"Yes, it isn't as though there is no chance..."
The crimson eye glowed for a moment and smiled ruefully. "Each Cultivation level is similar to water filling the vessel, the vessel being the body..." The Immortal waved his hands, and a red aura solidified and formed a vase, and the vase was getting filled with red aura.
"The living Kind ascends each cultivation level automatically when the 'water' reaches a certain threshold. No Living Kind did ever reach the absolute full of the vessel." At this time, the red aura filled the red vessel to the brim, and there was no space to fill anything extra.
"If this theoretical hypothesis is achieved," The red vase seemed to shake, and it elongated to contain more red blood aura and more beautiful and intricate designs magically appeared on the vase.
"Then, no matter who is the vessel. No matter how broken the vessel is. The Law of Progression would act on whoever the vessel is. The cultivator will ascend to the next realm." The red vase and the red blood aura that filled it vanished into thin air, and the Immortal sighed wistfully.
"But that is just a hypothetical. It is an impossible situation to be in." The Immortal shook his head, but Vikram was still hopeful. "What are these hypothetical conditions, though?"
"Mmmm, you need to own a planet that is attuned and rich in your Way of Cultivation. You need a couple of lives to experiment. Lab rats won't work because the Way of Cultivation in these situations would need your own body... and you need a couple of perfectly synchronized Way of Cultivation that complements each other perfectly."
The Immortal grimaced a little when he saw the poor kid break down. He knew that the kid had an excellent mind, and the kid had a good heart too. It was such a shame that the kid was ripped off the power chart before he could attempt a get a try at it.
Vikram shook his head. He was familiar with his chances taken away before he could even try his chance, but it still hurt...
Vikram smiled, but his eyes were a little broken. "Could you be kind enough to regroup me into my previous group?" The Immortal closed his eyes, and Vikram sensed a vast aura spreading throughout the desert, and he opened his eyes, and nodded his eyes.
"I have seen your group... They are heading towards... The Elthinian Empire?" The Immortal nodded as he understood something. "It is their best bet to be there," The Immortal looked at Vikram, and a vast bloody aura spread across the desert, and scared every single abhorrent denizen of the desert.
"Hey, by the way, what's your name?" Vikram asked. It felt strange to not know the name of someone so powerful, especially an Immortal capable of destroying entire areas with nothing more than his blood.
The Immortal smiled, and Vikram couldn't help but notice the gleam of his canine teeth, shining faintly like a predator's. "Reven," he replied, the word leaving his lips with a tinge of melancholy. A rueful smile curled on his face.
"Why didn't you escape this seal earlier? It's not like you had a hard time breaking it," Vikram asked, the question finally spilling out after lingering in his mind for so long.
Reven smiled enigmatically, and with a slow, deliberate gesture, he pointed around the cave. "This whole cave is an array," he explained. "An array that only unseals when the other party, after seeing all the deeds I've done, is resolved to unseal me. Even though I did all those... things," he paused, his expression darkening, "I am not a madman."
Vikram's curiosity deepened, but he could sense something else in Reven's tone—a weight of something unsaid. Reven continued, his voice steady but layered with an unsettling calm. "In short, this is a Consent Array. It requires the consent of a stranger to loosen its hold. You see, without that—" he gestured vaguely at the invisible forces around them, "—I would have been trapped forever."
Vikram, still processing the gravity of what he was hearing, stiffened as Reven finished, his words a bit more pointed. "It's your good luck that you met me. Otherwise, you would've been dead."
With a final flick of his wrist, Reven waved his hand, and in the blink of an eye, Vikram disappeared from the cave, the world around him warping before his very eyes.
The next moment, Vikram found himself inside the sand the next moment, only his head outside the sand, and he saw the Head Slave, the daughter of the Head Slave and the Steward, looking at him with a bewildered expression.
"Hey, old man! Can you lift me up?"
*************************
"We're finally here, huh?" Vikram found himself at the outside entrance of a bustling city and looked at the Head Slave and the daughter of the head slave looking at the city with longing.
"Go on, what are you waiting for," Vikram smiled at the two of them, and the two of them were looking at Vikram with a complicated expression. He patted the back of the Head Slave, and nodded at him, and only then were the two began to move.
The daughter of the Head Slave looked back at Vikram apologetically, and Vikram waved the both of them with his only hand and smiled.
But when he heard the footsteps on his back, his smile back a bit nefarious. "It seems that time has not helped you very much, huh, Steward,"
"It seems that the time has also not been kind to you young master," The Steward was absolutely nothing like what he had seen before.
The back of the Steward was bulging like there was a mountain, where Vikram had patted the steward's back at the time of the spider invasion...
"Why... Young Master, just why did you want me dead" The Steward was agitated, and he was like a rabid dog as he slowly looked at Vikram like he had stolen his life. Well, he technically did.
"Because you were the only useless one in the group, but the big guy treated you with enough respect that it made me suspicious." Vikram looked at the entrance of the city. "There is a whole bunch of people waiting there to brand me as a slave, right?"
The Steward ignored the question and lunged at Vikram, but Vikram easily dodged the lunge. The bulge on the back of the Steward wobbled, and when Vikram tore off the cloth, Vikram saw the kaleidoscope of colors assault his eyes.
The spider was tightly gripping the back of the Steward and was sucking something on the spine of the Steward. Vikram shrugged at the abhorrent scene, took the stone he had taken from the cave smashed it into the skull, and booked it opposite to the entrance of the city.
The sack of bulging colors on the back of the Steward glowed ominously, and finally blasted into little maggots of flesh that squirmed and writhed. Vikram was far away from the vicinity of the explosion, and finally fell down with exhaustion, both mentally and physically.
He breathed in and breathed out, and slowly fell asleep. But Vikram didn't notice that the time had stopped, and something sucking him out of... this dream.
[You have survived your Walk.]
[You can now have a Way of Cultivation.]
[You have completed your First Walk, thus meaning the right to have an Inherent Ability.]
[...]
[...]
Vikram woke up after some time, read all the notification, and felt more excited seeing that he had a chance to contain an ability. He had thought that it would give him an ability that would have compensation for his trait that did nothing but put him down.
[Outside interference has been detected.]
What?
[Mother has revoked the interference.]
[Mother is negotiating.]
No!
Don't!
It's that damn Foolish guy! He's trying to screw me over!!
Just punch him in the face and tell him to bugger off!
Vikram knew that the entity that had taken his heart was the one that was targeting him. He didn't know why, but this thing had been targeting him too much.
[Mother has found a middle ground.]
[You will not receive an Inherent Ability.]
To hell with it all!