Can't I Cultivate Myself? Chapter 29

Magic Potion Base combined with a ritual could temporarily open a passage between mortals and the Inner World, allowing them to hear the Voice of God. God would tell mortals what to do... Essentially, the power fed back by God activated the Hexagram Array, and talent was determined by which points of the hexagram lit up.

The six points corresponded to six levels of talent, also known as Six Stars.

If only one star could be lit, the Magic Talent was F; two stars meant E.

And so on, with A being the highest.

But A was not the limit of talent, only the theoretical limit of the test.

"Great Mother of Life, sun that nurtures All Things, With Your selfless heart and supreme might, You shatter the darkness and calamities hidden in this world, guiding the devout with the dawn that leads the lost astray...

...At this moment, bearing loyalty and reverence, we beg You for a fraction of Your great power, Wash away the dust, reveal our splendor...

From this day forth, we shall walk the Path of Light, loyal to the sun, offering You songs worthy of praise in this world...

—May life endure forever! May the sun be eternal!"

"May life endure forever! May the sun be eternal!"

Jack knelt down and cheered along with Jonathan.

The next moment, a blinding light flared from the Hexagram Array. Sensing something, Ryan drained the golden liquid from the bottle in one gulp.

Hot.

So hot.

It was like boiling fire sliding into his mouth and down his throat. The searing pain nearly made Ryan cry out.

The hot current surged into his body. He could clearly feel the heat finally gathering around his heart, where it ignited into flames.

Thump, thump~

Thump, thump~

Thump, thump~

His heart pounded powerfully.

A force that tore apart reality and illusion pulled at Ryan's soul, leaving him unable to think. He only felt as though he had been cast into a Chaos Space.

Whoosh!~~

Golden fire blazed from the array, illuminating the entire room.

"Mr. Jonathan, wh-what is happening?" Jack asked in shock.

He had undergone a Magic Talent test before, but he remembered nothing like this happening at all.

"I don't know either."

Jonathan's expression was grave. A magic test did not involve directly consuming magic power; logically speaking, there should have been no danger to life. Yet what was happening now had exceeded the scope of his understanding.

Even he could sense the threat posed by those golden flames. Could an ordinary person who had not yet entered the Transcendent realm withstand them?

But Ryan had not been burned to death. Jonathan's gaze fell upon the hexagram, where one point suddenly lit up.

"It's lit! The hexagram is lit!" Jack exclaimed softly.

As long as the hexagram lit up, it meant one possessed the qualifications to become a Transcendent.

But this was only the beginning. Soon, the second star lit up, followed by the third, then the fourth... Jonathan's breathing gradually grew heavier. The more stars lit up, the better the talent. Four-star talent was already quite impressive; theoretically, one could become a Fifth-Order Transcendent.

"Five stars! Mr. Jonathan, five stars!"

Jack shouted.

"I see it, I see it... Don't panic. Calm down, calm down." Jonathan badly wanted to light a cigarette to settle himself, but he merely touched his pocket and made no further move. Then his expression froze.

The golden flames of the hexagram had filled the entire array, and light shone from all five points.

And the sixth star seemed to be gradually lighting up as well.

Could this kid really become God's Chosen? Jonathan cried out inwardly. Turning to Jack, he said, "Go stand guard outside. Don't let anyone come over."

"Huh? Go now? But Captain Ryan is still..."

"It's almost over. I can feel the ritual's power fading. Five-star talent—League of Fire has struck gold this time."

Still not recovered from his shock, Jack walked numbly to the door. Only when Jonathan urged him again did he hurriedly open it and leave.

"This absolutely cannot be discovered!"

Jonathan stared at the array. Less than half a minute after Jack left, the sixth star lit up exactly as he had expected.

"Six stars... Magic Talent A! Fuck!" Jonathan blurted out. "If he isn't the Son of the Sun, then who is?"

Son of the Sun was a profession, but it could also refer to a title under the Sun Path—for example, someone with the strongest Magic Talent who walked the Sun Path.

"Damn, this kid is terrifying. Good thing no one else saw it."

Jonathan let out a breath of relief. If not for last night's operation against the Hand of Darkness stronghold, there might have been several more people in the room right now.

It was not that he did not trust his subordinates; it was simply better for as few people as possible to know a secret like this.

Jack was a simple kid. After a proper warning, he probably wouldn't go around blabbing.

"Still not over?"

Watching Ryan standing amid the flames, Jonathan was no longer in a hurry. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, letting his racing heartbeat gradually settle.

"Damn, that was intense."

At the same time.

Ryan found himself in a mysterious, unknown Inner World space. And standing before him was another mysterious unknown figure—a woman.

But why did this woman seem to not be wearing any clothes?

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A Woman Without Clothes

A woman who seemed to not be wearing any clothes.

The reason he said "seemed" was because Ryan wasn't sure whether there was something wrong with his mental state. There probably wasn't, right? Otherwise, how could he be this clear-headed? But if there wasn't anything wrong, why would there be a woman without clothes?

Oh, no, he couldn't even be sure she was a woman right now.

Because before being a woman, she had to at least be a person, didn't she?

The Inner World space Ryan stood in was desolate and boundless. The scorching sun shone a blinding white as it baked the Earth, as though it intended to burn away all life.

It was a lifeless space. Even if it was the Inner World, Ryan still found it strange, because he remembered that the Sun God was also known as the Life Mother Goddess, the origin of all life on the Rhea Continent.

Shouldn't an Inner World created by a Faith Path be covered in life instead of barren wasteland?

"Is that person the Sun God? Dawn? The Life Mother Goddess?"

Ryan's thoughts drifted, but he could still clearly see a blonde woman curled up inside the sun in the sky, her eyes closed.

Her legs were drawn up, her hands wrapped around her calves. Her thighs and chest were pressed together, forming soft rounded curves. The scale was quite impressive.

But Ryan felt nothing.

In terms of beauty, 'Lin Qi' was no worse than her, and she would do whatever he... Wait, wasn't 'Lin Qi' me?

Feeling as though he had fallen into some strange line of thinking, Ryan hurriedly pulled his attention back. In any case, compared to her appearance, he cared more about the woman's identity.

And what was he supposed to do now?

Wasn't this supposed to be just a Magic Talent test?

Director, where the hell did you send me for this test?

"Well, I'm already here."

Feeling like he probably wouldn't die, Ryan decided to look around first.

It was just a little hot. It felt as though fire were burning all over his body.

"It's all desert. Which way should I go?"

Ryan climbed up a sand dune and looked around. A golden sea of sand stretched before his eyes, and every direction looked exactly the same.

In the end, he decided to head toward the sun... toward the woman without clothes.

He walked, then ran. After running for a long time, he continued walking.

"How long has it been?"

Ryan discovered something strange.

In this space, he had no sense of time. The sun seemed like it would never set, and although he felt hot, as if flames were burning him, he did not feel tired. He could keep walking forever without any issue.

Was the Inner World really just a special space corresponding to reality?

According to the explanation of Inner World barriers, he should have been inside a League of Fire base right now. That was completely different from this endless sea of sand.

As his thoughts wandered, a palace towering into the clouds appeared at the edge of Ryan's vision.

Then, as he walked, many "people" suddenly appeared around him.

Their appearance startled Ryan. He did not even know when they had emerged. Only after looking closely did he realize they were merely phantoms.

Their expressions were solemn as they advanced toward the palace just like Ryan. Every so often, they would Kneel and Worship in the palace's direction, shouting something, though Ryan could not make out the words.

More and more figures appeared, forming a long dragon across the sea of sand. Seeing this, the first words that came to Ryan's mind were "pilgrimage."

He vaguely remembered reading some information on the game's official website. In the Age of Old, when mortals went to meet a Deity, a custom of pilgrimage would form. But as the age of deities came to an end, so too did that custom fade into history.

"If this is a pilgrimage from the Age of Old, then is the one worshipped in that palace the Sun God? The Sun Goddess?"

Ryan raised his head. The palace was not far away now. He Accelerated Speed, passing through group after group of kneeling figures until he finally reached the stairs beneath the palace.

This was a Sky Ladder whose end could not be seen from below, perhaps thousands of steps high. Just as Ryan was about to climb it, the previously bright white sky suddenly darkened.

He looked up and saw countless dense cracks spreading across the sky, thick, viscous black liquid flowing from them.

"This..."

RUMBLE!!!

Thunder rumbled across the sky, and a palpable sinister wind swept in from all around the palace. Ryan instinctively raised a hand to shield his forehead, only to discover that he was completely unaffected.

But those pilgrims were not so fortunate. The gale tore through the earth, hurling sand like bullets that could kill ordinary people outright.

Then, when viscous black liquid fell from the sky to the ground, the first sensation was the burning sting of corrosion. Wherever the drops landed, they sizzled and smoked. Immediately afterward, jet-black monsters crawled out of the liquid.

They had octopus-like tentacles and heads, yet beneath those heads were humanoid torsos. Some were enormous, while even the smallest were about the size of an ordinary person.

Once these monsters appeared, they began slaughtering the pilgrims.

Just then, the Sun's radiance broke through the darkness and descended. Countless golden humans clad in armor and armed with weapons charged into battle against the monsters.

The sky flickered between light and dark. Massive storm clouds covered half the heavens, and within them, some indescribable existence seemed to be contending with the Sun for brilliance.

At that moment, the heavens overturned and the earth collapsed. A scene like the end of the world unfolded before Ryan's eyes... He scratched his head and plopped down on the ground.

Standing there with his head tilted back was exhausting. Sitting or lying down to watch was much more comfortable.

Ryan felt as though he was watching a fully immersive VR movie. Aside from the increasingly intense sensation of Fire Attack scorching his body, even the collapse of heaven and earth had no effect on him.

BOOM!

A deafening crash rang out.

The sky instantly split in two. Then the palace began to collapse, and thousands of tiers of stairs crumbled in an instant, turning to dust!

Ryan jolted upright as if rising from his deathbed and hurriedly stood. It was not because he had been affected, but because he sensed that this Inner World space was beginning to collapse!

Not only that, the shadowy figure that had been fighting the Sun in the sky suddenly descended. Ryan could clearly feel a pair of eyes staring at him from within it.

It can see me?!

Cold—an absolute, extreme cold.

It was completely different from the feeling of flames burning his body just now.

This was a cold that froze the soul. It felt as though he had touched some taboo. Without any warning, Ryan did not even know what had happened, but he had a feeling—I'm going to die.