"Beautiful woman are a marvel to look at and thats it, when a single being takes a place in your heart so much that it becomes deeply entrenched in your beliefs, what happens when they die? your cultivation will stagnate at best or end. Cultivation is a story of sacrifice after sacrifice, a cultivators life isn't a fantasy story where you collect dozens of beauties who can never die and all love you, it's called a fantasy after all, we all wish for it but it can never be"
- Demonic Lord Vasvin ~ Heaven defying Tyrant
In the dark of the void a large ark started to appear befor the elders flying vessel.
Elder Proteus - "Currently the situation inside the flagship is peaceful with few passenger lodging complaints of any sorts, but space is very tight with no room for any sort of outdoor garden what so ever or was... The ark contains 2 levels but can be said to be 4 or more, the first level is the high density housing, the second is the wilderness, while the others can be said to be the sky, underground, mirror world, and the unknown amount of secret domains that have appeared as of recent"
Stopping here the elder checked one of the screens in the control deck and with a thought the screen images changed.
Ancestor Nordaine - "Why add these screens to the flying ship elder, why not just use psychic waves to project it onto our minds like normal or spiritual sense?"
The ancestor shifted the conversation once more
Psychic waves was simply a method to transfer information from one point to another building a mental image in the receivers head to show the most accurate images and sounds possible without the user having to suffer any ill effects from the images or sounds being transmitted, while spiritual sense required the users spirit to interact with components inside the shuttle to activate and steer it but no image will be shown inside the mind, it will all be up to the users spiritual sense to navigate everything.
In a sense spiritual sense could be used like a radar to give you a rough layout of the land, unless you are extremely proficient or above Deity transformation stage it's simply more effective to use mind techniques for the general populations benefit.
The elder nodded as if please with his 'students' question "The void does not allow for this, everything from psychic energy, spiritual sense, to even future sight is basically null here. Psychic energy traveling for even a few centimeters in the void breaks down and twists the sound, by the time it arrived to your head it will be unrecognizable to its original sound or image, while spiritual sense is directly part of you so any damage to it is considered unacceptable and since the void degrades any sort of energy the moment spiritual sense leaves the body it will start being damaged, as for future sight... with no realm to predict or control the future possibilities we have no way to use it"
Ancestor Nordaine - "So this was the best method? why not use biomechanics instead or why not go even further and just make things mechanical?"
Elder Proteus - "Well unless we can adapt life to the void its impossible to use biomechanical organisms on smaller vessels like these, they tend to mutate or breakdown quickly, as for mechanical controls they require too much maintenance so its simply easier to use digital technology for displays made to receive simple commands although basically every vessel has mechanical components aswell"
In the end spiritual energy was used for the vessel to move, other propulsion systems simply weren't common and with little to no information about the endless void they simply had to go in blind.
The display in mention was rather comfortable to look at, with no overly bright display to burn your retinas but the screen seem a bit simple along with the imagines.
Elder Proteus - "Each flying vessel uses jade slips like these to function, without them while you can still fly you will have no navigation whatsoever"
The elder pointed at the left hand side where he had inserted a thin rectangular slip into an open slot, he simply added a tad bit of information for her to know in the future
Elder Proteus - "Going back to our main topic, the situation in the flag ship is generally complicated with the Bell family currently holding a majority of the power in the ark, if you consider that they have about 40% of the arks population in their debt which by default makes them the largest faction onboard the ark"
Elder Proteus put an image on display with a list of different names on it
Elder Proteus - "This is a general view of how much control each of the hundred families has on the ark, we rank around 45th of the 138 families which considering our status its not optimal"
Ancestor Nordaine - "Does the current head have no desire to gain more political influence in this period of time?"
Elder Proteus - "Indeed she had stated that it is best to focus on the improvement of our own arks to be sure we always have a fallback rather then simply throwing our weight around causing unnecessary problems which we dont have the ability to handle"
Ancestor Nordaine - "It is a good choice then, this list will probably change multiple time throughout the journey so unless things stabilize its simply not worth the effort to put attention to it, just the basic 'we are here' will suffice"
The ancestor had become a little comfortable in her seat snacking on the side on what seemed to be pink grapes
Elder Proteus - "Currently the ones that vie for the most power are the Rubio, Song, Nedha, Wood, and Moore families each with their own end goals. Smaller powers that did not have much of a foothold in the old Five family union are also starting to reform once more this includes sects which have never been widely accepted in our territories, clans that we have opposed in the past, religions which everyone has already agreed to snuff out as they simply cause to much dissent and guilds that are basically just large businesses or open sects"
Different images appeared on the screen to depict the various organizations including basic introductions to each.
Elder Proteus - "Out of them, guilds have the largest possibility for success as they give employment to a wide variety of wandering cultivators without the need to indoctrinate them like in a sect. As for religions, once one appears more interpretations will as well causing additional unnecessary conflict which will not be tolerated, as for making one religion official and the rest not, this would be even worse for it will simply alienate us from the outside world and like you said it would make us narrow-minded as such we will be exterminating them immediately"
A vicious light flared from his eyes
Ancestor Nordaine - "As it should be done, we are cultivators, we strive to break away from the heavens to control our own destiny not to be mere pawns in someone else's game"
Elder Proteus - "The lucky thing is that no faith cultivators have appeared to unify them under one name it all just rudimentary step religions, otherwise it would be a bloodbath"
The elder stressed this point, for once a cultivator appeared to receive all the worship of the believers the religion would start having a meteoric rise to its followers cultivation and especially for the main host - at the cost of the followers future cultivation being in the hands of said individual.
Elder Proteus - "As for the state of the ark world itself, all i can say its perfection"
The flying vessel had now arrived at the port of the flagship - Bells of hope - and was slowly approaching one of the decks
Thinking about this the elder made a quick mention
"This flying vessel we are on has pre-obtained permissions to dock here so we can skip many of the normal procedures, we will have another vessel commissioned later for the ancestor to use as such"
Ancestor Nordaine - "Who makes our ships?"
'She really questions everything like a star student' the elder thought
Elder Proteus - "We mainly worked with the Wood family to re-design and craft our arks, but for smaller vessels like this we employ a small family company named Ronan's traveling shuttles"
Ancestor Nordaine - "Is this considered up to date then? It did traverse a large distance rather quickly"
From what the elder said earlier 100 kilometers of distance was the minimum distance between arks for this fleet, so they had spent less then 5 minutes to travel at least 100 kilometers from one ark to another with minimal to no turbulence and considering the arks themselves are moving quickly it made it more impressive.
Elder Proteus - "Thats correct, for void travel this is considered a moderately up to date vessel with only a 18% loss in spiritual energy due to degradation"
"18% is far to much!" the ancestor was noticably taken aback by this, this was considered up to date?
Elder Proteus - "It used to be a 60% loss within 5 minutes for 200 kilometers at the start of this journey, but some genius appeared in the race know as the Eplack that revolutionized small vessel material and spell design that we can even afford to use vessels outside of arks within the void, otherwise one wouldn't even dare go outside of arks unless ones life is in danger, now we can at least travel between arks with 'relative' comfort rather then worrying if you would make it out alive"
5 years wasn't a long time, but when in need the push for innovative and creative ideas becomes far more necessary, it was likely that other areas within the entire void fleet had better modes of transport.
Ancestor Nordaine - "Have you experienced the voids spirit degradation firsthand elder?"
She was curious about this for a while now, she couldn't test it herself currently sadly.
Elder Proteus - "Once yes, it was absolutely brutal it felt like my entire body was being pulled and twisted in every direction while my spirit energy was frantically destabilized and within 5 seconds I could no longer take it, it was completely different from a realm void I would highly advice ancestor to test it for herself aswell as my cultivation is lacking"
The elder is currently at the peak of Nascent soul, one step away from the rank of Deity transformation, while the ancestor was far beyond him at early soul integration she could blink and he would die should she wish it.
100 kilometers traveled in 5 minutes could be considered fantastic for a nascent soul cultivator, but for the higher tiers it was a snails pace.
The ranking of a cultivators had to do with how far they had advanced in cultivation and consequently they became more powerful.
Separated into two stages the first stage was known by many as - stealing heaven cultivation -, while the second stage was widely known as - Heavens deception - with each of these two stages having five separate ranks of classification that further broke them down.
The 'stealing heaven' cultivation stages five ranks are as follows:
Qi convergence - the starting point of all cultivation, layers of 'Qi' will be formed in and around the users body until it becomes a 'liquid' within them
Foundation Establishment - the point to decide all future cultivation, the best foundation is one which suites the user rather then simply being overly stable.
Core formation - cultivators build the central point that all spirit energy travels across the body from, it is a literal core inside the body similar to an organ only it's made out of pure energy.
Nascent soul - the spirit or 'soul' starts to enter a concrete form able to influence material objects, the soul takes the form of an infant and is nourished by the core
Deity transformation - the body, spirit and mind grow or change exponentially during this period often referred to as the nourishment phase, it requires the understanding of the world around you in order to advance
These are the 5 entry points into cultivation, most the spirit energy will be attained from the surroundings during this period hence why it is called stealing heaven cultivation, it is the most simple part of cultivation requiring only spirit energy and an efficient cultivation technique to rise for most of it.
The heavens deception stage on the other hand requires far more then just spirit energy to grow
The five stages to heavens deception are as follows:
Body reformation - the body will be reconstructed to better fit the copious amounts of spirit energy becoming increasingly stronger and tougher growing 10+ meters tall your form can no longer change shape from this point on retaining the look you last held forever but size and appearance can be hidden with spells
Soul integration - the soul starts to become one with the body, the shadow underneath a person would in effect disappear upon reaching the middle point and can only appear at the users behest, the users soul can be split and imprinted on objects much like a natal weapon
Golden cocoon - the most dangerous rank, the body, mind, and soul will all merge becoming one and the cultivators spirit energy will be stuck within them unable to be exerted without harming the cultivator, the vast majority fail to pass this bottle neck
Heavenly rebirth - The mind, soul and body are one, the cultivator now starts to influence the very heavens around him passively while he can change entire environments on a whim
Void realm - cultivators can travel outside of the realm they hail from and travel the endless void without assistance, they can exert their influence into other realms and can even use the spirit energy of other realms but they still can't produce their own energy
But at the stage name states, the heavens will actively try to deceive you, to lead you to the wrong path, to keep you bound under the heavens, to chain you to a predetermined fate.
The heavens will temp you with power, creating heavenly guardians of those whom accept its olive branch, these cultivators will then be able to use the rules of heaven to bind others forcefully making them unable to cultivate further.
Beyond these two stages of cultivation the area of either Godhood which one must be born into, or for those that go beyond the scope of what creation can tolerate they enter the stage of - Heaven defying -.
At this point your fate is your own, your path is whatever you deem it to be, your life is however long you wish it to be, realms can no longer influence your mind, God can no longer judge you in life or afterlife.
Few ever make it.