Enlightenment Ritual

"If that's the case, I can help you undergo enlightenment."

Sart lowered his head and stroked the crystal ball, concealing his unease as he sighed inwardly.

Perhaps this was the dilemma Gold Coin Path Transcendents always faced: they could see the future, but a future that had already been determined only gave rise to new doubts.

He silently recited, Was this what Teacher meant by 'the known is the unknown'?

Naturally, Aaron had no idea what Sart was thinking. His eyes lit up, and he could not help leaning closer. "What do I need to do?"

As long as there was no Bian Que's Three Questions, it would be easy enough.

By now, the azure light in the room had dimmed considerably, and Sart had no choice but to add another small handful of Spirit Powder to the crystal ball.

"Just sit in the chair. There's still residual Fate Aura on you. It's also a kind of supernatural aura. I can help you activate it and let you sense it. But remember this: no matter what you see, it's all an illusion, not the truth."

The more he spoke, the less confident he became.

He was a Gold Coin Path Transcendent from the Star Tower, and the aura he was activating belonged to elusive fate. Logically, this should have been a sure thing.

But ordinary Enlightenment Rituals were usually paired with certain incense blends, used to suppress or enhance the enlightened person's perception. He only had Spirit Powder for communicating with souls and had not prepared any other auxiliary incense.

It was not because he was too poor to afford auxiliary incense, but because he only knew how to arrange an Enlightenment Ritual and had never actually performed one...

Still, the books said that incense only played a supporting role. The most important thing was guiding the enlightened person to find the corresponding aura.

When ordinary people witnessed all sorts of supernatural events, their brains and souls automatically forgot the excess information, retaining only particularly memorable images, sounds, and the like.

An Enlightenment Ritual selectively allowed the enlightened person to recall those forgotten fragments and gain additional information from them.

The standard for becoming a Transcendent was whether one could begin establishing an entirely new cognitive framework and system of use from those bizarre supernatural phenomena—the so-called Black Iron Tier.

In plain terms, those at the Black Iron Tier had begun adapting to the influx of excessive information. They could face supernatural phenomena without immediately going mad, falling unconscious, or killing themselves.

The most crucial part, guiding the aura, was actually the easiest. Aaron's soul was very pure, and he only carried two supernatural auras. He merely had to select and activate the aura of fate.

The only thing he had to be careful of was not activating the aura of the Heretical Cult ritual.

After all, the aura of a Heretical Cult was often crazier and more chaotic. In other words, the information it contained was usually more vast and jumbled, and ordinary people had an extremely low chance of surviving within it.

There were even cases of weak-willed Transcendents being corrupted and turning into Heretical Cult followers.

All of the above was what Aaron had summarized based on Sart's explanation.

Yes, once Sart realized that Aaron knew nothing about Enlightenment Rituals, he naturally had to tell him some necessary precautions beforehand.

And this "telling" was really just reciting from a book...

At first, Aaron listened with great seriousness. But when Sart immediately began fluently explaining "the three definitions and five analyses of Enlightenment Rituals," he could not help developing an ominous premonition.

After that, Sart "told" him about "the six different activation methods and twenty-six types of targets for Enlightenment Rituals," as well as "the effects of sixty-two different incense ratios on rituals"...

Aaron's brain, in a very human fashion, categorized the material as excessive information. It went in one ear and out the other, automatically summarized.

Huh, what?

Why could he take notes and summarize even while asleep?

After all, in some distant spatial plane, there was a magical species known as Celestial Dynasty students~

At last, after quite a bit of effort, Aaron obediently sat in a cold, hard wooden chair and watched Sart evenly scatter a circle of Spirit Powder around him before reciting a muffled phrase.

The azure powder vanished at a visible speed, and at the same time, Aaron smelled a strange fishy-sweet scent.

"Keep breathing. Relax. Recall what you saw then..." Sart said softly.

After only a few breaths, Aaron felt his mind grow heavy against his will, while his eyelids became noticeably heavier.

In his daze, scene after scene appeared before him as time rapidly rewound...

He was now like a spectator, watching his past experiences.

And at last, he saw what he looked like: a thin blond man with pale blue eyes that seemed to shimmer with melancholy at all times. Years of malnutrition made him appear frail and delicate.

Aaron saw himself being shoved along a filthy sewer by city guard members, and he seemed to smell that nauseating stench of decay again.

He also saw himself surrounded by Alice and a group of others, clearly sensing the wariness and disdain coming from the crowd.

He saw that old man swing a wooden staff at him as well, but he could not make out the old man's face. He could only feel the surprise and fear emanating from him.

The scene froze there.

Aaron was thoughtful. Ed had not lied to him. The old man really might have been scared to death.

But what had that wretched old man seen?

The moment he had that thought, the image began to blur. All the colors spread wantonly as though soaked in water, and within a few breaths, it had completely become a mass of countless overlapping color blocks.

At the same time, Aaron's steady breathing suddenly became hurried. His eyelids trembled slightly, as though he might wake at any moment.

Sart, who had been silently observing beside him, calmly scattered a second handful of Spirit Powder. He was not surprised.

If the first handful of Spirit Powder allowed the enlightened person to sense the aura, then the second was meant to maintain the connection.

This meant that the enlightened person had successfully found the corresponding aura and had begun trying to communicate with it.

The azure powder spread outward, and Aaron's breathing promptly became much steadier.

But in the next second, amid the environment already dyed azure by the Spirit Powder, an eerie streak of black suddenly appeared.

Sart froze, then his expression changed. He blurted out instinctively, "That's impossible! The ritual was arranged according to the book, so why was the Heretical Cult Aura activated too?"

Because he had no auxiliary incense, he was conducting the simplest and most basic Enlightenment Ritual.

This ritual was so simple that all it required was scattering a circle of spiritual incense around the enlightened person, symbolizing that his soul had been chosen, then reciting the Dream Realm Language for "enlightenment" to activate the ritual.

The incense he had used was Spirit Powder. It simply could not activate a Heretical Cult Aura!

Sart looked at the constantly spreading darkness, swallowed, and felt a pang of regret.

If only he had purchased some incense beforehand. Even having Soul-Soothing Grass Leaves on hand would have kept him from being able to do nothing but watch.

He could not rashly interrupt the Enlightenment Ritual, because the enlightened person's soul was currently at the intersection of the Dream Realm and reality.

Forced interference would only leave the soul forever unable to find its way home, drifting eternally through a world without the concepts of time or space until death.

Therefore, all he could do was wait for Aaron to end the Enlightenment Ritual himself.

Sart silently added another handful of Spirit Powder to strengthen the connection between Aaron and the Fate Aura.

This was the only thing he could do.

He carefully thought it over and was certain he had made no mistake.

Then how had this Heretical Cult Aura been activated?