The light realm opens (1)

They were right. Tie Nse had long known that disbanding the heaven alliance meant he could not use the light realm token in his hand for Ed. The only way the token becomes valid is if he becomes a heaven seeker. After he had left Ed under the sinking mountain, he went into seclusion under the frozen sea.

Opening his eyes, he familiarized himself with the new feeling. He did not know how must time had passed. He had only told Old Iba to take Ed with him to enter the light realm with his disciples if he does not make it in time. At the state of heaven seeking, he did not need to walk out of the cave as he had entered. He could just faze out.

He fazed out to the surface of the frozen sea to the shock of those walking above. They stared at his form in wonder as he vanished from their sight. He did not need a teleportation array for a distance that short as to the sinking mountain. When he arrived, Afia Nta was waiting at the base.

"I thought you were not coming anymore. A pity," he said.

"For you, that is," Tie Nse answered.

"The boy lasted long. I see he is still alive," 

"I would have been shocked if your stupid rock could kill him," Tie Nse said casually, but Afia Nta did not answer. He continued to stare at Tie Nse with a complicated gaze.

"Your power is greater now than before. You look even more like that boy around the eyes. You feel even more like him, even though just a little bit," Afia Nta said.

"I've told you, I am not the boy you are looking for," Tie Nse said.

"I don't know what time or reality this is. So I cannot say for sure. But you should not be or you would have died by my hands," Afia Nta said.

"Yes.. yes," Tie Nse did not seem to mind his words.

"You talk like him, you behave like him; when you are not acting like a pervert, you feel like him, you look like him, but I can kill you. So, you are not him," Afia Nta said solemnly, before vanishing from Tie Nse's side and appearing in place of Ed under the mountain.

Ed suddenly found himself standing next to Tie Nse. He was pulled too quickly from the illusion, his head spun and he could not stand straight. Nti Anem hurriedly held him up, so he does not fall.

"How can you react this badly to coming out?" he said and Ed tried to steady his breathing. After a while, he looked up at Tie Nse who was staring fixed at Afia Nta's form.

"How can someone else be me?" Tie Nse scoffed.

"Or you could be that person, at a different time," Nti Anem said and Tie Nse looked at him coldly.

"You are walking with two people who are not really here but are here nevertheless. Two people walking the mist. Thus, you have a high chance of experiencing it too. Your meeting him, could just be that," Nti Anem said.

"I met him before I met Ed, as a young man," Tie Nse said.

"Still, the mist changes your existence in reality. Who knows, when you met Ed, your reality changed, even the you that met him at the time, had been changed. Besides, according to what I hear, you are still a child. How can you be a young man then?" Nti Anem mocked, but Tie Nse remained solemn.

"It does not matter if my reality has changed or not. I will never be the man he describes," Tie Nse said and threw a slip into the air and a teleportation array crackled into life.

They appeared inside a courtyard at the Edge of a loud city. Ed was still disoriented and needed Nti Anem to help him into a room by the side to lie down. It did not take long before he fell asleep. The moment he fell into a deep sleep, Nti Anem stepped out of the room to meet Tie Nse sitting under a tree with a guard of wine in hand.

"This must be Desolate City. The light realm is about to open, the city is now filled with people from the sound of it," Nti Anem said and Tie Nse nodded, taking another swing of his wine. Nti Anem joined him under the tree and Tie Nse offered him some wine, but he refused.

"I thought only those who have completed the one-three-six tree can participate in this, why is the city this full?" Nti Anem asked.

"One-three-six? Those are for organizations. Those who have gotten to the stage of heaven-seeking can send in their disciples," Tie Nse said.

"True. There are always hidden powers out there," Nti Anem nodded.

"The light realm is a place those from the heaven-seeking stage hope to enter. It holds the most amount of ethereal ores in any world, and the purest too. Even though those from the soul-seeking stage can start using this to cultivate, it is very important for those of the heaven-seeking above. It helps one survive a breakthrough to the next realm," Tie Nse said.

"Yes, I heard that when one breaks through at that stage, one is essentially erupting one's soul," Nti Anem said.

"But there is no soul is there? One is truly only exploding in soul energy, only to absorb it back to the other bodies. But doing this, one's physical body and other bodies may not survive. The ethereal ores help reattach what is left of the body and heal. It keeps one alive. The purer the ores, the better. Yet, the place with the purest ores is the most dangerous for any from the soul realization stage upwards to enter," Tie Nse said.

"It's right there, yet you cannot take it," Nti Anem nodded.