The voice was angry, then bitter, following with being resentful and finally determined.
‘I put my plan into motion, commencing with eradicating the little lizards whose evolution feasted on my energy’.
A series of images took shape in front of Zax’s eyes, the destructive end of the Prehistoric age, a number of Ice Ages, the dawn of the h.o.m.o sapiens.
‘Using myself as the mold, I urged the creation of intelligent beings that could shoulder the legacy’.
Time sped up; images of the h.o.m.o sapiens turn into the modern man have appeared.
‘I was running out of time by this point. My consciousness was slipping away more frequently, each time I regained my awareness too much have changed, but the progress I was waiting for was still remote. The new species, humanity and beasts, had too dull of a perception to take up cultivation of the three aspects, they were ineligible for the legacy’.
The peak of humanity, the Information Age. Humanity evolved a lot faster than beasts and was taking more and more steps into s.p.a.ce.
‘Desperate measures for desperate times. My death of body and dispersion of spirit was imminent to occur before either species would be ready, another method had to be formulated before that!’
Earth splitting and rays of dark light erupted, approximately 5794 years ago. Black mist filled the earth, adding layer upon layer of new crust on it. New beings emerged, birthed, from the ground, the like of which neither humanity nor beast have ever seen before.
‘The Age of Catastrophe, I knew that is I bring for them, a threat of extinction. But it was necessary for further evolution, to which I left two roads for humanity and beasts. The first was to conquer the Earth from the new emerging Deformed Beings and discover from them the secret of Pure Core. The second, to immigrate to the sanctuary I constructed below the ground and take the time they need to slowly grow up from there’.
In a period of several years, groups of humanity and beasts kept converging in one location, “South America” back then, “Selivereb” today. Some arrived to discuss the prospect of immigration into the network of tunnels and giant caves, some still hoped to debate the reuse of nuclear weapons against the terrorizing odd beings. Finally humanity divided to a small group that has decided to stay and fight and another group, the majority of humanity world’s population who followed the beasts to below the ground.
‘Those who stayed behind were ignorant and brought their own annihilation. The rest proceeded toward the direction I desired they will go. I closed my eyes, at the moment of death I split a fragment of my empty soul, a clone, to administer the enchanting of humanity’s and beasts’ apt.i.tude till a capable heir for the legacy would be found’.
The images stopped, a flood of information entered Zax’s sea of consciousness.
‘My clone cannot communicate; only follow the instruction I left for it. Hence, this would be my final word to the potential heir’.
‘Frankly, if I could trade your life for my own, I would have done so in a heartbeat… but these are not the words I hope to end with, so listen carefully. Humanity or Beast, whoever you may be, in you, in all of you, there is my hereditary legacy. It may not equal the mightiest legacy I carried with me and left for the chosen heir, but nonetheless, it is a wealth of the Pinnacle of the Immortal path!‘
The voice dimmed to complete silence.
Zax’s gradually regained his composure and control of himself.
He remembered everything, and knitted his brows as he felt a headache from the information flood entangled at every corner of his sea of consciousness.
Without thinking, Zax sat on the Inner Panorama and began to make sense of the information the Black Core’s owner delivered him.
‘Legacy… Legacy… Legacy…’ Zax repeated on and on, struggling to uncover what the expert had meant.
He could feel a sense of great importance tied to the hereditary legacy the expert mentioned, something very personal, yet not just for him.
He skimmed and rearranged the information flood in his sea of consciousness. There was not a lot to begin with, but it all was too confusing to effectively deduce in its mess of a state.
Five days later.
‘It’s finally organized fully!’
It was grueling. If had to make sense of this information before he broke through, Zax suspected that it would have taken him couple of months, at the earliest. The complexity its owner encrypted it demanded an extremely adapt soul, and Zax, Even after he broke through, it was still not enough and he was only able to divide what to what and simplified part of it.
‘Only two subjects… the shortest one is related to the expert’s legacy and I nearly figured out all of it. In comparison, the other subject is about the mightiest legacy, and apart from the little of it that I understood, it seems that it would take me to break through the second realm of bodily cultivation to be eligible for further decryption’.
The mightiest legacy subject was like a locked door and a window to see what is on the other side beside it. The problem was that the gla.s.s of the window was bent; therefore all the shapes behind it looked distorted. To open the door, the owner of the expert left a brief description of what Zax may find on the other side and two instructions, with the crucial one crossing the threshold to the second realm of bodily cultivation.
Since it was unknown to Zax when he will break through, he concentrated on the first subject, before occupying himself with what little he has of the other subject.
‘Incredible!’ Zax exclaimed as he revised the information.
Questions humanity and beasts never even knew to ask, he obtained their answers!
The expert, whoever he may be, a G.o.dly creature, Zax was nearly certain that he was. He not only forced the evolution of humanity and beasts, but also pa.s.sed his own knowledge to the two species with them being oblivious of the matter.
It started from creating a close environment, abundant with Sun Stones that constantly emit a salubrious radiation. Then Earth’s Cores emerged, first in the beasts’ territory, since their evolution was faster. By the time Earth’s Core began to copiously appear in humanity’s territory, a deal was already struck with the beasts and scavenging Earth’s Cores in Kingdom Earth became illegal.
Sun Stones are one thing, but Earth’s Cores were the grand surprise that astonished Zax.
From the information he understood, the Earth’s Cores of New Earth and Ercas Mir are actually semi pure Cores that are the output of the strong Core at the center of the planet.
And not only planets’ Core can produce such things as semi pure Core. Generally, a Martial Immortal will be able to generate additional Cores and the pureness of his or her own Core will determined if the new Cores would be Pure or embedded, to a degree, with an attribute.
After nurturing on the expert’s energy, the Core of the planet thrived with vigor and naturally started to sp.a.w.n deposits of what humanity and beasts refer to as “Earth’s Cores“.
Inside the environment the expert created, his clone had the power to control the output of Earth’s Cores and modify them further with accordance to the orders it was given, and here lay the part that Zax had hard time to believe, and a little to be content with.
The expert’s clone hastened the search of an heir for the mightiest legacy by creating one. How was it done? Precisely through the Earth’s Cores humanity and beasts were, and still are, so eager to embed to their bodies.
The modification in the Earth’s Cores initiated, in a process that has been taking place for almost two millenniums, genetic mutations that can affect one or more of the three aspects of some humans and beasts in order to increase their compatibility and potential in various fields that meet the preconditions of the mightiest legacy.
These mutations are one of the two major causes of why every few decades a new generation that outshines the old one is born in New Earth. Moreover, due to the effects of the mutations, although Zax did not guess so far, humans and beasts of New Earth are so attractive to the five power of Ercas Mir.
Zax was a bit hesitant with the thought of interfering with the natural course of humans’ evolution. Affecting through Sun Stone, that he could stomach, humanity discovered this issue on its own, anyway. But deceiving and making all the humans and beasts unaware of an additional effect in Earth’s Cores, one that should normally not even exist… It particularly did not sit well with Zax since he realized that he, his big sister, probably, Laivien and more… are the result of the expert’s clone’s experiment!
‘Then again…’ Zax could not help but sigh. ‘I finally gained clarity for what makes my soul so unique”.
Ultimately the experiments could not be considered malevolent; they did not harm anyone and were for the benefit of the two species. It was only the invasive method the clone used that gave them a distasteful impression.
‘This matter, on the other hand…’ Zax referred to the second major cause.
The clone did not only modify Earth’s Core to mutate the three aspects, but also imbedded them with fragments of the expert’s knowledge that a.s.similated in several humans and beasts through Earth’s Cores or blood relations, that is, hereditary from a parent to a child – if the parent could not resolve the knowledge before a certain activity and other variables of the sort.
Learning this has shaken Zax even more than the prospect of being a science experiment. In New Earth there are a lot of Martial techniques and cultivation techniques of various grades, to think that there is a high chance that the best of them do not actually belonged to their creators, that their hard work inventing these techniques is nothing but meaningless and it is all just a matter of chance for them to unbeknownst possess the expert’s knowledge fragment to act as their blueprint.
Thinking about it from the perspective of an ancient expert, like the one who started the chain reaction that led to the current times in New Earth, one would not need to put up an effort in order to see how high the probability that all of the best Martial techniques and cultivation techniques in New Earth are, in all likelihood, related to the expert’ knowledge fragments. After all, is it really that easy, coming up with this grade of techniques, in less than two millenniums?
Zax was conflicted. If debated with himself whether to reveal what he learned about the Earth’s Cores mutation to his Master, to spare the burden of things better kept a mystery, he really struggled to convince himself that he should not hide the matter of the expert’s knowledge fragments.
To great experts who cultivated spectacular Martial techniques like Grandmaster Kartion, Elijah, Supreme Ruler Ariel and more… all the pride that they held and hold for their invention, if the truth will come out, will convert into disgrace.
Yes, regardless of being guided by the expert’s knowledge fragments, they did work themselves into physical and emotional fatigue for these marvelous techniques. But would it matter to them if they will know the truth? Will they recognize the fact that now anyone could accomplish their feats and that it would be improper to see themselves as the expert’s puppets?
‘I can’t keep this to myself’. Zax knew that it would be morally wrong and, in a way, a sign of disrespect to not tell his Master, at least. ‘Alone I cannot make a decision in the matter and be fine with it. I will seek Master advice’. He chose.
Zax composed himself. He learned some amazing things from the short subject that would take him time to completely digest. Till then, he decided to examine what little he granted from the heavily encrypted, second subject.