Chapter 1847 Traditional Paths vs Faith-based Path
?"What happened to your clone? How did she betray you and become the Witch Goddess Two Lips?"
Eren asked after pondering for a bit.
The natal clone was still the goddess' clone. As such, she should have been able to dictate her actions to a large extent.
Even if she allowed her some free will out of her own volition, she couldn't possibly allow the clone to betray the main body without a significant reason.
Eren's pseudo-avatars had "suicide bomb" mechanisms installed in them for this very reason.
One part of the reason was so that he could protect his identity in case of extreme situations, like what happened to one of his clones when he encountered Nira Nightshade.
The other part of the reason was so that the pseudo-avatars wouldn't betray him no matter how much freedom Eren offered to them.
"My clone becoming a goddess was part of my plan," the goddess Great Mother said in an unhurried voice. "However, she chose a different method from the one I planned for her to take," the goddess then looked at Eren curiously before asking.
"Eren, do you know what comes after S-Plus Rank?"
Eren smiled wryly. "No," he said honestly.
The goddess shook her head as if she half-expected it to be the case. She then looked at him teasingly before answering her own question. "The answer to your question is– a big fat nothing."
Eren looked at the goddess with a deadpan expression. He couldn't believe that the goddess had a weird sense of humor in her.
The goddess scrunched her nose in annoyance as if Eren didn't appreciate the joke she had made. She then shook her head as if this was not the first time someone didn't appreciate her sense of humor. She cleared her throat before speaking further.
"There's no path to progress after the Saint Rank for the ones who walk on the non-faith-based Paths. The Path of the Practitioners simply cuts off after they reach the S-Plus Rank and there's no easy way to cross the chasm that is ahead of them. This is the case for almost all of the Practitioners no matter which non-faith-based Path they are walking on," the goddess explained.
"Oh?" Eren raised his eyebrows, his ears perked up. Thankfully, the goddess had brought the subject up on her own that he wanted to talk about. "Do you mean there's something else waiting for the non-faith-based S-Plus-ranked Practitioners once they do end up crossing the chasm in front of them?"
"Indeed," the goddess nodded before speaking further. "S-Plus Rank is the end of the line for all the non-faith-based Paths. But that is only true if you allow it to be true.
Strictly speaking, it's not that there's no way ahead to progress forward, but the difficulty of progressing forward is just too difficult. After the S-Plus Rank, a non-faith-based Practitioner would have to find a way to galvanize the Origin Force from the boundless cosmos. Only then can they refine it for themselves and become a Faithless Celestial."
"Faithless Celestial?" Eren looked puzzled. "What is that?"
"A Faithless Celestial is someone who has managed to become an Immortal without cultivating the God Spark within them. Their own souls are their God Sparks.
Frankly speaking, the so-called God Spark is like a door that allows you to welcome Origin Force into your soul. However, a Faithless Celestial tempers its own soul and creates many smaller windows in its existential fabric to refine Origin Force in a different way.
A Faithless Celestial is often more powerful than an Immortal who uses faith energy to refine Origin Force indirectly," the goddess explained patiently.
She could tell that Eren still had a lot of questions on his mind, so she decided to address them all in one go before presenting him with the deal she had in mind.
"Let me put it this way– there's a huge chasm that exists for anyone who has reached the S-Plus Rank.
It's like one needs to take a long jump if they ever want to reach the other side of the river.
If you fail to reach the other side in a single jump and get dropped in the river, then the unruly river currents will never allow you to make a comeback and you'll drown.
On the other hand, if you end up reaching the other side of the river in a single jump, you become a Faithless Celestial.
What a Faith-based path does is add stepping stones for you to cross the river so that your journey from one side to the other side of the river can be broken into smaller jumps.
This is why it is often said that the Path of Faith starts when a Practitioner's hope ends. That being said, the path of faith is not a linear progress that one has to go through after reaching the end of their existing path. Rather, it's a journey one can start at any time."
"I still don't understand," Eren spoke honestly. The goddess smiled and took a deep breath before explaining patiently.
"Let's take you for example," the goddess said.
"You are what we Immortals like to call exceptions among exceptions. This is because you managed to obtain a God Spark even before you were baptized by the existential laws of the boundless cosmos.
It baffles me how your soul survived the assimilation process when you didn't even reach the S-Rank at the time. Your mindset, mentality, and Individuality must be as infallible as an Immortal Writ for you to become a demi-god. That being said, it proves the point that I was trying to make earlier."
The goddess paused for a while, allowing Eren to digest what she said before speaking further.
"Currently you are using the support of the two distinct rows of the stepping stones to progress forward, Eren. One of the rows of the stepping stones is your Ranker's Path while the other is made available to you after you claim a God Spark for yourself.
When you reach the S-Plus Rank, your Ranker's Path will come to an end but your path to the divinity will still allow you to progress forward, more safely.
Your Divinity will stagnate if people stop giving emotional responses to your direct and indirect actions, words, and presence.
However, if you choose not to cultivate followers or faith energy, it will not impede your Ranking Journey.
Divinity is a status that exists outside one's Path and yet is connected to it in some way.
Divinity is like the 200th floor of a towering construction when it only has 100 or so floors in existence. Having access to divinity doesn't mean that you have actually reached the 200th floor. It's more like now you know there's a 200th floor levitating in the skies above the towering construction.
With the God Spark, you probably have a lift access that'll make you reach there sooner, in a safer manner.
However, the faith-based path doesn't need to be walked on only after one reaches the end of their existing traditional Path.
For example, technically speaking, even an F-Ranked Novice can become a new demigod if they survives the process of assimilation with the God Spark.
Once they achieve demi-god status, they'll find it easy to achieve breakthroughs in Ranks and reach the pinnacle of their Path that much sooner. Why? Because they can now use two distinct rows of stepping stones to move forward, which will allow them to find better balance as they walk ahead.
However, true Divinity starts when one's Path ends.
And yes, one can achieve Divinity even without amassing followers if they can find a way to progress forward even after their supposed Path ends– that is the way of the Faithless Celestial."
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