2 Rebirth is Stupid

As he falls from the Immortal Realm, Long notices some interesting effects that he has never even thought of before. The void surrounding him seems to be similar to the void between the Immortal and Godly Realm, although this one seems a lot more unstable. It's as if the passages between the Realms aren't meant to be used in this way.

Another thing that Long notices, is that the constant shifting in this void seems to be creating more and more space between the Mortal and Immortal Realms. The distance between the realms seems to be expanding, making it more and more difficult to traverse between the realms as each second passes.

Eventually, Long feels the pull of gravity as he lands on a barren plane in the Mortal Realm. Beneath his feet sits billions of tons of sand which stretches beyond his, albeit limited, vision. All he can see are endless sand dunes of immense size, at the same time he seems to be becoming weaker and weaker by the second. The sand has a strong attractive force which sucks the energy straight out of his feet while also sucking his body deeper into itself so that it can better feast on this weak human. Long's only advantage is that his Heart of Life is so far developed that it has already formed a layer in his skin which slows the sand's draining process.

As he loses his soul power through the sand, Long realises how pitiful his soul power is after he destroyed his cultivation base.

"This sand is everywhere, I'll never be able to get out of this desert before dying. The only possible way of surviving would be to fly, but how can I do such a thing with no cultivation base."

Long spent the next 10 minutes trying to find a solution to his problem, with no luck. His life-skin, the barrier formed in his skin by his Heart of Life, weakened exponentially in this time and Long is stuck with nothing to do as he desperately tries to replenish his Soul Power through the air, but this doesn't help him because the devouring sand won't allow any extra energy to exist in the space surrounding it. Within 5 minutes, Long realises it was stupid of him to decide to be reborn, what idiotic being thinks: "Oh, I'm one of the most powerful beings in my world, but I need to get stronger… So let's just get rid of all of my power and make me one of the weakest beings in all of the Realms."

This thought is really sad because Long is actually so weak that the Nascent Soul Power of babies from the Immortal Realm is actually stronger than his current Soul Power. Long is ready to give up, and so he decides that the last thing that he is going to do is to send out spiritual transmissions that will hopefully be received by his family in the Immortal Realm, the only way that he can do this is through the power of faith, something that he has never needed to use before. He knows that his parents are alive and well and this will, hopefully, allow his transmission to be powerful enough to transcend realms.

Truthfully, Long knows that this won't work, but he is so delirious at the moment that he is actually seeing a silhouette of his family as he says goodbye to them. His last thoughts before he decides to give in and enjoy the momentary peace that comes before being reincarnated goes as follows:

"The hourglass is the foundation of the concept of the Sands of Time. It is a power that represents change, nothing can escape time and nothing can take it back. The best we can do is use the time that we have in the best way possible." The foundational concept of Time is one that mortals, even Immortal Realm mortals, are not capable of comprehending, this includes Long. Fortunately for him, he is dying in the devouring sands, an embodiment of the hourglass. The sand surrounding him drains all the energy around itself as a result of it maintaining the flow of time in the Mortal Realm. The loss of energy was never the intention, it's just an unfortunate side-effect, especially for Long.

And with that goes Long, the draining power of the sands seem to become stronger, enveloping him in their smooth, yet rough surface as he, ironically, drowns in time. As he drowns, Long sees his life flash before his eyes, not just the good stuff, but everything. Each and every piece, as if his life were a play and he is both the main actor and the audience. He sees how Time changes him, how Time changes everything until eventually there is nothing to change. At which point, Time will have won, or is it lost. Fortunately, the end of all things is impossible, with creation comes life and with life, creation. As long as there is something that is alive, then all things will be alive. This is also the basis of reincarnation, the concept of reusing.

Long watches his life flash before his eyes and realises that he is content, he has accepted what has happened, yet will continue to fight to live because he realises the value of life. He now also notices that the sands of time aren't just showing him the past, they are affecting the future. They are steadily devouring his body, breaking it apart piece-by-piece as he experiences time flowing at a speed thousands of times faster than normal. With dread in his heart and slowly increasing will to live, Long recalls the passage that he had previously said.

"The best we can do is use the time that we have in the best way possible." This doesn't just mean that we need to accept time, it means that sometimes we can grasp time, hold it, caress it, and hope that it will give us the experience of time at a slower rate, that we can have just a moment in time. Long caresses with all he has, what he does, nobody actually knows because how can you caress time. Ignoring all doubts, Long furiously tries to get time on his side, so that he can live a little bit longer. What he doesn't realise is that he has already lived for thousands of years in this struggle against time, he is slowly surpassing the limits of humans with simply his will to live. This must surely be a miracle, a sign from the heavens that Long has been given a gift. Long has decided that he is willing to struggle for aeons if that is what it takes, he will fight with all that he has so that he can live. And so he does...

***

After 3698 years of his struggle, Long feels something new. An inexplicable feeling of hope and joy seems to have sprouted in his Heart. In this time, he hasn't gained anything. He is a Mortal in Spirit and Soul and even his body has weakened so far that he has the physique of an average Mortal. This feeling grows as Long notices a sudden change in his surroundings. While stuck in the sands, Long had to deal with constant omnipresent pressure, as if the sands were trying to devour him, but now, the force has changed: it has gone from being a crushing, insatiable force to one of contempt and repulsion.

What does this mean for Long? It means that he is finally getting out of this sandy hell. "Event time has a temper, it seems," thinks Long as realises that these sands that represent Time have decided to give up on him. This may even have a profound outcome on in Long's life… who knows. Funnily enough, the only way for Long to have survived through Time was to have delayed the time surrounding himself, this means that, in trying to devour him, Time gave Long the chance to understand a fraction of it and understanding the concept of Time is generally only something that the Gods in the Godly Realm are capable of doing.

"I am powerful!" Long screamed internally as he could finally see an end to the torture that he was forced to face as he went through the Sands of Time. Within moments of thinking this, he feels a warm draft of wind blowing at him, trying to topple him, but what is truly powerful enough to knock over a man who has overcome Time itself.

Plop, "Ouch". I guess Long isn't as strong as we thought.

With that pain comes clarity and so Long realises something even more important than the concept of Time.

"Rebirth is Stupid, but Time Travel, well that so much f**k'n worse."