Avery opened his eyes, watching in wonder as the world bent to his will, allowing mana to manifest into a mesmerizing pattern.

  It pained him every time he had to refuse the enlightenment opportunity proposed by successful completion of a rune, but if he was to link thousands of runes together, time was of essence.

  He had surpassed the level of clear runes a long time ago, all the way back when the Elder had constructed his dreamworld. Since then, he had progressed tremendously, but he also never dared put his all into engraving anymore, afraid of calling the tribulation down prematurely.

  He had focused on speed and consistency, and became increasingly confident in his skills. Eventually, he became so adept at controlling mana that he was capable of inscribing a rune on every cell on his body in just a few hours. Even then, he did not ascend, for he had yet to complete the design of his runic body.

  This design had very little in common with his first draft, save for its purpose. He had at first imagined that his new body would be based on a human template, originally intending to draw a rune on every single cell of his human body.

  However, as he revised his plans again again and again, with more care for function than form, that humanoid shape was naturally abandoned. It simply wasn’t a shape very suited to house the complex structure of intertwined runes.

  He was trying to find which arrangement of glyphs would produce the best effect. He gradually discovered that to work best, they should themselves form the pattern of a larger rune, one which signified their overall purpose. Then, he organized those larger runes together to form even bigger glyphs, and so on and so on.

  In the end, his entire new body was a huge rune, spelling out Avery’s existence. It was not completely accurate, as Avery was still infinitely far from knowing himself completely, but it spelled out everything he believed to be important to make him what he was.

  His inner world occupied the center of the rune, where the Tao would normally be, and around it were three concentric circles, symbolizing the extra features he had added. There weren't really eyes or wings anymore, but he had taken the habit to call them that, so they carried that identity, despite ultimately having little to do with those body parts.

  As for the rest, it was entirely dedicated to summing up Avery’s existence in a single word, “Free”. In effect, its exterior aimed to act as a Faraday cage, letting everything flow through it without harm. The idea wasn't to be resistant, it was to be so accommodating, no harm would ever come to it.

  It was also designed to be as self sufficient as possible, using the principle of 5 elements nurturing each other to minimize energy loss. It was hard to test accurately, but he calculated that with how low maintenance cost his body would be, it would be able to function forever, even in a land devoid of spiritual energy. Even in an empty void, it would take more than a century for him to finally die.

  He would not claim this runic body of his was perfect, but this was the limit of his current abilities, and he did not know how to improve it any further.

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  Satisfied with the result of his tireless efforts, Avery looked towards the heavens and stood up, finally ready to take the ultimate step of his mortal life.

  With a single thought, countless minuscule runes appeared in his heart. He did not even need to use his finger anymore, his control of mana was such that he could use it to inscribe anywhere his Dao vision reached. This was a fortunate thing, for having to dissect himself to engrave runes upon his bones would not have been very practical.

  He concentrated fully on engraving, reducing the scope of his Dao vision to increase its precision. The runes he was drawing were so tiny, it would have been impossible to see them clearly otherwise. This was because if he were drawing glyphs of the usual size, the complex pattern would not have fit even if his body was ten times as large.

  Being drawn outside of his body would have robbed them of that all-important identity, so he had been forced to learn to miniaturize his runes so that the entire design would fit in his chest.

  He inscribed rune after rune, making absolutely no mistakes, each stroke a work of art in itself, never slowing down, but also never severing their access to his mana pool, forcing them to remain incomplete.

  This was another technique he had invented specifically to surpass this tribulation. He was going all out, and each and every rune had easily reached immortal level. The tribulation would start as soon as the first one was finished, far before he was ready. Since engraving millions of runes at the same time seemed impossible, he did the next best thing, artificially delaying their completion so that he could finish his work.

  He was incredibly tired, hungry and thirsty by the time this monumental undertaking was complete, but he was far beyond caring about these mortal woes. It was time to transcend this cruel reality, and become an immortal.

  With a decisive slice, he cut off the mana connection to all the runes at the same time, and began his ascension.

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  A single lightning strike fell down from the featureless sky, illuminating the abyss in its purple glow. It was accompanied by the sound of divine thunder, deafening its victim, who smiled at the familiar, heart-wrenching pain of a transcendent force rampaging through his body.

  It lasted only a fraction of a second, then Avery's mortal body was no more, with not even ashes left. A mortal had no hope of resisting a blow from the Heavens.

  At the same time, the lightning struck at Avery’s soul, blurring the boundaries of dream and reality, falling straight into his visualization, and getting silently absorbed.

  This was all the effect of a single lighting strike falling in a world that had weathered a battle of Gods. Far from destruction and rebirth, no one in the virtual world even took notice of their creators' ordeal.

  With Avery’s body destroyed, the tribulation retreated, and silence returned to the abyss.

  Then came light, a magnificent light like no other, enveloping Avery's traumatized spirit, bringing him back to life.

  Each of his runes gained a deep purple luster, reaching closer to perfection, and Avery’s runic body was complete.

  Yet Avery was too busy adoring the golden light of the Tao to care about his life and death. While not quite as grand and overpowering as the previous time he had interacted with it, this time the Tao revealed itself to be gentle and accommodating, eagerly welcoming Avery as one of its own.

  He felt an overwhelming sense of relief and profound happiness from the knowledge that he was no longer a foreigner, forever alone in an inhospitable world, but a true citizen, protected and cared for by the Heavens, as a small part of a greater whole.

  He knew in his heart that he would never again be alone, and that the Tao would be his companion forever.