After purchasing the storage ring, Ken checked the main pedestal, the one he had to solve the riddle for in the first place.
'Bloodthirst Sect Inheritor Token'
"What does this token do?"
Ken asked as he reached with his arm and grabbed the token. After imprinting it with his Qi, the token became his.
"First, it allows you to meet me."
This time, it was a different voice than the normal one Ken always heard. Looking up, he saw an old man wearing plain red robes in front of him. However, the man was ethereal, evidently not a living person.
"Who are you?"
"I am Andreas Theodoros, an elder of the Bloodthirst Sect. I'm the one who designed the Mystic Chasms. Of course, this isn't my real body but a projection with a strand of consciousness I've left behind for the day someone passes the challenges of Mystic Chasm of Bloodlust."
"I see. Can you give me more rewards then?"
"This site is about Elemental Qi manipulation, and Bloodlust Qi is included. The best I can do for you now is give you some of the techniques we came up with, but the best ones are only at the lower earth grade since none of us ever experienced true Bloodlust Qi."
"Sure, I will take them."
Although Ken felt his skill set was completed, and all of them were of the Heaven grade, he figured it won't hurt to take the prize and skim through it.
"You can use this chance to ask me questions about this realm if you want."
Andreas offered Ken the option to learn more about the situation and Ken gladly took it. When he finished packing the techniques in his new storage ring, he came up with a question.
"What was your status in the Bloodthirst Sect?"
Ken first wanted to estimate the credibility of his answers. If the old man wasn't important enough, he might not have the true answers and Ken would have to account for that when listening.
"I was one of the seventh supreme elders of the Bloodthirst Sect. All seven of us held similar authority, and there was nobody above us. Other than the Labyrinth of Blood which we created together to boost fourth-stage cultivators, we cooperated to build the inheritance grounds and each supreme elder got their own responsibilities."
"And this is your jurisdiction. Then, my first question is what was your rank when you were alive?"
Ken didn't know the background of the secret realm, so he had to begin from there. The sect seemed quite resourceful as it could offer many seventh-rank and even eighth-rank rewards, meaning they might be close in strength to the Phoenix Feather Sect.
"You don't know about the Bloodthirst Sect? We were very famous back then, and it sounds far-fetched that we were forgotten in mere 2000 years. Oh well, the supreme elders were all at the peak of the ninth stage, and none of us died. We ascended to Immortal Realm after we broke through and entered the tenth stage."
Ken was surprised to hear they were that powerful. It didn't add up that the sect collapsed in their absence; they wouldn't leave it powerless.
"If you were so powerful, why didn't you have competent inheritors to keep the sect going after your ascension?"
"The big sects should be aware of it, the Bloodthirst Sect wasn't our only sect, and each of us raised their inheritors in their main sects. Each of us came from a different powerful righteous sect from the top. I came from the Thunderclap Peak Sect; it used to compete for a spot in the top 5 back then, I'm not sure what happened to it."
"It didn't get the spot. It's ranked seventh in our continent now. The top five sects are Serene Lotus Sect, Peaceful Demon Sect, Four Seasons Sect, Divine Sword Sect, and Infinite Wisdom Sect, in this order."
Ken answered truthfully to the curious elder while processing the new knowledge he had just learned.
"I see. The plot of the Infinite Wisdom Sect to make the other top sects help them must have worked then. It doesn't matter; this isn't my real body and there is nothing I can do about it from the Immortal Realm. Do you have any other questions?"
"Why did you open the sect together if you guys were rivals?"
"When you reach the peak of the ninth stage the Mortal Realm loses its meaning to you as you can't gain anything worthy of your attention anymore. We only remain in our sects because we care about disciples and inheritors, but we still care more about ourselves."
Andreas started elaborating on the topic, and Ken remained silent as he listened patiently.
"Think about a rival from your sect. You are rivals and act as if you hated each other to the core while interacting inside the sect, but if you meet a foreign threat, like a person from another sect, you'd work together to defeat them."
Ken understood that while this parable wasn't always true as some humans might use such a chance to kill their rivals, it just meant that their rivalry was unhealthy and toxic.
"It's the same for us, peak ninth-stage cultivators. Once we break through the last hurdle and become immortals, we will ascend to an unfamiliar world. All of us come from the same continent and feel a certain connection with each other because of our shared origins, so we normally try to ascend simultaneously if we can time it."
Ken understood the logic, but there was still one thing that bothered him.
"What about those who can't become immortals? This last step can't be easy to take, can it?"
"It isn't easy. Most cultivators never cross this last hurdle, yet nobody tells themselves 'I can't break through to the next stage'. Instead, they keep trying until the last moment. Those who lose hope generally get depressed and rarely interact with the outer world; you can imagine the despair one might feel if they were one bottleneck away from eternal life yet cannot ever achieve it."
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