Growing Pains 313 Book 2 Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Forming a [Dao Partnership] had bonding elements I’d used when I bonded with Storm and Toi. There was blood, Dharmic, and ritual involved. There were also differences. The need for sexual release and a Cultivator’s Oath was the most significant.

I would have preferred to form this partnership in private, but Clement and Alpha both vetoed that idea. There had to be witnesses to the joining. Witnesses who would swear their own Cultivator’s Oath that the [Dao Partnership] was true. 

Cien and I were both females, which would have already forestalled the ability for coitus, but we were different species too. We didn’t have the biological organs to interact in any meaningful way.

That meant we would have to satisfy ourselves or make use of another biological imperative.

There were more versions of Alchemy pills that allowed for potency and organism than for any other type of remedy. Proof that even Cultivators that had complete control over their bodies needed a boost occasionally. 

Cultivators past the Immortal Realm had grown past the desires of the flesh. So when those occasions occurred where they needed to replace their progeny because of some misfortune, this world’s version of Viagra was needed.

Thankfully, public masturbation wasn’t needed. Although the process we decided on wasn’t much better. The Hindel didn’t have sex, not like Elves. They were more akin to fish in this matter. The female expresses eggs, and the male releases sperm to fertilize them. The Zygotes were immediately placed inside the Pod’s containment field where the children were raised, an area set aside for their development.

During the ceremony, Cien would release an egg, and I would use that same method. At the Nascent Soul Realm, I had complete control over my entire biological processes, including menstruation. I would control my body to engage in a highly sped-up menstrual cycle, sacrificing one of my eggs for the ritual.

Getting your period while a few people were watching might be embarrassing, but it beat the alternative. I did wonder if the containment field the Hindel used to protect, nourish, and allow their fetuses to develop would work for Elves.

I made a mental note to research the possibilities. 

I had no plan on having children at the moment, but if that ever changed, knowing that I could use the Hindel containment abilities to bring the child to term would certainly be something I’d consider. As Voice, Queen, and Cultivator, the danger to any child I might become pregnant with was not worth risking.

If the Hindel could protect them, that risk was all but eliminated.

Cien and I had been sat in the middle of an array that would collect the diverse energies we were releasing. Once blood, spirit, sexual energy, and the harmonics of our Oath were collected, the array would transform the gathered Qi inside for us to Cultivate.

It was during cultivation that we added the final step to create the [Dao Partnership]. We would augment our aura with the [Dao] that we were practicing, giving each of us the chance to gleam whatever similarities might exist between the two [Dao] and assimilate those similarities to enhance our own [Dao] and construct a bridge.

A bridge that was the basis for our partnership, one that would allow us the chance to examine the other’s [Dao] time and time again to perfect and enhance our understanding.

I had a thought that Cien and I might better grasp our [Dao] than any other [Dao Companions]. The gestalt mind was going to allow me to face tribulations without risk. If we meditated on our [Dao] during those tribulations, the gains should be staggering.

I would keep that thought to myself. And if it worked out that my surmise was correct, I would make sure to keep that secret even from Cien. I did not want to see the Empire or another polity with fewer morals than the Empire try to force the Hindel into partnerships simply to take advantage of that benefit.

I could envision Cult members and Demon Cultivators forcing a [Dao Partnership] on a Hindel. They would keep them chained and enslaved, only allowing them a glimpse of freedom during a tribulation. If they could murder babies and children, slavery of another race that could benefit them in their desperate search for immortality was a certainty.

The experience itself was surreal. With the bonds I had formed before; it was like reaching out and clasping hands. A connection formed, but there was a clear delineation. A difference between them and me.

With the [Dao Partnership], every aspect of who and what I was reached across that divide between me and them to become us. Our body, soul, and mind forging, the isolation and loneliness of being an individual subsumed in the creation of an aggregate.

One became two, two became three, and by means of the [Dao] achieves unity. Until two are but one. We were one, but we were also two and individual. And this insight, this convergence of fates powered by the [Dao], allowed for the companion bond to be forged.

A truism that strengthened the base of the pillar my [Dao of Movement] had been formed around. Everything was in motion and would remain that way until the Universe’s heat death and the long winter of darkness is all that remains.

I underwent an epiphany as I realized that even in that event, even with the Universe expanding and black holes finally collapsing until all energy was evenly distributed across the vastness of the void, the [Dao of Movement] would exist.

The [Dao], if nothing else, was eternal. And by embracing the [Dao], but understanding the fundamental truths that each aspect of the [Dao] offered, a Cultivator could grasp immortality.

The advancement into the unknown realms was more than an increase in Cultivation Realm; it was acceptance and attunement. A Cultivator would reach such a profound understanding of their [Dao] that they would make it a part of themselves.

Reaching immortality. Reaching a higher level of existence. A place beyond the limits of the physical world. That state beyond was a place of concepts, soul, and mind. To embrace the next stage after Immortal Venerable was to leave the body behind.

To ascend and look past the trivial concerns of the heat death of the Universe.