Ambrose was pacing around his courtyard. The battle against divine children had happened 3 months ago. Ambrose had fainted in the middle and did not know the entire story. But from what some of the conscious soldiers had said, Michael had managed to kill a fearsome enemy! This guy was probably an upper-ascendant. But in the end, he had died. How Michael did it, no one had any idea.

The casualties of the battle were too many to count. Most of the enforcer unit was dead. Denise had somehow survived but she too had to undergo extensive rest to recover. Roger had suffered badly and had permanently lost some law marks, making him irritable. Among Ambrose's followers, less than half managed to live. This was a devastating battle. As he was going through the logistics, he received Michael's voice message! He immediately hurried to Michael's seclusion chamber.

As he entered, Michael said:

Michael : Sorry Amber. I was badly injured in that battle and had to recuperate. I am now fully healed. How are you? Are there any troublesome injuries?

Ambrose : Congratulations on your recovery My Lord. With your permission, I want to learn about the matters regarding the entity that appeared in the middle of battle.

Michael : Hmm, come and sit. It is a long story.

Following that Ambrose learned of the plot of the man named Rizlant and how Michael had barely managed to turn the situation around. Listening to the entire story gave him chills. Afterwards, he started making preparations. It was now time to go back.

In a distant plane, Red River Divinity was sitting in a mortal restaurant drinking wine.

Seems like that guy failed. Alas! he was the only world-master psychic that I knew. But fighting against the natural law of death is not so easy. Now, I can only look for other talented psychics. Damn that Divine Sea, she extorted me quite a lot!

In the Divine Sea Sect, Michael emerged with his entourage and gave the report of the entire mission. Soon, he was assigned a score - 195 points. This caused him to be pretty surprised. He had been thinking that he would obtain the highest points, a full 200. Later, he came to know that Daughter of Chaos had managed to kill a law master and become the new master and another zodiac. Of course, she too schemed and gathered allies to battle that law master. Afterwards, the total score was calculated and Michael was at the top of the scoreboard. The test finished in the next few months and the final list was settled. Then, the Divine Sea Sect released the list.

All hell broke loose! An independent cultivator had won the entire entrance ceremony! This was unprecedented in the history of the sect! The entire super plane went bonkers over this. Even the elves and demons became extremely interested in this new upcoming talent.

The cash reward for getting the first place was a million lower-ascendant gold. Suddenly, Michael became extremely rich! Thus, both he and Ambrose started to cultivate hungrily in the cultivation rooms. Now that Michael had reached a breakthrough in his Psychic path, he needed to focus on other paths. Michael was currently following seven different paths!

The celestial path that combined soul path, body path, and spiritual path. Dao path, psychic path, sword path, and martial path. With so many different paths, he needed to balance his cultivation. Thus, he decided to focus on his celestial path first. Thus, he regularly trained in time accelerated rooms to correct his previous bias. While he was in the middle of his cultivation one day, he opened his eyes for a break and received a shock! Sitting in front of him was a woman that he had never seen. But looking at her, he knew that she was abnormal. She was sitting there but there was no presence in the grand momentum. Michael had seen upper-ascendants as well but never felt such a surreal feeling. The woman looked like any average person and every time Michael removed his gaze from her, he would forget her face! Even his intuition was silent. Apparently, his best skill had failed him.

Composing himself, he bowed and said:

Michael : Your Excellency, who are you? And what do you want?

Mirinda : I am Mirinda Reeves. People also know me as Fate-Seer.

Michael felt thousands of explosions go in his mind! He had some inkling but never would he have dared to guess! This was a divinity sitting in front of him! Fate-seer divinity, a four-star divinity that is one of the Grand Elders of the Divine Sea Sect.

Michael : Yes Lady Godess! I am at your service!

Mirinda : Why would I need your service? You are too weak right now to serve me. When you become an upper-ascendant, come to find me then. I have come for a different matter.

Michael : Whatever is your wish, Lady godess.

Mirinda : Come over here.

As Michael went over, the woman raised her hand. In her hand, a blood-coloured seal appeared. She pressed the seal into Michael's heart. Then, Michael felt as if his entire body and soul were boiling. It went over to his conscient as well.

Mirinda : Don't resist. Let is leave a mark on your conscient.

Slowly, the feeling subsided. Inside of Michael's conscient, a mini-volcano seemed to have formed. It stood at the side of his dao-tree. It was a weird feeling. He felt as if the volcano somehow connected his body and soul as well. Fate-Seer divinity then gave Michael a red pill saying:

Mirinda : What I gave you right now is a bloodline. It is called the volcanic bloodline. It is a divine-rank bloodline. Divine-rank bloodlines generally emerge from divine beasts but this is not always the case. This volcanic bloodline is a naturally occurring bloodline that can reach the divine realm upon six awakenings. It is also unlimited, in the sense that one can awaken it a 7th, 8th or any higher number of times. Currently, the highest anyone has ever awakened it is 7 times. It is found in a secret realm of the heavenly realm. This bloodline has a simple abiltiy - eruption. For a short period of time, it gives a boost to all your abilities including psychic techniques. Of course, as it is unawakened right now, you can't use the ability. This red pill is a bloodline essence medicine that will awaken your bloodline once and start your path of bloodline cultivation. How far you can go will depend on yourself.

Michael : Many thanks, Lady Godess!

As soon as Michael consumed bloodline medicine, his entire body, soul, and conscient thrummed. From the depth of the volcano, Michael felt a terrifying force rising. Soon, the volcano erupted, with power that seemed to be coming to end the world. Michael immediately awakened his volcanic bloodline. His eruption caused his strength to rise drastically. Without using Will Manifestation, he was able to reach the strength of rank-2 ascendants! This clearly showed that the volcanic bloodline was in no way inferior to the World Tree bloodline. While the world tree bloodline could be used for a long time, it only raised the lifeforce of the user. Volcanic bloodline could increase the might of every single path of the user!

Michael felt too happy to describe his feelings in words. He had finally obtained a bloodline, that too a divine rank one. Now, there was no one who could say that he lacked talent!

Mirinda : I am not done yet. Take these.

Saying so, she threw two orbs at Michael. They were green and yellow. Michael could feel the aura of life and death on them.

Mirinda : These are life and death law spirits. They are preliminary spirits. Consuming them will directly boost your understanding of their laws. It will save you a lot of time. Go ahead and consume them.

Michael was left speechless by this generosity. He did not stand on ceremony and immediately consumed the law spirits. Instantly, his conscient exploded with activity as his understanding of laws jumped to a new realm. His comprehension rose at an incredible rate. Soon, he had already gained incredible depths in his laws. It all happened in a matter of minutes. Now Michael understood why people were ready to die for Sect points.

Mirinda : You should know that spirits can only be used till one becomes a law master. After that, one has to find their own path. The purpose of cultivation is to develop the mindset to find one's own path. Following a predescribed path will not lead you anywhere. You had cultivated an inheritance before and have used law spirits now. It will have a great impact on your law foundation. In the future, don't do this. This time, I am giving you three wisdom beads. Use them to contemplate on the laws that you have learned and nothing else. It will barely be able to mitigate the loss. But in the future, don't use shortcuts in Law cultivation lest you be stuck at the law master realm.

Michael : Lady Godess. I mean no disrespect but why did you not let me train my laws on my own. I am always ready to put in effort and time.

Mirinda : I saw in your fate that you will need strength and soon. You should try to become an ascendant as soon as possible or else you have a tumultous future. Also, this will catch you up to speed with the others. It might not look like it but all your companions will become ascendants before they are 500 years old. You have already trained for around a 100 years. But you had to unlearn your bias which is harder than simply learning. This would have taken you many more years. Also, for supreme geniuses like yourself, we don't ask you to be cooped up in the cultivation rooms. Learning the theory is not enough, you need to learn the applications. You need to create techniques based off your laws. Then only will you become a powerful ascendant. This is the main difference between normal cultivators and supreme geniuses. We want that when you become law masters, you should have many law techniques so that you can fight even ordinary upper-ascendants. This will not come by gathering law marks but learning how to use them. Till now, I have only seen you use life laws to heal yourself and you never even use death laws. This is because you have not explored enough. You need to focus on you law application. This is the path that every supreme genius takes.

Michael : Thanks for your kind words, Lady Godess. I will keep them in mind.

Mirinda : Since you saved my daughter's life, I will guide you further. Rigth now, you are already cultivating 8 paths. This is too many for even divine geniuses. No one can balance all these paths. And if you can't, some of these paths will ultimately become obsolete. If you really want to cultivate all paths, there is a way. I can not guide you on psychic path or dao path. But I would advise you on not training psychic path furthermore before you become a law master. Your current attainment is sufficient. You should try to improve your dao path but there is no way for me to help you with that. Celestial path is the culmination of body, soul and spirit. And the medium we use for this is law marks. Thus, as you comprehend your laws, celestial path will increase. But laws are not only limited to the celestial path. You can devise a martial art that uses laws or a sword art that does the same. It will not only make you stronger, it will also help you in raising your attainment in these other paths. In fact, laws can be generically used with most paths, including psychic and dao path. As for bloodline path, I suggest that you don't worry too much. It is a path that only needs resources to improve. As you become stronger, obtaining resources would become easier. Of course, this will only be true till fourth awakening. But for you, that is far off in the future. Thus, my advice is to focus on laws' applications in your different paths. This will make you stronger and help in each individual path's cultivation. I can tell you this - if you can successfully cultivate all 8 paths to perfection, you will surpass divine geniuses. You will be invincible in the same realm. We call such geniuses as unrivalled geniuses. I don't know if you will ever reach such a stage. The sect has never had an unrivalled genius. In fact, the entire dominion has never had one. Even in heavenly realm, unrivalled geniuses are legendary figures that have either died early or become overlords. I will see how far you can reach.

Mirinda : One other thing, I have extended the military of the Sect in the direction of your homeplane. I am planning on making your plane a base for the army. We will repair the plane and bring it back to secondary level and fortify the plane. In return, I will be taking half of the territory of the plane. You will have the ownership of the remaining half, which is even larger than what is currently habitable. Also, I have given you the status of a core disciple. While your strength is still not sufficient, all supreme geniuses are given a status one above their combat strength. Thus, after you become a law master, you will be a legacy disciple. But it is on the condition that you progress fast and maintain your combat level. You have 10000 years of Jupyter time to become a law master or else you will no longer be considered a supreme genius. If you have any questions, you should ask them.

Michael : Lady Godess, What is the truth of heavenly realm?

Mirinda : Hmm, a gutsy one, aren't you? The heavenly realm is a higher realm than our law ocean. The law ocean has 26 dominions. Historically, these were all separate worlds, called as 33 worlds. But in a prehistoric war, 7 of the worlds were destroyed and the remaining 26 smashed together to form the law ocean as you see it. Planes are basically landmasses that survived destruction. But we are not the only worlds out there, only the ones close. In total, it is said that there were 3000 minor worlds, but the number is no longer the same. These worlds are governed by three different empires. These empires are based on three major worlds. The empire that we 26 dominions belong to is called the Heaven empire. The continent, we call it as heavenly realm. We are vassals of the continent's empire. I will not be giving you any more answers regarding this. You will know when you become upper-ascendant.

After digesting the answer, he asked another question.

Michael : What are the selection battles?

Mirinda : The heavenly realm continent is encased in a natural barrier. Higher divinities can pass through brute force but not the rest. At certain times, the barrier weakens and at that time, even upper-ascendants are able to cross. But the Heaven Empire doesn't allow any number of people to enter. After all, we will be going to find fortune in the higher continent. We will be competing with the residents of the continent. As vassals, we get a certain quota of people we can send per administrative zone. The 26 dominions are one administrative zone. Thus, we hold battles between the entire law ocean to decide who has the right to step into heavenly realm. This is the selection battles.

Michael : Thank you, Lady Goddess! I will try my best for the upcoming selection battles. I have one more question, can a divinity turn time back?

Mirinda : Now this is an unexpected question. Not every divinity can, that's for sure. All divinities are following their own unique paths. Even the structure of energy used by divinities is different. Thus, for me turning back time is impossible. But if a divinity is following the path of time, then in some circumstances they might be able to turn back time. But divinities are not the highest realm that we know of. There is one realm above the divine. We call it the true god realm. Legend says that true gods can turn back time with their own power. The minor worlds don't have true gods so this has not been verified. But the heavenly realm does. But this is too far away for you now. So, cultivate and reach the upper-ascendant realm and then win the selection battles. In the heavenly realm, perform beyond others' expectations, and perhaps you might be worthy to see a true god! In the world of cultivation, all the realms till demi-ascendants are simply mortals. They are not even considered as cultivators. Lower ascendants are considered students, like those in school. Upper-ascendants can be said to be adults who are exploring what path they want to follow. Only the divine ones can claim to be masters in their study. As for true gods, I have no idea. But before becoming an upper-ascendant, you are not even an adult in this world of giants. I will accept you as a disciple if you can reach the upper-ascendant realm within 10000 Jupyter years. Do your best.

The lady vanished, leaving a deeply inspired Michael.

Afterwards, Michael used wisdom beads to train his laws. The effect was simply unbelievable. Michael had many temptations, he wanted to master sword arts, he wanted to master the psychic techniques of Rizlant, he wanted to learn martial arts, and so on. But he kept his mind in control and diligently focussed on the laws. It was as if Michael was using "acceleration" with a hundred times the efficiency. Inspirations and ideas came to him naturally and he easily managed to understand all the concepts of his laws. Earlier, his understanding of life laws was limited by his own being. He could use life energy and death energy, but they originated from himself. After the training session, his understanding became extremely broad and general. He understood the structure of life laws and death laws. His assumption that death is the opposite of life was disproved again and again. Who said that death was the end of life? When an animal died, the bacteria would gain life. It was a process and life and death interacted in intricate ways. There were multiple ecosystems in myriad planes and the specifics might change but the basic fundamental laws remained constant. Eventually, Michael used all three wisdom beads in meditating over his laws. As a result, he soon reached a stage where he could feel a bottleneck.

I am reaching a bottleneck. I can only progress when I explore the laws of myriad planes. As Fate-Seer Divinity has said, it is time that I start thinking about creating techniques based on laws. But this is something that I can do later. I should now prepare for reaching the ascendant realm.

Three months later, Michael passed his first ascendant tribulation easily gaining 12 law marks and becoming a rank-1 ascendant.

His tribulation was very powerful as he was cultivating two grand laws and had formed 6 marks of both these laws. But this was only a problem for a rank-1 ascendant. Michael breezed through the fire and lightning easily. Even the special tribulations of conscient were handled easily. Michael could feel the law marks in his body and soul giving him incredible stability.

Average rank-1 ascendants only had 4 to 5 law marks. For a supreme genius, Michael, in fact, had an above-average number of law marks but by no means was this an unprecedented achievement. Michael was still very happy with his progress. He had taken his first step on the path of cultivation. He was now an acknowledged cultivator.

After taking care of things, he left with Ambrose. He was going back to Aterna.