At first Zilan could not find anything strange or mysterious about the ring in his hand. No matter how hard he looked, aside from it being a magnificent work of art, he was unable to discern anything from it.

However, Zilan did not give up because he felt he and the ring had a bond that was growing stronger with every passing minute. He did not want to let the ring go and very soon after, Zilan fell into a trance.

His eyes slowly shifted from side to side as strange images of hundreds of completely different and unfathomable formations, appeared in his mind. After slowly showing themselves one by one, the formations suddenly began to join together in a very profound manner, quickly becoming a single gigantic formation, whose secrets Zilan could not even begin to see through.

As soon as the formations became one, it began to glow with a white, otherworldly splendor that penetrated Zilan’s sea of consciousness and instantly illuminated the entire space next to his soul.

The next thing that happened was extremely shocking.

Alongside the two stars in Zilan’s eyes was the grand formation. It forcefully activated his scorched eyes and pushed their abilities to the limit. The result?

Four illusionary Orbs of varying sizes suddenly surrounded Zilan, each was of a different colour perfectly matching the gems that could be seen on the ring.

Zilan carefully stretched out his arm and touched the largest of the orbs. A grey spherical one, whose radiance was clearly much brighter than the rest.

*Bang*

The moment his arm came into contact with the orb, dozens of small strings of energy suddenly burst out of the orb and stretched into the far, far distance beyond Zilan’s sight.

Above the orb, a line of text appeared reading, “Connections of fate”.

Zilan instantly froze.

“This is what he was talking about.”

The ‘he’ Zilan was thinking about was obviously the clan leader and his words which hinted towards Zilan being the trigger towards many movements across the lands could only mean that he too had seen this sight.

However, Zilan was not entirely wrong but he was wrong nonetheless. The clan leader had never seen the ring Zilan was currently holding, he only had access to three formations laid down as gifts to him by the mysterious ‘Grandmama’ and her colleague.

He had also never seen the strings of fate nor had he ever seen the spherical orb. In fact, he had never seen anything, he could only feel the movements of himself prompted by Zilan’s arrival, as for the dozens of others being affected, these were just faint ripples in his consciousness. Nevertheless, for the ripples to appear in someone like him who was not well versed in controlling the formations, this only went to show the great waves Zilan and his every action was causing to people who were not even aware of his existence.

Suddenly, just as Zilan was about to reach out and touch the other orbs, he heard a crisp *crack* noise. It was not loud nor was it especially striking however, it echoed throughout his mind and the next thing that followed was the collapse of the images before him.

Needless to say, Zilan was extremely shocked. Everything had disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared, and to make matters worse he barely understood any of it.

“This….”

His confusion was somewhat resolved after he looked at the ring before him and found that not only were all four gems cracked but the body of the ring also appeared to be damaged.

“Why did it break?” wondered Zilan as he carefully put the ring down.

Unsatisfied with the outcome, he then decided to use his eyes to see the makeup of the ring in hopes of repairing it.

However, the unthinkable happened.

Even with his eyes staring directly at the ring, nothing came up. It was almost like he was looking at the thing normally.

Fear seeped into Zilan’s bones as he looked away from the ring in order to confirm his ability was still working and after doing so, he confirmed that nothing was wrong with him. His ability as a man of the scorched was on full display as he saw through a nearby table.

This didn’t calm him down at all though. In fact, it could be said that Zilan’s fear had risen slightly.

What were the scorched eyes? These were the only things in existence that could open the gates that locked away the secrets of the vast Universe. An unfathomable power laid within them, and nothing could escape them. At least that was what Zilan thought until today.

Never had nothing appeared, when he looked at something. Leave alone the normal scorched people, Zilan was a genius and a one of a kind one at that, someone who was the holder of the Book of Path and yet even he could see nothing.

A prompt from the Book of Path suddenly appeared, opening the door to a whole new world of questions for Zilan.

“You do not possess the key to view this information.”

“What key? How is this information more special than the secrets of the Universe?...” The flustered Zilan asked many questions. He just simply could not fathom what was going on.

“You’re Ancestors compiled their own notes and they too had their own findings. Unless you have the specific key, according to the rules set by the first Master, that information cannot be revealed.”

“My Ancestor created this ring? Who was it?”

Just as he had asked that question, the front cover of the Book of Path appeared before Zilan and thirty names could be seen. Among the first ten, one was highlighted in golden light,

“Akili Zaum.” The amazing thing though was that a title out of nowhere abruptly appeared alongside the name. “Path of Fate, Knowledge, Enlightenment and Limitation. A guide for the younger generation and the one closest to Zaum the All-seer.”

Still confused, Zilan continued to ask more and more questions however, it quickly became clear that the Book of Path was done answering anymore of them, leaving Zilan to contemplate by himself.

He took two deep breaths, attempting to calm himself before shifting his gaze towards the damaged ring once again.

“Scorched fate ring.” He whispered.

He continued to stare at the item in his hands for hours on end before he suddenly paused.

All things aside including the title and the fact that he was supposedly the one closest to Zaum.

Zilan realised he’d been asking the wrong questions.

“How many gifts was he given by Zaum?”

The Book of Path finally responded with a shocking proclamation of, “None! Two eyes, three stars each.”

This time despite being shocked Zilan managed to keep calm.

“Monster!” was the only word he uttered.

For someone to be able to create an item such as the scorched fate ring without the Gifts of Zaum was truly a realm that even Zilan was not yet at.

Of course Zilan himself was a monster being able to go against Heaven and create an entire system that opposed it. However, despite such a great feat, he was able to discern that this ring was probably just a grain of sand in a desert, compared to the other insights his Ancestor might have had.

It was just a feeling but Zilan was completely sure that this was the case.

It might not seem that great of an accomplishment being able to create the scorched fate ring but one had to know that its abilities were basically the third level of the Gift of Love.

A gift directly from Zaum and yet this Ancestor with limited knowledge and who knows what other obstacles he had to face, was still able to understand it and create such a treasure.

Not to mention, the fate orb was but one of four others.

His Ancestor was someone who was definitely his equal if not slightly above when it came to overall knowledge. A humbling realization for someone like Zilan, who always believed even from a young age that amongst members of his bloodline, he was definitely the greatest genius.

It wasn’t a crushing sort of realisation but rather one of encouragement and resolution. If this Ancestor wished for him to take Kifo under his wing then there was definitely a worthy reason behind it.