"What I am about to tell you is something you must never ever tell a soul."
"Do you understand the consequences?"
"I will swear upon my soul!"
"That isn't needed. If you can do the impossible. You'll be able to get around such a restriction. I need you to promise me as a Paradox."
"Promise me, you will carry the will of a Paradox."
"I promise!"
"Good."
"The first step to becoming a paradox involves sleeping."
[ECHO]: {Name: "Sleep", Level: 2, Type: Target, Element: Mana, Cost: Varies, Desc: "Puts target to sleep."}
Zero cast sleep on Obsidian.
It is marvelous that he has found someone compatible with the path of somnus.
He himself can never sleep.
Zero's just don't need to sleep.
Even the immortality potion has a side effect of making the person unable to sleep.
He then creates a new spell:
[ECHO]: {Name: "Dream Walker", Level: 3, Type: Target, Element: Mana, Cost: Varies, Desc: "Enter targets dreams."}
He enters the dreams of Obsidian.
"Teacher!"
"Hello."
"I want you to copy me."
They stood at the top of a mountain.
It was night in the dream.
Zero began to slowly draw and 'S' with his finger.
Obsidian copied him.
The stars started to rotate with the 'S'.
"Good. Keep it up."
Zero used his comprehension of infinity to speed up time in the dream realm.
Years were going by.
But it was all an illusion.
Obsidian did the gesture for minutes.
Then hours.
After days.
He felt it torturous.
But he believed in the man that saved him
What was a little gesture?
If he was to do the impossible... how could he allow such an idea of stopping even to cross his mind?
Decades passed.
The sun was going down and rising in seconds.
He remained eternal.
Doing the gesture.
This was all in the dream.
But after three hundred years of doing the gesture.
He began to slow down.
Zero spoke in his mind.
"If the body fails. You rely on soul."
"If your soul fails. You must rely on consciousness."
"If consciousness fails. You must rely on your will."
"You must discard everything to become a timeless existence!"
At that moment the dream realm started to shake.
Cracks were forming around Obsidian.
He was rapidly aging.
He went from a young man.
To a hunched back old man.
Right as he was disintegrating.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Let me show you the perspective of a Paradox!"
Zero cast memorize on the spirit body of Obsidian right before he became dust.
Obsidian saw himself doing the 'S' gesture.
It opened up a portal to him doing it at different times.
"NOW! YOU MUST GRASP THIS OPPORTUNITY!"
The portals stretched into infinity.
"CONDENSE THIS SINGLE MOMENT! Make it a singularity!"
"I..."
He was very old.
And very tired.
He wanted to stop.
But he didn't want to give in to his weakness.
He grasped the memory in his hands and crushed it down into a single point.
"Now make a visualization technique out of that point!"
Zero transferred a copy of his visualization technique over.
It overlapped with his singularity and formed his very own visualization technique.
"When all is gone. When your body is no more. You must keep rotating that image. You are but a single thread. When you die, reality will take that thread from you. You must make an eternal thread. Something reality cannot control."
"This is a secret of the Paradox."
"This is the Path of Somnus: God's Death".
Zero cleared all of the imagery in the dream.
And simulated the abyss.
Obsidian felt as if he was getting erased.
Truthfully, even though it was just an illusion.
His soul could be consumed any second.
He would get erased and no longer exist.
"Witness nonexistence!"
As Obsidian struggled to keep his thoughts moving.
He was but a few seconds from getting erased entirely.
But he remembered Zero's words
"You must keep rotating that image."
He then heard a voice in his head.
"Struggling? Unlock the 2nd thread!"
He then saw blue text in front of him.
It was like finding a boat in the middle of the ocean.
It was his lifeline.
He reached out to it.
[ECHO]: Initializing...
[ECHO]: Operating system successfully fused with soul!
The visualization technique remained rotating in slot 0 of his sea of consciousness.
He was no longer getting erased.
He could survive in this nonexistence!
His body had already turned to dust.
He then woke up
"That was crazy! I was so close to losing it all..."
"Yep. I thought you were about to become braindead."
"Really?... "
"There wasn't a fail safe?"
"Nope. Remember this lesson well. A Paradox has something cultivated called plot armor."
"Plot armor?"
"Think of it as the destiny of the universe. We are destined to become eternal."
"You can purposely do risky shit and end up turning it into golden shit."
"So am I eternal?"
Zero began to laugh.
"You don't even have an anchor yet! If you died as you are now. You would exist in the abyss for awhile until your visualization technique stopped with no way out of that darkness."
"That sounds terrifying!"
"Indeed. So basically the next step is going to involve you being alone for thousands of years in a loop. You'll need to break reality and make sure you also plant your existence outside both your birth and death."
"What?"
"To become a Paradox. You have to have always been one."
"That's impossible!"
"Exactly."
Zero was actually having quite a bit of fun passing down his techniques to a disciple.
It felt as if he had a kid.
"Unfortunately or probably fortunately for you. We cannot replicate the steps needed for you to become a Paradox the traditional way. So no staying in a loop for thousands of years. No synchronizing yourself across the your multiverse. This type of stuff only matters when your in your multiverse anyways."
"You mean... you're from a different multiverse?!"
"Yes. But keep that shit a secret."
"So how do I become a Paradox?"
"You must do the impossible. I'm pretty much going to not teach you how to swim, but throw you in the ocean and see if you can at least float."
"Didn't you do that with that dark space?"
"That space is called the abyss. It is nonexistence itself."
"Remember how you rapidly aged in the dream?"
"Yea?"
"Well... that's going to happen in real life when I throw you in the chaos realm."
"What?!"
"So far, every single person I've seen go in doesn't come back out on their own."
"Except for me."
"You have a separate thread though. You have potential that others don't."
"It is a gamble."
"I say there's a 1% chance that you come back out."
"I have a way to increase your odds though. I can make your base lifespan go up to 200. So you should have nearly 800 years of life force. This should last you a few minutes."
"But you will lose the ability to sleep."
"So... do you want to try to do the impossible?"
Obsidian hesitates slightly.
"I'll die one day if I don't do the impossible..."
"It doesn't matter if it is now or later."
"Good. You've passed the 2nd test."
"We will be changing your bloodline to match that of a zero."
"Disable your passives so I can scan you."
[ECHO]: {Name: "Obsidian Hellfire", Species: Human (Demon - Warlock), Energy: 0 GR, Strength: 2, Vitality: 10, Mana: 720, Spirit: 10, Soul: 2}
He took him to the antimagic realm.
Found a clear spot outside.
With a stone ground.
He carved the life ignition formation.
Then tattooed formations all over Obsidian's body.
Along with cutting his body up.
Then handed him a potion.
Then he drained Obsidian's blood and burned it.
Obsidian had no idea what Zero was doing.
But he trusted him, since Zero had saved his life once already.
Obsidian was told to pour the potion over his head.
It ran down his back and flowed along the runes on his skin and into the cuts.
It was a success!
Zero had changed the bloodline of Obsidian.
[ECHO]: {Name: "Obsidian Hellfire", Species: Human (Zero), Energy: 0 GR, Strength: 10, Vitality: 30, Mana: 720, Spirit: 20, Soul: 4}
Zero asked how long it would take Obsidian to get to rank 3.
He was told it would take him around 6 years.
Then it would take 12 years to get to rank 4
24 years to get to rank 5.
48 years to get to rank 6.
Zero's eyes nearly popped out of his sockets.
His disciple will pass him in the time it'll take for him to reach rank 4...
He'll already be a rank 6.
But Obsidian told him that was wrong.
"How so?"
"I need a passive spell in combination with reaching the threshold of runes."
"Ahhh... That's right. Without a new passive spell... you are stuck as a rank 2. You also won't be able to inscribe the last rune."
"Once you acquire a rank 3 and 4 spell. You won't have to worry about passives anymore. You can then soar."
Zero was enlightened!
So that's why there are not that many rank 3's and 4's.
It's the rarity of the spells.
"Well you won't have to worry about spells. I'll help you make a custom spell based on the path you wish to walk."
"But first I must pass down something ancient."
Obsidian looked at his hands in wonder at the amount of life force he felt.
His lifespan had increased to 800 years.
Not to mention he was now almost guaranteed to become a rank 3.
Then a rank 4.
Especially if Zero was helping him to make the spells.
But he didn't let that tempt him.
He would continue and try to come back from the chaos realm.
He said:
"Teacher! I will make my own spells! I will walk my own path... I just hope for some guidance."
"Good. You have passed the third test."
"Now time to see if you can 'walk' the chaos realm."
Zero hoped his student would be successful.