Heavenly Beings

"Hua, shall we go?" Father knocked on my door and asked. The day of the rookie tournament was up. The day when the young talents of all the sects around battle it out to see who is the strongest. I was excited. Not because some people were gonna battle it out for no reason other than "honor of the sect" today, because the first step to my journey of cultivation begins here!

"I'm ready, father!" I exited the room and held my father's hand.

"Hua, are you sure about this?" He looked at my clothes and asked. Usually, his daughter always asks for ridiculously expensive clothes while going to social gatherings like this one. Hence, he brought a ridiculously expensive dress from a really famous fashion boutique. However, I didn't want to stand out by wearing such an expensive outfit. Since, the whole point of this expedition was blending in the crowd and assessing the people around me, walking around in such a shiny dress would just give the opposite effect from what I desire. Therefore, I kindly rejected the dress that father brought and made him refund it. Instead, I picked a really bland dress that would suit my interests. And the fact that I was carrying a notebook in one hand made my appearance look even blander.

"Yes, father. I'm sure. Let's go!" I tugged his hand as I spoke.

"Ha, fine... Let's go." He sighed as we exited our house.. The funny thing is that he never asked why I held a notebook in my hand. I would really like to know what he thinks it's utility is.

Anyway, even though I was kinda happy to head to the tournament due to obvious reasons, I kinda felt bad when I learned that Ao and mom had to stay back. "Father, why does little brother Ao and mother have to stay back this time? Shouldn't we all go together?" I asked. Going in a pack has a lot of functions. I can sneak out from time to time and there's a chance that they might not notice. With father alone, I don't know how many chances I will get on that. Other than that, I think it would be pretty fun to go on tournaments like this with family, you know?

"Hua, you do know that our Blue Moon Sect is a minor one, right?" He asked, to which I nodded my head. So, he continued. "You see, minor sects like ours only gets to bring two members to the tournament, unlike the major ones, where the entire family gets the invite, no matter the size of it. Well, there is an exception in this rule though; that is if a minor sect is able to produce a great warrior, they are allowed to bring their entire family to the tournament." He explained.

To be honest, this surprised me. Although I already knew this was a hierarchy based society, I didn't expect them to bring hierarchy into this one as well. I thought this tournament would be an inclusive one, like the football world cup back on Earth. Like, everyone was allowed to watch the match regardless of gender, age, minority and stuff. Well, I'd kinda get holding back on invites or something to rival sects to gather a hometown advantage for a particular competitor, but this straight up hierarchy based division will kinda put a damper on the excitement... Or so I think.

[I know, right? These bastards will never change.]

{Hey, don't just randomly come in and interfere my thought process}

[Why not? It's pretty boring to just walk around without talking to anyone!]

{Says the guy who ended up spending thousands of years in a secluded cave without any contact.}

[Exactly! I speak from personal experience.]

I sighed. Look, I have no problem talking to Goldy at any other time. However, it's a bit difficult if people are around. It's like this- one moment, I'm full of energy, asking random questions and in the next moment, I stay totally silent because I'm talking to Goldy. Won't people find this weird? Since I didn't want my dad to think like that, I skipped around enthusiastically, looking around at several things, giving the illusion that I was having fun looking at things.

{So, what was that about "those bastards" not changing?}

[The self conceited behavior of these people, thinking that they are the perfect specimen is the reason this hierarchy is formed, you know?]

{But Earth had hierarchy too!}

[Yea, but that was different. You Earthlings tried to better yourself... Or at least tried to regain your former glory, if you're to believe that your ancestors used to use alien technology.]

{That's a totally weird notion out of nowhere!}

[Saw it in a television program in your memory.]

{Why are you digging up obscure information from my memory?}

This is what I hated about Goldy. He has the power to look into the memory tree of both Hua and me, and yet he uses it to find no good information. It's seriously infuriating!

[Pass time activities. Don't worry about that. But, what I'm telling here is these people have no drive to improve. Although they say they do, I haven't sensed even one person opening the gates to Heaven. Why? Because for some reason, I became one of the last ones on this planet who ended up reaching the ancient realm. You know how stupid that is? Forgetting how to get stronger? Even the male lead isn't anywhere near it, even with my power, which is crazy!]

{But, who is to blame for that? Maybe something happened which made them forget about its existence. I mean, who wouldn't want to get to a realm bigger than their current one?}

After my question, I heard no reply from Goldy. I peeked at him to see what happened, however since it seemed like he was deep in thought about something, so I didn't disturb him.

[Hmm, now that I think about it, you may be right. If that's the case and someone wiped the knowledge about getting into the ancient realm, I could understand this stagnancy in people. And if that's the case, only the ones beyond the sky are capable of doing such a thing. But...]

{But?}

[They wouldn't do such a thing… Maybe...]

{Why?}

[Look, each major sect has a particular God that they worship, you know that? Even the demonic sect worships the heavenly demon. This meant that each God had a sect to look after. Anyway, once one of their people gets into the ancient realm, they open the gates to heaven and invite them to have a battle to the death against them once they're ready. It seems like an immense disadvantage to the ancient realm one, but there's a set restriction on the heavenly beings that makes the fight equal. And if the God perishes, the victor enters into the heavenly realm. The Gods consider perishing this way as an honorable way of passing their legacy. They are battle hungry savages with a badge of honor in them.]

Even though it was Goldy who's telling me this tale, I felt there were glaring inconsistencies in this story from the one he told me before, which was really confusing.

{Wait a minute! That doesn't make sense at all. Didn't you say that you had immense difficulty in getting the God to fight against you? And secondly, the God didn't kill you now, did he? This goes directly against what you said.}

[That's why I said a maybe there. There was one who was totally different from the other heavenly beings. He won his battle against his predecessor by cheating. Before dying, the predecessor cursed him so that he could never fully exert the power of a heavenly being. Therefore, even when he became a God, he was barely above the ancient realm in terms of power. As you can guess, he was the deity of the sect I was in. So.. when I got to the ancient realm, he refused to open the gate and he did all those shite he did with me. Even when we had a fight, he cheated when I was about to win and screwed me over! So, if there's some God who destroyed the method to get to the ancient realm, it's got to be that bastard.]

{Damn, that's sad. But I don't get it. If he was insecure about facing someone with his title on the line, he should've just destroyed your sect's method, not everyone else.}

[I don't know about that. Maybe he thought that his followers might steal the technique from the other sects and learn their method and challenge him or something, which makes no sense. Anyway, I can't give a clear answer to that. I'll ask him the reason when I get to destroy him once more with my regained body.]

{Cool. But, really. Even if I'm getting to the ancient realm, which would never happen, I wouldn't like to face a guy like him. It's better to face a straightforward meathead rather than a scheming one.}

[...About that]

{No!}

[Since you have my core and you'll be learning my techniques and since due to technicality, you're not actually from Blue Moon Sect, if you reach the ancient realm, you'll be facing him as well!]

Once I heard that piece of news from Goldy, I decided. I'll never enter the ancient realm, so I won't have to face that schemer!

#