Pathway

"As I peered into the darkest of darkness, a void of no light, where no mere mortal or weak immortal ever dared to look, I saw eternal emptiness. Knowledge and wisdom were the two things standing between me and the void." - Dao of the universe.

He dreamt of a place of creation that was as beautiful as any heavenly palacium. A place of beautiful crystal gems with a beautiful garden and lovely fruit trees. The fruit trees of different kinds, lined the palacium garden. With a river of heavenly elixir that was rich in sweetness, flowing through it and lovely birds singing beautiful songs.

The scenery was a delightful one to watch and experience. And he was living that dream to the full. He was relaxing by the river, eating heavenly fruits, drinking heavenly elixir and listening to the birds sing making his mind peaceful and calm, a perfect mood. He was having a wonderful time enjoying the place.

Then, he realized that he was alone in this place.

Where was everyone? How did he get there in the first place? That couldn't be right. Definitely, something must be wrong with this place. The solemn sense of danger with being the only one or last one in a seemingly beautiful world.

His mind was quickly processing all those when everything suddenly changed.

Pure black tendrils of powerfully dangerous energy started to crawl all over the world turning it into a pit of terrible darkness. He quickly materialised a light energy. The darkness was extremely strong but he had enough Chi to maintain the light energy for the time being. It was like a faint candle light in the sphere of darkness but he kept it going. He tried to move but he couldn't raise his legs, the weight of the black tendrils was weighing him down.

Was it a dream?

Just as he was wondering, a dark treble voice boomed out of the darkness.

"Child, we know who you are. And nothing can save you."

A pair of large shining black eyes, appeared out of the darkness.

Ju Feng woke up with a jolt from his sleep. What kind of dreams was that? The black tendrils resembled the atramental energy maybe with a little difference? He couldn't say in totality. But that was simply a dream. What people fear, sometimes, appear in their dreams. He wouldn't dwell on it for what it was. He remembered the words of his uncle, titan lord Primus that he needed to be much more stronger and powerful to be able to live without that kind of fear.

The feeling of water as he splashed it on his face was refreshingly soothing and it had a little calming effect on his mind. As he was putting on his robe, he heard a knock on the door to his cave. He quickly fastened his robe and opened the door to find a disciple smiling at him.

"Greetings brother Ju Feng, my name is Yan Zhihao. First disciple of master Zhou Lin."

Yan Zhihao gave a slightly cupped hand gesture.

"I greet you senior brother Yan."

Ju Feng also extended a cupped hand forward with a slight bow.

"I welcome you to the Lightning Reach. That's the name of our faction by the way."

Yan Zhihao beamed and continued.

"If you are ready, kindly follow me."

"I'm ready, senior brother Yan."

Yan Zhihao led Ju Feng to the faction hall where other fifty disciples were waiting. In the flying stars sect, all the disciples of a master would train together, the top disciples would help in training the new disciples. The strength of a faction was the strength of the sect as a whole. He quickly introduced them to Ju Feng.

Fifty disciples of lightning, this was much more than that of his home world's sect. The thought of this being one of the smallest sect in this world is really hard to believe. How many disciples would the biggest sect have? Frightening.

Couple of minutes later, master Zhou Lin entered the hall and slowly walked to the front of the hall facing the disciples. He was wearing a pristine white robe laced with gold threads.

"Good morning master."

They all chorused at once.

"Hm."

Master Zhou Lin nodded in acknowledgement.

He glanced at their faces. His disciples were apprehensively watching him. They had been training very hard for the upcoming selection, they didn't want to disappoint their master and the sect. He could understand their plight and deeply appreciated it. A true disciple was the one who put everything into practice not because of anxiousness of success but because of apprehension of failure. He commended that in them. While still looking at them, his mind strayed to the source of their predicament.

Ozoros, the transient dominion.

On every plane, there were , dominions of different sizes. It was inside these dominions that artifacts of different levels of power were hidden. One of these dominions was Ozoros, the transient dominion. A place located on the same planet, Charat. It was rumoured to be a place where a powerful artifact was hidden, a divine or luminous artifact at the least.

There were two types of dominions. They were the wake dominions and the fallen dominions.

The wake dominions were dominions still had masters, their masters could be divine beasts, ancient sacred beasts, primordial titans or even demigods.

The fallen dominions were ancient ruins. Once great and powerful dominions but had become tombs and catacombs.

These two dominions were of the same regulations when it involved cultivators' entrance into their premises. There were some that had no restrictions, all cultivators could enter. There were some that only golden core cultivators and above could enter. Yet, there were some ruins that golden cores and above couldn't enter, only Zhuji level and below could enter. But the issue with the third type was that, these ruins were too powerful and dangerous for anyone below golden core level yet they were the only that could enter.

That was where a peak stage nascent soul or an hegemon came in.

After a space-time premier would have located the area of the transient dominion, the hegemon or a peak stage nascent soul would have to open and hold a rift for the premiers to enter. After the premiers were inside, they would have to locate the entrance and activate at least two heavenly hold seals enabling the hegemon or peak stage nascent soul to enter the dominion for a period of time.

But the difference? The supreme sovereign was in possession of five heavenly seal that could steadily hold the rift opened for a period of time before disintegrating. Five of the premiers would hold a heavenly seal each that they would locate by the gates of the ruins which would be easier for them to locate from the inside. And they would activate the seals once they were placed.