"What about the third trial?" I asked, confused.
"You just passed it." Claudius said cryptically while smiling. I just looked at him until he broke down, "You're no fun." Seeing an ancient man pout is just... wrong.
"Almost all of our secret techniques require you to be a mindscape cultivator, so in order to pass you have be a mindscape cultivator. Some join the Refuge with other energy vessels, but only as an outer member. In the old days, we didn't even let them join, but we're too lazy to do all the work ourselves so we changed the rules. In fact, you're the first person to qualify to join as a True Disciple in over a thousand years. Smith managed to reach the peak of dantian cultivation, then destroyed his cultivation and re-cultivated as a dual cultivator, dantian and mindscape, so he became a true disciple a little over 500 years ago."
"Why so long?" I asked, "I mean, I know mindscape cultivator's are rare but not once in a thousand years rare."
"We don't just accept any mindscape cultivator you know." He said, almost looking insulted by my question. "Most who awaken their mindscape disdain training their bodies the fools. They automatically fail, so there goes at least 80% of the possible members. Next, they have to have at least a high level affinity with both Air and Lightning Elemental Energy to qualify, which cuts the remaining 20% to 0-1%. Then, they have to actually pass the trial's while staying alive. You took a different route than normal, but on average only 1-2 people manage to survive in the forest for 6 days."
"How do you have any members then?" I asked really surprised by the numbers he was giving me.
"Because we're strong!" An aura of power emanating from his body so strong that I had to grit my teeth to stay standing. "A thousand years is nothing to those strong enough! Now, you need to understand something before we continue!" At that point, his aura disappeared, but his eyes suddenly grew hard and as he stared at me it felt as though he could see through my soul. "You've read the histories, so if you have half a brain then you must've realized by now that the people here know about Earth?"
Nodding my head, I said, "Yes."
"Good, just so you know everyone here was born on Earth. When the forefather made this dimension, he set it up to collect the souls of anyone he deemed worthy to be reborn here after death. After reaching a certain level of power we reawaken our memories and gain the ability to return to Earth and protect it from them!" His voice boomed with a combination of pride and arrogance that spoke of uncountable battles spent protecting the Earth.
"What are they?" I asked, "I've read about them in every history of 2nd chance. The thousands of battles, and the Witch of Calamity finally pushing them back a few hundred years ago."
"They have no true form, it'd be better to call them corrupted energy. Aberrations taking the form of what they think scares us the most. The Christian Devil, Zombies, Monsters, the boogeyman, etc... Mostly, they're weak and easily beaten. It's when thousands upon thousands of them congregate that they gain strength, feeding off of each other until they gain sentience. Not true sentience, just a twisted kind of hunger and just enough reason to figure out the best way to feed it. The worst part is, the world actually feeds off of them. Without them it'd die."
"What? Everything I've heard is that nothing would be better than the total defeat of them!"
"Yes, that's what most think, but what we've found is that the world works just like plants do. We breathe out and create carbon dioxide, plants use the carbon dioxide to grow and breathe out oxygen. In this case, the world uses corrupted energy, converting it into pure elemental energy. After a while, the energy is converted back into the corrupted energy by the void, creating a cycle of life. The problem is that when that massive asteroid struck the Earth, it broke the balance. Seeing that coming, the forefather created this dimension in order to allow us to retain enough strength to fight back, to buy enough time for the world to recover and restore the balance."
"So what you're saying is that we don't want to destroy them, just hold them off long enough?"
"Not just hold them off, but win enough battles to restore the balance between the two sides!" He said. "I know about the implants, they're an ingenious combination of formations and mortal technologies that will allow billions of mortals to train, giving them a fighting chance. The heavy hitters, the truly strong corrupted will be dealt with by those of us who've lived for thousands of years and gained the power to destroy worlds!"
"It's the little guys who sneak through that wreck havoc on Earth. Every time a wave of them comes, at least 50% of the world's population human, beast, insect, etc... dies! Every wave is more and more difficult to fight off, while we're confident of fighting the one approaching us now, and several more after that even. If we want to win the war, we need to increase the number of powerhouses who can fight them in the void! That's what the implants do, they ensure a giant pool of beginner cultivators. The talented and lucky will gain power, eventually becoming strong enough to join the real fight."
"Now, you have a choice to make. You didn't know about any of this, or that by joining the Storm's Refuge you'd be joining a powerful faction on Earth too. By joining us you'll gain our allies, and our enemies! You'll be our representative among the newest group of cultivators. Honestly, we didn't expect to find someone who qualified to join us, even with another 5 billions cultivators about to start their journeys. So, I'm giving you the choice. You can either join us, or forget everything and wake up thinking you died in the goblin caves failing the trial."
*DING*
*Faction Change Alert*
*Claudius ******* has given you a choice*
*YES . NO*
*Rewards: Inheritance of the Storm, become a True Disciple of one of the most powerful sect's in existence.*
*Warning, accepting this faction change will mark your soul as a member of the Storm for all time. The only way to leave the Storm is to destroy your soul!*
'Holy Shit! That's not what I was expecting. Destroy my soul? That's seriously shit right there.'
"I have some friends, one's a Holy Knight, the other is trying to join the Barbarians of Rafta, and the last joined the Pure Sword Sect. Also, I'm pretty sure that my parents are cultivator's. I won't join if that makes me enemies with them."
"Storm's Refuge is different from those sects and secular powers, we float on the wind staying above the fray. Of course, only our power makes that possible. Our only enemies are the corrupted, cultivator's who choose to take the easy path to power by using corrupted energy and consorting with them to destroy the planet! That being said, if you're parents are cultivators, they may be strong enough to know of us. Take some time to ask them, and think about it."
*Ding*
*Claudius ****** has given you 24 hours to make a choice, use it wisely.*