Everyone’s necks and backs were flooding in sweat, be it cool or warm, as the sense of heat and danger erupted in the entire gym. Though the pressure chamber only took up a corner of the gym, the heat coming off of it was horrifying. It was so bad that even Mr. Flanigan started frowning, maybe he shouldn’t have gone that far…

Arlean was forcefully ejected due to the danger level, while the robotic arm couldn’t move Kezner as his body was too hot and had melted the arm. It still gave out his body’s vitals and temperature. His body was experiencing levels of heat that would have melted any other person in the 3rd Foundational Stage.

Kezner was now, not only in danger, but a ticking time bomb, if he didn’t regain control of his consciousness, his ability would take control of his body or simply explode, either way, it was no good for anyone. However, what he subconsciously expected didn’t happen, as he only got hotter with nothing else happening. He slowly regained his vision, though he found himself standing in an unfamiliar room with only five stone thrones that seemed to be embedded into the similarly colored stone floor. In the center of these five thrones was a large paper-thin crystalline circle floating on its own, with four separate blurry segments.

Kezner’s vision was still shaky and he could barely stand on his own, forcing him to lean on whatever was behind him.

“Where… am I?” Kezner groaned as his body just kept hurting.

“The question isn’t where but when?” A new yet familiar voice had appeared behind him...

“Who’s there?!” Kezner looked back only to find a wall and his neck hairs raised. “What’s going on?!”

After yelling at the wall, a gray mist appeared in front of him, startling him when he turned back. “What the…”

“Who I am is already known, what’s happening isn’t, you could say everything is predetermined but you can say it’s all based on your decisions, that’s the funny thing of life, it could be either way and you would never know…” The voice continued on, “But there’s no point in telling a joke with no audience, because for all you know, it’s not funny to anyone but yourself. Perspectives... at the end of the day, it’s about perspectives. If you were the only life to exist you would only have one perspective on many things but if there were more, then you would have many perspectives on one thing.”

“Honestly, I don’t care what or who you are at this point, I need to get back to my body before my ability blows it up, at this rate I might actually die.” Kezner was in full panic mode as he was trying to get out of this crazy lucid dream.

“You fool, I am your ability, can’t you piece something as simple as that?!” The ability’s cool and aloof voice broke down into a cranky and annoyed voice. The voice of the ability was like the voice of your thoughts, though you could hear you couldn’t hear it, but could still understand its tone. “Anyways, I’m just gonna congratulate you for making it to this place first, the other four old bastards are gonna be pissed when they find my message, heh, heh.”

“Wait if you’re my ability, then what’s going on with my body?” Kezner was still more worried about blowing up than learning about some kind of weird metaphysical dreamscape, a lot more was at risk than angering his ability.

“Eh, I took care of it, anyways since I can directly talk to you for a little while, let me tell you a few problems you have. First of all… stop treating me like some damn flame! I am a property not an element, sure you can use me with an element as an extension but can you not prioritize the element?!”

“Hold up, what?! You’re not an elemental ability, how is that even fucking possible?!” All abilities in the universe would fall within one of the five core elements, fire, water, earth, wind, and lightning. Kezner always thought he fell within the fire element.

“Of course not! Listen, I am growth and decay, life and death, black and white, what I am encompasses all, I have no size or shape, no start or end, and especially not some damn fire! The only reason you thought of using fire as a medium was because you assumed you had a basic ability, an elemental one, so you used the simplest element fire you could comprehend. However, when you prioritize the element over my property, you dilute my power, overall making us weaker.”

“So how am I supposed to solve that, what medium do I use you through?” Kezner was honestly confused about this aspect. If his ability encompassed an ability, it would require some form of primary medium, but if an element reduced its power, what was he supposed to use?!

“That’s for you to figure out, I can’t tell you everything or the guys upstairs are gonna kick my teeth in!” The ability continued, “Alright let’s move on, right, you need to learn how to control the three different energies in your body and turn them into one. If you can’t manage this, then your body really will blow up when advancing to the Avatar Stage, I can’t give you the answer for this either.”

This caused Kezner to frown while also feeling relieved, he didn’t know it was possible to combine the energies, but now that he received a confirmation it made his path a lot smoother yet longer as that meant he couldn’t advance in a major stage until the problem got sorted out.

“Finally, let’s move on to your final problem, it’s not really a ‘you’ problem, but an ‘us’ problem, you see… how do I put it? You’re a blunt guy so let me make it as simple and clear as possible, I need you to defy all known Universal Laws of Cultivation, not too hard, right?” This sentient ability must be fucking bonkers if it thought Kezner was going to literally fight against gods and devils alike. You had to be a maniac to break Natural Laws, let alone Universal Laws.

The laws that governed the universe could possibly be broken, after all, rules still had their limits, let’s take black holes for example. Anything past the event horizon of a black hole technically doesn’t exist within the universe as it doesn’t comply with the Natural Laws. But the difference between a black hole and a person breaking Natural Laws was that one was a natural entity which slowly broke down a Natural Law for at least millions of years until it broke while the other one tried to break it with brute force like some dumb animal locked in a cage.

Humanity had once played with fire by breaking the Natural Law of Gravity to create large scale anti-gravity equipment, but was only met with the entire star cluster collapsing on itself, creating one of the largest human-caused catastrophes in history. After that nobody dared to mess with breaking Natural Laws, well not publically at least.

Since a Universal Law was made up of Natural Laws, breaking a single Universal Law was the equivalent of breaking a handful of Natural Laws, albeit on a much smaller scale, it would still most likely kill him.

“Yeah fucking right, you’re just trying to kill me off, you might as well let my body blow up and kill that asshole Flanigan! You do know what happened when a group of dumbasses tried to mess with the Natural Law of Gravity, right?! The entire star cluster died! The entire damn thing turned into a ginormous black hole!” Kezner was definitely not going to be spoon fed bullshit then smile afterwards. What power did his ability have over him anyways- Actually now that he thought about it, his ability was the only thing physically holding him together…

“Listen, kid, just do me this favor, as much as I don’t want to do it as well, we both have to, or else we’re in for one hell of a reckoning. Let me break it down for you like this, think of it like an upside-down pyramid with three layers. At the bottom, the pointy bit, is the weakest portion, the Natural Laws. Then at the middle there are Universal Laws, an individual Universal Law is stronger than an individual Natural Law as a single Universal Laws is built on multiple Natural Laws. At the very top are Foundational Laws, which are made up of Universal Laws. They hold the very core and basis of any universe, and at the end of the day, are what all Natural Laws ultimately fall under-” The ability was interrupted by the ignorant Kezner.

“Wait, wait, wait, shouldn’t the pyramid be right-side up as there are more Natural Laws since they hold up the Universal or Foundational Laws?” Kezner’s question did make sense, but he was looking at it wrong.

“You’re missing that point, we are not comparing the quantity of Natural Laws to Universal and Foundational Laws, we are comparing their individual qualities and their core values. You’re thinking that Natural Laws are the basis of Universal Laws when in reality, it’s backwards, think of the Foundational Laws as roots, the Universal Laws as the stem, and the Natural Laws as the branches, at the end of the day they latter are held up by the roots. I am a Foundational Ability, I comply with the Foundational Laws of Growth and Decay, a one of a kind ability, the problem is that I literally can’t sustain myself within this low-leveled universe! We will require the tribulations from the broken Universal Laws of this universe for both of us or else we die, we’re on the same boat, man!” The ability seemed pretty honest, at this point there was no need to lie seeing as how it could have stolen Kezner’s body and run off on its own by now.

“Alright, I get it now, but how do I break the Universal Laws, oh, and how are you so intelligent?” Kezner was a lot more perplexed and curious about the latter question. Luna had told him that some people speculated that Rank-Z abilities had their own consciousnesses, but it was quickly thrown out the window as it couldn’t be backed by scientific data.

“It’s simple, it requires a lot more work but the payoff is worth it. You need to comprehend the Universal Law you are breaking not just thoroughly, but like the back of your hand. If you don’t understand it, then you’ll explode, as your body wouldn’t be able to handle such raw Universal Energy. After you’ve understood it to that point, you’ll start feeling the chains of Universal Laws, you’ll understand how it feels when you’re about to break through. Usually when you advance, you want to use the chain as a guide to where you go, but in this case you want to break this chain with as much brute force as possible. Doing this will activate a tribulation as basically an attempt at divine intervention, don’t worry about this part. Lastly, I want to mention that you will be a lot more powerful than any regular person that was guided by the chain but you would require more Universal Energy in your Energy Aperture.” It sure did sugarcoat its words when describing defying the heavens themselves like it was a walk in the park.

“As for why I hold so much intelligence, all I’ll tell you is that your Spirit Energy is on the right track, make sure to advance it as well, or else you’ll never be able to combine all three energies. Okay, I’m off now, I can’t talk to you any longer or else the guys around your body are gonna think you died just now.”

While Kezner was taking in this influx of information, he found his vision blackening once more and felt the residual heat, emanating off of his body. He woke up to find Mr. Flanigan squatted next to his body as he poked Kezner’s barely breathing body, while all of the other students were looking on behind him. Breathing out a heavy breath, Kezner was lucky to not have died.

The second Mr. Flanigan felt the breath, cold sweat glazed over his forehead as the hairs on the back of his neck and arms pointed out like a porcupine as he stared wide-eyed at the relieved Kezner. That smell… Oh how long had it been since he had smelled it… How long had it been since that bittersweet smell graze against him like once before… the smell of death.