'The discordance of fate,' thought Wang Wei, which is one of the most important things he learned from this experience. Fate is all about determinism; it deals with the absolute. Yet, it yearned for the people under its control to have unlimited possibilities and escape its shackles.
Wang Wei raised his head to condense a silver-grey star and looked deeply at it. Cultivation is a process of slowly escaping the control of fate. The higher the strength, the more choice an individual has; the more capable they have of becoming responsible for their actions.
Then, there are [The Fateless], people born outside the control of fate. They are the blessed few. A better way to describe them is that the River of Fate does not register them.
Finally, there is another group of people that he just learned of: people who have condensed their Fate Star. When a mortal break free from their fate without outside influence. The influence includes finding a cultivation technique and becoming powerful. To condense a Fate Star, they have to be similar to the Mortal Dust Wang Wei, using their intelligence, resourcefulness, and Willpower to fundamentally alter the course of their life or a specific event.
'This is not as easy as it appears,' thought Wang Wei as he looked at the planet he created in a corner of the Science and Technology World for this Mortal Dust.
'I can control the fate of everyone present to a scary level,' he thought before looking at two couples walking in the street. If he wanted, he could determine the very genetic components of this couple's descendants a hundred million years from now.
He could control the air particle their descendant 234,987 years from this exact moment would breathe. Wang Wei could determine the precise molecular composition of every mortal that will exist on this planet for up to a few billion years; he can determine their personality, choices, trauma, success, failures, and so many more.
'The River of Fate should be more even horrifying than I am. So, how difficult is it for a mortal to condense their Fate Star?' Wang Wei could not fathom the difficulty of achieving such a thing. Even he only "defeated" fate because he had unlimited time.
'There should be some people who succeeded. And if these individuals walked the cultivation journey, they would be scary.'
He shook his head before dispersing the Fate Star since it was not real. Anyway, he was still a Fateless, and to his knowledge, the star granted similar capabilities. Wang Wei then teleported to the beach, where he had his epiphany. He looked at the sand, deep in thought.
'In the grand scheme of things, it does not make sense for fate to allow any being possibilities to become free; it undermines its core concept of absolute control–unless someone needs it to do so.'
"Grand Dao," he muttered out loud before writing its character on the sand.
'The entire Chaos Universe is like a game, and cultivation is a way to level up. Based on the player's location, they can choose different classes: Emperor, Dao, and Immortal. In some locations, the Emperor Class is not available.'
Wang Wei felt his understanding of fate–especially Order-Disorder Laws–increase at an alarming rate.
'In this game, there are technically twelve levels. There are many rules and regulations reinforced by Game Masters (Heavenly Dao). Once a player does something outside the game's cognition or becomes too broken, the Game Master will place limitations on them.
'At the same time, the higher a player's level, the more rules they can learn and break. Nevertheless, the highest level player does not come close to the Ultimate Game Master (Grand Dao).'
Wang Wei's eyes became more brilliant.
'Not everyone in the game can be a player. Some people have to be NPCs. And when an NPC becomes a player, those are the people who give birth to their Fate Star. Meanwhile, Fateless are people born with some small bugs. Hum, maybe there is a better analogy for them.'
Wang Wei placed a pinned on the Fateless analogy before continuing with his train of thought.
'After level 12, there is no way to move forward. No, some players have gone beyond that level. And in that realm, they seem to be able to compete with the Ultimate Game Master.'
Wang Wei remembered when Honjun protected him from Grand Dao and allowed him to break one of the game's rules: a taboo.
'From level 12 to 13, there is no path. Players have to create their own method. And upon success, the players will acquire some of the powers of Game Masters to bend the rules of the game or even establish them themselves.'
His mind became clearer as he understood his next step after becoming a Peak Paragon.
'The Ultimate Game Master wants players to level up and maybe even challenge it. But why? Did someone program it that way? Or does it benefit in some ways as a result?'
Heavenly Dao's goal is to make their world stronger. Then, the same could apply on a large scale. Maybe, Grand Dao desires the infinite Chaos Worlds floating in Primordial Chaos to evolve, strengthen, and give birth to even more powerful cultivators.
'Or, it could be something more sinister: we are stuck in a cage, raised like pigs to be slaughtered. And, of course, the pig has to fatten up first.'
Wang Wei squinted his eyes and took note of this possibility. However, if that was true, he was only level 8 and could do nothing about such a thing now.
'The Ultimate Game Master has many modules to help him in the game, and the most powerful is the River of Fate. But what are the others?"
His Innate Paragon soul began to function rapidly. Every one of his spirit particles acted as one Wang Wei, boosting his comprehension speed.
'Grand Dao Source, River of Time, Source Qi Space.'
Wang Wei frowned as he felt there were more critical modules. For example, the True Power Dao Realm, but he was not sure. It seemed his comprehension was not enough.
'It's fine. I have time to figure things out.' One of the ways to win this game is to figure out its rules and essence. Most level 12 players do not even know the game's existence, let alone have such a deep comprehension of it.
The majority of them became cannot even reach level 12. And those who do give in to the despair of not having a path forward. Meanwhile, exceptional players like his ancestor, Qiyuan, knew to create a path forward. After all, he created a way from level 0 to 9.5. If the Ultimate Game Master did not place severe restrictions on level 10 and above, players like Qiyuan would have continued to find a way to level 12.
'I now understand why he created the Second Origin War and the purpose of the Ultimate Taboo: to find a way to level 13. Of course, I'm guessing things were not that simple.'
He looked at the writing in the sand about the game. If someone from Earth saw them, they could immediately enter a deep state of enlightenment and understand Order-Disorder Law and even a tiny portion of fate. No, as long as a cultivator was the gaming terminology he used, they would also become enlightened.
He waved his hand to remove these writings: some secrets of the world cannot be written down.
"Play the game to win the game," he muttered.
Wang Wei then flew to the atmosphere, looking at the planet from above, reviewing his final Mortal Dust for a second time. He learned many lessons that he feels would be vital to his future cultivation path–especially when he tries to reach level 13.
Furthermore, his comprehension of [Existence] increased slightly after the method he used to cheat death. He understood that Eternal Emperors' eternal attribute is also a form of Memetic Power: they exist in the form of memories, words, and even historical events.
Additionally, not all Eternal Emperors are the same—for example, Qiyuan and the Absolute Beginning Emperor. However, because of all the events that Qiyuan has accomplished, it is at least a thousand times more difficult to kill him than the Absolute Beginning Emperor.
Qiyuan has created events that have affected the entire universe. And if someone wanted to kill him, they would have to erase him from the history of the entire Chaos Universe, which involved near-infinite Chaos Worlds.
As he pondered all these things, his mind felt clearer than before. The Silver Law Tree in his Sea of Consciousness bloomed to give birth to a fruit.
"There is only one thing I need an answer to now: why do I want to become free and unfettered?"
The moment he learned about the cultivation world, he decided that this would be his primary goal. But the question is, why was this his goal? Was he a person naturally born desiring freedom? Did the environment of his past life mold this desire? Or was there another sinister reason he was obsessed with becoming free and unfettered?
'I just need to find the answer before proving the Dao.'
Wang Wei connected this planet to the rest of the Science and Technology World before leaving to enter the Supreme Realm.
