Chapter - 39 Understanding
「Humans are innately selfish creatures.」
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Fledgling
Fellow
Scire
Practitioner
Expert
Master
Enlightened
Path Maker
Monarch
Sovereign
These are the ten great realms of Aetheria.
Though one may believe that by attaining the tenth rank, a person would possess god-like power, this notion is both true and false.
The Sovereigns represent the tenth and highest realm—a culmination of a journey filled with hardship and toil.
Seen as gods or deities in their own right, Labeled the high ones by the weak.
Only beings with the strongest path could ever hope to even reach a fraction of such heights.
Talent, wealth, and fame hold little significance when one ascends to this realm.
Talent can only carry a person so far,
wealth may be replenished, but its value becomes virtually negligible by the sixth realm.
Fame, merely a front of reverence or relevance, fades over time, eventually reducing a name to nothing more than a footnote in history.
However, it is to be considerable to mention that obtaining or possessing these attributes can certainly expedite one's advancement.
So how about a feasible goal?
For the top 0.00000001 percentile of beings, achieving the Monarch rank not merely a lofty aspiration, but a tangible reality.
Nevertheless just to reach the realm of a Monarch, a being would have to [][][][] —, A task nearly impossible for all beings.
Those who ascend to the Sovereign level ought to perish. They are anomalies that should not exist—beings who have cultivated and possess the abstract.
Atheria wasn't designed for beings to reach the tenth realm.
The [Great One] merely created the world with trivial expectations.
Sovereign should not exist within Atheria.
Lux should not have existed, he was a parasite who used such stated anomalous methods.
The System, the catalyst that allowed him to reach such power within the story.
By the 'The Twilight Sword Saint's' concluding pages, Lux had become a peak-reamed Sovereign.
「shifting his gaze toward the expansive sky of multi-colored arrays and complex patterns, Alex gritted his teeth」
Lux wasn't even the one to create his 'Initial'; the System had done that for him.
「Under normal circumstances my body's childish anger would have been vented, but since my hormones and emotions are currently docile any my will currently reside within the mindscape, such rage won't hinder my focus. 」Alex mused with feigned emotion
The mindscape, a realm that separates beings from sensation and quells emotion. Those who enter become hollow husks, endowed with extraordinary rationality. Though all beings from birth possess and develop this inner world, not all beings are eligible to access it.
There were thousands of ways to open the mindscape via techniques or methods passed and taught to youths.
Notably, the majority of notable noble families of course possessed such techniques, but these were more versatile than those of available to the general public.
[Imaginative plane]
A common technique that could be found anywhere, and the one I am currently utilizing.
[Imaginative Plane] isn't a legendary technique with missing components or some other gimmick or other BS transformations, it was simply a reliable technique to course a Persian foundation.
Neither flashy nor elegant, it was a cheap technique that I had bought at a general manual shop in passing,
The only special trait of [Imaginative Plane] is its requirement for the practitioner to enter a deep meditative state while continually channeling a significant amount of energy through their body.
Hence why Alex had thrown the corpse of the hooded man into that dense vegetation.
The remaining life force within that corpse was going to serve as a quick burst of nutrition for the plant that Alex was going to forcibly harness and circulate the cultivated energy from the plant through his paths.
–Phew.
Viewing the model layout before him, Alex continued to correct any minor faults that plagued his goal.
Hours passed
The actions of refining, calculating, and rearranging paths would have long since become tedious if he were within the physical world, but this was the mindscape, and such feelings of boredom nover came to pass.
「No」
「Energy is limited within this sector」
「The unity within Aura and Prana collapsed 」
「Again.」
「Again.」
「Again.」
「Again.」
Time passed, and days flew by, yet progress remained limited.
Though not Alex's actions of manipulation were by no means superficial, but compared to the grand scheme of the intricate arrays of inner circuitry, his progress might as well have been none.
「This is another one of those instances where I envy the way they depict transmigration in novels,」Alex sighed
If he were to continue going at the pace he was, completely rearranging and optimally designing the circuits to their most quintessential effects. would take him over twenty years.
Alex didn't have the luxury of such time,
「I only have three more years, and this slow process of trial and error is far too primitive, 」Alex wisped as he casted a vacant gaze below. The gentle rippling water tranquility pulsed and guided itself into the distance as its figure eventually faded into the obscurity of the expansive landscape of water.
「Time is of the essence, and it's a commodity that I lack, 」
「Evelyn permitted my entrance into the Institute of the Stars if I'm able to pass that entrance exam 」Alex raised his gaze「Fortunately I already know what the practical exam will entrail」
「I need more corpses, but that should be an easy task, especially with the constant skirmishes within the H-ranked battle zones」
Standing up Alex gave one last quick glance toward the mindscape, the surroundings were just so peaceful…
「Well I should be off」Alex mumbled,
Raising his arm towards his neck, Alex began to clasp his avatar's soft flesh. The firm grip caused no pain, fear, or angst.
Clenching his hand with further force. The nails pultruded the soft skin.
–Snap!
–Rip!
–Crack!
With total nonchalance, Alex tore out his will's thread.
This was the final requirement for the [Imaginative plane],
Suicide,
The reason why the technique was seldomly practiced by most.