More than ten thousand years ago, a world collapsed because of its own people.
That world belonged to the Rayarn.
They were not primitive.
They were not struggling for survival.
They had already stepped beyond planetary limitations.
They built Void Ships capable of travelling through the emptiness between worlds.
When their homeworld decayed under the weight of their own advancement, they did not perish with it.
They fled.
Entire fleets of Void Ships pierced the void.
They became a wandering civilisation.
Searching.
Surveying countless worlds.
Most were unsuitable.
Some lacked sufficient energy.
Others lacked the elemental balance required for them.
Some were too unstable.
Others were already dying.
So they continued.
Years turned to centuries.
Centuries into millennia.
Until they found one.
A world vibrant with energy.
Stable tectonics.
Abundant resources.
They named it Neuhofnung, New Hope.
But Neuhofnung was not empty.
It was inhabited.
Not by a technologically advanced civilisation like theirs.
But by a self-transcendent one.
The inhabitants did not rely on machines to ascend.
They absorbed the world's spiritual energy directly.
Individuals cultivated.
They pursued transcendence.
Not race-wide mechanised transcendence like the Rayarn, but personal transcendence.
The Rayarn civilisation stood miles ahead in technological complexity.
Every Rayarn citizen was equivalent to a Second Stage transcendence.
Their entire race existed at a baseline level that surpassed most species.
They possessed Third Stage beings.
Even Demigod-level entities are engineered through technological evolution.
Yet Neuhofnung had something else.
A Fourth Stage transcendence.
A being who had merged with Law.
Numbers meant nothing before such existence.
The Rayarn could field legions of Second Stage entities.
But a Fourth Stage was not measured in numbers.
It was Law itself.
Direct confrontation would be costly.
Possibly disastrous.
So the Rayarn acted methodically.
They sent exploration units.
Stealth probes.
Cloaked research teams.
They studied Neuhofnung.
They discovered something critical.
The world's civilisation depended entirely on spiritual energy.
Without spiritual energy, cultivation ceased.
Without cultivation, transcendence halted.
Without transcendence, their civilisation would collapse.
The Rayarn could not eliminate spiritual energy.
But they could poison it.
They engineered contaminants.
Subtle distortions in energy resonance.
The initial results were devastating.
Cultivators faltered.
Energy pathways destabilised.
Entire sects collapsed.
The Rayarn advanced.
But Neuhofnung's civilisation adapted quickly.
They developed countermeasures.
Refinement methods.
Purification arrays.
Resistance techniques.
The Rayarn realised their advantage would not last.
So they invaded.
Void Ships descended.
Energy weapons tore through continents.
In only a few years, they occupied sixty per cent of the world.
Victory seemed inevitable.
Then the counterattack came.
Not strategic.
Not territorial.
But existential.
The world's civilisation cut two massive pieces from the planet itself.
They severed portions of reality.
The Fourth Stage, transcendence, known as the Spirit God, intervened directly.
Weakened from prolonged war, yet still immeasurable.
The Spirit God altered the Law of the world.
The spiritual energy shifted.
What once nourished the Rayarn now corroded them.
Spiritual energy began to devour silicon-based physiology.
In days, more than half of the Rayarn population died.
Their technological superiority meant nothing.
Their history ended there.
No record of final victory.
No record of survival.
Just extinction.
Kaelan sits in silence after absorbing these records.
Instead of answers, more questions arise.
The two severed pieces of the world,
One must be the Inner World.
The other?
The Blood Abyss Tunnel.
If so, then this world has no relation to the Ruin Abyss.
That would simplify matters.
But where did the world's civilisation go?
Where did the Rayarn remnants vanish?
Modern languages trace roots back to Rayarn structures.
Yet current inhabitants are carbon-based.
The Rayarn were silicon-based.
The people of today cannot descend from them.
Did the Rayarn escape?
Possible.
But Kaelan knows one thing.
If they waited beyond the world, his main body would have sensed them.
And devoured them.
Which means they are not outside.
Then they must be inside.
He understands something else.
The turmoil within the Inner World was likely caused by the original world civilisation.
Perhaps they attempted to return.
Their return does not concern him.
Even if they overpower every force on the surface world, they cannot conquer the Golden Sand Continent.
The Sand Temple's main base remains untouchable.
What concerns him is the Spirit God.
The Fourth Stage: transcendence.
Is the Spirit God dead?
Or alive?
If alive, why has it not reclaimed the world?
Is it waiting?
Recovering?
Preparing?
And then Dustin White.
Dustin is not an invader from outside.
He is from inside.
A transcendence from the former world civilisation.
The fragments make sense now.
Dustin White carries remnants of that era.
Before Kaelan delves deeper into the transcendence system of the former world and the technological transcendence of the Rayarn,
He hears a voice.
"Master."
Kaelan opens his eyes.
Clive stands nearby.
"Master, can I leave the ruin?"
Kaelan understands.
Clive has no interest in the library's secrets.
And without spiritual energy, cultivation here is limited.
"You may leave," Kaelan says calmly.
Clive bows slightly and turns.
Footsteps echo faintly as he walks away.
Kaelan closes his eyes again.
Kaelan closes his eyes again.
And continues exploring the past.
The former world civilisation did not rely on technology like the Rayarn.
Their transcendence system was called the Way of Mirage Weaver.
It began with the mind.
Mortals stepped onto the path by visualising a Dharma Body.
Through repeated visualisation, they awakened mental power.
This initial stage was called the Visualising Realm.
It corresponded to the mortal or apprentice stage of transcendence.
At this stage, nothing external changed.
The body remained ordinary.
But the mind began to sharpen.
Mental energy condensed.
The Dharma Body existed only as an image.
An anchor.
To advance to the First Stage: Power Stage, the practitioner visualised multiple Dharma Bodies.
Each Dharma Body represented a different aspect of existence.
From these visualisations, they formed unique powers.
Their mental energy could begin to affect reality.
Not fully.
Not dominantly.
But influence.
Distort.
Push.
Pull.
The illusion began to overlap with the real.
To advance to the Second Stage: Phantom Stage, the Mirage Weaver mastered additional powers and condensed a phantom projection of their Dharma Body.
The phantom could manifest partially outside the mind.
An externalised mental construct.
Not fully physical.
Not entirely illusory.
But present.
The Third Stage was called the Dharma Body Stage.
Here, the practitioner strengthened their phantom until it became stable.
Their power deepened.
Their mental force is intertwined with reality.
With mastery of multiple powers, they began touching the Law of the World.
Eventually, when their understanding matured, they formed their own Law.
The phantom body stabilised into the true Dharma Body.
To advance to the Demigod Stage was to reach the Great Mirage.
At this stage, the Dharma Body's power transformed the spirit space itself.
The practitioner's internal world became a Mirage.
An illusion city.
An illusion realm.
An illusion landscape.
Whatever they desired.
Within this Mirage, the practitioner could hijack the rule network of a localised area.
Reality bent.
Not through brute force.
But through overlay.
The Mirage imposed itself upon the surroundings.
There were no clear records of how to advance to the Fourth Stage.
Only a name remained.
The Weaver.
Nothing else.
No method.
No description.
Only the title.
Kaelan absorbs every detail.
This system is fundamentally mental.
Based on the mind and perception.
Not on spiritual energy as fuel alone.
But on the transformation of consciousness.
Then he reviews the Rayarn transcendence system.
There was none.
Not in the traditional sense.
They had no personal cultivation method.
They relied on genetic modification and bioengineering.
Through technological intervention, every Rayarn citizen was elevated to Second Stage transcendence.
Their Third Stage beings were engineered experiments.
Their Demigod entities were rare results of extreme enhancement.
Very few survived the process.
The records end there.
No method beyond Demigod.
No mention of a Fourth Stage equivalent.
Their civilisation relied on advancement through science, not Law comprehension.
Kaelan absorbs the rest of the subjects.
Engineering.
Energy systems.
Weaponry.
Structural science.
Much of it is advanced.
But limited in direct usefulness to him.
Except for one section.
Genetics and Bioengineering.
Their silicon-based physiology differs from his carbon-based structure.
Still, principles of structural optimisation and cellular reinforcement provide insight.
He refines his understanding of Flesh and Blood Alchemy.
He improves Life Alchemy slightly.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
What truly attracts him remains the Way of Mirage Weaver.
It is mental cultivation.
If he adapts it properly, it could complement his Law of Particle.
However, there is a problem.
Spiritual energy.
Dharma Bodies are constructs of transformed spiritual energy.
Even refined, their base remains spiritual energy.
And he knows the danger.
Spiritual energy entering his spirit space can cause damage if not properly controlled.
He would need to modify the technique.
Before attempting that, he must complete another task.
His body.
His Demigod Body is unstable in principle.
It is powerful.
But it is a patchwork of multiple Laws he comprehended over time.
Gravity.
Life.
Material.
Energy.
They coexist.
But they do not flow as one.
He must refine it.
He must let the Law of Particle permeate completely.
Only then can he unleash the full potential of his Demigod Body.
Only then can he step firmly toward the Fourth Stage.
And beyond.
But he cannot perform that transformation here.
The ruin is void of spiritual energy.
Transformation requires abundant energy.
He must leave eventually.
Before that, he must completely explore the ruin.
He opens his eyes.
Slowly.
He stands.
For weeks, he has remained seated in the same chair.
Silent.
Still.
Now, as he rises, every person in the chamber turns toward him.