Paradox

Cain followed the path he would take in the far future. It didn't take long for him to find the tunnel made by the 9 Locks Master, following it, he once again found himself in a small chamber. However, unlike before, there was another corpse here, a skeleton.

His face scrunched in displeasure, "This....."

Taking a closer look at the corpse, it was the inheritance of a Growth Stage Master, a weak one for that matter.

Cain smashed the remains to pieces.

"What is this?! Some joke? Where is the Heavenly Inheritance? What's going on!"

The situation wasn't good, if the inheritance wasn't here then his future self wouldn't have it. If he didn't have it then the course of events that did happen would change. If that was the case, Cain would lose control of the situation.

'There has to be an underlying reason, there has to be something!'

He searched the chamber but to no avail.

"I won't lose control like this, there's something I'm missing!"

Cain didn't give up so quickly, he calmed down and thought about the situation rationally.

'Why is there no inheritance, perhaps the master isn't here yet? But my past self should explore here in the next few months, the Heavenly Master couldn't possibly have come here in such a short span of time...'

Sitting down in the lotus position, Cain went deep into thought. But no matter how much he racked his brains, he couldn't understand it.

The answer was right in front of him but he couldn't come to that conclusion.

Sometimes, the answers are right before someone but they still fail to realize it. In Cain's case, he's forgetting the main factor in all of this, himself.

To him, he can't be the reason for his failure. He only looked outward, suspecting things like luck or fate, influences that have been playing tricks on him since the beginning. This was the error of humans, the fatal flaw in thought.

Even if someone is logical, they are still human, emotion will one way or another bleed through their logic and mess with their mind. The psyche is not one color but all colors mixing, someone cannot think in only gray, it is impossible.

This was the flaw many humans didn't understand: their minds could also go against them.

Lost in time, Cain didn't realize how much time passed, until it was too late.

Tap Tap Tap

'What?! Someone's here? Cain looked up the path and distorted his eyesight, he could see the entire tunnel.

'That's....me! What?! I'm here already, how long was I here?'

Cain looked back, but the Heavenly Master still wasn't there. He was panicking but with everything shoved in his face and the pressure escalating, he figured it all out. The dots clicked. 

'A paradox! This was all a paradox! How is that possible? Wait, they're not possible to begin with, but then....'

Once someone entered Chaos, anything was possible, even after leaving the person had entered chaos once, they were now more unique than anyone could know. It was possible for one to escape their past but it would forever linger inside them, like a scar. Chaos was the same.

Cain got the gist of his situation and sat down, remembering the scene he once came upon his face changed and he took out a jade; then taking out another and transferring information he long memorized onto it.

'I already used up most of the heavenly energy in the jade, it's around the same amount as the first heavenly jade....to think I've used the same jade this entire time.'

It was all some cruel joke, plaguing Cain's mind more than he would admit.

Rising to the top was hard, but coming to terms with losing from being at the peak was harder, Cain couldn't accept he was the cause of potential failure. But he was lucky this time, it was a small mistake that almost cost him.

A young man entered the chamber, it was Cain.

Seeing the young and perfect corpse, he jumped. Realizing the body was of a dead master, he got closer to make sure the Master was dead before reaching for one of the jades.

"Heavenly Body Technique.....it can reach the Fusion stage?! T-This is what I needed!" He blurted out.

Cain then became silent, something caused him to frown, but he then focused on the jade in his palm again.

"The Heavenly Body Technique is a boundless technique that doesn't have any restrictions on which type of mystical beings are used or in which order! You can simply find spirits and harness them with no restrictions!

"Wait, that's not all. The jade says that the downsides are extreme. The mystical beings have to be of the high tiers or else the cultivator will be weaker than those in their same stage, and other cultivators who also use high-tier mystical beings will always be stronger than a cultivator of this technique, however, what it lacks in power can be made up in versatility. But there's another downside...." Cain became quiet.

He continued to talk to himself, the joy on his face apparent. Little did he know the corpse in front of him was his future self using the power of distortion to make himself appear dead.

'To think I was here the entire time. What a world.'

Waiting, Cain stopped reading the contents of the technique and bowed to the corpse before leaving.

"Sigh." The corpse got up all of a sudden and moved about!

"Well, everything went well, I should head to the Dominion after checking the farm. In these next few years, I should find some heavenly jades and reach the Peak of the Enlightenment Stage, I'm already a Late Stage Enlightenment Stage Cultivator."

Cain was in closed-door cultivation for decades, it wasn't hard for him to reach such a level with ample resources at his disposal. 

Teleporting out of the mountain, Cain ripped through space as he went to his next destination.

'I should also look for another soul while I'm at it. I can get one more and then when I reach the Peak Stage I can get my last one.'

...

A few days later, Cain hovered above a farm in the Yang Imperium.

'Fletcher's doing well, but I think he lost a bit of himself. No wonder he was so strange, madness was lingering deep within his soul....'

Cain verified everything on the farm was fine, he then headed to a city in the Dominion and waited. He didn't have money so he disguised himself as a lone cultivator. From there he would hunt demons and mythical creatures for their cores in the wild.

Over time he became a well-known cultivator in the city and even found another heavenly jade in a mountain containing a 7th Tier Demon trying to advance to the 8th Tier. He killed the Demon and he got the heavenly jade as his prize.

Cain was known as a powerful Growth Stage cultivator, hiding his real level. His fame rose in his city by a small amount. 

'A few more weeks and my past self should enter Jilian Academy, then it's only a matter of time.'

Cain was patient, he wasn't anxious, and spent his time cultivating, he was close to breaking through, all he would need afterward was to find two more souls. After that, all that would be left was the fusion stage.

'I should get more information about Fusion before trying to breakthrough, I only read so much...'