A very very long time ago.

Millions of years? Hundreds of millions of years? Or perhaps billions of years ago, when there were no human cultivators and humans were nothing more than food.

There were Phoenixes born in flames who could control flames and were resurrected in flames when they died.

There were Dragons who were born powerful and only grew stronger as they grew.

Some civilizations were less powerful than dragons and phoenixes, but they were endowed with incredible natural talents, and there were giants with the strength to destroy mountains.

Human civilization was truly nothing more than food.

But the status quo did not last forever.

A particular "will" or "entity" controls the universe.

Modern cultivators refer to it as "heavenly dao," while mages refer to it as "Universal will," some faiths refer to it as "God," and stoics refer to it as "logos"

Whatever name people give it, its existence and fairness are important.

Sure, there is no such thing as race equality, but thanks to heavenly dao, something else does exist.

Equity.

Humans aren't born with divine strength, the ability to breathe fire, or bodies made of incomparably powerful exotics.

They were not favored by specific elements, nor were they endowed with long life.

Humans were born as weak beings on a weak planet.

For a long time, humans could only reach body tempering stage 9, the initial cultivation realm's limit.

Until a man unintentionally absorbed a wisp of Spiritual Energy within his body, And That's when the equity came into play.

He was enlightened to two exclusive supreme techniques as the first human to take the next step in the path of cultivation.

A Cultivation art.

And an auxiliary technique.

The auxiliary technique was a tool that operated much like artificial intelligence (AI); it generated a technique that the cultivator had designed using the cultivator's prior knowledge as a precondition. The more intricate the design, the more Spirit energy is needed to generate it.

Obviously, the auxiliary technique was intended for the advancement of humanity as a whole, but the cultivation art was intended for the advancement of the young man...and it was even more ridiculous than the auxiliary technique.

It had no bounds!

The cultivator's imagination was literally the limit of the cultivation art!

For example, if its cultivator visualized a dragon, the technique's initial levels would strengthen his body and defense, and as the cultivator progresses, he will gain more similarities to a dragon, such as being able to transform his hands into claws or breathe fire, and a bit further in his cultivation, he would be able to transform his blood into Dragon blood, and so on, until the cultivator eventually transforms into a dragon.

But of course, using a dragon as the goal would be a waste of such a divine art.

In any case, after the young man attained enlightenment, his and human civilization's rise was nothing short of meteoric.

In just ten years, humanity defeated its rivals on their home planet, becoming the sole power.

Over the next 100 years, the young man who had now become humanity's leader continued to research and break through higher realms of power while assisting his fellow humans on the path of cultivation.

With a large number of experts and a powerful leader, humanity couldn't contain its curiosity any longer and set out to the sea of stars.

Humanity had reached the interstellar era.

Led by their leader, they began by exploiting the resources in their home star system, which resulted in a larger human population, the birth of numerous powerful cultivators, and the development of cheaper, more efficient starships.

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Humans then began to spread to neighboring star systems, developing better starships capable of traveling ever-greater distances, and then spreading again.

Finally, the inevitable occurred.

Humankind had its first contact with an alien civilization, and it wasn't a pleasant one.

In an era when intelligent civilizations were just starting to spread beyond their home planets, contact between civilizations with different cultures, power systems, languages, and thought processes frequently resulted in war.

Humanity's first contact with alien civilization marked the end of the interstellar era and the beginning of the chaos era.

The chaos era lasted an extremely long time. Humanity, led by its leader, fought war after war with civilizations ranging from planet-level to multi-star sector.

Many specialists, soldiers, and innovators died in every conflict, allowing the next generation to step forward, but humanity's leader remained constant.

Despite hundreds of thousands of years passing between the beginning of humanity's interstellar era and the end of the chaos age, the same leader presided over it all.

His level of cultivation had advanced to the point where his age represented only a fraction of his life expectancy.

After the chaos era ended, another hundred thousand years passed, and the galaxy had become relatively peaceful in comparison to the era of race wars.

With more time to think about their situation, the human powers had more time to allow feelings like jealousy, pride, and greed to creep into their heads.

Diplomacy and trade between civilizations flourish during times of peace, and trade tends to bring information, lots of interesting information.

Details about concepts like equity and the heavenly dao, as well as certain weak civilizations that were mostly brought to power by a single person

With the new information, the once-feared and revered human leader has been reduced to the status of a "fortunate dog that received heaven's favor," despite his leadership skills and battle power.

Yet, the knowledge that sparked a particular series of events was that an individual responsible for the growth of his civilization was assassinated by an unnamed underling who just so happened to have his skills increased to the leader's level after the assassination.

Minds corrupted by envy and irrational greed, combined with the decreasing dread of the human leader's power in the years of peace, several human experts agreed and made a very stupid decision.

Kill the leader and divide the equity.

Truly a dumb decision!

Not to mention humanity's leader is one of the strongest beings in his era, not all equity is the same!

Equity could mean anything! It could be a physical object, a fictitious object, or simply knowledge.

The humanities' equity was knowledge, which could not be picked from a corpse!

Knowing that they couldn't deal with the human leader alone and had no trust in human experts beyond their group, they colluded with some nonhuman experts that had prior enmity with the human leader.

They pounced when an opportunity to act arose, believing that with enough people, they could defeat their objective even if he had the blessing of the heavens.

They neglected to consider the fact that throughout the chaos era, humanity had engaged in conflict with a great number of civilizations. Some of these civilizations, which had been destroyed by humans, understandably received equity from the heavens.

And the leader of one of those civilizations was killed by humanity's leader in a head-on battle, having his equity fall into human leaders' hands.

It was a mysterious stone with the ability to transform energy; one of its applications was to convert spiritual energy into soul or vital energy, and vice versa.

The already powerful human leader, now with the power of the mystery stone, crushed the ambushers, killing them all!

But due to the physical, energy, curse, and magic injuries all over his body, he was not able to last for very long.

In an attempt to save his life, he transferred his soul into the mystery stone, hoping that someone would take it, allowing him to steal their body and live once more.

The problem was that he died while still in space, and it's unlikely that anyone would pass by him until the end of his (soul's) life, let alone notice a fist-sized stone in such a vast expanse.

Another unfortunate—or perhaps fortunate—fact was that every equity had "heavenly secret" properties, making it impossible to lock on to or glean any information about it using more esoteric skills like divination, making it impossible for his supporters or adversaries to discover him.

Years passed, and his soul would have to sleep for extended periods of time to prolong its existence because he had depleted it when transforming its energy into spirit Energy during the struggle.

He initially went into hibernation for a few years before awakening for a while, then for dozens, then hundreds, and so on up to millions of years, all the while the stone drifted into the infinite universe.

He became more demoralized as he continued to awaken, intuitively knowing how long he had been in hibernation.

The stone's ability to passively absorb cosmic energy and transform it into nourishment was the sole reason his soul could survive this long without its body, but it was insufficient to sustain the soul of an expert of his caliber.

In his most recent awakening, he simply sighed in resignation and began to use his soul power to record his legacy into the mystery stone, much like a memory storage device.

It's not that he didn't want to live, or that he became too nice to steal someone else's body; it's just that his soul had become so frail that he couldn't even possess a mortal's body anymore.

Unfortunately, due to his extremely depleted soul, he was only able to import some of the most powerful, intriguing, or significant skills he possessed into the stone in addition to his equity.

He had used the last of his soul power to import the techniques, some information, and a number of failsafe in case something went wrong,

His soul then died, bringing an end to his story.

The stone drifted for a long time before being drawn into the gravitational pull of a blue planet.