Ryker didn’t immediately move, nor did he let the key move about as he pleased. Instead, he studied the patterns on the door as though trying to brand them in his mind.
With his Pure Soul, this might as well have taken a single glance. But Ryker wasn’t just looking at the superficial positions of the stars, moons and planets. He was also memorizing the gears and paths beneath them, encoding not just what they were, but also what they could be.
Slowly, in his mind, he began to form a proper image of the sight before him, and the celestial bodies began to move and shift.
‘This…’
Ryker’s gaze sharpened.
The patterns were so complex, and they didn’t overlay with any of the star maps that Ryker had ever seen.
The reason Ryker had crash landed on this planet in the first place was because his uncle had taken advantage of one of his episodes to force him into shooting off into the stars. However, this matter wasn’t as simple as his uncle saying a few words and then Ryker going off to do something stupid.
This trip was actually one that Ryker had been planning for a long while. The older he got, the more suffocating the environment of the Valorian Clan became. He felt that he had learned everything he could and once that feeling of progression dried up, every day was just one depressing dump after another.
At least when he had things to read about, worlds to learn about, beasts to study and analyze the patterns of, he could feel like he was moving, like he was succeeding in some small way.
But when there was no knowledge left to consume, no progress to be made, it felt like he was just stagnant, like he was worthless in all the same ways the worst of his detractors had always said.
What made it even worse when his lack of more knowledge to absorb came crashing head first into his lack of cultivation.
Whether it was his crafting or his Spiritual Cooking, or any number of other side jobs he had taken on, each one relied on Spirit Energy to progress… but he had none.
He had all this knowledge but he couldn’t progress because he was faced with that damned mirror once again.
That was when he started thinking about other things he could do.
The Valorian Clan was just one planet in a network of them. Ryker thought that since he had learned everything he could on it, he might as well try to go to another.
The trouble with that was, obviously, the fact he was far too weak. On Planet Valorian, even if he had to deal with some… less than ideal words, he could still protect his life. There was relative peace and no one truly dared to kill him.
But if he left, he would be on his own. By then, his Valorian name would be worth next to nothing and all that would matter was his 1st Enlightenment Realm cultivation.
Worthless.
Due to this, he had prepared a lot for a potential journey, gathering up everything he needed, studying star charts and things of the like, but in the end… he never pulled the trigger.
His movements were far too obvious and any observer would easily be able to pick up on his intentions. But as time went on and he never took that step, it seemed that his detractors had gotten impatient…
Until he gave them an opportunity to take advantage of.
Back then, he had just returned from the Mystery Master Alliance. His mother had an illness that had plagued her for a long time. There didn’t seem to be a cure, but a Spiritual Doctor had said that the heart of a mature Mythical Ascended Rainbow Feathered Peacock could greatly alleviate the symptoms.
Although this wouldn’t be enough to heal her, the heart would be enough to at least allow her to live a relatively normal life for the next 10 years.
Unfortunately, there was no way for Ryker and his father to get their hands on such an item.
The Rainbow Feathered Peacock was an 8th Circle Spirit Beast. However, the main problem wasn’t just its talent and strength, but rather that they were what was known as a Bonded Spirit Beast.
Bonded Spirit Beasts formed marital ties with their partners at a young age, and they lived and grew old together. The male Peacock was the weaker of the Bonded pair, and received a great deal of protection from not only his female companion, but also any offspring they might have.
If one wanted to contract a Bonded Spirit Beast, you would have to take both pairs at the same time or else the death of one or the separation would cause their soul to die. This would effectively waste your Circles and cause backlash to your soul.
The Rainbow Feather Peacock, though, was a particularly difficult opponent because the two companions had the ability to fuse, the male companion becoming a second soul of the female.
When they entered such a state, a Mythical Ascension Beast would have the strength of the God Realm!
However, even if this wasn’t the case, such a thing would be nigh impossible.
The Ascension Realm was broken up into nine stages just like the Enlightenment Realm. But, these nine stages were further divided into three hierarchies.
The first three were the Ascended Stages, the second three were the Elevation Stages and the final three were the Mythical Stages.
The gaps between the three were so large that they might as well have been separate Realms all together and upon entering each of them, one was given an entirely new title and an entirely different level of respect.
Just facing off against a Mythical Ascended Beast was nigh impossible. The number who could was far too few. But one that could also exhibit the power of a Realm above?
It was a death sentence.
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The only person in the Valorian family to secure such a kill was his grandfather, and it was impossible for them to risk their strongest warrior for a sickly woman. There was no point in even attempting to ask as the answer was obvious.
Even so, Ryker had made his own attempts that were met with rejection.
Realizing that it was impossible to rely on the family for such a thing, Ryker decided to find a solution of his own. That was when he thought of the Mystery Master Alliance.
According to their rules, so long as one could make it to a Violet-Gold designation, they would be given a Mythical Grade Weapon.
For Mystery Masters who bonded with weapons instead of Spirit Beasts, the sort of enticement this held was on a completely different level.
Ryker, though, didn’t want the weapon for himself. He wanted to give it to his father.
The Crafters the Mystery Master Alliance had were second to none, and they were also known to have the only three God Grade weapons in the whole of the galaxy.
Though the Valorian Clan had Mythical Grade weapons, they were all in the hands of ancient old bastards who had given their lives to the Clan’s goals, and his grandfather.
Ryker felt that if his father had the weapon, his chances of success would increase a great deal…
Instead, what actually happened was that he one-upped the Mystery Master Alliance, receiving a Black Grade Designation for their little test, just one step shy of Diamond… and they actually refused to give him his prize.
They tossed him out like he was worthless.
Just the thoughts filled Ryker with such fury that his blue irises practically burned crimson.
His father had returned heavily injured, hardly holding onto his life. And though he had healed since then, he couldn’t hide his hidden injuries from Ryker. It was likely that his father would never be able to progress in his Realm again.
When he swore that he would one day burn the Mystery Master Alliance to the ground, he meant it with every fiber of his being…
And that was the weakness his uncle caught hold of.
Ryker forced those memories down, his smoldering fury making his body ache from its unhealed wounds.
All of this was to say that he had done a great deal of star map studying, trying to pick the best location for himself…
But none of these patterns matched what he knew. None except for…
Ryker’s gaze landed on a small corner and his heart shook.
The overlap was small… not only was it small, but there was a problem with the overlay. However, if he accounted for orbits, and potential changes that might have occurred in the last…
‘370 years…’
Ryker’s gaze sharpened.
The so-called “galaxy” had been known by everyone of Ryker’s ilk as the Universe for a very long time. The terms were used interchangeably and there was no distinction between the two. That was because beyond the spiraling arms that they called home, they’re nothing by a vast darkness.
Many had explored this darkness, but they mostly came back empty handed. There was just nothing there.
If they had died, maybe more would have tried. But they simply came back unscathed, their fuel too little to continue any further.
Spirit Energy was scarce in space to begin with, but in that vast void, it was non-existent. There had yet to be a ship capable of flying far enough to reach its ends, and that was after countless millennia of advancement.
Even when other approaches were taken and many attempted to simply try to see what was on the other side, through the use of telescopes and other advanced crafts of the like, they received no feedback.
Many believed that it was simply the end of the Universe and just left it at that. There was truly no need to consider it any further.
Ryker himself had never thought too much about it either. A galaxy was huge, too much for even a God to explore in a lifetime. What need was there to hope that there was something else out there? Life was large enough.
It took Ryker 18 years to learn everything he could about a single planet, and that was with all the information readily available at his fingertips. He didn’t have the time nor desire to go from liveable planet to liveable planet across an entire galaxy to make the same attempt.
But if these patterns were true… let alone it being everything, it was just an impossible small corner.
‘370 years…’
That time frame was, according to Patience, the age of this world. Whether it was trees or even historic recordings, nothing seemed to go back further than this point.
But Ryker didn’t understand how these two things were related.
His home world didn’t have a history of 370 years. He had personally read records that went back tens of thousands. They might have even gone further back than that if not for the difficulty of keeping records for that long in the first place.
He looked at the key in his hand.
‘There are multiple points I could put this key into… Why would there be just one key for multiple holes?’
Let alone multiple, Ryker could see at least over a hundred points he could put the key into. At first he thought that maybe he had to put it into all of them one by one, like some sort of chain unlocking mechanism. But his instincts as a crafter were quite sharp. He was fairly certain that this wasn’t the case.
It seemed that each key hole would lead to a different outcome.
‘Am I even certain that this one key would work with them all?’
When Ryker thought to this point, he realized that maybe he had been over thinking things. But if this door required several hundred keys, then had he wasted his time?
After some hesitation, Ryker leapt toward a familiar corner of the galaxy, landing on one of the many moons and pressing the key into it.
Almost the instant he did, the key ripped out of his control, sinking into the well-hidden hole and disappearing into it.
Ryker was speechless for a moment. Had he just lost the key entirely?
But it was right then that a glow lit up runes on the gear boxes. The moon Ryker was standing on the edge of trembled and he was about to make a move to jump down from it when the doors began to swing open.
In all his life, even under the shadow of the Valorian Clan, Ryker had never felt so small.
The doors opened up to a purple portal as tall as the doors. It was 500 meters from tip to tip, and because the doors had swung inward, Ryker was looking right into the swirling vortex that seemed to want to swallow him whole.
He felt tiny, insignificant. The existence of the portal itself seemed to want to collapse his mind.
He was ripped from the moon and pulled into the vortex.
The doors closed behind him with a silence completely unnatural for their obscene size.
Then, the world fell silent.
…
Ryker awoke from a sense of grogginess. The problem wasn’t just the teleportation, but also the sheer agony his body was in.
‘That damned red-eyed bastard…’
He cursed Crimson Supreme for the millionth time.
‘I swear when I get back I’m going to give your daughter a healthy dose of loving and doting—‘
Ryker shook his head. He didn’t want to waste his precious time with Patience thinking about another man. That would completely ruin it.
That would be like him wasting all his time with Jaana thinking about her annoyance of an elder brother.
Ryker pressed a palm to his forehead and slowly looked around. But when he saw what was before him, his gaze sharpened and he hurried to his feet.
Ahead of him, there were three thrones, only one of which was occupied… if you could call it that. The figure was illusory and had hardly any shape at all, and they didn’t even seem to be human. Instead, they were a black kitten with a crescent moon collar around its neck and opaque white eyeballs without the slightest hint of an iris.
Ryker felt a pressure coming from the kitten that he had never felt from another being, not even his grandfather.
And it didn’t even seem to really be here.
The kitten looked at Ryker without the slightest expression, not that he was used to kittens having much of an expression to begin with.
Even so, he didn’t take his eyes off of the creature for even a single second. He felt that if he blinked even once, he would be finished just that quickly.
To Ryker’s astonishment, the kitten actually began to morph. It leapt down from the throne and became a woman wrapped black gown. Her eyes were starry and shook Ryker to the core.
This was… the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. He couldn’t even look away if he tried.
She had not the slightest hint of her former kitten form, and she wasn’t a child by any stretch of the imagination either. Right now, she looked… human. Well, as human as a goddess could look.
“Another one…” she said softly. “… I don’t understand what the point is—”
She paused, her delicate brows furrowing.
She moved and Ryker reacted, pulling out his chain and slicing it forward with all the strength he could muster.
An arm appeared through Ryker’s chest.
He stood there, trembling as he looked down.