novelraw Chapter 1696 - 1695 - Origin Mystery
Chapter 1696 - 1695 - Origin Mystery
Fog was all he knew. He drifted in an abyss of fog so long with only the corpses of all the failures. He had the same perfect recall as any cultivator but the Great One began to doubt his memory until the pinpricks of light arrived.
It had been sudden but the barrier had lit up like a starry night sky. He had thought he was finally breaking down when the sensation of worlds reached him! He thought he could finally escape but before he could even move, the fog beat him to it.
He sighed at the meticulousness of his foe. How many times had they fought and he had won? He had lost count but the last one was a formidable bastard.
It was as if he planned to die and enact the greatest torment to date.
The truth was, the fallen emerald dragons were the fuel caging him in a way he could not fight. So long as those thrice damned former trophies remained, he was stuck!
Only 1 had finally Unwound but there were millions! It would take trillions of years for him to get free and he could not cultivate either!
He had to hand it to his foe, he was a sick bastard on top of being unrelenting.
He had no compunction about using his alternate selves as a resource. The irony was not lost on him. He had sacrificed the entire Divine Lands to advance to his current realm but the greatest enemy used his desire to flaunt the failures as a way to win!
The fox brat's Talent was troublesome on several fronts. Aside from preventing his complete freedom, it also enacted a restriction on him no other at his realm suffered.
So long as a Divine Realm version of him existed, he could not leave!
Still, he had known how her Talent worked. It was a privilege of his new realm to grasp them, but Lind Frey had twisted his hopes and now th endless damned black fog was his world.
Worse, only Lind Frey could disperse it before the final corpse dissolved! Why had he kept so many?!
Even so, it would not have been so bad if not for something the final Lind Frey had done. Aside from the trap, he had discovered something neither the fox brat or the Great One understood about her Talent!
What had he done?! He had no idea but as he explored the sparks in the fog, he began to understand.
The crazy bastard had changed all of history! How had he done it and why?!
The Great One had no answers until much later. It was literally billions of years by his perspective but he finally made contact with the current and last incarnation. He could tell.
The drastic change had burnt out the fox brat's ability to shift reality once more.
Things were finally going to come to an end! Still, it did not change his prison much. He was still confined with only tendrils out into worlds that could not sustain him at all nor push his cultivation forward.
The trophies he had taken were soulless and he could not claim them at all.
It was another side effect of the fox brat's ability. It seemed just as the Great One was trapped, Lind Frey's soul could not be refined by a Fiend if he started over.
In fact, his soul vanished entirely!
He had never understood the why but it was clear it was tied to however Lind shifted his next attempt.
All that was to say that he had grasped much of the abilities of his foe over their battles. It was a total shock then, when enjoying how naive the current version was, that Mystery energy flared unlike anything he had ever felt from Lind Frey.
It took him a moment to correctly identify it and his white eyes went even wider.
Origin Mystery?! How?!
Just like everything else, Mysteries had a grading system but unlike anything else, it was very opaque to the Divine Realm beings.
The Great One knew that lower quality Mysteries would carry most to the peak of the Journeyman Tier but never to the Master Tier.
Basic Mysteries were the lowest rung, the bare minimum a Divine Realm would need to advance with great difficulty. They were the ones that often spent billions of years just in one Tier and perhaps choosing to Fade in frustration.
Normal Mysteries were relatively common. So long as at least half the Mysteries condensed were of that quality, the peak of the Journeyman Tier was well within their grasp, but never the Master Tier.
Divine Mysteries, as the name implied, were the perfect synergy with a Divine Realm cultivator and would give the greatest opportunity to advance to the Master Tier. Even so, the cultivator would need at least 4 of the 6 layers to reach that quality in total to have that chance.
As it would be implied, a whole layer was far more difficult to reach the Divine level.
Origin Mysteries were the most elusive. The Great One had never encountered them save in ancient records. Even those records could be counted with just 2 hands! That was how rare they were!
It was just a legend when he ascended to the Divine Realm so long ago. Even the best Master Tiers would scoff at those claiming to be striving for them but now he felt it! It was profound and it made him shiver.
What had Lind Frey done? The final words were hidden by Heaven and Earth from others. It was not only a way to prevent interrupting someone condensing their Mysteries but protected those Divine Realms in range from suffering severe deviation if they had incompatible Mysteries.
He tried to watch the process but the opening was now blocked off entirely!
"What did the records say? You could not condense a Journeyman Tier Origin Mystery unless–!" The Great One became solemn. At least one full layer of the Apprentice Tier had to be at Origin level!
The difficulty should be immense but the timeline was all too familiar to him. Lind Frey had less than 35 to 40 thousand years to stop his lower self from reaching the next realm.
In reality, he had less than that if he wanted to save the other continents. Best to assume 25 thousand years from the time Lind Frey ascended. Even with a margin of error, that minimum span should hold true.
Given his current realm, Lind Frey should have less than 12 thousand years remaining but he was already condensing Earth Layer Mysteries at the Origin grade?! That was insane!
What had Lind Frey done?! Such drastic changes should have wiped the planet Earth from all of existence, not just brought it to its knees!
He looked at the various tears with new eyes and realized a desperate gamble had been implemented whose result he could not foresee save one thing.
If Lind Frey had 2 Origin level Mystery layers in his dantian, his lower self would face an uphill battle. The only advantage now was time.
Cultivating Origin Mysteries compounded their complexity. While it was insane he had done at the Apprentice Tier, it was feasible within the time remaining. The Journeyman Tier Mysteries would not be as kind.
The power would force Lind Frey to aim for quality over speed! It was a race! Could Lind Frey acquire the power to kill his lower self or would he fail and the Divine Lands burn before he could stop it?!
A smile spread on his face. Even locked in the fog he could feel it. The pressure on Lind Frey was immense and his lower self would not slow down.
If anything, if Lind Frey showed too much progress, his lower self could trigger the failsafe. It would be detrimental to his lower self but that was irrelevant.
Even if all went well, his only fate was to become part of the greater whole.
It was another difference between them. Lind Frey was always on his own while the Great One gained more and more due to their repeated battles.
He calmed down as he realized that. While Origin Mysteries were powerful, they did not equate to battle power directly. No Mystery did. It was the most frustrating part cultivators strived to grasp.
Mysteries were not roads to greater battle strength, they were but additions to the foundation to unlock possibilities!
While it was disturbing that Lind Frey had 2 Origin Mysteries, it was hardly a worry. Given the unique set of circumstances he had lived by, the Great One had refined his Mysteries to their limit and beyond even after he ascended.
The final wall was all around him and he could not wait to shatter it!
⬧⬧⬧⬧
Lind was on the ground looking up but he was no longer blinded by the fog. He could see through it!
He slowly sat up and realized he had been moved outside the Void of Heaven at some point. The restrictions had come back down but only to the World Realm once more.
Still, he looked around and was shocked by all he could see. Why could he see so clearly?
He finally recalled what happened and quickly tried to see in his dantian only to realize his internal aura was locked down. He had not tried it before but it made sense. Mysteries were far beyond what the planet could withstand, still, he recalled the words.
[Earth is the Home of our Souls]
Lind wondered why that had come so much easier than the Heaven Layer but he did not discard the possibility his current circumstances gave greater odds due to less distractions.
He sighed, however, in that he was reset a bit for the trial. He knew he had caused the damage but he was not the sole reason for it dying. What was going on? Why did it looked like something had slammed into the surface but then froze time around it?
He decided to explore the entire region for any hints and also cleanse all the thralls. There was no need to let the Bastard have freedom in any shape or form!