Gary found himself within his sea of consciousness. On his island.

The water was clear.

There was a tower on his island now. It was made of stone, and seemed like ye olde fantasy tower.

There had been no sun before. Light simply existed here.

There was now a black hole.

"Not worrying at all." Gary decided.

He walked into the tower. He walked up the layers. Each floor was empty. Except the top floor below the roof. In this room there was a desk and a bunch of books all over the floor. A red flag hangs on the wall. On the wall is a picture of a woman. She has no face. There's also the face of a hairy daemon. They all had something to do with runes. There was a large mirror standing on the wall.

Gary looked into the mirror. He saw himself. He certainly was himself.

The reflection of his soul gave him an annoyed worried look. "Are you an idiot?"

Gary opened his mouth for just a second.

The reflection gasped. "Ah, not answering a rhetorical question? Are you even still Gary?"

Gary crossed his arms. He turned the mirror around and sighed.

He sat down at his desk, and opened one of the books. Inane babbling booklet. It was filled with runes. They all were. The runes were incomprehensible. Made of Incomprilogic.

He began to draw another rune. He knows what he's doing, but he won't be able to read it later.

"Finally dead yet?" He heard himself ask.

He paused. He looked towards the mirror. He stood up and looked out the window. Everything was calm, quiet, silent. Beyond was… the endless chaos, but it wasn't time for that yet.

He looked at the black hole. It was a lot lot lot lot lot lot bigger than the speck he had seen, acknowledged, ignored, and forgotten a while ago. A long long time ago. Before Timor.

He sat back down on his desk, and continued drawing.

"If I knew. I wouldn't 'know'" he air quoted, as he put down his pen.

The rune broke, restored, and broke again. This repeated a few times until it became incomprehensible, and thus complete.

He was cold. He had been cold before, and this chill felt like the chill of death.

He sighed "No."

The mirror turned itself around. The mirror-Gary raised an eyebrow.

"Sense-perception. I can feel my body waking up." Gary got up, and walked down the stairs. He stood on his island. On the grass. There were more trees than he remembered. One of them was occupying his favorite spot. The island was no longer as stable. Everything kept moving around.

He listened. It was quiet. Except, a low Om emanated from the black hole. He thought he heard secrets, insults, complaints, but that's neither here nor there.

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He blinked. "Then where is it?" He asked.

Everywhere.

He opened his eyes.

On waking up Gary was quite upset at having been wounded. His cultivation should have protected him from the blade, but it must have been enchanted or something.

He was back in the inn. The wooden ceiling provided some comfort. He checked his face. There was no hair.

"I have provided you with some healing and shaving." The claw stated.

Arrin, now younger looking, full-bodied, and still handsome, opened his eyes from cultivating. "You alright?"

Gary looked towards the other bed at him. He looked him in the eyes. There was a clarity there, and Gary felt they had some commonality. He nodded and put his head down to rest. He didn't have healing spells, but he did heal faster than average.

"What happened to the girl?"

The girl had been on the trail of this inheritance for months, and she wasn’t about to just let it get taken away from her. She had seen the two enter, and had set up her plan to lure them out, but seeing as that didn’t work she cast a spell to create the illusion of fighting, and ran in. Arrin had finished his restoration just as Gary collapsed.

The secret waterfall cave now owns a charred corpse.

By the time Gary recovered from his wound, Arrin had re-familiarized himself with his techniques. For a little while the city had many strange reports of violet lighting hitting a local inn.

Arrin was currently practicing the Heavenly Annihilation technique. This technique promised the user the power to rule over heaven and earth. It was the inheritance he had received from the immortal’s will that had been in the chains he was trapped in.

It was perfect for him as it didn’t conflict with his prior Heavenly Violet Lighting technique, a lighting technique that once belonged to the Ancient Violet Emperor.

Combined these techniques made Arrin one of the most dangerous True Self cultivators around.

After the two woke up they decided to get on a boat to take them back to the Immortal Sunset Empire. Arrin’s vengeance plans could only proceed if he was in close proximity to his enemies.

Gary thought that if he followed along he would receive some sort of benefit. He had plateaued in his cultivation. His limit in this new body as it turns out was the early Perfect Self stage. Any further would require endless pills, or special materials.

Their travel was expected to be peaceful, unfortunately the boat they were on was caught in the path of pirates. These weren’t just any pirates, these pirates were part of Captain Steele’s Interstellar Pirate Confederacy! It seems she had spread her tendrils all the way to Timor.

Fortunately for the fate of the planet, this group wasn’t here to invade. Captain Steele learned the hard way that managing a planet, and raiding one were two entirely different concepts, so now most of her interstellar navy merely extorted the natives of the world’s her pirates visited.

Timor was a relatively low tech world, and lacked the capacity to create spaceships, so these space pirate ships were a terrifying surprise to the Timorians on the boat. There were 3 flying frigates surrounding the conventional Timorian ship.

Any sane mind would have surrendered in this situation. Timorians were not the sanest of minds, and they weren’t cowards. A battle began between the ships. Spells, and cannon balls flew back and forth. The Timorian ship was heavily damaged, and was beginning to sink.

Gary had slept through the first volley. A cannon ball broke into his cabin.

Gary peered out of the hole, and looked at Arrin, who was now battle-ready. “Bit of a rude awakening.”

Gary had a full mind to simply fly away, but at Arrin’s behest he carried him over to one of the pirate ships and boarded it with him.

Gary pulled out a blade, and started killing the weaker pirates. Arrin went into a frenzy. Violet lighting began to scorch pirates left and right. He had turned into the avatar of death, and no one could stand in his way.

The captain of the ship who was a Perfect Self cultivator had at first planned to kill Arrin before focusing on Gary who was in the same realm as him, but on noticing how powerful Arrin was, and Gary’s speed he decided to jump ship. Off the ship, not turncoat.

A couple of minutes after boarding, the ship was theirs! Now if only one of them knew how to fly a ship.

The flying ship the two were on simply kept going in the direction it had been pointed at without stopping. The pirates stopped trying to take back the ship when everyone that boarded was killed.

They instead choose to bombard the ship, and drown Gary, and Arrin.The flying ship fell into the ocean and sank down. Gary carried Arrin as they flew away.

They were small enough to not be noticed by the pirates. They traveled like this for a few hours, but Gary would not be able to keep this up forever. He hadn’t brought anything with him to replenish his mana. The seas on Timor were dangerous, and flying would catch someone’s eye.

As they were traveling they got caught in a storm. The tempest winds separated the two, and dropped them into the waters.

Gary once again washed up on an island. He picked himself up, expelled the water from his insides, and walked into the island. Instead of grass, and trees Gary saw gold!

The island was covered in gold, artifacts, and treasure. He’d hit the jackpot! If he could fit even a small portion of this endless gold he’d be set for an eternity, and if this cultivation thing worked out an eternity he would have.

Gary ran up to the gold and started grabbing it. At Least he attempted to. Every time he would pick up a piece of gold, or an artifact it would teleport back into the massive pile. After trying a few more times Gary slumped down onto the ground.

Just his luck to end up on an island with mountains of gold, and be incapable of acquiring any of it. Gary had ended up on the Isle of Infinite Treasures. There was a plaque on the ground that said as much.

A semi-mythical island created by an immortal that would bestow one fated treasure to every visitor. Now all Gary had to do was find it. Gary suddenly felt a connection in his soul. Something deep in the island was calling to him.

"Claw!" Gary called.

The Claw floated out from a small hill of gold. It was wearing a bunch of rings. "Yes?"

The Claw had a bad habit of wandering off. "Go in there, and inform me of any traps." Gary ordered.

“There are traps, and ambushers. All around a button.”

He closed his eyes and nodded, as if everything made sense. He chose to look for Arrin first.