ALL NOVEL 411. Not Entirely Sure
Shen didn't reorganize his Path. He didn't try to better balance himself. There was no need. He had been going at this wrong all along.
He clenched his False Center and removed every barrier within.
Shaft became everything while giving support to everything. Extremity became the entirety of his very Path, which was striding towards an Extreme of existence compared to others. Everything he was became a Killing Weapon.
Conductivity had always been his own Path as he Walked through life; his Path was itself the path of least resistance because it was him, no matter what obstacles he might find. Stream had always been his continuity, his constant stepping ahead, the flow of his existence. Gentle Breeze was the softness of his touch upon and around a Reality against which he could do nothing and towards people he would rather not destroy.
True Boundlessness wasn't just a Law he borrowed from Reality. It was present in his complete existence. One day, the limits of his existence would blur into Reality as he became one with it.
After removing the limits between his Laws, he removed all other limits inside him.
Existential ones.
Unbreakable ones.
They faltered before his grip all the same.
Even an idiot could tell doing that wasn't reasonable. If he did that, Laws would cease to be what they were; his emotions would be confused with logical thoughts; his Will would blend with much more ephemeral things.
None of that happened. He became 100% each of the things he was while being only 100% himself. And each thing he was could grow. He didn't know how. He didn't understand himself.
Shen surpassed the limits of his own comprehension of the rules of Spacetime—and Reality as a whole.
Shen pulled his essence, which he also didn't understand, and mixed himself with it to find an Oneness much beyond what the enchantment his spear had—but said enchantment had probably also helped him reach this advancement.
It was over almost as quickly as it began.
There was no longer a separation between body and soul, mortal and cultivator, mind and heart, self and Law. Everything became One. And thus, it was reflected in his body, soul, and mind.
The Heavenly Lightning could no longer hide his injured body or soul because it couldn't blend with him. The illusion remained, but any metaphysical sense could stop the differences.
Likewise, T'onir's Path had been wholly expelled when Shen became One with himself. It couldn't find a hold of him. Shen would never be subjected to any sort of Path invasion again. Not ever. He couldn't be corrupted by anything less than a Realization—and maybe the Void.
E'livia's eyes widened in horror at his deformed soul.
Shen barely noticed it. His body was injured, his soul was injured, and so his mind also got injured. He forgot things about himself. He forgot how to function in some ways. He didn't know how to stand up. He fell to the ground.
But he hadn't forgotten his self-preservation instincts and started using his qi to heal himself.
His body mended, and with it, his soul and mind. How could memories return? He didn't know. They did all the same. Just as he became more vulnerable to injuries, he could now also heal injuries that should be impossible to heal so easily.
The Shen of a few minutes ago would've considered what he was experiencing nonsensical. To the current Shen, it felt perfectly normal that the same speck of qi he used to heal his body could heal his soul with no additional difficulty or energy expenditure; body and soul were just one thing in the One Shen.
E'livia's horror turned into disbelief. Shen took a few seconds to fully heal. The Heavenly Lightning binding him together and keeping him alive dissipated into nothingness.
Once he was whole again, he smiled.
His reason no longer fought against his instincts or Will. His Will no longer fought against his mind. Everything he was reached, not a perfect balance, but ideal Oneness.
Shen's Will was wholly Shen. Shen's reason was wholly Shen. Shen's Laws were wholly Shen. Shen's emotions were wholly Shen. Shen's body was wholly Shen. Shen's soul was wholly Shen.
It wasn't to say he had become some sort of God that was simultaneously perfect justice, love, and grace in His entirety. His feelings were still individual. He still manifested each feeling apart from the other, even if he could have more than one at the same time. But that individual manifestation didn't mean they ceased to exist one time, for another to take hold over him. They only kept a sort of dormant state. The plurality of his entire emotional range rested within him all the time. There was no division. He might even become unable to feel sad if he cut off his hand, and it happened to also cut his sadness off.
He couldn't fully explain his new existence, but he knew he was One, and there would never be another instance of parts of him wanting different things or fighting internal battles. He could reason—talk to himself to reach a better conclusion. But never be distressed at wanting what he didn't fully desire.
E'livia spoke after a few moments of just leaving her mouth hanging open. "What the kiles happened to your soul a moment ago?! And how did you heal it?!"
Her question was a bit humiliating to him. He had turned his entire existence into One, yet not really. The external manifestation of his One Self was still as body and soul, even if doing something to one would reflect in the other. That didn't depend on him. Reality demanded things to be like that, so his existence would be perceived as such, even if it wasn't who he really was. His internal Truth and the Truth of Reality were at odds. He guessed infinity-edgers were somewhat similar.
"I'm not entirely sure," he replied. "I'm surprised I didn't get a tribulation for it."
"You broke through?" she asked.
"In a way. Speaking of which..."
He connected himself with the cosmos. He immediately felt the seemingly infinite string of understanding connecting his Laws to the Axioms of Reality. He could grow stronger. His injured soul, not the Heavenly Tribulation, had been the one preventing him from improving himself.
"...I'll want to meditate for a bit after I fight the City Lord."
"Don't be cryptic!" E'livia complained, pouting a little. It was cute. "What happened?"
Shen's body froze when he tried to talk to her. He couldn't talk about the tribulation, and his injuries had been related to that.
There was still Heavenly Lightning within himself, and he was still beholden to the Heavens in some ways. The lightning could keep his mind from moving his body even if both things were One, which should be impossible. That was nothing more than proof of the supremacy of the Heavens over him.
E'livia seemed to get it and nodded "sagely," her eyes filled with meaning. She was still upset, though.
Shen could see her emotions clearly as if she had revealed them herself.
He had pierced some sort of veil of both existence and perspective. He saw everything as Space, Will, and Change. He could see the separate parts of each easily, just as he could see the in-betweens that were inexistent yet there.
Shen saw E'livia's clothes, body, soul, mind, Path, Laws, emotions, everything she was, as easily as a mortal would see something they were holding. Everything was laid bare to him. He saw Axioms and the individual Laws that made them and each Concept. It didn't make them much easier to understand, but it certainly would give him an edge when he stopped to meditate. Yet, he decided to wait on it because he wanted to get used to that new perception—conveniently, during a fight—before using it to further change himself.
So, he saw her emotions happening, and he felt pretty damn good about how much she actually desired him. It wasn't love, but he didn't need to feel loved to appreciate how he stirred the internal strings of the woman he desired.
That was somewhat inconvenient.
Feeling desired made him desire her more, and his One Self wanted to react. He controlled his external manifestation of bodily desire. But he couldn't stop his One Self from feeling like that—and he had a domain.
His pure desire blended with the world.
Shen could see it now. Having a domain meant dominating Reality. It was part of his very nature. He was someone who dominated. Shen's domain was limited to himself now, but it integrated with his surroundings. Reality wasn't quite the same inside him, and that couldn't be hidden.
Shen became almost sure no one could develop a Realization without a domain. They had to impose their Will upon Reality first, take the reins of a portion of it, claim it theirs, and then change it to their Path's image.
He raised an eyebrow as he thought of something. Actually, was his domain still limited to within himself?
He guessed no. Even if it ended up hurting his soul, it didn't matter as much as before—and he didn't think it would hurt him. Hurting him had become considerably more challenging. His new existence was more vulnerable in its Oneness in that everything he was got damaged together, but it was also harder to damage because every "whole-part" of his Oneness more than supported each other; they were each other, strengthening his essence.
Oh, he really wanted to test his mettle against the City Lord!
For now, though, his thoughts reverted to E'livia. His hold over Reality through his domain had also become more pronounced with his new existence. More of him blended into his surroundings than ever before.
E'livia felt it, and her skin crawled, her pupils dilated, and her heartbeat increased just by feeling his desire—
He found the edge between his domain and Reality and reined it in before that feedback loop caused unwanted consequences.
E'livia closed her eyes and breathed deeply to control herself. Moments later, she whispered, "Wow."
Shen's smile widened. That had been fun. It was going beyond what he considered acceptable, though. Too much sexual tension would make their two years hell instead of a pleasant time to know each other.
"I need to try something," Shen said. "Can you tell me about alchemy while I'm at it?"
Shen couldn't change his appearance because his body was all of himself, and changing one thing meant changing everything else he was. So, instead, he patted the boundaries between himself and Reality with his willpower—which was also all of him—like a blind man until he found what he wanted: Reality's influence over him.
He couldn't fight it, but he could gently guide it in some ways. He changed how Reality interpreted his One Self to present him to everyone. Changing how it manifested his body and soul was simple. He just shaped it, and it happened. Changing the external representation of his Path, qi, domain, or anything else was like an ant trying to change the sun: impossible.
Shen turned his... Vessel... Mask... Exterior... Persona. His Persona into an aeonian like E'livia. Same height as her, similar features, more muscles, and male.
That was... mind-bending.
Shen had a body—a One Body that was all of him. But what others saw was what Reality interpreted as his One body and soul separated from each other—and now, the Persona he shaped in its place. Reality couldn't or wouldn't manifest the strange mix he had become all at once. That allowed him to use this trick. Yet, hurting the Persona would be the same as hurting him because they were the same thing, only perceived differently. It wasn't an illusion, merely a disguise of existential perspective.
As easy as it was, it took him a few minutes to get the gist of it. E'livia was still frustrated at his evasiveness but complied and told him about alchemy. The best way to learn it without a personal master—who would want to know a lot about him before accepting him—was to head to a better C-rank world with an Alchemy Guild.
"Sounds like a plan," Shen said. "City Lord first. Meditation second. Checking my domain third. Then we leave to a better world."
Shen didn't want to use his domain before he improved his Laws by himself at least once. He had a feeling those things were connected to each other, and it might be relevant.
E'livia shrugged off her frustration while also meaning she didn't care one way or the other. "Sure. This way."
Shen followed her and decided to at least try to help improve her mood. He was behaving kind of obnoxiously, after all. "I remember you said your father called you Cupcake when you were young?"
"W– What?! Hahaha. No. You heard wrong. Haha. Silly Shen." E'livia replied. Her face was red, though. And she started flying a little faster than Shen could follow. "I can't hear you from that far away! Fly faster!" She yelled.
He chuckled and did his best to follow.