This comfortable air and aura in general continued on surrounding Eisen and simply became stronger and stronger the longer he stayed here. At some point, it didn"t even feel all that unnatural, and it was like he always felt this way. He was able to keep himself awake properly, and it became easier over time as well despite the comfortable air continuing to grow stronger and stronger while Eisen fell.
And soon, he reached the ground. It was sudden, and he didn"t even realize that he landed on the ground at first. It was like he simply stood there all of a sudden. No impact, no force, nothing. He was just there. All of Eisen"s transformation"s were completely removed from him at the same time without Eisen noticing, and he seemingly returned to his normal size, not that he had any proper point of reference for this. He just knew.
Eisen was standing on a large platform made of carved rock with different n.o.ble metals, gems, crystals, and other beautiful materials of the sort worked into it.
The first thing that the old man did was take a deep breath while turning around and trying to see if there was anything else but this carved rock platform underneath his feet. He looked around a couple times, but the whole time, there was just nothing there around him but that platform and the universe above him in the form of a beautiful starry sky.
For a few moments, he actually just looked up at that sky, realizing that he quite seldomly spent time to just relax and look at beautiful sights like this just for the sake of the experience. Everything that he did these days was for a greater purpose, but never for just the basic experience itself. It was a sad thing in the old man"s opinion, especially considering that in the past, before he ever set foot into the capsule, he only did things for the experience.
Especially in the past couple of years after his arm had been injured. Eisen tried a lot of new things that he could actually still do. He spent a lot of time reading books he never even considered reading before, went on a few hikes, watched beautiful sceneries, and basically just tried to indulge in the little things of life a little more, while he still had the time to actually do so.
While staring into the sky, the light of the stars reflecting from his eyes, Eisen suddenly heard a voice from right behind him, "How wonderful it is to see that you realize the beauty of this place."
Eisen turned around as quickly as he could and stared at the figure that was now in front of him. It was the figure of a completely androgynous person with white angelic wings. They were wearing a white suit with silver linings and details, and smiled at Eisen gently. The old man wasn"t sure if he recognized this Angel or not. Momentarily it would feel like he did, but the next moment it felt like he didn"t. After just blinking for a moment, it would feel like Eisen was looking at a whole other person, like this Angel"s face was slowly but steadily s.h.i.+fting and changing constantly. Although, Eisen couldn"t actually spot anything like this directly happening.
"Who are you?" Eisen asked bluntly, and the Angel quietly chuckled, "I am your guide for the heavens. Even considering how great of a being you are, we cannot allow you to wander this realm alone. You are still alive, after all."
Eisen slowly relaxed after hearing this, since it was really quite logical for this to be the case. This was literally heaven, there were bound to be a few things here and there that the G.o.ds didn"t want a living person to see, after all.
The old man looked at the Angel in front of him, "So, what should I call you, if I should call you anything at all."
With a slight laugh, the Angel closed its eyes and just smiled, "You can call me whatever you wish, but the name I was given by the G.o.ds is Ambriel." It explained to the old man, who quickly nodded his head.
"Alright, Ambriel. Then tell me, as my guide, what do I need to do to be acknowledged by the G.o.ds of Heaven." Eisen asked, and Ambriel continued to smile, "I had thought you would never ask. It is quite simple. In order to get the u003cAcknowledgement of Heaven"s G.o.dsu003e, all you need to do is enter the G.o.dly realms of ten different G.o.ds, and receive the acknowledgement of those ten G.o.ds. Of course, even if you can"t gain the acknowledgement of one G.o.d, don"t worry, you can try however long you want." Ambriel explained, "There really is no way for you to completely fail this general quest."
[New Quest - Acknowledgement of Heaven"s G.o.ds]
[Description] You have entered heaven and are trying to be acknowledged by the G.o.ds. After encountering the Guide-Angel Ambriel, you were told that you had to get acknowledged by ten different greater G.o.ds in order to accomplish this.
[Conditions] Be acknowledged by ten G.o.ds of heaven (0/10)
[Reward] u003cAcknowledged by Heaven"s G.o.dsu003e t.i.tle
[Penalty] None
Eisen looked at the Quest notification with a light grin before proceeding to wave it away. He immedaitely looked at Ambriel.
"So, where do I need to go to meet the G.o.ds?" The old man asked. Ambriel slowly turned around and started to walk toward the edge of this rock platform, quickly followed by Eisen himself.
Once they reached the edge, Ambriel stood there and looked forward toward the nothingness, the universe that he could now see in front of him as well.
"Erm... So, where is it?" Eisen asked again, not sure if Ambriel properly understood him, but the Angel just laughed as he looked at him, "We"re there already." Slowly, Ambriel turned around and started to walk into the center of the platform again, or so Eisen thought.
But when the old man turned around as well, he saw that this very much wasn"t the case. Instead, Eisen found that he was suddenly inside of a giant hall, the walls covered in doors belonging to different deities.
"All these doors belong to greater G.o.ds." Ambriel swiftly explained quickly, and Eisen looked around with his eyes wide open and his mouth slightly agape at the sight in front of him.
This was an incredibly well-decorated hall that gave off a feeling of pure honor and divinity. There were incredibly intricate carvings everywhere, on the doors, the ground, the pillars holding this ceiling up, literally everything. It seemed like this hall was at the same time infinitely big and infinitely small, like he could reach every point he wanted to with just a single step while standing still, but the moment he started to move, the distance between point A and B became painfully apparent.
"I see... Then, first things first, I would like to enter the Crystal Dragon King Trygan"s realm." The old man said bluntly, and without a moment"s hesitation, Ambriel nodded his head and started to walk toward the door in question.
Eisen followed him and soon reached the door. On the front, it had something like a dragon figurine set into it with the two wings being the actual two sides of the double-door entrance. The old man pushed against those two doors and noticed as they were pushed open with a blinding bright light that forced him to shut his eyes.
And the moment that he managed to open his eyes again, he wasn"t inside of the hall anymore, but instead found himself standing in the middle of a gra.s.sy plateau with a cool, pleasant breeze hitting his skin. The old man took a look around himself, and immediately noticed something in the distance. Different dragons flying through the sky, as if racing each other.
Eisen walked over toward the side of the plateau and looked down, seeing even more dragons just laying around and sleeping in the sun in the distance. But the thing that Eisen really noticed even more was the actual town that he saw in the distance. It was truly enormous, huge, spanning further than Eisen could see right now.
There were towers made of crystal scattered inbetween the regular structures of all sorts of architectural styles, and had numerous dragons flying around above it.
"This is Trygan"s realm?" Eisen asked with a light smirk on his face, and Ambriel, who was still with him, slowly nodded their head.
"Yes, it is. It"s quite beautiful, is it not? You will find similar sights in the other realms, but each one has a specific sort of beauty to it that is unique to that realm. Of course, there are numerous dragons of all sorts here that used to wors.h.i.+p Trygan, but there are also plenty of people that did the same. There are few people that never found themselves at least somewhat tied toward any one of the G.o.ds" ideologies, especially since there are numerous different G.o.ds. If you then die, you will go to the realm of that G.o.d. However, if you were truly good without a deity"s morale to influence you, there are more options than that. Some become Angels, others get the chance to be reborn if they so wish. Otherwise, if they want neither, they can spend their afterlife in any one of the heavens they wish to be in."
"Are there those that changed their mind after death, or became different people so that they don"t align with the deity in whose heaven they are?" Eisen asked, and Ambriel quietly started to think about that question, before nodding, "I do think that quite rarely, there are those types. You see, just being pure souls, there are little ways to change their nature, so most likely, they will change very little compared to when they die. But rarely, when that is the case and the deity in charge of them notices this, the soul will be allowed to change the realm they reside in to the one that would fit their soul then. After all, there is little reason to punish them for something like that."
Eisen slowly looked toward the huge town filled with the souls of the dead, and then slowly tried to activate his Draconic Demon King transformation. And it did work, but somehow, Eisen could only turn into his complete yang version, and couldn"t s.h.i.+ft that at all. He figured that was just the influence of heaven.
The old man flapped his draconic wings and soon was pulled off the ground, before starting to fly toward the town to find Trygan. He was probably there, after all.
He was swiftly followed by Ambriel, who would most likely only watch the old man"s actions for now. But either way, for now, it was time to get officially acknowledged by his son for the second time now.