A young boy sat in the middle of an empty room, reading the contents of a book that was felt when he closed his eyes to darkness. After thirty minutes of reading about the forces that were exposed to this Universe from outside on the text, he felt a spark ignite in his inner mind. His thoughts and knowledge began fueling the spark, generating Mind Energy. This was the Mind Spark, and its birth marked the beginning of his path to cultivation. Now, as a 1st stage Mortal, he would cultivate the Foundation of Life to create a physique suitable for the next stages.
With an honest smile after becoming a cultivator, the young boy opened his dark eyes, sensing the existence of the Mind Spark like a muscle that could be flexed and be used. He flexed it, and as soon as the Mind Energy exited the confines of the Mind Spark, he felt as if he could trigger a transformation. He knew what this was: it was the feeling that it was exposed to his Existence and could be transformed into Innate Energy. He gave in to the feeling of turning a switch on when he focused on the Mind Energy, and in a moment, he felt something obscure touch the Mind Energy. He knew it was his Existence from the book. He focused, trying to sense it on his own but couldn’t. He sighed. Cultivation would be a hard journey.
He remembered the moment the System gave him the most suitable Path. He couldn’t believe the details of the Path, "The Outsider," which was its name. He was reluctant to tread this Path, fearing his identity and previous life would be known, but he knew the future.
A future where Arslan changed. It should be around this time now, he thought. The announcement was supposed to be made today: The Emperor of the Luvi Empire had been killed. It was just a matter of time. He still felt unready to live in this world because he knew its past, present, and future. He had come across the book called “Path of Domination” in his previous life, and thanks to that, he would have to be careful and try to build a close relationship with the man who would come to this world to protect it in this competition. However, he still couldn’t take his mind off the future the royal family would face.
After his death, Arslan would have to discard his physical body, thus his bloodline that limited his Existence, and would follow the Path of Domination as his main Path. He would kill, subjugate, and destroy all for his Path. He would lose the one thing that tolerate the existence of Derin. Devoid of love, he would ignore his wife’s and children’s existence, battling until he became the being known as Boundless Domination.
It was an exciting read, but he hoped he could forget it in this life. He would have been fine if he had been ignorant and done everything from the start. He was glad for the opportunity to at least start cultivation, but it was just that, an opportunity. He was in no way in a situation where he can suddenly gain the trust of powerful people, get resources, and cultivate with peace. He would have to fight, a thing he never did in his both lives.
He put the bleak possibilities behind, and he opened his InnatePad and kept the Luvi network open for the news. There was still some time, so he let the Mind Energy transform while continuing to read about his Path.
It was based on his Outsider status to cultivate. Knowledge of the Plot's past, present, future, and characters was crucial for the early stages. The more he took advantage of it, the more his talent would rise at the beginning. The rise of talent could only be achieved by raising the potency of the progenitor bloodline, which came from the Human Progenitor. This was a blessing, not by the Progenitors, but from the Existence itself.
That’s why he expected to meet Damon the Undying, to get his first boost of talent from his Path. The concept of his Path wasn’t unknown to him, so he didn’t need to conduct endless research to consider the structure of plot, benefits, karma and other variables. All he needed was to remember the exact information of the formula regarding the calculation, and that formula would activate by itself and take effect as long as he had the whole Part 1 integrated inside his Mind Spark. This was the benefit of this Path, and why he still used it. Even if he only used part one of the Path then switched to another Path, it would still be a huge benefit. But something deep in his Existence said he would not give up this Path and he would need it.
He also considered his future cultivation, as after transforming enough Innate Energy, he wanted to strengthen his body as much as possible so that he could reach the 2nd stage, but he was clueless about body training. He had done bodybuilding to raise his muscle mass to fight cancer, but he was unsure if that would be effective for cultivation. He also couldn’t utilize the Innate Energy to strengthen the body without knowing how. Unfortunately, his Path didn’t have anything useful on cultivation stages, and he knew this was the norm. He would need a book on cultivation itself.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
While he was wondering about where to acquire cultivation guidance, his Mind Energy depleted while transforming. He felt a rush of heat at the thought of becoming an Immortal someday and not needing anything other than his own Existence to live forever. However, he also knew that even Immortals and weak Divines should not be his furthest goal. He needed to become Celestial at the least. With his knowledge of the structure of the Universe and even beyond, he could definitely reach there. He just didn’t know if he could survive to that point.
He also considered the Luvi Empire. He knew the First Emperor should have become Divine after he received the evaluation. They would always be a force to reckon with, but with the enemies that Arslan would make, he needed to have a plan B to separate at some point. He didn’t find it very suitable for himself to live under that future tyrant even though he knew it would benefit his Path.
After wondering endlessly, finally, the time came when the red sunlight became a few tones darker. However, he checked and there was no news of Emperor’s death.
“Butterfly effect?” he muttered before sharply closing his mouth. He knew he should talk less with beings such as Divine Red Sun, who was at the 3rd stage of the Divine Realm around this time, one stage away from becoming a Celestial. It might be fine with the Luvi Empire, but for him, an Outsider, he was not sure and would not want to know.
He gazed into the sky from the windows and noticed Damon’s spaceship had already arrived. He looked at the sky with glistening eyes for a few minutes and saw spaceship after spaceship arrive behind Damon’s spaceship. They had been deployed, and it would mean they didn’t arrive at the place of Arslan’s death.
He came to the conclusion he feared. He was not dead, and the future he was once sure of was now obscured, like a childhood memory.
He considered the situation as a whole. He knew that some beings should be aware of his existence, especially Haven, but he didn’t know why and how he was here, and if the book he read was similar to reincarnation stories where it was Prime Earth, did that world also changed, and if the book got updated or was it a parallel Earth he came from.
He thought of the possible changes to the timeline and made a mental list:
Kaplan will be the next Emperor.
Arslan and Derin will still be together.
Enemies that would pick on them would be fewer.
Arslan’s improvement would be slow.
He would lack the necessary conditions to complete the Divinity of Domination.
His Tyranny and other Divinities that he would cultivate would not be options he would seek.
His mother....
He listed various possibilities in the matter of changes that happened to the timeline and actually, it wasn’t that bad...for him. For Arslan, it would surely lower his survivability without having the benefit of getting rid of that Outsider’s bloodline.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. It looked comical on someone so young. He lived for two decades, died, traveled to another universe, lived a decade till now, and planned for millions of years ahead. He still had the body’s growth on his mind, and it was hard for him to be efficient enough to handle his thoughts. With his mortal mind and body, he couldn’t begin to imagine if he was doing the whole analysis of the future correctly. From what he could imagine from the narrative of that book, Immortals were built to handle anything thrown at them. It was different from the similar genres he read where they might still have a limited lifespan and would even continue to rely on outside forces to stay alive. He imagined the feeling Immortals have in their own skin, but he knew it was something to be experienced, not told. Until then, he had all the Mortal stages to worry about.
He went back from watching the sky to checking the Luvi Network on his InnatePad for information on cultivation. He was sure they existed somewhere, and he needed to find them as he was sure Damon would recruit cultivators and train them. He needed to impress him because he knew that this man would become Divine.
He remembered after Arslan got rid of the Existence problems, he didn’t lack in talent compared to Damon and even surpassed him. Existence was too important for future potential, and he was not sure how Arslan would even ascend to Immortality with his current situation, but he was sure that the hidden rivalry on cultivation between the two would exist as long as Arslan still had the reason of mind.
While checking the Luvi Network, he positioned himself and made a handstand and started push-up. Feeling his strength, he sighed. Even ordinary mortals that didn’t start their strengthening their bodies had stronger body. He didn’t even need getting used to the exercise.
Two days later, he looked up the windows again. Damon descended with his spaceship. He checked his backpack, said goodbye to his family that had tears, and headed for the capital.
After exiting the street, he cleaned his tears with his sleeves and never looked back. He promised that he would find success. If he had enough strength, making his family Immortals was easy as willing it. With his goal in mind, he started running. From today onwards, he would have to train every chance he got.