The Three Realms worshipped the legend of the Eight Ancestors as primordial gods who had manifested the necessary elements for prosperity and development of an immortal civilization in addition to establishing the groundworks of the path of cultivation.
Many factions hosted an altar of worship open for the public to visit and pay their respects, in the hopes of receiving a blessing to empower the descendants.
There were even some fluctuations within the long spiral of time in which the factions underneath the Ancestors' aura fought against another for supremacy, of which forceful intervention was necessary to quell the dissent of the Three Realms.
Omnipotent, fortuitous, divine; these were a select few of the vast array of words utilized when praising the hard work of the Ancestors.
In the Three Realms, the only people who had never received any word of criticism were those eight who had literally founded the Three Realms by themselves.
But within the small and exceptionally bizarre clique that was formed of eight people… the label of an Ancestor was instantly degraded into one belonging to the lowest rungs of society.
Socially averse.
Incorrigibly and exceptionally lazy.
…and lacking in any friendship or companions of the opposite gender outside of the group that closed itself off from the rest of the Three Realms.
These eight people had remained since the beginning of time itself, and were the living witnesses to the establishment of the Three Realms as well as its greatest secrets. Their obtainment of their gifts that were regarded as divine were described by themselves as simple coincidence, and the title of an Ancestor brought nothing but eternal gloom and horror.
Their daily lives?
Eat meals with the same other seven people, play mahjong with the same other seven people, play weiqi with the same other seven people, with the occasional spar sprinkled in between here or there…
On and on, for hundreds of millions of years – perhaps even a few dozen billion years had already passed whilst continuing a single monotonous routine.
And as for why the Three Realms never detected the presence of one of the eight Ancestors or even a glimpse of their shadow, the reason was extraordinary and simple in its finest essence. If they were to be asked the question regardless of the Ancestor, the answer would never differ from one to the other.
They didn't display themselves towards the Three Realms because such an act would disrupt their daily routine with an unstoppable cacophony of noise and nuisance.
They didn't step forward to tinker with the progression of fate, time, or even the destiny of fellow immortals for it was a waste of time.
They didn't want to do it, they had other things to do – which was simply their daily routine rephrased into one implicated with a higher eloquence and significance in wording – and most importantly, they had no need for such trivial and tiresome action.
Thus, the Ancestors of the Three Realms numbered eight, but their divinity stretched over towards one unexplored realm.
Laziness.
"Ah, such misfortune – if only Old Lei was the one to come out instead of me."
Shang Xuan grumbled as he drifted through the infinite void, his hands propped against the back of his head as he stared into the vast darkness that awaited beyond the boundaries of space. The youth released a quick exhale of air as the flames swirling around his body flickered with an unknown emotion, before calming down to recover their purpose as clothing.
If it weren't for that one fated game in which that sickly woman won, he would have cornered Old Zhang into an inscalable rift. Afterwards, the punishment would have been…
"Don't think about it anymore, ah," the youth slapped himself on the head, before glancing towards an unrecognizable region of space concealed within the cold darkness of nihility.
"Just get to Old Meng's place! That'll probably be the best way out for me at this rate."
The Flame Ancestor's figure soon disappeared into the folds of the fabric known as spacetime, breaching through the Three Realms towards the intermediary that connected the three Planes into a unified existence.
As the ever-illustrious ember of flame vanished from the Three Realm's perception, a hundred and thirty million stone, gold, and jade altars crumbled into powder.
There were still equally thrice as many remaining intact, but that was to be discussed at a later point.
-
Games played between the eight Ancestors always involved gambling, and the stakes of each gamble exceeded the limits of the graceful tolerance bestowed onto the denizens of the Three Realms.
The members of the Immortal Plane might raise stakes of gold, properties, even regions of land if they were sufficiently desperate or reckless. The Demon Plane's denizens would bet personal properties and a unique drink called a Bloody Mary, though they abstained from the random exchange of ownership belonging to charted regions.
The Eight Ancestors… placed stakes of the three Planes' denizens and their fates.
Whether the faction worshipping the Water Ancestor would obliterate the Flame Ancestor's devotees for the next million years; whether the Three Realms would lose access to one of the five elements for a certain period of time, or if the Supreme Immortals of the Realm were to receive a fateful epiphany that was no more than a prank dispatched by an Ancestor – all options were on the table and fully open for discussion.
The last game he had played, Shang Xuan had placed forth the stake that the Water Ancestor could not wear any underwear for the next three million years. As if to counter him, the Wind Ancestor had obliterated the courage and dignity of all eight Ancestors present with a single statement.
The absolute loser of the game was to roam throughout the Three Realms for a thousand years – a death sentence for these eight freaks who knew nothing about interacting in society beyond the range of their room.
…and Shang Xuan had lost spectacularly and with great fanfare, without managing to have scrounged up a single point.
As a result, the Flame Ancestor had been booted out of his own humble and comfortable abode, thrust into the cruel, gaping jaws of society that was known as the Three Realms. As if to make matters worse, the first person he had encountered was a springy little girl by the name of Yu Lian, one daughter amongst many of the Jade Emperor's lineage.
...to this day, Shang Xuan clearly remembered the sequence of events that had led to his current predicament.
If he was compelled to summarize in three sentences at the most, the Flame Ancestor could only give an answer not too far from this:
The little lass was being chased by an entire horde of immortals from the Demon Plane seeking an "interactive" cultivation for her loss at the gambling table. Shang Xuan had accidentally breached the spacetime barrier and stepped into the Three Realms directly before Yu Lian, causing everyone present to assume that he was a newly ascended immortal from the Mortal Plane.
The next moment, without gauging the differences in abilities between the common, layman of an immortal and an Ancestor who introduced the concept of fire into the Three Realms, Shang Xuan had incinerated all of the Demon Plane's offenders present at the scene, forcing them into a recuperative slumber for at least a few million years.
…and the little lass had become insufferably attached to him from that moment onwards, even resorting to her father's supreme authority within the Immortal Plane to claim him as her husband.
As for the series of events afterwards, that was –
"That was clearly more than three sentences, and you're now beginning on your fifth."
Meng Po smiled as she watched the Flame Ancestor's rage surge towards just below its maximum tolerable limit from the mention of the little lass of the Immortal Plane and her name, the schadenfreude expression on her countenance continuing to expand without abating.
The old lady watched the myriad of souls crawl along the bridge of red bricks, some losing their grip and falling into the river that pierced time.
"So?"
Meng Po raised an eyebrow, her right hand slapping the back of a nearby succubus' head after noticing that she had become considerably lazy in preparing the soup for the mortals to drink.
Ignoring the scrunched up eyes and the expression seeking pity on the artificially manipulated countenance, the old lady sighed and turned back towards the patiently waiting Ancestor of Flame.
"Old Shang, what do you need from me?"
"I want to take a vacation – I might seriously explode and ruin the entire Three Realms if I don't get a break soon," Shang Xuan replied with a solemn voice.
"That's why… Old Meng, can you open a Dragon Gate for m-"
"Oh… the Dragon Gate is closed for now, didn't you know?"