"What happened?"

The memory of what occurred chilled Chunhua's blood and it made her mute for a moment. Unsure of how she was going to tell it to her Uncle Yang.

Her little heart pounded for a moment.

Sweat started forming in her hands.

If she said a word, would Uncle Yang be alright?

Didn't he seem much stronger than he used to be before? Even Chunhua noticed the subtle changes in how the man conducted himself.. But a certain fear gripped her heart at the imagination of losing both her mother and someone who just arrived back in Chunhua's life.

She didn't want anybody else to be gone.

—-

All of these fears that made Chunhua tremble were strange.

She was a young child who had been used to seeing supernatural things from such a long time ago.

Whether it was ghosts that died and haven't fully accepted their deaths and roamed the earth to supernatural creatures unseen to most people who performed deeds both good and bad—the young child had seen them for so long that it was only recently where she realized that other people didn't see the same things as her.

Luo Ju Di wasn't able to give much attention to her due to working long hours and always chased the notion that there was absolutely nothing going on with her child.

Whether it had been the daycare center teachers politely telling her about how Chunhua talked to herself alone far more than other kids, or how wailing children complained about Chunhua's dead friend—her mother didn't bat an eye at all of those words.

She thought that maybe the other people just didn't like Chunhua and were saying nonsense as a result.

At most, Luo Ju Di thought Chunhua to be nothing but an extremely creative and imaginative child. Albeit someone who chose to talk about silly little ghost stories and other things that Chunhua may have picked up by watching television.

But her mother was wrong.

Spirits, aura and other psychic elements were something that Chunhua could interact with and something she did ever so often. Even the aura of Li Yang when they first met, the dark shroud of aura was something that Chunhua noticed when she met the man.

Right now, the darkness seemed to have lifted away.

Or Chunhua decided to be something that Uncle Yang could control.

When she first met this man, it was something that scared the child at first because it was unlike that of any other people Chunhua encountered.

An old spirit from the shambly rented apartment that Chunhua used to stay in with her mother discussed something about different strength levels of souls. It wasn't apparent to the naked eye but it could determine how one would fare in the supernatural realm.

Whether you were dirt poor or a billionaire—a strong soul could have belonged to anyone.

Most that Chunhua met could have paled in comparison. Some souls were simply flickering candles that were only waiting for the time until they were put out and taken into what came after next. Other souls strangely held on to certain affinity to different elements.

Traces from what the old spirit told her to be from another life.

Chunhua absorbed all the information as much as she could, but she wasn't sure if she remembered them all.

Those with tiny amounts of water in their souls might have once been part of the Water realm, but returned to the Earth realm—and other Souls burned brightly that they called forth one's attention.

And compared to all those varieties, her Uncle Yang didn't seem to even flicker at all. He was just there—certainly not dead, and very much alive.

But not just shimmering or even trying to light a fire at all.

His presence was something that made the quote an edgy kid in the daycare said about 'staring into the abyss' almost real. It scared Chunhua, however, somewhere down the line... it became something quite familiar to her.

Plus he proved himself to be quite nice despite the lack of any apparent light that Chunhua was devastated when Li Yang suddenly disappeared.

Now that he returned and was asking about her mother...

—-

Chunhua gathered the fire into her hands and revealed it to him and the Panda. This was the best way that she could show it to the both of them. A fire that manifested during the nights when the cold was at its most unbearable.historical

"What the actual fu—" Bao stopped in its tracks.

Chunhua stared up at the flying panda. Even though Bao itself seemed to also have a strange and punitive-inflicted aura, the 'Panda' still seemed shocked by what Chunhua did.

But now with the flames in her hand, a tearful story finally came out from the child's lips.

Despite everything in Chunhua's life, no matter how much older people and even spirits thought of her as a mature kid who helped take on the burden that her mother carried..

She was still a child at heart.

When she closed her eyes—something even scarier than Li Yang's own aura appeared in the child's mind. It was easy to think that the man was scary and resembled a darkness incarnate sometimes.. but that was because nobody had ever seen actual darkness before.

The 'monster' she had seen before Li Yang arrived was one of the many things that she saw throughout the past months. Each one of them was even darker and colder than anything that her uncle Yang could muster.

"Death.. is death," Chunhua finally said with a shaky tone.

Her eyes were squeezed shut as she expected something to happen to her—terribly frightened of what those creatures might do for her, finally telling that she saw them to another person, but nothing happened like that.

Nothing at all happened to Chunhua right now.

Was it because she was with her Uncle Yang and Panda Goblin that the creatures couldn't come after her? Or was it because they were already long gone and had taken what they wanted?

The smile that formed on Chunhua's face quickly fell off.

—-—-

Author's Note: Soul Cultivation. Soul Strengthening. The whole enchiladas, guys. Worldbuilding as much as I could and I may have uh... went over the top by explaining that here, but it's also been discussed in Chapter 107 of Races: Online (VR Smartphone App) Aha! I finally made a segue again.

For the simplest reference though:

Early-Stage Soul (Humans)

These are the mortal souls of the weakest beings in existence and Humans naturally fall into that category in the Universe. However, some Humans are able to rise through the Low-Tier of Early-Stage and manifest abilities.

Some are born with a Middle-Tier or Upper-Tier Soul that already has a predisposition for supernatural abilities, insights and other powers not available to a great portion of the Human Race.

Mid-Stage Soul

Late-Stage Soul (Divine Beings)

Peak-Stage Soul

Li Chunhua/Luo Chunhua is an Early Stage, Middle-Tier Mortal Soul. Cool, huh?

I really want to make a future story with both protagonists together, something like what PancakesWitch is doing in Epic of Summoner: Supreme Summoner System in the Apocalypse? (Man that's such a long title lol)

But first, I got to finish this book and this might be turning out to be longer than I expected.

Thanks for reading the chapter!