The silence of the void was absolute, yet it thrummed with the weight of unwritten cosmic laws.
Soren stood in the center of his own Soul World, his phantom eyes locked onto the swirling, galactic abyss that served as the mouth of the Cosmic Vagrant.
"In that moment, I stirred, glanced through the cosmic mess and saw a boy whose body was a paradox.
Density from a Cosmic Father, Purity from a Mystic Mother. A body destroying itself to survive.
I found a vessel; a Blank Canvas."
"A canvas," Soren repeated, the word tasting like ash. "You want to paint over me."
"No," the Vagrant corrected fiercely. "I want to wipe you clean so you can paint the universe." The Cosmic Vagrant revealed.
However, soon enough, it realized that its words might be a little incomprehensible for Soren, and as such, it reclined, gazed at Soren, and began to teach.
"This..." It gestured to everything in the ambient atmosphere. "...is a Soul World."
"It is the foundation of every cultivator's journey.
It is where one's Dao Seed is planted, watered and germinated during Awakening in order to determine one's possible paths to cultivation."
"Tell me how to plant them," Soren said.
The Cosmic Vagrant didn't smile—his face, a silhouette of starlight, lacked the mechanics for it—but the swirling galaxy where his mouth should have been pulsed with a brilliant, blinding violet hue.
"You ask for the 'how' because your mind is still trapped in the schematics of the mortal coil..." the Vagrant's voice resonated, sounding with the dichotomy of grinding tectonic plates and singing wind.
"...You think of genes, of biomechanics, of kinetic transfers. Those were the crude tools of a blind architect trying to build a castle in the dark."
The Vagrant took a step forward. The space between them didn't shrink; rather, the universe seemed to fold around the entity's movement.
"Look beyond the dirt of your Ignis Tribe, Soren.
The 'Beast' that shattered your body?
That pathetic, sentient Emerald Core was nothing but a bloated parasite, feeding off a drop of spilled water from a shattered ocean."
Soren's analytical mind struggled to process a scale that dwarfed everything he knew.
With all that he had heard up until now, the Oman House, the Chieftains, the tribal betrayals—they now felt way less than dust in the face of the grand scheme of things.
"You are no longer a boy of Star-Iron and Jade-Alloy, Soren.
You are the universe's blank canvas, destined to be tainted only by the Will of the Primordial Mind itself.
The scientific terms you cling to are dead, Soren. The transition has begun.
Your 'Master Builder Gene' is no longer a biological quirk; it is the Seed of Thought. Your 'Black Sun' is no longer a thermal reactor; it is the Seed of Action.
To plant them, you do not use tools. You use Will." The Cosmic Vagrant paused and when it realized that Soren was beginning to comprehend things from a grander scale, it continued.
"The Dao Seed is the very soul of one's Will, and it has its own identity. This identity is formed when every living being attains Zen of Self.
This Zen of Self is one's belief in who they have been created to become.
And while most school of thoughts believe the creation of the Dao Seed is only possible after one has begun their cultivation journey, a few others believe otherwise.
After all, even a seven-year-old like you already have a conception of who you want to be.
And though yours may be currently short-sighted to the grand scheme of things, and possibly not align with the innate Will of your Dao Seed, it doesn't change the fact that it exists.
Both were perfectly right; the Dao of Mysticism and the Dao of Change; it's just that one looks evolve by embracing and using the original blueprint within to affect everything without.
The other however, believes in using everything without to taint and edit the original blueprint within into whatsoever they want to evolve into.
The Mystics believe that since one's Dao Seed has been formed from birth; planted deep into one's sea of consciousness, and eventually sprouting during Awakening along with the creation of one's Soul World, it should be embraced and amplified.
However, the Dao of Change, believes the Dao Seed is simply a Soul World's Core, and as such can be later transformed into one's image, and by extension facilitate the change of one's original Soul World nature.
But shortly after, a third infinitely underpopulated School of Thought, which manged to merge the best of both School of Thought, attain a multiplied best of both worlds, all whilst negating their flaws, arose.
This School of Thought was called the Dao of Transformation.
To them, since the Dao of Mysticism believes one should instead explore and magnify the natural will that came with their Dao Seeds in their Soul World, they would do so as well.
However, they decided to also form a second Dao Seed; this time planted within their body and then follow the way of the Dao of Change.
And at the nexus of Fate combine both into a seamless whole to obtain the amplified effect.
But while they would have to embark on their cultivation journey to reach this principal nexus; You, Ryujin Soren, have that chance hovering before you right now.
Would you accept it or not?"
The figure paused and extended his hand towards Soren.
Soren watched the hand hover in front of him with a level of magnetism that made that of his Black Sun look like the vibration of a phone compared to a Planet-Destroying Earthquake.
Though he didn't know who or what this figure was, and neither did he have any reference to confirm if his words were true or not, but his Primal Instincts kept telling him he couldn't afford to lose such an opportunity.
But just as he was about to grab the figure's hand, he suddenly restrained himself, undauntedly looked into the figures mesmerizing eyes and paused.
The Cosmic Vagrant noticed this as well and withdrew his hand slightly, the chaotic gold and mystic blue of his eyes swirling with an ancient amusement.
"What I want, Ryujin Soren… is to see a hypothesis proven true.
For eons, the Dao has been rigid. The Mystics wait for the heavens to bless them. The Changers violently rip the heavens apart to steal their power.
But both paths inevitably lead to a plateau of cosmic arrogance."
The Vagrant gestured to the three planets rotating around the colossal suns above them.
"But the Dao of Transformation... it requires a vessel of impossible contradictions.
A body dense enough to crush a star, and a soul empty enough to swallow the void.
You, Ryujin Soren, are a walking contradiction.
The Star-Man's blood gave you absolute mass.
The Eden blood gave you absolute purity.
The Oman's poison forced them to cannibalize each other, and your little 'Master Builder Gene' acted as the desperate architect trying to hold the collapsing house together."
Soren's eyes narrowed. The scientific terminology he had relied on his entire life—the schematics, the kinetic transfers, the biomechanical analyses—suddenly felt small.
They were just crutches. Crude translations of a much deeper, profound truth.
"The gene didn't fail," Soren countered, his stubborn will flashing. "It adapted."
"It reached its limit!" the Vagrant boomed, the sound rippling the fabric of the Soul World.
"Mechanics and biology can only carry you to the peak of the mortal coil!
To step beyond—to become an entity that can crush the very 'Beasts' the Oman House worships—you must abandon the blueprint and embrace the Dao!"
Sensing the shift in Soren's demeanour and the reason for this encounter, the Cosmic Vagrant sighed, and relented.
"Take my hand, Ryujin Soren. Accept the Dao of Transformation. Fuse Thought and Action. Let the Primordial Mind remake creation in your image."
Soren stood in the silence. He was beginning to feel the weight of a dying cosmos resting squarely on his non-existent shoulders.
He thought of Liora, broken against an obsidian pillar.
He thought of the mother he had never known.
He thought of the schemers who had turned him into a lab rat for their parasitic experiments.
He didn't just want to survive anymore. He wanted to rewrite the rules of the game they had forced him to play.
Soren reached out and gripped the Vagrant's hand.
"Deal." He solemnly agreed, his voice fading into the cosmic wind.
"Good... Very good..." It spoke with a tone dripping with gladness as it took Soren's hands.
"I want you to take the Transformation Dao, Ryujin Soren.
I want you to plant one seed in the heavens of your mind, and one in the hell of your flesh."
Soren felt a profound tremor run through his phantom form.
The memories of his physical destruction—the melting Jade-Alloy bones, the fracturing Star-Iron plates, the absolute zero of death—flashed through his consciousness.
"And the girl?" Soren asked, his tone flat, cutting through the Vagrant's grand cosmic speech. "You said 'Deal'. You must save Liora."
The galaxy within the Vagrant's mouth paused its rotation.
"I have preserved her fate-thread in the tapestry of yours," It replied softly.
"But her survival is tethered to your Awakening. If you refuse this path, or if you shatter during the forging of the Dual Seeds... her thread snaps with yours."
Soren looked down at his translucent, spiritual hands.
He had spent seven years treating his body as a machine to be optimized.
Now, he was being asked to treat his existence as a universe to be cultivated.
He looked back up, his grey eyes slowly bleeding into a molten, terrifying gold.
"Tell me what to do." He spoke.
"Come... Before we begin, there is something important you must experience to help you attain the level of perfection required to help me." The figure said as it grabbed Soren's hand phased them out of his soul world through a ripple.
But just as they were about to exit his Soul World completely, Soren noticed all the infinite spots of stars, galaxies and cosmos within the Cosmic Vagrant's body dim a miniscule bit.
The loss of brightness transformed into a stream of cosmic energy that flowed towards the tip of its finger.
Then upon gathering above its middle finger, the Cosmic Vagrant flicked it condensed stream of cosmic energy into Soren's Soul World.
Instantly, the development of Soren's Soul World exploded at terrifying speed, expanding and evolving at a speed barely trackable with the human eye as they exited to a destination unknown.
However, instead of returning to the boundless emptiness, Soren was once again blown away by another most stunning view of his lifetime.
Soren saw a massive head, which judging by the absolute similarities it had with that of the absent Cosmic Vagrant, told him belonged to the latter.
The head hung over him with the pressure of all mountains in existence and its eyes which had previously looked nothing more than swirling pupils were now billowing with ethereal currents.
The Figure waited a few moments, allowing Soren to take in the ambience of the atmosphere and embed it into his psyche.
"Where are we?" Soren couldn't help but ask, flabbergasted by the sight.
"Where nothing has ever been and yet sourced from." The Figure answered cryptically.
Then all of a sudden, the figure's hand poked out of a ripple, this time in the size of its previous humanoid version.
"Shall we begin?"
Soren simply nodded in agreement.
He knew that, if an entity of the Cosmic Vagrant's calibre wanted to kill him, it would have needed only a mere thought, and as such, there was no point being cautious around it.
It could have done whatever it pleased without him being able to do anything about it in the first place, so he might as well follow along and see where this all ends.
The hand then poked its index finger straight through Soren's head, and what followed was all but awe-inspiring.