Chapter 20

Even though Zack did not say anything, elder Grey nodded his head and continued.

"Hmm, if you had backed away just now, then all efforts would've been for nothing."

"Now concentrate and meditate just like you always do."

Following his words, Zack calmed down and meditated. After a long period of time, just when the sun was about to reach the middle of the sky, elder Grey lifted his hand in the air.

He started drawing strange symbols in the air one after another, which floated beside Zack and surrounded him.

Zack was oblivious to it and only felt a bit of weight on his shoulder lifting. The shackles felt a bit lose now and his spirit heart became more solid.

"Pay close attention and do not hold back, you will know the time when you should act. If you succeed then everything will be fine and if not..."

"We will worry about that later if it comes down to it."

As time passed, Zack felt his spirit heart becoming more solid and connected to his whole body.

Just when the final connection was established, he gathered all the spirit he had and concentrated it into his spirit heart.

Like a tide, all of the spirit in his body was followed up with it and gathered inside his spirit heart.

Crackling noise sounded in his head and his head started to feel pain. This was the first time he ever felt a headache this strong.

He wished he could simply bang his head on the wall but the bit of sanity left in him stopped him from doing that.

The recently formed spirit heart vibrated in intensity, cracks and holes formed around it.

Elder Grey soundlessly waved his hand and the floating symbols all started gathering on Zack's forehead one by one.

When the last symbol gathered on his forehead it formed a person sitting cross-legged.

When the image of the crossed-legged person formed on the forehead, his spirit heart finally shattered into countless particles.

The figure slowly immersed itself in his forehead and disappeared completely.

When the spirit heart was destroyed his body became filled with the chaotic spirit energies.

The shackles that bounded him flowed with the destroyed spirit heart particles.

All of his senses were receiving an overload of information. All of that information made him confused with reality, forgetting all the purpose.

Elder Grey simply looked at Zack who was sitting straight like a statue. All signs of life were gone from him, there was no sign of breathing. His hair and skin looked lifeless, the blood flow stopped with the heartbeat.

An only a small amount of energy could be sensed from his head.

"Hopefully this kid manages to service." He murmured.

The particles of destroyed spirit heart flowed through his bloodstreams and gathered towards his head where the cross-legged figure had disappeared to.

Slowly the particles attached themselves to the figure and it immerged outside again.

Elder Grey was ready and pointed his finger at it as soon as it immerged. The figure trembled under elder Grey's finger and slowly transformed into a ball of white mist.

The symbols he made before dissipated from the mist ball and what remained was a small fist size ball made out of white mist which slowly condensed into a marble.

Zack was still struggling to maintain consciousness under the constant bombardment of information.

Just before he lost his mind, symbols and lines started appearing in his mind automatically.

His thoughts became clear again. When he became aware of what was happening the symbols and lines in his mind formed a strange circular formation.

As soon as the formation came to be all the knowledge and memories he had from his birth became organised. He remembered the smallest of memories for a short amount of time before they were lost in his subconscious mind, but he could feel if he tried even a bit he could remember them just like yesterday.

He read countless books under his master for years and even though he learned a lot, there was always a feeling he had that there was an irregularity in his studies. Now the knowledge from the books made sense to him.

He studied those strange symbols as well but only now did they make sense to him. As if before he read them at random but now he managed to see them in order.

Multiple languages he studied under his master started to become familiar to him.

The chaotic spirits energies in his body stabilised and the feeling of life once again returned to his body.

When he formed the spirit heart he could sense the spirit energy flowing through his body and circulating, with the spirit heart as a centre.

Now the spirit energy flowed and circulated inside his body and organs without any order. But despite not having order like before, the feeling he got from it was that of freedom, flexibility and a strange order that looked like chaos.

The influx of information was stable now, the formation formed in his mind filtered and blocked the excessive information.

"Hmm, it should be a success from the looks of things." He heard his master's voice before he examined this new unfamiliar formation.

"Relax for now and continue meditating. The formation is part of the legacy I'm imparting to you. It is only one part of the legacy but something very important to you right now and possibly in the future."

"It took me almost 4 decades to create that formation, I hope you do not look down on it. It is what keeping you alive at the moment after all."

Zack shuddered when he heard that as he remembered the hopeless situation he just experienced.

His master did not continue after the reminder and allowed him to stabilize the situation at hand.

After the spirit heart was destroyed he could not find anything similar to it in his body but the stable spirit energy flow told him otherwise.

When he observed further and more closely he concluded that his whole body itself had become a spirit heart, but at the same time, it was completely different from how his spirit heart was.

And, he could tell that there were no shackles unlike before.

The formation in his mind formed a full circle making his memories and knowledge organised. Observing the formation he felt it was not complete and an incomplete formation.

Strangely despite the incompleteness of the formation, he felt it was complete.

After observing it for a while he shut his distracting thoughts aside and meditated.

This time he experienced a completely new experience than before. Now he felt that his mind was clear and the steady flow of spirit flowed through his body.

When the evening reached he opened his eyes again looking at his master who stood beside him.

He was standing there with his eyes closed. After looking at his master he realised that he looked much older than just this morning.

Zack stood up hurriedly and without wasting time brought him into the living room.

The meditation room now looked a bit desolate as if it had lost its life. When Zack looked around he noticed some cracks on the walls, ceiling and floor.

After having his master sit down on his reclining chair he brought some water for him.

He properly sat on the ground as his master drank the water.

Elder Grey sipped some water and looked at his disciple. His eyes were a bit cloudy and unfocused.

Reaching for his left hand he removed a black ring on his right index finger.

The ring was completely black without any carvings or gems. After removing it from his finger he looked at it with his hazy eyes.

"This is my remaining legacy and what I gained throughout my life. There were not many things or people dear to me, and those who were left the world years ago."

"The formation you have in your mind is an incomplete formation that should never be completed in theory. At first, it was created to sustain the lives of people on the brink of death but slowly other methods came to be and many discarded it."

"After improving it and studying I came to the realisation that it was best suited for being a foundation for a stable consciousness."

Zack listened quietly even though he had many questions.