His mind was finally freed from the chains he had imposed on himself. To him, it felt like an eternity of imprisonment within a never-ending pit of darkness.
He took a second to feel the world around him and enjoy his return to reality.
All the memories from his countless reincarnations flooded his mind as he basked in this euphoric feeling.
The heavens cheered as its golden son was finally back. The world washed his very existence with the purest and most nourishing Qi it had available as a welcome-back gift to Lucius.
"That felt good."
His muscles lightly twitched and in an instant, he found himself trillions upon trillions of light years away.
He gathered all his physical and soul power and clapped his hands with all his might.
[True awakening.]
An infinite amount of variations of Lucius appeared in the space he was in.
Some were mortals while others were in the 15th Grand realm standing at the peak of everything.
They all turned into motes of light before being absorbed by his blackhole.
His current awakening was already top tier, within all the existing ages he could be considered one of the most blessed individuals during an awakening. But he knew the geniuses he would be facing at the academy were on a completely different plane of understanding so he took this extra step to push his agenda even further.
Every time the motes of light fused with his existence he could feel his pillars strengthening to ungodly levels and mutating to a level that should not exist.
All his pillar groups grew in size and became even more majestic than they were already. His primal Land which he was only supposed to awaken during the 3rd step, Path seeking, was forcefully opened as the energy from his variations directly headed towards it and nourished it.
Every single aspect of his being was being nourished and evolved to a realm that was beyond the natural.
Lucius extended his hand and the 54 multicolored orbs he had gotten from the cardinals and supreme gods appeared.
Using his Ego will he fused all 54 orbs into one gigantic orb of unseen power but that wasn't all.
[Pupils of Origin: Renaissance.]
His pupils activated and he used an ability he just awakened due to the recent mutations he had been going through.
The gigantic orb instantly grew in size, easily reaching the septillions of light years. Its purity and density didn't seem affected by its size increase as it got even denser and unimaginably purer.
A power no mortal nor god could understand laid in front of his eyes and a large smile appeared on his face.
His gaze flickered and at that moment he seemed to be someone or something else.
By now, the black hole had finished absorbing all the variants and his whole existence had undergone a massive change. His power levels shot through the roof and almost every single of his pillars had mutated and reached a realm beyond the calculable.
The large multicolored orb spat out a mini orb of only a few hundred light years before it headed towards Lucius's primal land. When it reached his primal land, it closed again and started its task within it.
"I'm impatient to see how much it will have changed by the time he awakens his primal land again."
The small multicolored orbs split into tiny other orbs and directly headed towards his pillar groups.
His Alpha, Omega, Origin, and Exior groups all felt the multicolored Essence as they went through some changes and evolutions even he couldn't understand.
His wings flapped and finally shattered the space around him. His long white hair floated admits the void storms and his golden gaze seemed sharper than ever.
The new strange runes on his body lit up and he was back within the destroyed aquatic space.
The runes within his eyes lit up and time rewound.
The aquatic space was reconstructed and all the damage that was done to Genesis was erased.
The ancestors who had just been freed from the temporal halt could tell someone had just used a time spell on them but their focus was on keeping Lucius safe at the moment so they ignored it.
Lucius sat back down in the middle of the formation and his wings retracted.
He stilled his will and called upon his tribulation.
——
31st Heaven.
Abode of the Heavenly Judge:
"What is it?"
An ancient and royal voice resounded within the stellar landscape of the Heavenly Judge's abode.
"I need you to test a kid from the substratums in a plane called gravel."
"He might join my temple in the future so I wanna see what he's made of."
A soft melodious voice, that could turn the Khaos that preceded existence itself into order, echoed through the Abode of the Heavenly Judge.
The gaze of the Judge pierced every Divinity, Dao, and concept possible and directly reached Lucius.
She looked at him for a few seconds and all his secrets were laid bare in front of her powerful emerald eyes.
"Decent. He's worth the investment but I don't get how my Judgement will prove his worth. He's only just started threading his path, my lightning will kill him. And could potentially destroy the Origin Heaven."
"I don't wanna get another strike from the council."
"Don't worry, the protectors of my academy have been watching him. They'll prevent any damage from affecting it."
The melodious voice ignored the topic of Lucius's chance of survival and directly answered.
"What am I getting out of this?"
"Fruit of Erudite renaissance."
The Heavenly Judge's eyes narrowed and she took a second look at Lucius, making sure she didn't miss anything.
She couldn't find anything, according to the standard of their heaven, he was an above average genius nothing more nothing less, but the fact that the Opposer was willing to offer such fruit for him, told her a lot.
He could've simply offered her a few Divine crystals which weren't worth much, but he purposefully displayed Lucius's importance to her by offering one of the rarest treasures within the heavens.
'What is this bastard planning again…last time he made a move he opened the 12th gate, so what could it be this time…'
From the mass of imperceptible energy and runes, a fair finger stretched out.
A tiny bolt of lightning, its size comparable to the smallest atoms, danced around her finger and in an instant it disappeared, heading straight to the gravel.
The Opposer had a large smile on his face as he threw a red box at the Judge. After he threw the red box he immediately vanished.
The second her hand made contact with the box something within her mind was unsealed and her beautiful face contorted in anger.
'Karmic trap…this bastard's divinity can even affect us now? I need to tell the others as soon as possible.'
"Gather the Council. We have an emergency."
"Yes, your highness." answered a voice within the stellar landscape.
'Let me take a better look at that kid. He looked somewhat familiar.'
She tried to look for Lucius but she couldn't find him. She used her Divinity and Dao but nothing worked. It was as if he disappeared from the gravel and 33 heavens.
Her face became unsightly as countless bolts of lighting danced around her majestic figure, these bolts were powerful enough to destroy Genesis trillions of times over and over again without using a single percent of its true power but she seemed fine as they danced on her skin.
———
Lucius, who was quietly sitting in the middle of the formation waiting for his tribulation, felt an unfathomable power descend upon Genesis.
The fabric of reality that stretched across the whole Plane was torn like it was nothing by a tiny molecular bolt of lighting.
Time became incongruent and space became chaotic throughout the whole of Genesis. The fundamental laws and truths of Genesis were ripped to shreds by the mere presence of this bolt.
Countless spatiotemporal paradoxes were appearing each second and the definition of the real and ethereal was being redefined during every passing instant.
The being within Lucius sighed. He expected his tribulation to be monstrous but this was totally out of his expectations.
He stood up and all the runes on his body lit up. His seven souls ran in overdrive and his bloodlines seemed to come to life as their roars could be heard across Genesis.
Even though he had just awakened, he didn't have enough time to properly assimilate his aspects and pillars so he could only do with this much.
His aura exploded into power and the runes within his pupils spun at speeds far above what light could compare to.
[True Arts of Chronos: Prison of Aion.]