As mentioned before, consciousness needs the soul to be maintained, and when the soul loses energy, consciousness naturally ceases to exist.
However, after a person dies, the soul can still exist for quite some time. At the border of life and death in Liyue, there are many souls lingering in the world; the short ones last for a few days, while the long ones last for decades or even centuries.
From this, it can be seen that the lifespans of the body and the soul are different. Assuming an ordinary person's soul can linger at the border of life and death for at most two hundred years, and calculating with an average age of 80, the lifespan of the soul is 3.5 times that of the body.
In other words, for Shiki, whose soul would take tens of thousands of years to naturally dissipate completely, her physical lifespan would be at least twenty-eight thousand years.
And after cultivating Adeptal Arts, this time would only be extended further.
(I know the souls in Tsurumi Island have stayed for thousands of years, but because of the anomalies in the Ley Lines, they are constantly in a cycle, playing back and forth on Tsurumi Island like a movie, from the ritual all the way to the Thunderbird's rage. Their memories only consist of this segment, and it cannot be equated to normal places like the border of life and death.)
(I'm afraid some people might not be clear about this, so I'm stating it in advance.)
Her consciousness returned to her body. Shiki held out one hand, and golden electro element emerged from her palm, followed by Dharma power and soul energy. The three fused according to that Adeptal energy in the Sigil of Permission, subsequently forming a drop of pale golden liquid.
"Done..."
Shiki whispered softly, then clenched her fist, receiving this drop of pale golden Adeptal energy into her dantian.
The moment the Adeptal energy entered the dantian along the meridians, Shiki felt her mind lighten, and her whole person felt much more refreshed.
This was just following a few steps. She believed that after going to Liyue and learning properly from Morax, not only would the effect be stronger, but there would also be various useful Adeptal Arts.
Judging from the performance just now, Liyue's Adeptal Arts should also have cultivation techniques like those in cultivation novels.
However, what Shiki cared about more was the cultivation diagram she had inadvertently seen when she was on Earth.
Simply put, it was: planting a seed in a field called "Dantian," and the process of cultivating the seed to grow was what is called cultivation. When this seed grew into a towering tree, one would become a Great Immortal.
Here, let's not talk about Great Immortals or anything; Shiki was somewhat concerned about whether this Adeptal energy could be used as a seed planted in the dantian.
Although she really wanted to experiment, at the moment, her understanding of Adeptal Arts was still too little, so she still had to put this idea aside for now.
Before having sufficient understanding, she would first refine more Adeptal energy. Anyway, this Adeptal energy certainly had no downsides; the more, the better.
Thinking this, Shiki returned her thoughts to reality. Kuji-Meirei also turned into lightning and drilled into her chest. Then, she saw the two animals beside her looking at her with a strange gaze.
"Hmm? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"...Nothing. You really are... capable of giving people surprises..."
Yae Miko smiled quite reluctantly. Sometimes, a slap in the face comes so suddenly. She had just finished saying that Adeptal energy was very difficult and to wait until going to Liyue to handle it, yet the other person turned around and produced a drop of liquid similar to Adeptal energy.
And she had also self-taught... no, it should be said she had created on the fly a spell to lodge consciousness into objects. After all, without a textbook, wasn't that equivalent to creating it herself!
As for Ioroi... he had completely given up. He, who became stronger by playing, couldn't understand at all what Shiki was doing just now, much like you when you lower your head to pick up a pen in math class.
Before lowering your head, it was 1+1; after raising your head, it was calculus.
"Huh? What happened? Didn't I just zone out for a second!"
"Ah, it's alright."
Shiki's expression was normal. She just felt that the two's expressions were very strange; as for what they were thinking, she had absolutely no idea.
"Could it be that refining Adeptal energy is a very shocking thing?"
"That shouldn't be, right? There are so many Adepti in Liyue."
It was mainly that Shiki really didn't think it was that difficult; it was just that the process was a bit complicated and there were many details that needed attention.
This was still a method she had figured out herself; she believed that if she had been properly taught with the guidance of an Adeptus, it would probably be simpler.
"Uh, hehe..."
Yae Miko's eyelid twitched slightly. She had lived for over five hundred years; what kind of scenes hadn't she seen? But she had truly never seen the scene before her.
"As expected, it's better to change the topic; continuing like this is too discouraging."
Yae Miko decided to find a topic completely unrelated to Adeptal Arts to chat about, also to ease her mood.
"By the way, why did you suddenly change your clothes? And you even started wearing earrings. To be honest, I really didn't expect that someone like you would have a day where you'd dress up."
"I changed because I wanted to. I had worn that previous medium-sleeved kimono for more than half a year. It just so happened that Ogura Mio designed a new set for me, so I decided to change my taste."
Shiki said everything truthfully, but there were some things she didn't say, for example, that wearing these earrings was entirely for Ayaka.
Finding one's other half is not something worth showing off, and besides, she was not the type of person who had to show off everything.
"Oh~ I see... But I have to say, it really looks quite good. The owner of Ogura Kimono has a real knack for fashion design."
Yae Miko said this while carefully looking Shiki up and down. She hadn't noticed it before because she was always wrapped up, but now looking, the young girl's legs were on par with her own.
Moreover, the fox spirit's intuition told her that there must be other factors involved for the young girl.
Hmm... it's the aura of gossip.
It's just that she didn't know what this young girl's gossip was.
"Indeed." Shiki nodded in agreement upon hearing this.
"Excluding the point where she took liberties, the clothes she designs are very good, basically all ranking as high-quality."
"In order to design this outfit, she specifically went to learn about the culture regarding Yin-Yang and Taiji from Liyue."
"If you say you need a new set of clothes, then going to find Ogura Mio is a good choice."
"Indeed," Yae Miko smiled. "It's a very obvious yin-yang structure, both vertically and horizontally."
However, Ogura Mio had only considered the vertical color distribution when designing it. Perhaps due to a preference for symmetry, Ogura Mio only achieved a black-within-white and white-within-black effect, not the asymmetrical design of a yin-yang symbol.
The current color scheme was re-processed by Shiki. Besides the sleeves, skirt hem, and ribbons being longer, the color scheme now conformed more closely to the concept of the Taiji.
It was still white on top and black on the bottom, but the two ribbons hanging from the shoulders had completely opposite gradient color schemes. This made it look like a yin-yang symbol when viewed from behind.
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It might not seem tempting right now but who knows what the future holds?
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