Western gate

"A tall building touching the sky, a building with three peaks, and an en..enlon...elongated building leading each towards one direction in the west, east, and north"

Bran Ai read the sect directory.

It was an easy and simple to understand map, as long as one could understand what the pictures represented one can follow the path without knowing the language.

As long as one knew where they were located that is, the map was very easy to understand.

When Abbas told them the names of each location they passed and the function Bran Ai payed attention, now it worked as a reference for him to work off of.

Not all the kids would put the two separate interactions together right away but eventually they would catch on.

'Head down to the centeral area where the three buildings meet, there a wide stone path leading the the western and eastern gate lay, to your left is the west path and the right is the eastern path'

It took him twenty minutes to reach the center of the sect, each building now towering high in the sky and the base spread wide covering a great distances.

'So I need to take the western path to reach the west gate, looks pretty far in the map why can't they just teach us near the eatery?'

The central most area was rather interesting to look at, no doors or windows could be seen to enter from - at least not one that he could reach, yet it was packed with people relaxing in the sun conversing with one another.

The lowest area revealing an entrance into one of these buildings could be 15 meters high before the steps leading to the gates of the building could be seen, from far away Bran Ai could see windows on all levels of the building but up close all he could see were the white-gray walls towering over him.

Bran Ai didn't initially understand why that was, until he remembered all the old people seemed to fly in the sky without wings.

'Do they fly everywhere they go or is it just on special occasions?'

This made him expectant.

He started to rush towards the western gate, he also wanted to fly maybe then his feet wouldn't hurt.

Walking along the western path made of mostly stone he started noticing that as he walked further out the buildings had gotten increasing smaller until they became just a few feet wide.

At that point he wondered if anyone could actually live in such small buildings.

Nevertheless the very small buildings still had doors and windows, although he couldn't see anything inside.

Over an hour later he finally saw it, a small wooden gateway headed outside of a fenced off area.

He rarely saw buildings now, instead large patches of land behind fences of stone and wood littered the landscape, each plot of land growing a variety of plants with no animals to be seen.

The path had turned from stone to dirt at a certain point along the way that he wondered if he had gone the wrong way, but when he asked someone they simply told him to keep going straight and eventually he would reach the western gate.

This put him under a bit of stress, if not for the fact that he saw other kids he would have thought that he was lied to.

'Just how far is it? It took an hour to go from the dormitories to the center of the sect' he complained ignoring the fact he was sightseeing for most of that hour, he was getting frustrated, his feet hurt and all the energy gained from the soup was now gone.

Near the western gate several platforms became surrounded by kids of all ages at the end of the path.

Bran Ai joined the crowd relaxing his body and waited.

"I hear that this year we will enter the central world, just imagine all the spiritual stone we will earn!"

"Yeah and all the rare spiritual plants that only grow underground will let me advance by an entire rank!"

"...Just one rank?"

"I'm about to enter the peak of foundation establishment, its a huge leap!"

"Let's not forget how dangerous the central world is, I heard 20 years ago a paradise collapsed killing almost everyone inside"

"Wait isn't the central world only supposed to open every 50 years, how it it opening now?"

"Did you guys hear about the recently discovered sky island? one of my senior sister's told me she heard that a spacial rift opened for a brief moment alerting the nearby elder of hers"

"How could that be possible? All the sky isle's had been occupied by the giants since forever, and they left to the spiritual realm ages ago they couldn't have forgotten a sky island"

"That's just a rumor, on the other hand my master told me the golden city of the south has appeared, my master is already preparing an expedition as we speak"

"What the golden city!?"

"Senior brother put in a good for me, I'd be grateful to you forever if I could join"

"Don't get your hopes up, master said he has already failed to enter multiple times"

Hearing the discussion's Bran Ai was intrigued, central world? sky island? golden city? all these places sounded so magical and mysterious, his sense of adventure was awakened.

'I want to learn magic quickly so that I can visit all these places!'

Walking around he heard tales of man that turned into beasts, of sea creatures swallowing islands and sinking boats, of undead kings protecting their treasure in large sandy pyramids, everything here made him awe at the wonders of the world.

Most of these being simply rumors had no real merit.

Another hour passed, by now it would be around two hours after 'sunrise' with the crowd of people increasing beyond the capabilities of Bran Ai to count.

"Gather up! Everyone quite down!" An older man in his 40s spoke up.

Quickly all the noise died down leaving only the wind and a noisy cricket to be heard.

The man snapped his fingers, the cricket no longer made sounds.

"Now then, this year will be different then other years, you will not be simply sitting down to cultivate as you wish, this time all BUT the youngest will be sent out on missions across the globe. All disciples older then 7 will be participating in the combat trials starting today, regardless of your cultivation" the man got straight to the point.

"What! that's basically everyone but the newbie's"

"Huh? how is this fair, even if some of our cultivation ranks are similar there is a huge physical difference between us still"

"I'm not ready for combat, I can't even go pee in the dark yet"

"..."

Opposition from all age ranges spoke up.

"SILENCE! The elders have already decided on this, the world is entering a period of great turmoil such that our very survival is at stake, if you think you can't do this then let me strip your cultivation right now because we do not need dead weight" The man looked down on everyone with a vicious look.

"What? what? a great turmoil? strip our cultivation? what's going on!?"

One person asked many of the questions many wished to ask.

While a few seemed to know what was going on.

- sigh -

"Today I will inform you, all of you, of our great struggle. Everyone here joined the sect less then 40 years ago as such you lack knowledge of the past that others refuse to speak about. This isn't hidden from you, you can find all this information in the great library with ease a-"

"We don't have access to the library until we enter foundation establishment! Most of us have only reached the 10th layer of Qi gathering" someone interrupted

The man was silent for a moment, he knew they didn't have access he was just building up the narrative.

"Right, then let me tell you now" He shot a menacing glare at the boy who spoke up.

"600 years ago, our sect was one of over a thousand sects that inhabited this planet, we had to compete with them for resources, disciples, territory and for our right to live and cultivate, however all of this changed when the heavenly messenger arrived"

This was new and shocking information for the vast majority of students here, since they entered the sect they had long known that the Final edge sect was the only sect in the entire world, the central home of magic where all religions spawned from and great sages studied.

They knew of certain clans like the giants, harpy's, dragon's, and more that existed once on this planet but other sects? This was heresy to many.

'No, maybe they simply conquered all the other sects like the mortal empires have done' one thought.

"The heavenly messenger came and told us 'Heed my words seekers of the great dao, for I am the messenger of the lord. By the decree of the scribe of heaven he who carries the will of the lord, all beings whom seek the dao must search for the golden stars in the sky and leave the mortal realm, for the war in heaven has damaged the spirit of creation bringing an end to all mortal beings'... after this he disappeared. This was the last and only time the will of heaven spoke"

The students were silent.

'That was all he said? How are we supposed to respond to this, what does it mean?' silent discussions took place

"After that event the sect leaders across the world convened discussing for 30 years before coming to a conclusion. They had confirmed the messenger of heaven to be real, they also confirmed that the mortal realm was experiencing a great dying. Planets across the cosmos died overnight, entire galactic clusters lost all spirituality within years, even the primordial galaxies at the beginning of creation had sent messenger's across the mortal realm advising everyone to leave the mortal realm"

The man drew a breath.

"And so everyone left the mortal realm over the years, until eventually only we remained. We don't know why this planet is able to survive so long but the fact is the decline is speeding up, at best in four or five generations the planets spirit will completely die allowing for only mortals to survive for a few thousand years more, but life will continue to decline rapidly until it will cease abruptly one day"

"Five generations doesn't sound so bad, we still have time" a girl spoke.

"Yeah but we live longer then normal people, for us that is like three years max" another added.

"In two years time the spiritual energy of the planet can no longer support anyone above foundation establishment outside the holy land, in four years even the genius of a generation will have their spiritual roots turn to waste. The planets spirit is almost as close to a god as it gets, are you saying you're a god?" the man mocked her.

Everyone stayed silent, the severity of the news had not yet fully settled in their minds.

Bran Ai was thinking about everything the man said, the concepts simply being too advanced for him to understand.