain range in the distance that forms an almost natural wall that covers the lower section of the sect from view.
Once he reaches the mountain he simply climbs it with ease, although the pressure at the peak is abnormal, even the joints in his body protest. Obviously, this was not the normal way of entry. Likely there is probably an entrance somewhere in the lower section of the mountain range for the disciples and visitors who are familiar with this place.
When his vision clears, out beyond the mountains a shade of stunning blue is reflected in his pupil. Unlike the diverse lands elsewhere, a vast blue ocean lay before him, yet upon closer inspection, it's not an ocean at all, but a downwards spiralling void of radiant sky-blue that only resembles an ocean.
Nothing is built within it, the mountains and continents float safely above without any support, like magic. Cultivators numbering in the millions can be seen travelling between these floating landmasses, heading for cities and structures all throughout the sect, each with their own purpose and reason for doing so. At a glance, it's very lively and festive.
Most every single cultivator here is ancient, older than him by a great deal. A short while over a hundred years is but a drop of water in the ocean, yet some cultivators have well-surpassed tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years, and with age comes experience, intelligence, determination, and the growth of a scheming mind.
He has to be careful. His body fades out of sight and his entire presence disappears. The cultivators are unable to sense him as he continues deeper into the sect. After a minute, he reaches a continent the size of ten celestial bodies, the largest of the twelve that surround the star with this one being directly below and uncomfortably close to the star.
The heat above and the radiance coming from the solar flares are unnoticed by the lands themselves as if they didn't even exist. The temperature of a star can vary greatly depending on the size and part examined.
For example, the part around the star, and the part touching the land are significantly hotter than the surface itself, at two million degrees celsius. Yet at this moment, he cannot even feel it. Although he'd be able to survive that heat without protection, it wouldn't be comfortable. The real danger that would make him nervous comes from the absolute core.
It takes him another four steps to reach the massive continent. In the middle and covering a majority of it is a massive city. His eyes flash once again and when his vision clears, he's beyond the defences and within the outer edge of the city.
Immediately a large bang travels from the distance and four powerful arcs travel to his location and halt above him in an instant. They look around and scan relentlessly with a frown. Not a single one of them is below the blight realm and one of the men is even at the peak of heaven's blight.
The strongest of the bunch murmurs in confusion and frustration. "Must be a junior messing around in training, search for them, those that create unnecessary spacial distortions near this area are to be punished with a thousand years of confinement!" After shouting off his order, the men he commanded disperse in different directions to scour the land.
He stands between and watches them leave with a mocking gaze. "They can sense the spatial distortion of my limbo, they must have some monitor rune or perhaps cultivator's that specialize in detection. Four cultivators with such strength as the gatekeepers, interesting...a shame they are too arrogant to expect adversaries."
The massive nature of the city becomes a reality as he ventures through it, compared to an earthly city like Glacier Fate, it is heaven and earth. It is filled to the brim with powerful cultivators going on about daily life and he can spot items that wouldn't be found anywhere else in the two realms without great effort.
Some distance away, a young man pridefully navigates his way through the crowds, but he feels a swift tug at his side and before his senses even kick in, his vision distorts. The next moment, he is in a completely different location. He's alone, however, terror isn't able to fully settle on his face when his eyes go grey and his body limp as if his cord was cut.
The corpse is sealed into a storage scroll as Madara digests the memories. The central location of the Hollow Lost Wing Sect is this city as he thought by observation alone. Most of the civilians here are here because of their ancestors belonging to disciples of the inner and core of the sect.
This allowed the many inner and core members of the sect to produce their own lineage and provide them with the easiest path of cultivation, creating countless powerful cultivators very quickly. However, this method comes at a cost, these people rarely experience any difficulty or life and death situations. Everything is handed to them from birth.
His gaze travels across the people and a coldness shows as he does. "These people are unrefined and untempered, their unchallenging lives from a position of supreme power have created an arrogance that masks their overwhelming weakness. Repugnant, the lot of them."
The people outside of this place are already weak compared to real warriors. They've never experienced real combat that comes from an external source, an immediate threat of being wiped out from existence without rules or regulation or such fragile notions like right and wrong. True combat, is a nightmare.
They've merely competed amongst themselves in a relatively civil manner with the backings of family and sect and strict rules. Not many would shine in this kind of environment.
In this place, absolutely none will shine. "They are like cattle used by their progenitors to show off their linage and the number of supposedly powerful cultivators they've created, but what purposes does it serve?" Pondering over this, he repeats the process of dragging someone aside and sealing them away after searching through the memories.
In order to understand his surroundings and build some information that was unknown by those that came before, after doing this twenty times, he concludes his investigation. The main representation of the Hollow Lost Wing Sect is unsurprisingly in the heart of this very city, as he figured, cultivators do like their symmetry after all.
In addition to this, there are three separated "paths" as they are known throughout the city in a triangle formation around the heart. These paths are structures that seem to serve particular purposes, to which none of the people he searched knew about in exact detail. It gathered his interested, especially one in particular.
The Path of Knowledge. The Path of Power. The Path of Wisdom. These three names represent three holy locations within the sect and together supposedly holds some grand secret in order to hold an audience with the Realm Lord himself, or so that is how the rumour goes, but no one has ever found said secret to gain such serendipity.
After heading to the location he desired, he comes to an area with cultivators of a seemingly superior breed, there seem to be outer sect members present. There is a small torn apart building in a clearing, almost a shack and there is a comically small and slanted plack at the entrance that simply says "Path Of Knowledge" nailed to it haphazardly.
From the looks of it, anyone could come and go as they pleased, although the building itself doesn't look like it could hold more than a couple of dozen people. He enters the torn apart shack only to be greeted by an ever-expanding library, the floors above are so high that he can barely see the end and the length is hard to determine at a glance.
The inside is luxury incarnate, if one looked at all the structures of the world, they would still find it all lacking in comparison to the sight before him.
The most beautiful artistry covers every inch and made from substances so rare and valuable that it can cause the cultivators that enter - members of the most powerful sect in existence - to have sparkles in their eyes, Of course, not a single theft has ever occurred here as no one would dare steal in fear of certain death.
The outside was a shack, one that feels incredibly out of place, one that would be shamed and mocked, one that would be ordered to be torn apart and replaced by the norm, however, the inside is a treasure trove beyond comprehension and beyond anything in the entire realm, this was the path of knowledge!
The endless distance ahead of him is fathomless and not a single person can be seen as of yet, perhaps there are countless people inside and they are simply in the vast distance. As he walks forward, his fingers trail along with some books before stopping to pull out and open the string bindings of one.
After reading through it for a second, he studies the cultivation method inside. A low ranked body refinement method to strengthen the body and to increase the speed at which someone will be able to go through Qi Condensation realm in the future, a handy technique for a stronger foundation, but useless for him at the moment.
Reading each book by hand is an impossible task given the time presented to him, but luckily he has another method. He releases a sigh in his heart because of said method. He's not looking forward to the pain this technique will cause him. By using chakra in a pulse-like method and sending it around him, all the information will present itself.
Suddenly a large group of children run past him, chasing each other through the endless halls with certain individuals amongst them that take the time to actually delve into the material and step into the sections within the halls designed for cultivation in order to build a stronger foundation and enter the path of cultivation.
When the children fade away, his eyes fall shut and an invisible pulse expands around him. An almost unreadable amount of words presents itself at a frightening scale in his mind. He doesn't have the option of creating clones right now nor would that be fast enough, this is the only method. The downside is it's very uncomfortable.
After checking every single book within range, he discovers that the techniques he's looking for are absent. He takes off down the endless halls and relentlessly searches through the book with a pained and aggravated expression all the while.
Although the god armour wrapped tightly around his body seals out external forces, he intentionally allows it to open its metaphorical pores to feel the difference in pressure being exerted on him by some unknown force that is omnipresent within the halls of the library.
It's a steady climbing pressure that already feels like a mountain atop one's shoulders. The children he's long since passed would be milled to dust this far in, but the cultivation techniques and other material at his location aren't much better than what can be found at the entrance.
If this trend continues as he goes further, that would mean the pressure exceeds the level that the books on said level contain, forcing you to be more powerful to read books that would likely be useless at that point. He knows that there's got to be some hidden truth to this method and perhaps that truth can be found in the structures similar to this one.
Luckily for him, it doesn't really much matter, pressure on this level cannot destroy the barrier and if he so chooses, he can always separate the barrier another level. At the moment, the barrier exists in its most connected state to the dimension he currently resides within.
In essence, it can be shifted into four different states: inactive, connected, disconnected, and complete separation. Inactive and connected are the two states he's used up till now.
Disconnected is a state that's similar to the limbo dimension that acts as a one-way mirror to the real world. The fundamentals are different but the effect is the same.
Unlike the limbo dimension - which is an invisible dimension that coexists alongside the main dimension - the disconnected state - for a normal person - makes it impossible to interact with the main dimension of the world around him.
However, with the power of the Sage of Six Path's at his disposal, he can interact across the dimensional barrier that separates the dimension of God Armour and the real world. The difference between Limbo and God Armour becomes irrelevant. Others cannot interact with him unless they too have a way to reach across the dimensional barrier.
Complete separation is another level entirely, a state similar to how he travelled into an alternate reality in the past - or future from another perspective - albeit a lesser power without the help of the Reaper that transcends his own power and is simply a higher lifeform that surpasses his understanding.
Unfortunately, he cannot hope to use this in combat without being in a bizarre state stuck between time and space as he was in the past. While that long-winded explanation took place, Madara has already covered a monumental distance and passed countless powerful cultivators without notice.
The abundance of interesting and unique techniques spark an interest, but with techniques that can flip world and borrow the power of heaven, how is it that he can't find the technique he's looking for, does it simply not exist? Or, will he have to literally create it himself with his limited knowledge on cultivation?
He's definitely put some thought into it, but ultimately the idea always results in a dead-end. The infection evolves, but it takes time. Only when he reached Foundation Establishment did it recognize the new avenue of power to resist further progression on that path, it is attempting to weaken him in every feasible way.
He'll only get one chance to create an avatar or clone, but if he can create an avatar that is completely independent and at the same time possesses his consciousness and soul, then he will succeed in creating a cultivation avatar that can continue his cultivation while his true-self explores how to rid himself of the infection and maintain his chakra.
The alternative to this is to forcefully breakthrough into the nascent soul realm and pray that the nascent soul isn't infected, he will only get one chance at that as well. This dimension certainly has the necessary energy required to do as such, but the risk is too high and the consequences of failure or even success are both unknown.
He looks ahead and debates continuing further with a dejected expression. With a shake of the head, he turns to leave. An avatar technique or something similar shouldn't be a high-level technique. However, at that moment, a loud laugh causes the entire structure to shiver as he takes that step backwards.
A presence appears from ahead and fades along with the laugh that lingers in the echoes for but a moment. The entire structure had shuttered at that laugh and presence, this caught his interest. Pondering it for a moment, he decides to continue out of sheer curiosity and the strength of that presence.
It takes two minutes for him to travel down the endless halls, it would be quicker but he insisted on checking every single book just in case but he eventually gave up once the books became impossible to comprehend and most even sealed by some sort of immaterial confinements that made his heart quiver slightly at the sense of danger if he continued.
Reaching the end, he comes to an open space with a door against a solid wall. Like the books around him, the door is also under confinement and the sense of danger is even stronger than those by a few times over.
Nonetheless, his hand reaches out and seizes the doorknob. A pressure a billion times more intense than before descends on his body, and for the first time in a while, he's revealed to the world when the god armour splitters and disperses at the hands of a pressure that is clearly an attack aimed to crush all who try to enter.
His brow furrow and he takes a moment to compose himself before opening the door forcefully. Small cracks in space appear and disappear around his body before the door turns to ash the next moment. He steps inside and the door rematerializes in perfect condition behind him as if it was never destroyed.
He sighs, shocked that he almost lost his barrier, luckily though, it only splintered instead of breaking completely. The room he entered is a small entrance with a curtain draped down an empty door frame ahead of him. He senses no danger around him anymore but the presence from before definitely originated beyond the silk curtain.
He pulls apart his outfit and draws some symbols on his chest. The god armour reforms and enters it's disconnected state for the first time in order to not be bothered by such an attack. He seizes the door behind him that he had entered from and it slides open without issue before turning to ash and reforming the next instant.
Phasing through the silk curtain, two distinct voices become apparent as he slowly floats on air. "Sister, how long are you going to ignore me?! Aren't you the least bit excited? All you do is read day and night until your medical plants are ready for harvest. You, you can't fool this grandpa!" A slightly goofy but strong males voice echoes.
A long and silky sigh is cast out before an equally pleasant female voice replies in turn. "I'm not in the mood to deal with your personality this century, junior brother. I just want to read and drink in peace. Our brother has more of a tolerance for your antics, go pester him."
Madara passes a few bookshelves and spots a table and two chairs being settled upon by a brown-headed man and an angelic woman. The man is leaning on the table like a child would, tossing his head back and leaning forward, his mannerisms speak volumes for his personality, which does at a glance seem harsh.
The woman sits as if the outside world doesn't exist, a leg folded over the other and a book held by her left hand, a cup of liquid by the right. The man also has a jar of some sort of liquid that undulates down his chin when occasionally - between his schizophrenia-like movements - he takes large gulps out of it before wiping his mouth with a satisfied sigh.
The two continue that unbalanced disposition between them under his watchful and interested eyes, the simple act of the brown-headed man so wistfully leaning back on his chair without a sweet and the woman reading as if the pressure around the two of them doesn't exist at all is astounding.
Before long, the silence is broken again by the man as he grows bored of the silence and he holds up the bottle as if his supply of drink is running low. "SISTER BEHIND YOU!" He stands up from his chair abruptly and points behind the woman and coincidentally at him, setting his heart ablaze and his face to turn stern.
The woman, however, just rolls her eyes, not bothering to acknowledge what she understands as his typical antiques.
"Four billion, six hundred and sixty-seven million, two hundred and twenty-two thousand, nine hundred and one times you've said that, and not once was it true." After ratling off that absurd number, her slender and jade-like fingers lift the drink to her ruby lips to take a sip as a frown formed at a particular sentence in the book she's reading.
The man picks up the chair he had thrown back and settles back down with a frown similar to a disciplined child.
Behind the woman, Madara slowly calms his heart with a sceptical gaze. "Was that really coincidence?" His eyes widen when his eyes travel to the book that the woman is reading but at that moment it's shut and disappears into her dimensional holding. Another sigh is released by the lady.
The brown-headed man hums in thought. "There's no point in being disappointed about it..." His hums grow louder and more screechy while squeezing his chin as if the thought itself is causing him distress. "Why not just disobey him and practice it anyways, he won't find out, I won't tell him anything, neither will brother."
She looks at him with a passing glance as she stands. He stands up in his chair as she does. "Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it, he never told us why we can't but it's safe to assume that there is a reason." His personality completely switches from boisterous to venomous and cold. "Unless you doubt him?" His words, sharp and pointed like his eyes.
"I do doubt him, as should you, there isn't a single person I trust full-heartedly. Only a fool trusts blindingly." Her eyelashes flutter up and down with a blink as her robes and hair dance without wind. "I've already told him this, so don't think you're getting dirt on me, 'junior' brother. I trust you the least of everyone, you 'treasonous' snake."
He scoffs and his aloof expression returns with a barely noticeable smile and nearly closed eyes as he takes out another jug of whatever he's drinking. Walking a few steps to a window and staring out into a grey sky, a sky like a piece of cloth, filled with wrinkles and spread to the end of sight.
There's no sun, no moon, and no stars. There's only the grey that causes a deep depression to rise within a person's heart. Its colour exudes the air of death, causing the people who stare out of it to feel as if they were lost in that grey shade, and they would even begin to feel confusion boiling in their hearts.
This is the only opening in the entire structure, the only way to look out into this grey sky that belongs to the separate dimension that the inside of the path of knowledge resides within. The earth is likewise a landscape of grey, but not of clouds or of dirt, but of bone, for the endless horizon is concealed beneath countless corpses.
The only refreshing colour being the speckles of rotting flesh, bright reds and browns that refuse to not shine in this dull world despite the passage of aeons. His gaze into this world of depression comes with a widening of his faint smile before his eyes sway to the corner of his vision. "I feel like I did when we first came here, watched."
At the time his words reach her, she's already parting the silk curtain and walking away to the exit. Her next step falters and she talks in a low murmur. "I feel it as well." She concludes that step and disappears once the door slammed shut in an instant.
Madara doesn't even have time to process the information that causes explosions to go off in his mind and he also doesn't hear what the man says following his leave as he darts down through the door and down the endless hallways to chase after the lady. Even with a simple glance, that book is the one, but he didn't have the ability to read all of it.
As for the man he left behind, he doesn't believe in coincidences like that. That man and he will likely meet in the near future.
However, if he didn't rush away and managed to look out the window before he left in such a hurry, surely his eyes would widen at the sight, and particularly at the corpses, as what they wear, is very similar to his own attire he dawned after becoming the Ten-Tails Jinchuuriki.
His speed is unhindered and he is in the sky outside in an instant, but it is still too slow. His sense immediately expands outwards and he locates her immediately for a moment although in the next moment she is much farther away. She keeps disappearing and reappearing farther and farther away.
He takes flight after her and the chase is on. His speed is monstrous but the method of travel she uses suddenly changes and she no longer reveals herself at all, her presence vanishes like it didn't exist in the first place. He scowls and catches up to the spot she disappeared at. "What method of travel is this? Teleportation earlier, but now..."
If Madara couldn't feel the space ahead of him having undergone a subtle change that is quickly fading to normality, he wouldn't be able to find any trace of her existence. "It's like she's merging with the world." A solemn expression takes hold and he can only sigh in his heart, he can't follow.
While he mutters about losing this chance, a wave of green passes through his body and flashes into his vision, and appears like the back of a faint giant hand in front of him that's wrapped up as if to grab something about his size. He turns around with a deadly glint in his eyes to stare at the brown-headed man from earlier with a hand illuminated green.
The man stares in his general direction and is serious as opposed to the aloof and childlike behaviour that was showcased prior. He parts his lips to speak cautiously as his robes are fluttering behind him. "I could feel your gaze on me, it's only a feeling but I know you're there. My introduction wasn't friendly, but I truly just want to talk with you."
Madara doesn't reply and the man just continues floating a short distance away, not showing any signs of impatience or frustration. Minutes go by like this before he speaks again. "I understand you're hesitant to reveal yourself, considering where you are I'd do the same, in fact, I'd never reveal myself, so just listen...give me a moment."
With a wave of his hand, the world around the two of them changes and returns to normal the instant after.
"Now, no one can hear what I'll say but you." He clears his throat with a dry cough.
"I am the third disciple of the Realm Lord, Jin Fang. I am Tang Shi. I come from the Immortal Astral Continent, I, along with two hundred other disciples came to this world countless millions of years ago under the guidance of Jin Fang, for what reason I do not know."
"Because of my cultivation, I endured. My blood related older brother Wang Shi and my senior sister disciple Shen Yaling endured. However, our cultivation stagnated in this cursed world, I want nothing more than to return to the Immortal Astral Continent, to my world, but Jin Fang will not allow such a thing. I refuse to stay any longer!"
"I don't know who you are, but I feel a familiar presence that Shen Yaling couldn't feel to the same extent. When we first came to this world, we faced the opposition of beings with numbers that blocked the sky, they fought differently than we did, and we suffered great losses in the thousand-year war that followed."
The man opens his mouth to continue but his pupils shrink when before him in the spot he sensed that familiar presence, a humanoid shape slowly takes form before revealing a man with the look of unyielding willpower. Tang Shi stares with wide eyes and meets the sharp scrutinizing glare being cast in his direction.
Both of them size each other up and neither gain much from it. Madara not being a cultivator of a similar level makes it impossible to try to sense the others cultivation level and likewise, with the barrier and the foreign nature of chakra, Tang Shi can't sense anything either, but both can understand the look of power behind the eyes of each other.
"This opposition..." His hand moves about in circular motion lazily and his voice appears distant. "Did they call themselves the Ōtsutsuki clan?"
"Yes, that's correct." Tang Shi's heartrate increased when he had confirmation. "We first ran into a pair of two initially, we dealt with them, but eventually, an army came and a war started. In the end, we prevailed and prepared for more to come, but they didn't appear again, we suspect that the main army was destroyed but not the core."
"Recently, another pair of two descended, but they aren't aware of us. Are you..." Tang Shi hesitates before finishing. "A member of the Ōtsutsuki clan?"
He shakes his head all the while pondering over this revelation. "My power is of the same origin, but that is as far as our familiarity goes. What is it you want?"
Tang smiles nervously. The cordial and calm man before him exuded confidence. "I want to go home, but Jin Fang stands in my way. I'm taking a huge risk here telling you this, up until now I've been underhanded in trying to create distrust between my fellow disciples and our master. I need an ally to make a breakthrough!"
"A powerful one, and I can tell that you are that ally! I don't know what you want, but I can guess you do need something, otherwise, you wouldn't come here and you wouldn't be chasing after Shen Yaling. You are definitely here for something, name it and I'll do my best to get it done! If it means I can go home I'll even swear an oath on my life!"
Madara's hand comes up to his chin. He doesn't believe every word but he does feel a certain amount of legitimacy in Tang's urgency, the man desperately wants to return home and is willing to make a deal with an outsider to gain that chance, that is how it appears from a glance, perhaps Tang's telling the truth, or maybe he's deceiving him, it doesn't matter.
He'll accept regardless because he has nothing to lose. "I require all the cultivation techniques surrounding clones and avatars along with all the information you know about the soul. I also want to see how you return to your world and I want the corpse of Jin Fang after we kill him. You must also allow me to cast an art to see if you're lying."
After listing his conditions, he waits with his hands behind his back and a supremely confident aura flowing out of his body. A mutual feeling of respect forms between the two, although they've never fought nor even know the true depths of each other's power, they can still gather hints and those small hints are enough.
A few moments pass and Tang lifts his head to speak with resolution. "I can agree to those conditions, on top of that this realm will belong to you after I leave, however, Jin Fang's treasures must belong to me. My elder brother is not allowed to be killed! As for Shen Yaling, if you don't have an interest, I'll take her as well."
Tang also waits for a response patiently as this is a negotiation that will determine his fate and the fate of an entire realm, he'd wait patiently for all time if he must for one to make such a decision. "What of you're senior brother and sister, will they not be joining us in this battle?" Madara asks with a flat tone.
Tang sighs and shakes his head with a hint of regret. "Unlikely, Shen Yaling is fiercely loyal and my brother is her duel cultivation partner, I cannot convince him. If you agree to help me, I will battle Shen Yaling and Wang Shi. I believe I can seal them both and then together we can defeat Jin Fang!"
Madara raises his hand towards Tang which causes him to be momentarily alarmed. "We have a deal. Come here, let me cast that art I talked about." The words quell Tang's concern although as he approaches, his anxiety reaches its limit. He's asking someone to take a risk so obviously, he's willing to place himself in danger to prove himself.
After a hand firmly touches his forehead, terror washes over him. A crimson-purple flame appears in front of him and behind Madara. A bizarre figure sticks its large head out from the flame portal. "Is everything you told me the truth?" A powerful voice enters his mind and a sense of danger fills his soul.
He recovers and answers plainly. "Yes." His tongue immediately swells up unnaturally large and pushes itself out his mouth without his will. The figure removes its covering that shields a toothy maw and it opens up to have a tongue in the shape of a hand protrude and grab hold of his tongue.
Immediately the feeling of death washes into him and he knows that if he lied, he'd die without a doubt. "What a terrifying art! It's like a God." An unrelenting force searches his mind and then the limb releases his tongue and it returns to normal. The hand touching his forehead is lifted away and the figure fades into nothing.
He takes a minute to breathe and rub his throat before lifting his right hand and extending two fingers heading straight for the other's forehead. Like Tang Shi did before him, Madara remains stoic and allows the fingers to settle between eyes, an act that is extremely rare amongst cultivators, as it is an incredibly vulnerable position.
This back and forth action between the two is, in essence, the ultimate trust exercise. Neither of them is willing to remain sceptical and have decided to take the dangerous but quicker method of gaining trust. Both of them are visibly moved by the other's bravery and decisive action.
"I don't know any clone techniques so I cannot teach you those, however, clones are inferior to an avatar and forbidden to practice on order of Jin Fang. The book Shen Yaling was reading is about the magical body, although she mentioned that it is better than average, it still falls short of the avatar techniques I know."
A wave of force enters into Madara's body. This is very dangerous for him as one ill will action from Tang could injure him, but on the other hand, the infection could end up annihilating the intruding energy, so instead of resisting, he protects the intrusive force entering his body and ensures it stays unaffected and safe.
Once it reaches his mind a dozen techniques become apparent to him along with explanations on clones, avatars, magical bodies, and essences along with essence true bodies and a frown takes hold for each technique requires him to at least be in the Nascent Soul realm to practice.
"As for what I know about the soul, my brother knows far more than I do because I practice body refinement mainly and his focus is on his cultivation base, but I'm certainly not lacking in knowledge." Tang Shi pushes dozens of pieces of information regarding souls that settle like they always belonged.
The two once again separate. Madara closes his eyes and does a once over at the information. The corner of his lips curls up into a smile before he looks back up. His hand's come up into a wushu salute, a bloodlust tinges the corner of his eyes, this bloodlust isn't directed at Tang Shi, but at Jin Fang!
"I am not a cultivator, so I am not entirely familiar with the customs associated, but I can tell you are a resolute man and I can tell that you have a certain strength. I respect the strong and resolute. My name is Madara Uchiha, brother Tang, I don't battle with others often but I believe we have a person to kill now!"
Tang immediately replies with a hand wrapped over the other in a slight bow along with a wry smile. "Likewise brother, I can tell that you are a resolute and peerless individual just from talking to you, together Jin Fang will not be our opponent! If possible, we'll seal my Wang Shi and Shen Yaling while Jin Fang is busy with Sun."
He raises an eyebrow. "Sun?"
"Right, of course, you wouldn't know." Tang chuckles and scratches the back of his head. "Sun is an individual that was in this realm before we entered through the already established path, he appeared to be undergoing what Jin Fang recognized as a failure in reincarnation and sealed him."
"That means you weren't the first cultivators to enter this world?"
"It appears that way, at the least Sun came before us, but who injured a cultivator like that to the point of not being able to even reincarnate properly?" As Tang proposes the logic, his mind begins to ponder about it, how long has cultivation existed in this timeline, and why even come here if it serves little to no benefit?
What is Jin Fang up to, why is this world formed in a way to breed countless weak cultivators, why would he come to this world only to have such low ambitions, what is his real objective? So many questions revolving around one man, is it solely related to Sun and the cultivator that injured him or is something else going on behind the scenes?
"This Sun, what does he look like?"
When Tang hears the question he tilts his head to the side in confusion but answers nonetheless. "I'm not too sure, I believe Jin Fang forced him to enter a perpetual reincarnation and cast him into the lower realm because he couldn't kill him fully, but now, one of the junior sister disciples ended up bringing his reincarnation back."
A bang goes off in his mind but he hides it away and shows none of it outwardly. "Do you know why she brought him back?"
"From my understanding of the situation, the reincarnation possessed cultivation for the first time despite the restriction, which is something Jin Fang dreads, heck, even I do. If that person was to ever successfully reincarnate and regain his memories, none of us would be his match." Tang doesn't understand the certain interest but he indulges it.
"You make it sound like this Sun is the strongest cultivator you've ever encountered?" He's starting to think this Sun may in fact be Dai to whom he gave cultivation, that would explain the earlier interest, but is it truly him?
"It's hard to explain without going into the history of the Immortal Astral Continent but my cultivation is equivalent to the immortal's third step, Nirvana Void, I am an Ancient God, a race that focuses on body refinement, so it differs slightly, however, Sun is a Grand Empyrean that failed in reincarnation. Grand Empyrean is at the peak of the third step."
"Jin Fang is an early-stage of Spirit Void cultivator, in truth, a Grand Empyrean is so powerful that with a wave of their hand a million spirit void cultivators would cease to exist, they are in a realm of their own and no cultivator below the Grand Empyrean realm can challenge them!"
Madara's heart shakes as he listens. His power is likely relative to the Early-Stage of Spirit Void if not only the peak of Nirvana Void just from his observation. When he imagines the strength that a Grand Empyrean must possess a strong desire to obtain that power burns in his soul, and he has that key in his hand.
A dark look appears in his heart, no longer does he concern himself with Jin Fang alone, but the idea of obtaining Dai from him - if Dai truly is this Sun - if he can absorb Dai somehow, perhaps a method will become clear to create a cultivation avatar with an easy path towards Grand Empyrean cultivation!
There is also another thought, what happened to his shadow clone he left behind. A lot of unfavourable scenarios could happen. With his own connection to Dai and Dai's knowledge about his relationship to Misaki's family. If Dai has his memory searched, he'll be completely exposed.
As scenarios pass in thought - as unlikely as some may seem - a dark expression no longer stays just in his heart, but appears on his physical body.
This is something Tang notices as well, he doesn't have any idea what could cause that expression, but at the moment he's thinking it's related to the coming battle with Jin Fang, and it is, now more so than ever, things may have just gotten very personal.
"Brother Tang, unless you have preparations to be made, let us depart immediately." He didn't bother hiding his expression, the relationship between the two has already become close enough that there's no point in such useless scheming in small matters. Neither did Tang Shi ask why his expression remained so dark.
"Very well Brother Madara, I will have to ask you to bear with being carried." Tang clasped his hands together and with a motion of his sleeve, they both merge into the world. This act would typically be seen as very insulting, but considering that Madara's power system is completely different, it's understandable.
He adjusts himself to the sensation of this method of travel and even gains an epiphany towards it, although it is incredibly slight. He has no hope of travelling this way with his inadequate cultivation, however, he can likely follow the traces left behind that he wouldn't have noticed before.
Tang Shi casts a side glance in his direction and admiration appears along with it. "To gain an epiphany in such a short period of time..." Tang Shi sits down and takes this time to circulate his cultivation base to maintain himself at his peak - both mentally and physically - in preparation for the battle of his life.
Madara: A New Journey