She frowned in puzzlement. “But if it’s really inside you and can absorb your spiritual energy, why doesn’t it just take it directly? Why force Young Master to perform specific mudras it taught you? It’s as if it could take everything yet insists you hand it over willingly. Very strange.”
Charlie wade pondered. “When you put it that way, it does seem unnecessarily complicated.”
Lin Waner suddenly grew excited. “Young Master, do you remember that during the very first aurora, it began by forming the Buddhist swastika?”
“Of course,” Charlie wade nodded. “I even joked that from above, the mirrored swastika looks like the Nazi symbol.”
Lin Waner’s eyes shone. “Exactly! So whatever is inside you, whether person or object, it must be connected to Buddhism! And since it comes from Buddhism, it has to follow Buddhist precepts. Monks begging for alms can only accept what donors freely give. Even if food lies unattended, they would starve rather than take it without permission. The thing inside you is the same. Even though it could absorb your spiritual energy directly, its Buddhist origins forbid it. So it has to take the long way round and make you offer it willingly.”
Charlie wade grumbled, “The first time it didn’t explain anything clearly and just drained me blind. That doesn’t seem very honest.”
Lin Waner smiled helplessly. “Young Master, what more do you want? It can’t speak. The only way it can communicate is by shaping the aurora. And it’s not just taking.”
Charlie wade nodded. “True enough.”
Lin Waner sighed with feeling. “If our guess is right, then this thing actually possesses spirituality…”
Charlie wade said glumly, “Whether it does or not, we’ll know once I test it.”
With that, he took out a Peiyuan Pill, swallowed his heartache, and popped it into his mouth.
As the pill released a flood of spiritual energy, Charlie wade calmed his mind and once again performed the eight mudras.
Like any incantation, the mudras had to be executed in the correct order to work. Earlier that day he had deliberately scrambled the last four, which was why nothing happened.
When he correctly formed the first four, the golden pagoda in his sea of consciousness rose to the surface once more. Unfortunately, Charlie wade could neither sense its presence nor see the countless weathered cracks covering it.
Ignoring its scale, the pagoda resembled an ancient building ravaged by time and storms, on the verge of collapse. If it stood in some old temple, it would long ago have been declared a protected cultural relic and reinforced.
As the pagoda emerged, it paused briefly, seemingly wary that Charlie wade might trick it again.
Then, when Charlie wade completed the full correct sequence, the spiritual energy in his sea of consciousness surged wildly into the pagoda.
In that instant, the pagoda burst into dazzling golden light. The countless cracks on its surface began healing at a visible speed, and the entire structure seemed to grow slightly larger.
Yet Charlie wade’s spiritual energy was finite. After nearly ninety percent had been absorbed, many cracks still remained unrepaired.
Spiritual energy drained at terrifying speed. Cold sweat soaked him, and though he normally felt no cold, the night wind made him shiver involuntarily.
The shock cleared his mind.
He stared fixedly at the aurora, hoping the mysterious entity would give him a fair return.
At that very moment, the wildly dancing aurora in the sky suddenly changed. Countless particle-like points of light rapidly converged, and once again, a pair of giant hands appeared in the night sky!
