Chapter 138: Five Elements

​Night returned to the mat and sat in a cross-legged posture.

​Soon, he entered meditation and distanced himself from his five senses so that he could focus entirely on what he was about to do.

​What he used to distance his five senses was not a System skill, but a profound realm of mastery over one’s body, something he got from Levi.

​In the past, before the Nightmare came to their world, this Mastery was known as Pratyahara (the conscious withdrawal of the senses from external objects and distractions).

​Unlike the current generation, Levi had followed a completely different way of cultivation. Since humans at that time didn’t have a way to effortlessly increase their energy like they did now, they found another way to cultivate.

​That was to purify their own internal energy, and in the Western part of the world, it was popularly known as increasing one’s vibrations or connecting to a higher frequency and in the east it was known as Cultivation.

​The cultivation path Levi followed had eight limbs:

​Yama (Restraints): Five moral rules for how we treat others, including non-violence and truthfulness.

​Niyama (Observances): Five personal habits for inner discipline, such as cleanliness and contentment.

​Asana (Posture): Physical poses meant to steady the body for meditation.

​Pranayama (Breath Control): Breathing exercises used to manage and calm your life energy.

​Pratyahara (Sense Withdrawal): Drawing your attention away from outside distractions and turning inward.

​Dharana (Concentration): Focusing your mind completely on a single point or object.

​Dhyana (Meditation): Maintaining an uninterrupted flow of focused, meditative thought.

​Samadhi (Enlightenment): Reaching a state of complete peace and oneness with the universe.

​And Levi, being a genius, had mastered all eight limbs to perfection. And before becoming Cosmic, he had transmitted his records directly to Night.

​Which meant everything Levi could do, Night should be able to do, if he could somehow grasp it all. The best part of doing this was that he would not need to follow the tedious, manual process of cultivation [Dream] was asking him to do.

​Sure, he would do that as well, but Night knew that path was not quick. Even if it seemed like he was really talented at it, it was something he had to earn over time.

​In Levi’s case, that man had already done the tedious part for him, and all Night needed to do was find a way to access it completely.

​Right now, whatever he was doing in terms of meditation was but a drop of what Levi was capable of doing at his peak.

​As Night made his awareness subtler and subtler, he tried to locate where everything Levi had transferred to him was housed within him.

​If he managed to find it, it would not only give him a quick boost, but he would also be able to do something absolutely insane.

​That was to access the records manually.

​Because whatever was transmitted to him was in the form of records, in finding them, Night would inevitably gain the underlying understanding of exactly how to access records in general.

​This would also help him solve the problem of no longer having System skills.

Currently, all his skills were in the form of records after he ate them. Sure, he could naturally use them, but having the ability to access and manipulate them fully through their records would be so much better.

​It was not a pipe dream. In the final stages of the Dream Sutra, his energy cultivation technique, he had come across texts that explained how accessing records was possible for an Immortal.

​While actually becoming an Immortal was a not possible anytime soon, just the fact that records could be accessed was more than enough for Night.

​As his awareness spread across his body, soul, and energy, Night slowly entered a deep trance.

​At the same time, the Nightmare Domain that he had spread out started expanding.

​It was not that his Domain suddenly became more powerful, but rather, it was becoming subtler as well.

​Instead of being used purely as a Spirit Sense, the Nightmare Domain was currently doing something else entirely. It was trying to merge with the world and become a part of it.

​In doing so, the world in Night’s senses fundamentally shifted. Instead of being entirely physical, it now looked like colorful particles dancing across space. These colors were using the space as a dance floor to create a cosmic play.

​As Night’s awareness came into contact with them, he immediately knew what they were. It was not mere comprehension, but a realization.

​So these are the four basic elements that make up the material world. Every other element or Aspect originated from them, Night realized.

​Night saw these four elements as eight distinct particles.

​Earth: Corresponded to solid matter and bodily structure.

​Water: Corresponded to fluids, cohesion, and liquid states.

​Fire: Corresponded to heat, metabolic energy, and transformation.

​Air: Corresponded to movement, breath, and gases.

​Each element seemed to have two extremes, hence each element had two particles. The easiest way to describe them was as positive and negative polarities.

​Lastly, the space on which they were dancing was also an element.

Space was vastness, distance, and the ultimate canvas of existence.

​As Night experienced all of this, the plant in his Soul Space underwent a dramatic change.

​As it absorbed Alze-beus’s corpse deep underground, colorful leaves had been growing little by little. But suddenly, leaves that were red, blue, green, yellow, and violet started growing much faster.

​It was not just the leaves; the plant itself also grew a little. Previously, the vast majority of the leaves were black and purple, but now these five-colored leaves were rapidly catching up to them in number.

​After some time, Night finally opened his eyes.

​He saw Lilith and Eve sitting near him, and they both looked ecstatic as soon as he woke up.

​Looking at them, Night smiled and asked, "How long was I meditating?"

​He looked around, but Sage, Zero, and Nuwa were not in the training hall.

​Eve and Lilith looked at each other and said at the exact same time, "One week."

​Night was stumped. He thought it had only been an hour; he didn’t think it had been seven full days.

​What made him a little depressed was that he didn’t accomplish exactly what he had wanted. On his way to look for Levi’s records, he had stumbled and gotten completely carried away with the five elements.

​Still, it was not all bad.

​Night raised his hand, and under the watchful eyes of Lilith and Eve, balls of fire, water, earth, and air were created. Following this, the space around them grew darker, and then the elemental balls began to rotate in a smooth, hypnotizing manner.

​"Master, have you finally awakened more Aspects?" Lilith asked, looking on in awe. Beside her, Eve was also watching in fascination.

​Night looked at them. Honestly, he didn’t know if he had actually awakened the Aspects yet. He just felt like he could manipulate these four elements effortlessly now.

​"I am not sure," Night said, scratching his head with his other hand.

​"Come inside your Soul Space. You have to see something," [Dream]’s voice suddenly echoed.

​Night immediately dispersed the elements, and together with Lilith and Eve, his awareness appeared in his Soul Space.

​This time, they appeared inside a room filled with comfortable furniture.

​Night looked around. He saw Lucy, Zero, System Girl, Nuwa and lastly, Vivianne. Except Death everyone was her.

All of them were sitting on a plush sofa, with [Dream] standing in front of a blackboard with a piece of chalk in her hand.

​Before he could greet the others, a black blade overflowing with excitement zoomed toward him, almost piercing him.

​Night looked at the black blade floating in front of him. He hurriedly plucked it out of the air and examined it closely.

​The blade had gone through some drastic changes. The most noticeable change was that the white tassel was gone. Even the two eyes on its hilt, along with the hilt itself, were gone.

​The only thing left was a blade.

​As he held it in his hand, he thought the blade would cut him, but surprisingly, it didn’t harm him at all, even when his thumb brushed against the razor-sharp edge.

​"You have really just become a Blade, as your name," Night said softly.

​The blade gave a response. It hummed in his grip, and Night felt an caring and protective feeling transfer to him through their bond.

​After admiring her for some time, he let her float freely in the air, but this seemed to displease her.

​Before Night could pacify her, the blade transformed into a streak of black light and sank into his forehead. As soon as it happened, Night’s presence changed.

​If previously he felt like a seven-year-old boy who had matured too quickly, now he felt like a sharp blade that would cleanly cut through anything that dared to stand in its way.

​"After the recent evolution, Blade seems to have recovered somewhat," [Dream] explained. "She can now recognize everyone, and I am sure in time she will be fully back to herself."

​Night looked at [Dream] in sheer happiness. "Really? How long will it take?"

​[Dream] sighed honestly. "I am not sure. Sara and Death’s mother have not woken up yet either."

​[Dream] then pointed at Vivianne. "And this girl here... though she is no longer fully paralyzed, she can still barely move."

​All of them looked at Vivianne, Night included.

​Before anyone else could say anything, Night bowed deeply to her.

​"Thank you for saving my friends. I am eternally grateful to you."