Chapter 549
The blood-red vortex before Shaer continued to swirl, and the silence from him made the flickering crimson light in his mind grow more frequent.
“Cough, cough... Your pet isn’t feeling well. It ate too much and is evolving. It should finish evolving soon...”
A somewhat guilty voice broke the silence. When Shaer didn’t respond, the speaker began to ramble on.
“Earlier, two humans barged in here, claiming they were guided by ‘Shaer.’ I chased them off... but didn’t kill them. Nowadays, humans love to cause trouble in your name...”
“Is Xiao Zuo dead?” Shaer asked calmly.
After such a long time without any news of Xiao Zuo, Shaer had begun to suspect something.
“No, he’s not dead,” the ethereal voice of the Pure White Knight replied. “He’s still alive...”
As long as he’s alive, that’s good enough.
“Earlier, you mentioned that the Level 4 human took the wrong path... What is the correct path for this route?”
Shaer asked directly.
---
The moment Shaer spoke, the red light ceased its flickering, as if the Pure White Knight had also fallen into silence.
“You know this is a dead end... Lord Shaer...”
After a long pause, the Pure White Knight’s voice finally echoed in Shaer’s mind.
I know? When did I know that?
It seemed the Pure White Knight had misjudged Shaer’s understanding from the very beginning.
It wasn’t Shaer who knew everything; it was the system.
In response, Shaer had his own plan.
Just be honest.
“I don’t know anything,” Shaer said. “I just want the Level 1 replication ritual and potion formula for this path.”
Another long silence ensued. Minutes passed, and even the spiritual summoning blood array before Shaer began to falter and dissipate. Finally, the Pure White Knight’s voice rang out again.
“I look forward to seeing what lies at the end of this path... consider it my apology.”
The blood array, already unstable, suddenly began to twist.
The blood threads that had been swirling clockwise, forming a vortex, started to contort and vibrate, as if something far beyond the array’s limits was trying to break free.
Shaer had no choice but to cut his finger again, letting more blood flow to maintain the array before him.
Buzz—
A powerful humming sound erupted as a right hand, encased in white armor, reached out from within. The index finger extended forward, directly pointing at Shaer’s right eye.
In Shaer’s vision, everything transformed into a chaotic blizzard, and a surge of information was forcibly injected into his mind.
Level 1 “Knight,” Level 2 “Enforcer,” Level 3 “Crown Guardian,” Level 4 “Lord”... Level 5 “Dominion”...
Crack—
The blood array seemed unable to withstand the energy from that white armored hand, beginning to shrink rapidly. The white arm was swiftly pulled back into the other realm, and as the finger left Shaer’s eye, it left behind a flicker of white arc lightning.
At the moment of disconnection, Shaer stumbled back several steps, only stopping when Tara caught him. She looked down, raising her hand to cover her eyes, breathing heavily.
This is...
The true path of the “Crown Guardian”...
All the perfect replication rituals and potion formulas coalesced in Shaer’s mind, forming into words he could understand. Whatever words he thought of, they would manifest as such... as if they were merely the essence of “information,” any text could serve as its vessel.
Once this information entered Shaer’s mind, the previously unreasonable aspects of the “Crown Guardian” found answers in his search.
The “Crown Guardian”... was not a path of mental weakness; the Level 2 “Enforcer” path before it was a comprehensive enhancement of the mind...
And Ansu’s “Detectives,” who advanced directly from Level 2 to “Lawgivers” without undergoing the mental enhancement of Level 2 “Enforcers,” led to the common issue of “Crown Guardians” suffering from a lack of mental strength and sensitivity to the other realm.
Wait... “Detectives” can switch with the “Assassin” path, while “Crown Guardians” are on a different path. Doesn’t that mean these three paths can all interchange?
Are paths not supposed to correspond in pairs? Could there be paths that allow for three or even four-way exchanges?
Does that imply the existence of isolated paths without corresponding ones... like the “Butcher”?
Or perhaps... the “Knight” is actually corresponding to the “Butcher”?
No, that can’t be right... If that were the case, someone would have already tested that the “Butcher” could interchange with the “Assassin” or “Detective” paths.
Shaer’s mind raced, while Tara, maintaining a half-embrace of Shaer, leaned back, her face flushed, trying her best to hold this awkward position.
It wasn’t that she wanted to enjoy the feeling of holding the divine being’s earthly form; she just didn’t want to interrupt her great thoughts.
Meanwhile, Shaer continued to ponder the relationships between the paths.
Now, Shaer could somewhat deduce the commonality between “Knight,” “Assassin,” and “Detective.”
That is, order... or rationality.
“Knight” and “Detective” represent positive order, while “Assassin” embodies disorder...
The reason for excluding the “Butcher” is that it has nothing to do with disorder.
The “Butcher” path could even complete the replication ritual without killing, and the Level 2 of the “Butcher” is entirely unrelated to disorder; it is “Skinner”... all related to the craftsman profession.
From this, one could infer the relationship between “Gambler” and “Adventurer”... “Gambler” submits to fate, while “Adventurer” defies it... this is reflected in the subsequent “Maniac” and “Defier” of the “Adventurer.”
“Gardener” and “Coroner” represent nature and anti-nature...
“Healer” and “Poisoner” signify life and anti-life...
“Listener” and “Instigator” embody healing the mind and controlling the mind...
“Performer” and “Blood Painter” represent stabilizing the spirit and disturbing the spirit...
No.
If understood this way, some paths cannot be explained.
For instance, “Ascetic” and “Avenger,” both are paths of strong conviction, inherently carrying a strong sense of mission and intense emotion, with no obvious contradictory theory.
Unless... they are adjacent paths like “Detective” and “Knight,” rather than oppositional paths that can be converted.
If that’s the case, it all makes sense...
In an instant, Shaer felt as if the clouds had parted.
Breaking free from the fixed, time-honored binary thinking of paths, Shaer’s understanding of the different paths deepened.
What struck Shaer most was that crucial segment of information...
It was about Level 5 “Dominion.”
This was the first time Shaer received information about Transcendents... or Ascendants.
Previously, from Level 1 “Knight” to Level 4 “Lord,” the Pure White Knight had only provided normal descriptive information.
But when it came to Level 5 “Dominion,” the Pure White Knight shifted to a self-narrative format.
It was the Pure White Knight recounting its own understanding of Level 5 “Dominion.”
It was a Level 5 replication ritual completed entirely according to its own understanding, achieving its own ascension...
One could say this was the ascension path the Pure White Knight carved out for itself, the one most suitable for its own being...
Others could certainly replicate the ritual created by the Pure White Knight, but the poorer the replication effect, the worse the digestion of the potion...
Suddenly, Shaer understood what the replication ritual was truly replicating.
Replication is about copying rituals created by others...
If ascension is about creating paths...
Then at the moment of creating a path in the old days, wasn’t I already an Ascendant?
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