Chapter 1667 1660: The Eight Doors (2)
Chapter 1667 Chapter 1660: The Eight Doors (2)
Steps echoed ceaselessly as eight processions of cultivators traversed the expansive corridors of the Land of Manu. They were slow, steady, and oddly rhythmically consistent. This lasted for hours, each trying to drink in the ancient ambiance and richly stimulating ambient essence faster than the others. Greedily, they yearned for more, yet the steps kept pushing forward and those within the group were almost instinctively forced to follow the crowd, no one daring to brazenly halt their steps and cultivate in place.
Eventually, the eight doors came into sight.
The crowd naturally stopped. At the forefront of each was a figure of prestigious and prominent status-a Sage! Sage Imentet, Sage Pakhet, Sage Khonshu, Sage Nepit, Sage Shattered Sphinx, Sage Khepri, Sage Amunet, and Sage Hathor were all standing there. While they didn't exert any aura, their presence alone stifled hearts and inspired awe. To many of these young and old cultivators, the Sages were divinities of their entire world.
There were even some juniors who were ignorant of other Sages until their horizons were broadened recently. To them, their seniors kept their focus steady and leveled at their cultivation, not explaining the sheer vastness of an entire galaxy nor the true depths of a cultivator's strength. For some, knowledge of these beings could inspire dreams. For others, knowledge of these beings could generate a sense of inferiority and inconsequential existential belief. They could devolve into zealous worship or belief that could ruin their Heart of Cultivation.
After all, while their cultivations were strong and their talents stronger, most of those within the Astral Core Realm could, at most, crush cities or create tiny realms that were barely sufficient to house a safe space for cultivation with arduous effort. The concept of being able to obliterate entire starfields with a single breath had yet to fully dawn upon them.
While their battles barely affected the continents on their planets, the battles of Sages had already reached the level of affecting Stellar Regions with each move!
To temper their hearts and protect their spirits, these figures remained as legends whose existences were like great myths. To see them here and now was similar to a religious priest seeing their target of worship directly, verifying their existence without a shred of doubt. The feeling was surreal for many of them.
There were even those whose cultivation bases were at the Rune King, World Emperor, or Original Magistrate level who had never had the opportunity to see Sages closely in their entire lifetime. While it might seem like two stages of a difference between an Original Magistrate and a Sage, the actual difference in strength and horizons was monstrously vast, especially their relevance, status, and means on a stellar scale.
The Sages were all dignified, yet each gave off their own unique impressions. Sage Pakhet was primal and fierce, eyeing the incoming crowd to the point they were all instinctively silent as if being observed by an apex predator. They felt reverential fear.
Sage Amunet's indistinguishable appearance bestowed her an air of mystery, genuinely like an inscrutable divinity that couldn't be gazed upon or touched. She was supremely distant to them.
Sage Imentet's impression was the most scarring to the hearts. She was far too beautiful. Simply far too beautiful. Her presence instilled wanton lust in the younger men and women regardless of orientation, the older women felt natural, undeniable inferiority, and the older men's hearts were forever etched with an immortal figure. However, her looks were aggressively daunting. Despite their lustful or depressing thoughts, she exuded an unattainable aura.
Sage Nepit was down-to-earth, manifesting a solid, comforting emotion from simply placing at him as he smiled. An innate feeling of trust sprouted within them.
Sage Shattered Sphinx was enveloped in robes made of fine sand that seemed to endlessly flow. He exuded a grandiose presence that was like a great divinity, like an embodiment of a living desert. Just observing him inspired inferiority and great reverence.
Each Sage had their own unique impressions that verged to an extreme. And they didn't greet any of the arrivals with anything more than a smile, maintaining a demeanor of divinity and unassailable eminence as a cultivator. A voice, ancient and majestic, permeated through the corridors. It seemed to be coming from the walls, floor, and ceiling with equal volume.
"Welcome to the Eight Directions Summit."
Six words coursed through the spirits, bodies, minds, and souls of each cultivator present, instilling a refreshing feeling. The name was simple yet it perfectly encapsulated the purpose of this gathered discussion on a galactic scale!
The Sages all stepped forward at this moment in unified synchronization, naturally drawing the attention of every sense, both physical and spiritual, to them. They stood before the eight doors that exuded kingly presence and head-tilting height. A silence permeated the eight corridors, to the point that breathing had halted altogether.
The ancient voice resounded once again, "Our world has suffered a great, unexpected setback that has derailed the efforts of our ancestral wills. Today, you will each be bestowed an opportunity to acquire a grand destiny.
"Look ahead," eyes naturally shifted from the eight Sages to the kingly, tall, and wide doors littered with esoteric runes designed to resemble Solar Stars of varying sizes, moving beautifully in a mesmerizingly animated stellar cycle. "Your destiny may lay here. What you see are but one of eight-the Doors of Ogdoad."
When the word 'Ogdoad' was spoken, it automatically translated to 'primordial creation' in their minds, as if assigning a natural definition etched into the world's logic.
"Your destiny may lie before these doors. You may, if fortunate enough, strive to observe greater horizons." As the voice spoke, the older and younger generations, regardless of gender, disposition, or stability, felt their hearts inspired. It was unclear what 'observe greater horizons' meant, yet it felt as if it aligned with the fundamental pursuit of their dreams, regardless of what those dreams were.
"Step forth."
The ancient voice shook the walls and floors, yet when it permeated the air, only a select group of individuals walked forth as if pulled by an attractive force. They slowly walked forward and stood at a set distance away from the Sage overseeing the situation. They were all members of the older generation, and they all had unfathomably powerful cultivations at the Ascended Saint Phase, the Seventh Stage of the Mystic Ascendant Realm-Mystic Overlords!
If one counted them in total, they would reach the number twenty-three and stop. While there were ten Sages, there were only twenty-three Mystic Overlords! This might seem horrendously disproportionate, yet this wasn't true! Numerous Mystic Overlords have perished attempting to ascend their Eighth Ascension and become full-fledged Sages in the last tens of thousands of years.
More than half of those present had already forsaken striving for greater heights, and have decided to establish themselves and nurture their descendants or the younger generation while cultivating a legacy that will continue after their deaths, etching their names in history.
This was a natural progression of cultivation and only when a society reached a level where reaching a cultivation stage was nearly guaranteed, such as the Myriad Yore Continent's External Flow Phase, the Second Stage of Qi Condensation, or the Myriad Monarch Sect's Yang Growth Phase, the Fifth Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm, was the proportion far more understandable in the stage above.
The Mystic Overlords were all prestigious figures of great power and near-divine status, only overshadowed by the legend of the existing Sages.
"Come. See if you're destined." The voice rippled out and the Mystic Overlords instinctively knew what to do. They arrived before the doors in differing numbers, with one of the eight doors only having a single Mystic Overlord, while another had seven. They didn't use their Spiritual Sense. Instead, they opened their Seas of Consciousness, and strands of soul energy were drawn out from their Mind's Eye.
Within the silence, the sight of those strands of the soul's core energy was mystifyingly wondrous. All twenty-three entered the door. The orbits of the stars shifted and grew increasingly animated. The scene was utterly breathtaking to the utmost as light flourished through the corridor, basking the Mystic Overlords in a soulful brilliance.
The entire event lasted for eight hours.
During that time, those observing remained quiet, observing the myriad changes of lights without a shred of tiredness within them, likely due to the stimulating essence in the air. Then, the light retracted and the strand of soul energy was returned to them without any insidious or hidden force within.
"..." The Mystic Overlords all had pious expressions yet the Sages were all slightly disappointed despite expecting this result. None of the Mystic Overlords were chosen.
"You may enter," the voice resounded as the Doors of Ogdoad opened, the roaming stars growing still and dim. The Mystic Overlords performed salutes of great respect to each of the Sages for this opportunity. They didn't leave empty-handed as many mistakes in their cultivation bases, those that they knew of, hadn't known of, and willingly denied could occur, were highlighted to them, and they contemplated on their mistakes as shown by the doors.
While the path forward wasn't shown, they could better understand the flaws they had taken earlier and prevent those mistakes in the future generation. The door was generous. If given the opportunity with certain Earthly treasures, heavenly waters, or alchemical products, they could patch those errors and strengthen their cultivations. To them, unaware of missing their destiny, this was enough.
In many of their minds, they felt the legends were verified. If they fixed the faults in their foundations, weren't their chances of becoming Sages heightened? Some of those who long since given up on their fate of taking another step forward in their cultivation were renewed with an invigorated promise of observing greater horizons.
When they entered the doors, the doors slammed shut. Those watching were shocked because they couldn't see inside despite the doors being wide open.
"Step forth."
The next batch of cultivators stepped forward. They were all Original Magistrates. With a swift count, a total of 7,726. This number might seem considerably larger than Mystic Overlords, yet they were the majority of cultivators present, and it properly showcased the extreme difficulty of taking a single step forward in cultivation as once again, these numbers did not accurately display the number of cultivators who've fallen to their Seventh Ascension.
Just like before, nothing happened except an extraction and return of a strand of soul energy. They, too, received the same blessing of being guided upon the mistakes of their cultivation, including the errors they lack. This was a great opportunity no less than being guided by a Supreme Sage, yet it was not the true destined opportunity.
The door opened and those Original Magistrates walked through with grateful eyes and respectful, proud bearing as if they were trudging closer to observing greater horizons.
"Step forth."
World Emperors were next. They were in the hundreds. But the doors merely opened, and they walked in.
Sage Pakhet only felt that this was natural. She recalled her first time experiencing this with nostalgia in her eyes. There had been sixty-four of them as the Land of Manu's hidden trial was scattered across the galaxy. There were thousands of competitors initially given proper qualifications, yet only sixty-four made it through, eight for each corridor.
She was only at the Second Stage of the Mystic Ascendant Realm, the Soul of Mysticism Phase at the time, and so were the others. Only eight were picked. Moreover, it wasn't a simple matter of being chosen. There needed to be eight candidates of similar cultivation base chosen at the same time, and that's why there was at least one Mystic Overlord, but the corridors were strange.
They were all subtly organized by an obscure categorization and split apart as they walked forward. Some of them may have been beside their parents or lovers, yet separated without the faintest sign of it happening.
She was one of the eight, alongside the other seven Sages.
Will there be another eight today?
-----
A soft whistling tune resounded in a vast sand desert with skies that resembled the chaos of time, distortion of life, and completion of death. The air was still. Not a single ounce of moisture existed here. Faintly, in the sky, there was an outline of eight doors composed of stars like a constellation.
A black-robed figure walked across the sands with ease, a layer of mana covering the soles of their feet, segregating them from touching the sands directly.
"So this is inside of the World Core of the Land of Manu?" Wei Wuyin looked at the sky of abnormality, halting his whistling tune. He was clad in his signature robes and outfit suited for combat, Element hanging from his waist, and his Celestial Eyes in full effect. He lowered his gaze and inspected the vast sand desert.
"WHO DARES INTRUDE UPON MY TERRITORY?!" An ancient, majestic voice thundered, causing the sand to tremble and the sky to twist ferociously.
Wei Wuyin inclined his head once more, staring at the sky with his silver eyes. "Wei Wuyin of Red Dove City," he answered with a calm smile.