YM778.TV Chapter 96
“Why?” Layton who was still stupefied and uneasy asked, it was his way of taking his mind off his worries by indulging his curiosity.
Minerva smiled and answered with incomparable confidence and arrogance as she said softly “Because you met me.”
Layton was stunned upon hearing her arrogant words, he could feel the immense confidence and arrogance behind those four simple words and although this indeed did calm down his turbulent mind but there was still a hint of worry still entrenched in his thoughts. Minerva seemed to notice this and then she stated “It seems I need to explain to you so you can intuitively know the gap and forget your baseless worries and concerns.”
Her soft regal voice continued as the words that came out of her mouth contained a sort of charm that calmed Layton down and made him focus solely on her speech.
“There are basically 6 known levels to practice in the void although different civilization and various forces follow different paths but they can be broadly classified into 6 orthodox levels.”
“Level 1 is what I call the extraordinary stage, the beginning stage of practice shedding the skin of mortal acquiring out of the ordinary power that is anyone or being who has an extraordinary power or trait is already at the 1st stage of practice.
The second stage I call the legendary stage, at this stage the practitioner has a certain in-depth understanding of his extraordinary power and then taps into it to create a domain, the shape characteristics and attributes of the domain differ from practitioner to practitioner and not all practitioners call it a domain or retain a domain after breakthrough it might be changed to become a dharma image, martial intent and whatever depending on the path followed but the fact remains that a domain will exist or have existed at the time of breakthrough to the legendary stage.
Next up we have the deification stage, basically at this level you are can be called a deity, there are various ways to achieve this level and various forces and practitioners have their own unique path, becoming a deity does not necessarily mean one has to have divinity. In essence, a certain characteristic of you will achieve a huge leap in life level, basically, it wouldn’t be separated from the three essential elements of body, essence or soul. The rumours that understanding a rule makes you breakthrough to a deity is not entirely through in fact understanding a hint of rules allows your soul to go through a change, the change in quality and strength is what in fact allows the breakthrough to become a deity occur, the same goes for divinity which is essentially a higher type of energy or essence, in fact just sublimating the normal energy type you use could achieve the same effects as divinity just not as fast and stable, possessing divinity increases the strength and quality of your essence which in turn have some effects on the body and soul allowing for the breakthrough. The same goes for the body as long as the strength of your body increases to a certain extent breaking through the limits the breakthrough would naturally also occur. Of course, there are other ways to breakthrough in the void but no matter the way chosen it would not divert from the 3 characteristics of body essence and soul. it’s a huge leap of life a step which gives rise to a unique pressure making it almost impossible for lower lives to resist the practitioner’s influence.” Listening up to this point Layton could understand after all the feeling the deified solace gave him was a thousand times more dangerous and unstoppable than when he was still a level 2 wizard, Minerva’s voice continued depriving Layton the opportunity to ponder further.
.....
“After becoming a deity, the next stage is detachment, one needs to break free of the inherent shackles of your cognition and confirm your own path.”
“Shackles?” Layton managed to ask curiously, Minerva seemed to be finding a way to explain the stage as succinctly as possible as she paused for a moment before answering “everyone’s shackles are different when you are about to reach that step you will be aware of what exactly you need to break. The detachment stage is very personal there is really no clear cut way to go. Telling you more about it would be harming you.”
She could see Layton was still confused but this was frankly the best way she could explain it at the moment so she just ignored his confusion and continued “Moving on, After detachment is the mythology stage, here your path, knowledge has grown to a certain extent that it naturally influences almost all planes existing in the void, your existence has begun to leave traces on the origin of the void the chaotic confluence point of plane wills existing in the void basically your name, practice, spell or any other thing closely associated with your existence will be slowly spread in different forms along various plane which can then used as a tool for your resurrection or creation of clones, acquiring of resources and what not, it’s complicated to fully explain but the bottom line is it takes a lot to kill a mythology stage character once and for all.”
“And lastly the paragon level, this stage literary means the practitioner has attained perfection, reaching the peak attaining the very limit allowed in the void.” She finally lightly concluded.
Layton stood there silent ruminating over her words, although Minerva did not really illustrate and give intuitive examples on the level of power of each stage but Layton could already somewhat infer the power and combat gap between each stage after all he was also a practitioner and he had witnessed the battle solace was in before he broke through to become a deity, he could still profoundly remember the terrifying aura and sense of oppression that solace had exuded unconsciously, and according to Minerva that was only the deity stage and there were 3 more stages after that each terrifying than the next.
Layton somewhat understood Minerva’s confidence and arrogance now, although she hadn’t really stated what stage she was in but judging from her explanation she would definitely not be below the mythological stage.
Minerva’s voice brought Layton out of his thoughts as she stated “You need to become at least a mythological level practitioner before you can start inquiring about HER affairs, any earlier will cause you some unnecessary possibly fatal troubles.”
“Is paragon the end?” Layton suddenly asked curiously.
Minerva hearing the question was stunned for a moment before showing an inexplicable weird smile on her face as she replied “Of course not, as for what is higher, It is...zsestf...hynb.”
“What?” Layton asked in confusion, he was not sure if Minerva was doing it deliberately but what he heard was a bunch of unintelligible jargon.
“I just told you but the knowledge was of such immense weight that the void blurred your cognition making my words gibberish, only paragons are privy to such knowledge, don’t try to run when you are just crawling.” Minerva chastised softly.
Minerva stopped and took a Look around at the environment and noticing the change in the surroundings which were getting blurry as if colour was being drained away and there was a sense constant sense of incongruity being generated as if they were going to fade away at any time, realizing her time was up Minerva spoke softly bidding farewell to Layton “Well looks like my time is up, I can’t keep you unconscious any longer, the last piece of advice for you don’t be too attached to the question of whether you are real or not I know most traversers battle with that dilemma, the facts is that there is not much difference between reality and illusion, nothing is impossible if it seems impossible it’s only because you aren’t strong enough yet.”