Zamian left the imposed visualization, finding himself back in the library.
Instead of feeling an overwhelming surge of power or a deeper pressure within himself—something he had expected from his breakthrough—he felt free as if a weight had been lifted from his body.
Streams of white essence flowed around him, and he observed them with his glowing eyes.
Then, walls of white text filled his vision.
Breakthrough to Level 4 - Mortal Tier - Knowledge Pathway finalized
Analyzing current status…
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Zamian Greenfield
Level: 4 [01%]
Tier: Mortal
Main Pathway: Knowledge
Title: None
STATS POINTS
Body: 10000/16000
Mind: 10000/16000
Soul: 10000/16000
Congratulations on reaching Level 4
Congratulations on creating your First Technique
Completed Hidden Quest: Create a Technique without an Immortal’s help
Reward: Title - Insightful
Status: Completed
Title - Insightful
Description: Essence is consciousness lacking intention and a sense of being; self-consciousness awakens to bring awareness of reality.
Enhancing Luminous Senses Technique…
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Zamian Greenfield
Level: 4 [01%]
Tier: Mortal
Main Pathway: Knowledge
Title: Insightful
Congratulations on receiving your First Title
As the text passed through his vision, Zamian quickly read them all, listening as his instincts whispered to him.
‘I see,’ he dismissed the text, his eyes calm, his black hair shifting slightly with an invisible wind. ‘The Essence Merging stage is completely different.’
Now, he finally understood why some Chosen had been able to look at his soul—or at least tried to.
His vision of the world had changed.
Even within this white library, surrounded by Light’s essence, when Zamian looked at his own hands, he saw tiny specks of red, green, and other colors staining him.
It was the residue of essence he had cultivated or unconsciously gathered by thinking and behaving in ways that resonated with other Pathways.
Using his unique physique, he peered deeper into his body, noticing only subtle changes—it looked stronger, more refined.
His skin, however, was slightly paler than before.
Most important, and the reason behind his discovery about Chosen, was when he enhanced his sight with essence, he saw further.
He wasn’t just seeing below his skin, muscles, and bones.
Zamian was seeing beyond, looking at his own soul.
And that made him shudder.
In an empty, void-like space—eerily similar to the one outside the White Tower—stood a figure made of countless white specks of light, far, far in the distance.
More importantly, the darkness surrounding it was like a ravenous maw, hungry and bloodthirsty, yet also mysterious and concealed.
A deep discomfort settled in him.
But as quickly as the feeling came, it vanished.
‘...The Astral Seal isn’t simple,’ he thought, realizing this must be the same feeling his father once had when inspecting his soul.
‘Can you hear me?’ Zamian attempted to send an intention into the space, testing whether the Astral Seal had any awareness.
Receiving no response, he sighed inwardly.
‘No surprises here, just another mute to carry along for the ride. And not even a new one, so well…’
Trying and failing to zoom in on the distant white specks of light, he shifted his focus, observing his surroundings.
Standing up, he wandered, listening to the usual whispers.
But this time, they were guiding him somewhere.
Moving in every direction—except toward the white book—he finally grasped the meaning behind the whispers.
“There’s more,” he murmured, standing still as the drifting Light’s essence, like dancing fireflies, floated around him. “But not here…”
Closing his eyes, he visualized a white field.
An empty expanse, undefined by size, sound, or any known concept.
But the moment he imagined it, the space twisted beyond his control.
The white field shattered into thousands of glowing lines, flowing wildly through a multicolored background.
Like in his soul space, he had no physical form here—only awareness.
He followed the whispers of Light’s knowledge, along with his instincts.
Some lines flickered, forming scribbles for just a moment before dissolving back into the endless flow, continuing their erratic path.
His thoughts mirrored the scribbles—disjointed, chaotic.
He couldn’t grasp their meaning.
Until he found the source.
A massive, rotating sphere, woven from countless intertwining lines.
It resembled a ball of white blades of grass, except the strands were constantly shedding into the void while others were drawn back in.
‘Is it creating these lines, or just moving them? Controlling them? Wh—’
A sudden clarity struck him as his thoughts, once scattered, realigned.
And as he gazed at the sphere, he knew.
‘Me,’ he thought as the sphere’s movement slowed. ‘This is my mind.’
As soon as he had that realization, Light’s essence pulled him out of that place. He opened his eyes once more, this time watching the flow of essence around him dissipate and return to the endless ceiling.
‘My mind… Is everyone’s mind this confusing?’
While he knew he had seen his own mind and could return to it, he didn’t fully understand what it meant or how it functioned. No knowledge had been gifted to him on that front.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Shaking his head to clear away more wandering thoughts, Zamian sat cross-legged.
“That was a unique experience, my mute friend,” he muttered, looking at the White Dot. “And I’m relieved you didn’t mess with my breakthrough.”
Before, as his instincts and Light’s knowledge whispered to him, Zamian had gained a rough understanding of what had just happened—how he had become an Essence Merging cultivator.
First, he had shattered the self-imposed wall of capping his stats. He had feared having a breakthrough only to end up as a Chosen like Warlord Ruen or other lesser ones—not as powerful as Elwood, Marlos, or his father, Dante.
Secondly, as his essence was mostly refined, meaning he fully understood it and could control it without difficulty, the only thing left was to prove his path.
For most, this proof was difficult. For some, impossible. For a select few, it was easy. And all it required was a single answer to an unspoken question.
‘Who. Are. You?’
Zamian had been given the opportunity to look back at his life and feel what resonated most with his current goals, desires, and inner self.
Being able to answer that question—not with words, but with intention, in a way that satisfied both himself and the essence inside him—had allowed him to break through the final barrier and step into the Essence Merging stage.
And then came the reward.
Before, the whispers of the Light Pathway had gifted him techniques. This time, however, he had been given a chance to create one aligned with his path.
That’s when he thought the White Dot had messed everything up.
He had chosen his path—but then, out of nowhere, random lines had appeared and changed everything.
After waking up, however, his instincts told him the truth.
Lin Zhi’s Seed of Creation and his Beginning of the Cycle technique had moved on their own.
Somehow, those techniques had sensed him forming the foundation of his path and demanded that he keep them.
Not because they were alive or had thoughts of their own, but because part of him also wanted to continue using them.
And he didn’t regret it.
‘Awakening of True Self,’ Zamian thought about his new technique’s name and potential abilities, smirking.
Looking at the White Dot, he resumed his conversation with it.
“I’m waiting, by the way,” he muttered. “Or is a title all you’re giving me? Come on. Give me some stats. Or a spear. Maybe a pet?”
Silence.
Zamian smacked his lips.
“Show me my quests then, time dude,” he groaned.
QUEST LOG
Last Quest: Protect Bohlo until he completes his breakthrough
Reward: 01 Book from White Tower's First Floor
Status: Completed
Main Quest: Bring destruction to a Level 8 Immortal tainted by Godhood
Reward: Inheritor’s Cave Entrance
Status: Ongoing (86 days left)
“Longer than I hoped, but well,” he shrugged. “If they noticed my disappearance, all the more reason for me to keep cultivating here.”
He dismissed the text and closed his eyes, willing himself into his soul space.
‘Wh-’ Zamian was caught by surprise.
While the humanoid figure made of specks of white light was still there, holding the Soul Tome, something had changed.
It had a face.
It wasn’t an exact copy of him, but certain features stood out. The eyes. The grin. The more he looked, the more it unsettled him, like seeing a face carved into bark. Recognizable, but not quite human.
‘The blighted thing is grinning.’
Exasperated, he zoomed in for a better look, only to stop when he got closer. The face wasn’t solid. It was an illusion, formed by shifting motes of light. The closer he got, the more it blurred into nothingness.
‘Let’s not waste time.’
He shifted his focus to the Soul Tome, keeping his back to the figure. A shudder ran through him.
‘I know my instincts are silent, but it almost feels like this thing could open its mouth and devour me.’
Pushing the thought away, he focused on the book. White essence flowed toward it as Zamian poured in information—memories, intent, and everything that had just happened to him.
‘This can’t be right.’
He frowned, feeling more than just reading over what he had recorded. His experiences, the sensations, the truths he had uncovered about his body, mind, and soul.
Dozens of new flaws for him to correct, by the minute.
He adjusted the entries, refining his understanding and correcting past assumptions, fueled by the knowledge he had gained from his breakthrough.
And then, he stopped.
Dizzy, Zamian looked at the shining Soul Tome.
He willed himself to leave his soul space, blinking as he returned to the outside world.
With wide eyes, he stared at his own hands, his mouth slowly opening.
‘No way.’
Rushing back into his soul space, he once more faced the Soul Tome.
'He tried to send more information, but nothing changed.
‘I... I already put everything in there.’
Wanting to grab his nonexistent hair, he glared at the Soul Tome as if it had just cursed him and his family.
‘No, there must be more. More flaws, more details about my life.’
He reached out, feeling the information stored inside. It wasn’t written like a book but arranged in a structured way, floating as pure intention, holding the knowledge of his memories and his perception of himself.
A sudden wave of desperation hit him. He needed more. He needed something else to add.
For a fleeting moment, he almost considered recording information about the White Dot.
His instincts screamed like a dying beast.
‘No Red World. No White Dot. No Verdant God.’
Since becoming a Scholar, Zamian had avoided documenting these subjects like the plague.
When writing in books, he had an excuse—these topics involved deep secrets, emotions, and perceptions he didn’t want to risk exposing.
After all, if someone found his writings on the nature of his body strange, how much worse would it be to mention speaking with the dead, cultivating an unknown pathway, seeing floating texts above people’s heads, or his thoughts about the false god?
That wasn’t just lunacy.
That was blasphemy.
‘It can’t be just that,’ he thought, staring at the tome. ‘I’m already being treated as a blasphemer, barely short of execution. And who would even be able to read the intentions I’ve placed inside my Soul Tome anyway?’
For some reason, he feared and avoided mixing these themes with his notes on himself, yet even he didn’t fully understand why.
‘Even if I wrote about them, it wouldn’t be much. Just my experiences, my perceptions, and how they affected me. That’s nothing compared to the rest of my life…’ He looked for an excuse when a chilling realization settled in.
‘I am literally the limitation of my own path.’
He chuckled inwardly in dismay.
‘If I have nothing more to write, if I can’t study myself any further, then how can I cultivate this pathway?’
Leaving his soul space, Zamian stood up.
“Show me my stats, blighting thing,” he muttered.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Zamian Greenfield
Level: 4 [50%]
Tier: Mortal
Main Pathway: Knowledge
Title: Insightful
STATS POINTS
Body: 18000/24000
Mind: 18000/24000
Soul: 17000/24000
QUEST LOG
Last Quest: Protect Bohlo until he completes his breakthrough
Reward: 01 Book from White Tower's First Floor
Status: Completed
Main Quest: Bring destruction to a Level 8 Immortal tainted by Godhood
Reward: Inheritor’s Cave Entrance
Status: Ongoing (80 days left)
Zamian was happily reading the text when he gawked at the last line.
“Blighting eighty days? Does this mean I spent six days cultivating? How? I barely did anything! Look at my cultivation progression, it’s still at half,” he kept looking from the White Dot to the text, shouting.
He dismissed the text.
“Okay, I decided. No way I’m keeping this Pathway. No, no. After finding my father and my friends, I would rather cultivate the Earth Pathway than this thing,” Zamian gritted his teeth, as his eyes shone a white light.
Standing up, he moved toward the white book.
“This means I’ve been here for a little more than seven days already,” white light flashed around his body. “Those Chosen must have come back by now.”
He paused an arm’s length away from the book.
“The last time I left here, my cultivation progress jumped straight to one hundred percent,” he smacked his lips. “So I should test some things before opening this blighting book.”
With no target to practice on, Zamian took a few steps away from the book—though he doubted he could damage it—and prepared to conjure his first technique.
‘Let’s see what that title changed,’ he thought as his eyes glowed white, activating Luminous Senses.
And everything turned to a white hue.
“Weird,” he muttered, listening to the sound of his blood flowing with his enhanced hearing, but noticing it hadn’t improved from before. “Then why is my vision like this? Is it more sensitive to the Light’s essence coming from above?”
Looking up, he saw the endless ceiling, as usual.
Frowning, he looked down.
And jumped back, crashing against the library’s wall—but causing no damage.
His eight hearts pounded as he stared at where he had just stood, seeing nothing.
“What was that?”
He scanned the entire circular space but found nothing in the library besides the book.
Then, as he moved, he saw something again in the corner of his vision.
Focusing on it, Zamian’s breath caught in his throat.
He was looking at his own arm.
However, the arm was emitting multicolored semi-transparent waves, mostly white.
Bringing his hands in front of his face, he noticed that while they kept their shape, constant colored waves were flowing from them.
“What’s this?” He moved his hands slowly, then faster, in different directions, but the waves kept flowing off them at the same pace.
Narrowing his eyes, he enhanced his vision—and something finally changed.
The white waves expanded, passing through him and the entire library, colliding against the walls.
At the same time the wave passed by him, he felt a spike of essence.
“Could it be?” he muttered, forming a few quick conjectures and moving essence inside himself, briefly enhancing different parts of his body.
After a few minutes of testing, he laughed.
“I can see essence like this? Or something connected to it?” he said in disbelief. “How much does it cost me?”
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Zamian Greenfield
Level: 4 [48%]
Tier: Mortal
Main Pathway: Knowledge
Title: Insightful
He dismissed the text, laughing in glee.
“Even an improved version of my Luminous Senses only costs this much? That’s crazy,” he said with a wide grin. Then, a thought struck him. “But… I need to remember that it also demands a lot from my body. If I’m too hurt, I can’t use it.”
His smile faded slightly as he frowned, shaking his head.
“I can’t run more tests alone, and overthinking will only lead to more misconceptions,” he muttered, stretching his arms before flexing his body.
Zamian’s grin returned.
“Now, onto the main meal,” his eyes shone with a bright white light. “Time to test Awakening of True Self.”
