Chapter 2076: Chapter 48: Attempting to Break Through the Sixth Echelon... and Failing (A 12,000-Word Chapter) (Part 2)

With those words, Ian fell silent and focused all his attention on directing the Aether within his body.

With his brow as the core, a silver line began to spread toward his temples, his eyes, his neck, and then across his entire body.

In this moment, Ian’s whole body was shrouded in a bright silver radiance. At his brow, the Crown of Stars of the Guiding Star emerged, and within that pure light, the youth’s aqua-colored eyes flickered like the stars. High-purity Aether, blazing like a conflagration, overflowed from within him, constructing behind his back a vast, ever-shifting Pioneer Platform, where endless geometric forms wheeled up and down, transforming into the images of all things under heaven.

Light, like rippling water, flowed out from around Ian, making him seem to exist in another phase, distorting the very fabric of Space-Time, rendering the stars of the Guiding Star ever more brilliant, and making the crowned one look like a God who shakes Space-Time and gazes down upon the ages.

Radiance of the Stars, Soul of Origin, Body of Light.

Guiding Star, Pioneer Platform.

And also...

[The Rites of the Star Gods...]

Gazing at that radiance, the Fairy Queen murmured a little dazedly: [So this is the Rites of the Star Gods...]

[A hundred times brighter than what was in Sureld’s hand—so this is its true and complete form?]

The ancient gift of the Star Gods had slumbered in darkness for a thousand years. It was split into three parts, one of which wandered the world, then fell silent, passing through an age-long stillness before being brought out by an Adventurer, and in the end falling into the hand of a certain emperor, kindling a faint, feeble Glorious Light.

And that dim, seemingly ever on the verge of going out Glorious Light was handed on to a child.

It was once lost, and now is made whole again. It was once dim, and now it burns.

The Star Gods’ gift has never abandoned Humans. The light that lay dormant for a thousand years now shines brighter than a forge; through layer upon layer of splendor, the young Pioneer walks forward in solemn silence.

Ian saw it—he saw a night more than sixteen hundred years ago, an old man whose temples had already gone white, racking his brains before some colossal apparatus, pondering long and hard on the direction of advancement for Humans. The old man raised his head and looked at the twin moons above; a spark of inspiration flashed, and he suddenly understood: the radiance of the twin moons only borrows the light of the sun. Humans do not necessarily have to change their own essence and make the moon shine; instead, as in bionics, they can learn the strengths of other beings, and then climb the Sky Ladder.

He would use his own body as the experiment. If he failed, there would be a next generation; if he succeeded, he would be the Pioneer.

Thus, a ray of light flared—and fell.

That light flared countless times.

In different Space-Times, on different planets, in different civilizations, the same light flared and fell.

They led their tribes away from their ancestral lands in search of new homes. They survived thunder and heavenly fire and seized the flame. They lit up the pitch-dark nights and deep caves, stepped into dense forests and towering mountains, and tried strange herbs and foods.

They ground smooth lenses to see clearly the face of the moon and the microbes in the water. They sailed ships across the boundless oceans to open new territories and seize greater wealth.

Ray after ray of light blazed out; Pioneer after Pioneer advanced, like meteors cleaving the interminable long night. When the first Spark was kindled upon the vast and savage darkness of the wild earth, civilization stepped out of its ignorant homeland and arrived at a new land of aspiration.

The Pioneer lifted his head to gaze upon the starry sky; that noble longing and unending curiosity would never be extinguished, like the stars and stardust that forged their very bones, their blood, and all that they were.

This is the Rites of the Star Gods... the proof of the Pioneer.

Ian drew in a deep breath. He understood very clearly that his current conditions were not complete. The stars of the Guiding Star numbered only seven; even counting the Valiant Soul Path and the Devil’s Path derived from the Swarm, he had only eight or nine. There was still a gap from the ten needed for a complete crown, not to mention that Ian vaguely sensed he would need even more Paths of the Dao. No matter how he calculated it, the success rate of advancing now was not high.

But he had to try.

The Perpetual Motion Machine Declaration was, in essence, only a stalling tactic, to calm the originally restless Tara Confederation and its mighty figures, giving him more time to grow. Now, two years had passed. The Ashen King was only the beginning. If the fact that he, now the focus of all eyes, had come to the Fairy Homeland were to be known by outsiders, then soon, he—having left his lair, the Silverpeak Domain—would be surrounded by other powerhouses. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Though he was not without allies and could still escape, the Luminous Furnace was right before his eyes.

Ian believed this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Whether he succeeded or failed, he would gain experience in attempting to break through to the Sixth Echelon.

If he succeeded, all would naturally be easily settled. So long as he became Sixth Echelon, even if flawed, damaged, and of a low, Ordinary, blank sort of Sixth Echelon, he would still utterly crush the Fifth Energy Level. He would naturally be able to unify Terra and obtain the True Perpetual Motion Machine.

In that case, whether he abolished his cultivation and rebuilt it, or merely patched and mended and made do, he would still win.

And if he failed... then he failed. How can one succeed without failing? Coming to this "unknown future" that none of the Ians had ever reached, as a Pioneer, Ian did not fear failure.

What is more, even if it meant failure—even death—he did not fear sacrifice.

Because there would still be "those who come after."

Though he firmly believed he was special, if need be, Ian would still, without hesitation, awaken Reincarnation.

"Empress, if I die, you must learn from my mistakes. If you can, look after my faction and my friends."

In that very moment, Ian raised his hand and poured all the data regarding the possibility of advancing to the Sixth Echelon, as well as his many plans to come, into the Aether, sending it directly to the Fairy Queen.