Kai lay on a bed, all alone, in one such room, recalling the memory of his late mother, who once told him the great history of this place, before she left for her duty, trying her best to free the continent from the filth.
According to his mother, they came from a long, long line of a dynasty that had fallen shortly after the emergence. His ancestors had once been masters of these ruins and rulers of this continent, a rule that ended soon after the mansion began sucking away the qi, the spiritual energy that enables cultivation, from this half of the planet. The King, who was said to be a god, was erased by the mansion when he tried to resist the unholy building. Sensing his death, the enemies pounced on the empire and destroyed the clan. Somehow, a lone prince survived, though how he managed to do so is a detail lost to history. The prince, left with nothing but a single heirloom, roamed the world and tried his best to rid it of the mansion. Upon failing, he passed on the duty to his descendants.
It is said that the prince managed to become a demigod, lived for a hundred thousand years, yet failed. His only discovery was that even a mortal entering the mansion can grow with help of its carefully made challenges to one day conquer it. And so, he started a tradition, a tradition where countless mortal fools would stake their lives for freedom, strength, revenge, or hope.
Kai was not sure what he was, but he knew he hated how far the glorious world had fallen. He had sworn to bring back the glory of his ancestors, take back his rightful place in this world, and restore this world to its position among the heavens.
Coming out of his musings, he was ready. He had memorized the foundational cultivation techniques of his clan. He had a plan. He had researched how impossible his goal was, yet he knew he could do it. With his resolve made up, he entered the small teleportation matrix hidden in the ruin a legacy of his family, capable of sending them to any location on the planet.
He appeared inside an abandoned cave, but before leaving, he searched for the unusually sharp rock sticking out from one of the walls. The moment he found it, he pressed his finger against it, and as the drop of his blood was recognized, a hidden slot opened. He stored the memory heirloom there, a token for other distant family members to find. Closing the hidden storage, he entered the teleportation matrix again to access the teleport network of the largest city in this world Akeela.
Akeela was the only global capital that survived the emergence, with its god being one of the smarter ones, choosing to retreat from the world as wished by the mansion. In return, his descendant managed to hold on to power and became the sole controller of the path in and out of this world.
They charged impossible fees for the ones born of this world to leave and charged again for entry into this world that contained the legacy of a dead god king. By forming alliances and offering tributes to major powers of the multiverse, they managed to become stewards of this legacy, with many large sects sending their best disciples for training every few years.
The mansion was full of treasures and heritages. Having absorbed half the qi of a great world for so long, it held uncountable treasures. The mansion itself, being a trial ground for inheritance, somehow managed to receive the mandate of heaven. From then on, it began receiving the heritages and legacies of countless mortals, gods, god kings, and more; Preserving the paths that heaven wanted to continue. Any time someone in the multiverse died, and if heaven deemed them worthy, their legacy would be created inside the mansion. Receiving the blessing of heaven made the mansion even more divine, and further strengthened the rules prohibiting gods from entering this world.
This is the history of the Evil Mansion of the Void God King, or as outsiders call it, the Library of Scattered Paths the greatest curse and miracle of this world.
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Kai Savant entered the crowded plaza. It was one of the smaller ones. It was said to have been the private portal of his clan back when they were one of the ruling families. Later repurposed and refurbished for public use, it had become the most popular teleportation plaza in this part of the city. It was good enough to teleport to almost any other portal on the planet that it had established a connection with.
With only the Dravens ruling over Akela still flourishing among the four royal dynasties, the other three had lost most of their standing in this world. None carrying the surnames of Savant, Merrowind, or Ashborne were ever allowed to leave the world without first swearing an oath to never return. And with only a small token council from each clan still existing, their powers were almost exhausted.
Merrowind had turned to trading and had regained some of their lost glory by becoming one of the leading merchant houses of the world. It is said most of the Ashborne gave up on this world, ignored the silent cries of Gaia, and abandoned it, with only some token members remaining here who were used as checkpoints when their outsider youth came to this planet to explore the mansion.
As for his Savant family, they had become a loose group of individuals who, as a collective, shared a singular goal: to rid their planet of the curse once and for all. In fact, their family controlled the Explorer’s Guild, whose sole purpose was to explore the mansion, hoping to one day gain control over it and repair their broken world, which was unable to bear the weight of this legacy.
As for Kai, he was without the surname as far as the world was concerned. His branch of the family had decided to cut ties with the larger family, suspecting that the Dravens were controlling the Savant family council from the shadows. The mysterious deaths of many talented young scions only pointed further toward a conspiracy.
Kai was still a mortal and, in fact, had decided to enter the mansion as one. According to his odds, his lack of resources and qi sources meant either a subpar foundational cultivation or taking a higher risk for a stronger foundation by breaking through the rewards of the mansion. Kai decided to take the riskier decision, as a poor foundation would never let him complete his goals, even if he survived. While there was a great risk of death on the mortal route, if he succeeded, he would be on the path to achieving the impossible.
After looking over his supplies and buying the few things he was missing, Kai took a deep breath and got ready to step toward the mirror-like portal ahead of him. It reflected the image of a young man. He could see in detail the clothes that looked as if they belonged to a beggar rather than a prince, his mostly expressionless face, and his aloof eyes. His jet-black hair was long and braided. He had deep black eyes, sharp eyebrows, and, despite the lingering boyishness in his features betraying his young age, he was undeniably handsome. Like the majority of his clan, he seemed detached from the world, his facial expression giving nothing away about his emotions or thoughts. His body was lean yet strong, and despite his poor clothes, he carried an undeniable aura of dignity.
Tearing his eyes away from the reflection, he looked at the arch of the portal he was about to enter. It was pitch black, representing its difficulty. There were five commonly known difficulty levels to enter the mansion:
- Green: Easy
- Blue: Average
- Yellow: Challenging
- Red: Hard
- Violet: Insane
Each difficulty was said to be ten times harder than the previous one, with the rewards scaling accordingly. Almost everyone survived the Green portal, while about seventy percent survived Blue. The survival rate for Yellow dropped to closer to twenty percent — and that was among those who were already strong enough to attempt it. The Red gate's survival rate hovered around one percent, even though entry was restricted to those projected to pass the Yellow gate without struggle.
As for the Violet gate, there were no restrictions. Every year, tens of millions of mortals from this world and beyond entered it, but rarely did more than a hundred survive. The best and worst thing about the Violet gate was that it gave a chance to everyone — even the weakest across the multiverse could enter and potentially turn their fate around. Most perished, but those who emerged were said to be unmatched in strength among their peers, no matter how weak they had been when entering.
For Kai, even the Violet gate was not enough. Many of his ancestors had survived that gate throughout history, yet none had managed to change the fate of their world. That was why he chose the dreaded Black gate. No one truly knew how many had ever completed it. Some said none had. Others believed it had been done at-least twice, but those who succeeded went into hiding to avoid assassination. After all, while completing the Violet gate was considered near impossible, entry into the Black gate was only permitted to mortals deemed capable of conquering the Violet gate with certainty.
Kai had been deemed worthy enough to step inside. But would he be worthy enough to survive?
He knew once he entered, he would not be able to leave for a very long time — if he lived long enough, that is.
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