"Eternal Incarnation!"

  Anos made eye contact with his reflection as his surroundings started to shift. It was like reality was a screen of water. This became layered as the water rippled. Then the area surrounding Anos started to fall apart as if reality was collapsing. Soon the only thing that existed was Anos and his reflection.

  The pond? The forest?

  Under the influence of his illusion and suggestion. These things became illusory.

  [Eternal Incarnation]

  Anos's eyes started to water and tears started to streak down his face. His reflection was also crying. His attention was pulled from his own eyes to the inner world.

  He was looking at his sea of consciousness.

  A silver mirror without boundary appeared with transparency.

  Soon the pond vanished and Anos found himself in a white void. It matched his sea of consciousness perfectly. Standing opposite of him was his other ontology!

  He moved his hand and held it up against the mirror.

  The moment both hands touched. It was as if an entire world was seperated by a thin barrier. If he could just break this barrier... what would happen?

  But then something interesting happened. He felt as if the world had been flipped. He also felt like a puppet master controlling another version of himself.

  His sea of consciousness was undergoing some form of evolution.

  He felt a pain in his head suddenly.

  "My spiritual energy is exhausted!?"

  The original body in his sea of consciousness cracked as if it was made of glass. These broken fragments became transparent and then vanished.

  A avatar was floating in the now empty sea of consciousness.

  The entire illusion shattered and Anos found himself looking at himself in the pond. His face felt wet. A drop of water fell from his face into the pond causing a very small ripple.

  He wiped the tears off his face and remained silent.

  Anos stood up and went back to his cave.

  But inwardly, he was quite excited! Why? Because he had looked into his sea of consciousness. It was no longer empty. It was a white void. But floating in this void was an avatar of himself sitting in a lotus pose with its eyes closed.

  "What is it?"

  Anos had many questions. But he felt that the inheritance wasn't so simple. Anos wanted to pull himself into the illusion again. But all of his spiritual energy had been used up.

  He needed to recover it.

  He started to cultivate. But something crazy happened. It was as if the spiritual energy became far more easy to see. But that wasn't what was crazy. A vortex of spiritual energy appeared above his head and he felt it enter his body. But instead of storing a small amount in his meridians.

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  It was flowing straight to his brain and then... vanishing?

  It was then that he noticed. There was spiritual energy in his sea of consciousness! But it was like a bottomless pit. Not only that. But he wasn't sure how to get this spiritual energy out?

  Anos had lost the ability to cast spells as his body had no spiritual energy to use. It was a bit paradoxical. He had a lot in his sea of consciousness, but he had no way to use it.

  But then. His avatar opened its eyes.

  Anos saw two images. He saw what he was looking at. But just like when he pulled himself into an illusion. He also saw things from his avatar's perspective.

  It was as if he was controlling two bodies at once!

  He began to rotate the God-Eye sutra with his avatar. Then he saw a familiar scene of absorbing spiritual energy into the meridians. His avatar breathed in this energy.

  Anos then started to go hard on cultivating.

  6 months later...

  The spiritual energy in his sea of consciousness was completely full. His avatar was also at the third level of qi condensation. It was as if there was a portal in the brain of his avatar.

  By guiding the spiritual energy in his avatar's body to the brain. He would feel a spring of spiritual energy in his mind. This gave him three advantages.

  The first advantage was that he no longer needed to be in an environment with spiritual energy. His sea of consciousness itself stored six entire months of cultivation alone.

  Not to mention... if he was able to condense it. He could store more!

  The second advantage was that the spiritual energy from his sea of consciousness seemed to be of a higher quality. It was as if the power of it had been upgraded in the process of being refined by his avatar.

  Sort of like water being purified.

  Anos felt that he should be able to bring his avatar out into the real world. But whenever he tried. He would pass out from spiritual exhaustion.

  "Perhaps I need to reach foundation establishment?"

  The body in his sea of consciousness seemed to be of a similar state as himself. But there were some oddities. For example, he couldn't go further in cultivation then his main body.

  Despite six months of cultivation. He was still at the fourth level of qi condensation. His avatar was only at the third level.

  But Anos found a great use of this 'avatar'.

  What use?

  Spells! Techniques!

  Controlling the avatar felt exactly like controlling his main body. So he could use it to make his own techniques and spells.

  He was afraid at the prospect of destroying it from spiritual deviation or instability. But Anos felt that this opportunity was too good to pass up.

  So he made a few 'minor' changes to the his 'Fireball' spell to create 'Flame Shield'.

  The moment he casted this spell. His avatar blew up!

  Anos felt like a gambler that just spent his last dollar and lost.

  The remains of his avatar were surrounded by the dense spiritual energy. But it was dead! But dying seemed to have not affected the main body at all?

  Anos then wanted to try his luck again.

  But the avatar was like a reflection of himself. Since he himself didn't have immortality, neither did the avatar. But Anos had found some loopholes.

  It would seem that the 'avatar' wasn't crucial to him at all.

  Anos focused on the word 'eternal'.

  It was as if he had some sort of root planted outside of physical space. A sort of metaphysical ability.

  [Eternal Incarnation]

  A tornado of spiritual energy rotated around the corpse fragments of the avatar.

  Anos then reconstructed it.

  He then tried 'Flame Shield' again with some slight modifications.

  It once again blew up!

  Anos attempted to reconstruct it again. But all of a sudden he felt a stinging feeling at the connection point of his mind and this mysterious power.

  He then passed out!

  When he woke up, he felt sick.

  Anos could pull spiritual energy from his sea of consciousness now quite easily and circulate it in his meridians. But he felt now that his control was unstable. Not to mention, without the avatar. He needed to rely on the environment.

  "A permanent debuff? Or just a temporary side-effect?"

  Luckily, a few weeks later. He was fine!

  "It would seem there are time contraints to the revival of my avatar. I can probably revive it a few times in a row. But any more then that and I risk myself."

  During these few weeks. Anos wasn't able to cultivate at all. Everytime he tried to circulate the spiritual energy, he felt it was too chaotic. This 'feeling' slowly disappeared over time.

  There was also another restriction.

  When his avatar was 'dead'. He couldn't pull spiritual energy from his sea of consciousness to his real body. So he had to go back to traditional cultivation.

  But then. Anos finally got to thinking...

  "What if I have multiple avatars?"