"No!!"
With a low cry, Luo Valon shot upright in bed. Cold sweat beaded across his back. He blinked hard and breathed heavily.
Several seconds passed before he pulled his hands out from under the covers and studied them. "Have I... have I been reborn? Or was it just a nightmare?"
His mind was in turmoil. It felt as though he had acquired another set of memories. In them, he would encounter the extraordinary in three days and become an extraordinary being of the [Sage] pathway. After nearly a century, he would finally advance to Sequence 2, "Mystic Scholar," just one step from Sequence 1, "Great Sage."
Yet that one step would remain forever beyond him.
The potion ingredients required for advancement to Sequence 1 could no longer be found in this age. The Mother Goddess Church and the Spirit Eye Church, two churches of Orthodox Gods, both suppressed extraordinary beings of the [Sage] pathway. Even the churches of the Outer Gods shunned them.
It was as if those on this pathway bore an especially grave sin.
At first, he had wondered why. Only after reaching a higher level and learning more secrets did he discover that the great churches feared the resurrection of the Lord of Reason and Wisdom, Source of All Mysteries, King of Spacetime.
Learning that secret had made him lament his rotten luck. After struggling through countless hardships to reach such heights, he had been stopped dead in his tracks.
Fortunately, years of trials had hardened his resolve. His dejection did not last long, and he soon made peace with it. Ordinary mortals were here at dawn and gone by dusk, while he had become a Sequence 2 being, possessed of vast powers. He had enough to be grateful for.
But just as he prepared to