Three Thousand Formations

On the Spirit Plane, Yaan continued to traverse the 6th Layer of Heaven at a seemingly leisurely pace. He rode atop the mad elephant's back, never telling it where to go, and only jumping down to build a formation whenever the elephant paused its seemingly random trek and became excited for an unknown reason.

Even after Yaan had been travelling for an entire year, destroying everything in his wake as he crossed this previously magnificent land of Heaven, the Primordial Sage was yet to determine anything about his formations for sure. All she knew, was that they were built using the mad elephant's aura of Heavenly Destruction, combined with the very fabric of the Spirit Plane's 6th Layer of Heaven.

She had a strong feeling that he was not building many separate formations, but a series of formations that would eventually connect together once the final structure had been completed, but she was still unable to ascertain this for sure.

She also knew that once he was done with the 6th Layer of Heaven, he would move down to the 5th, then then 4th, and so on. He would eventually reach the largest layer - the Central Layer of the Spirit Plane - before continuing down through the layers of Abyss, all the way to the 6th Layer. She guessed that at that point, he would be done.

She was partially correct in her deduction. Once Yaan reached the 6th Layer of Abyss and 'finished' building the partial formations on this final layer, he would have completed the skeleton of his formation. This meant that the formation would be completed - but to the absolute bare minimum standard required to activate it. He would then go back up, continuing to build up the formation further and further, for as long as he was able to do so.

After one year, Yaan had placed down over 500 of his formations on the 6th Layer of Heaven.

After 12 years, this number had increased to 2,999. The longer this went on, the more difficulty he had in finding the right places to lay down his formations, but after placing down the 2,999th, he knew exactly where to go. For the first time, Yaan patted the mad elephant's head twice, then pointed in a certain direction.

"Little elephant, let's go that way, ok? I promise that you will like that place a lot."

The mad elephant paused for a moment. This was the first time that the strange child had given it an instruction. Whilst Yaan wasn't exactly the mad elephant's 'owner', the mad elephant supposed that the child had allowed them to go wherever he pleased for the past dozen years, so it was only fair that he heeded this one request.

With an excited roar, the elephant began running in the direction that Yaan was pointing. With each step the mad elephant took, the landscape was torn to shreds, obliterating all signs of life and leaving only a region of barren wasteland in its wake.

These sorts of tracks had now covered almost a tenth of the 6th Layer of Heaven. This had long since been noticed by many beings, but whenever those Dao Immortals on this layer tried to investigate, they were forced to retreat by the mad elephant's destructive aura.

Yaan was yet to encounter any divinities, and neither had he come across any Transcendents - beings between the Immortal Step and Divine Step - during his journey so far. Like the 6th Layer of Abyss, the 6th Layer of Heaven wasn't considered anything special by these beings, so there were none on the entire 6th Layer of Heaven, with the obvious exceptions of the Primordial Sage, and at least one of the Spirit Plane Lord's many bodies…

And a single Transcendent Realm soul cultivator, who remained within the Divine Court's 6th Heaven Hall of Rebirth, the former palace responsible for maintaining part of the cycle of reincarnation.

The Transcendent Realm was to Dao Immortals as the Nirvana Realm was to Rank 5 cultivators. The Transcendent Realm…was also the realm where the numerical realm system stopped.

Dao Immortals were Rank 9 beings. Any Rank 9 cultivator could call themselves a Dao Immortal, but mindless beasts were always called Rank 9 beasts. Body temperers preferred to call themselves 9-Star Body Temperers, whilst soul cultivators tended to just stick with the 'Dao Immortal' label.

However, there was no Rank 10, for a simple reason…the Transcendent Realm was the same for all manor of living beings, and did not affect cultivation base in the least. Transcendent Realm cultivators could do certain things to continue to improve the strengthen themselves, but this would not further their progression through the Transcendent Realm directly.

But aside from that, there was no such thing as a Rank 10 demonic beast. No mindless creature had the ability to reach the Transcendent Realm, this was, and always had been the case.

Although Yaan was a 'Transition Step' being, as the Primordial Sage had called him, his cultivation level was essentially that of a Dao Immortal. Of course, with his divine stage comprehension in the dao of formations and the dao of illusions, he was much, much stronger than most other Dao Immortals.

However…

"You are heading towards the Divine Court's 6th Heaven Hall of Rebirth." The Primordial Sage commented plainly after realising where Yaan was heading.

"I know."

"There is a 3rd Step Transcendent Realm Divine Court soul cultivator residing there. I said that I would prevent any divinities from interfering with your journey, but not Transcendents."

"Mm, I know." Yaan nodded again.

The Primordial Sage glanced at him and asked:

"You think that you can defeat a Transcendent Realm cultivator? Or perhaps, you believe that with your divine stage illusion dao, you can evade their detection? Or do you have something else in mind, since it's clear that you plan to place down your 3,000th formation - your final formation on the 6th Layer of Heaven - within the 6th Heaven Hall of Rebirth."

"Well…let's see how it goes." Yaan smiled at her. The Primordial Sage stared back at him, before turning away and not saying anything else.

When Yaan looked back ahead, he could finally just about see the outline of his destination in the far distance.

"The Divine Court sure likes to look fancy, building a golden palace with such an immense golden aura…" Yaan muttered.

"This aura was many times more impressive prior to the destruction of the cycle of rebirth." The Sage responded. Unexpectedly, she then asked: "Does the fact that you are targeting this place last mean that your formation is related to the destroyed cycle of rebirth?"

"Oh Sage, why would I tell you that? Well, I would be happy to tell you, if you agree to also keep the Transcendent Realm beings out of my way."

"I will observe and see how you handle this."

"I figured."

In silence, the trio approached the golden palace. Yaan became slightly serious as he approached the palace, because he knew that he was going up against a powerful enemy here.

Truthfully, he knew basically nothing about the power held by Transcendents. All he knew, was that in order to ascend from the Immortal Step to the Divine Step, it was necessary for a Dao Immortal to ascend the Divine Stairway.

The Divine Stairway was one of the greatest mysteries of the Heavenly Dao. It was the tribulation faced by all those who sought divinity, and for whatever reason, it was basically identical for every single being in this world.

A golden stairway with ten steps. A stairway that could only manifest under certain conditions; such as when a Dao Immortal used their divine stage dao comprehension to try to ascend their cultivation further. As soon as they attempted this, the Divine Stairway would appear before them in this world, sending ripples of divinity across the entire world plane, informing every single divinity that someone was once again attempting the ascension.

It wasn't simple to ascend the Divine Stairway, and most divinities handled this tribulation one step at a time - quite literally.

After comprehending a dao to the divine stage and manifesting the Divine Stairway, they would have the chance to ascend the stairway…but reaching the top with just a single divine stage dao comprehension was completely impossible. In fact, it was a struggle to ascend a single step, even if they did possess a divine stage dao comprehension!

And so, they would almost always only ascend a single step, then give up on continuing, causing the Divine Stairway to fade away.

A being to reach this stage was known as a 1st Step Transcendent.

Once they comprehended a second dao to the divine stage, and after preparing themselves thoroughly, they might be willing to try again. However…if they failed to surpass their previous limit, this time reaching the 2nd step…they would immediately be destroyed by the Heavenly Dao's wrath.

If they succeeded in reaching the 2nd Step, they would become a 2nd Step Transcendent.

Most cultivators progressed through the Transcendent step one step at a time. Upon reaching the peak of the golden Divine Stairway, the fabled 10th Step, they would attain true divinity, becoming a Divine Step being!

There were of course some who would tackle multiple steps at a time. And then there were the two notable examples of Defiance Sovereign the Primordial Devil, who both walked up the entire stairway in one go, relying not on earthly dao comprehension, but on their completed dao heart - their dao heart which had reached the divine stage!

For the most part though…Transcendents would either give up after realising their limit, accepting their fate as eternal Transcendent Realm beings…or they would die trying to ascend the Divine Stairway.

There had never been more than 99 Divine Step beings in this world at any one time. Across the ages, since the inception of the 2nd Origin Era, there had been somewhere in the range of 200-300 divinities to walk the four planes in total. And yet, the number of Transcendents in the present world was estimated to be in the low thousands, and there had been at least tens of thousands of these beings to arise over the past 3 million years. Clearly, ascending the Divine Stairway was no easy feat.

'A 3rd Step Transcendent…' Yaan thought to himself as he slowly approached the golden palace. There was a giant majestic formation preventing outsiders from entering the range of 3,000 miles around the palace, but Yaan simply walked straight through it, and he allowed the mad elephant to do likewise. Naturally, the Sage passed through as if there was no formation present to begin with.

'A 3rd Step Transcendent is likely to have comprehended either 3 or 4 earthly daos to the divine stage. This level of earthly dao comprehension is no better than my own, but those at the Transcendent Realm receive a strand of Divine Essence into their Immortal Life Essence pool with each step they take. It's only after gaining ten strands of Divine Essence that the transformation takes place and the Immortal Life Essence is converted to Divine Life Essence, but regardless…Transcendents possess traces of divinity, something that I do not yet have.'

Yaan had comprehended multiple daos to the divine stage, yet he was unable to walk the path of Transcendence yet. The Primordial Devil's existence was tying him down, making it such that despite possessing a dao heart equivalent to the immortal stage, he could not progress his dao path further in this way…not yet at least.

And besides…using earthly dao comprehension to attain divinity, was not Yaan's dao path.

Despite the fact that he would soon be facing a cultivator at a realm beyond any he had faced before, Yaan's eyes flashed with anticipation. He had no intention of concealing himself, he would face this person head on. After all, this would be an excellent opportunity to test his current strength.

As Yaan approached the golden palace, elsewhere on the 6th Layer of Heaven, unseen by anyone else, one of the Spirit Plane Lord's body's frowned as she muttered quietly to herself.

"There is something strange going on with the 6th Layer of Heaven, and I'm certain that brother is related…however, no matter what he is doing, if this helps to progress his dao path, then it's inconsequential. It feels very strange, but…I don't want to get in brother's way…"