I built a device—the Ten-Thousand Thread Compass, one of my many inventions, forged with qi threads and phoenix bone. It mapped spirit echoes across the realms. Later, I crafted the Zhou Lens, a polished disc of crystallized void essence that could detect qi fluctuations in places thought unreachable.
With them, I began measuring. Not distance—distance was meaningless between realms—but pattern. Rhythm. Resonance. And what I found chilled me:
Certain realms hummed the same melody. Certain planes repeated the same spiritual signatures, just slightly distorted.
If this world held its own echo in another realm, one just a breath apart—then there had to be others. Countless others.
I started theorizing what I later called the Heavenly Reflection Principle: that the greater the void, the more likely existence is to repeat. Not perfectly, but near enough. One Earth where I died. One where I didn't. One where the Celestial Age never ended. One where it never began.
The calculations weren't done in numbers. They were done in starflow cycles, leyline bends, the entropy decay of realm fragments. But the conclusion was the same: repetition was inevitable in infinite variation.
And now? Now that theory is common. In this age, mana users step between dimensions like walking through rain. They speak of universes, timelines, multiverses—even if they don't understand the weight of those words.
But they still don't see the mirrors. They see realms, but not the Earths. Not the subtle copies formed from decisions made differently. A cup spilled instead of caught. A battle lost instead of won. A single breath held too long—and a whole reality shifts.
If there are other Earths—and I believe there are—then we were not wiped out. We did not fall.
We simply moved...
Elsewhere.
It might sound like a lot, I know. But truly, it was nothing compared to what the other scholars I knew were capable of back then. Scholars today? They're good. Sharp, even. But in our time, we had to push beyond—far beyond. Not just in thought, but in spirit.
Ah… I almost forgot to mention—finishing that invention took me right up until the week I died. I completed it in silence, alone, without my master, who'd been killed in the war. I handed it off to my peers—my brothers and sisters in study—just before I passed on.
That was the last thing I ever gave them. A final offering from a dying mind still hungry for truth.
Albeit, I was still curious—curious to know what they'd say about our disappearance. What stories they'd invent to fill the silence we left behind. Would they call us myths? Ghosts? Or forgot us entirely, as if we'd never scorched the skies with our brilliance?
I continued listening, but the scholars had already moved on to a different topic, their conversation shifting to more mundane matters.
One thing that never quite made sense to me was…..... ah, never mind. There were cultivators out there—monsters, really—abnormally strong. No matter how much of a so-called prodigy I was, I couldn't reach their level. I died when I was just fourteen. If I had lived longer… well, that would've been a different story entirely.
Still, I had learned enough.
Cultivation had once existed here, but for some reason, it had been wiped out. And now, all that remained was magic and the reliance on magic cores.
I leaned back against the bookshelf, thoughts swirling in my mind.
There was still so much I didn't understand. Who had led the transition from cultivation to magic? Why did it happen? And most importantly… Was I truly the only one left who still remembered the old ways?
No..that would be impossible from my calculations but if they were correct and guessing the vast time span to this era from my own. It would mean- there isn't a single cultivator or scholar that was strong or a mana user from then in the nearest 12 realms not even in the neighboring universe
I let out a quiet sigh. No matter how many books I read or how many conversations I overheard or hear, I wouldn't find my answers within these walls. If I wanted to uncover the truth, I would need to venture beyond the safety of my family's estate.
For now, though, I had other matters to attend to.
Like the strange core forming within me.
And then there was the growing tension between the races. I heard it in hushed conversations between my mother and her knights—about the elves, the dwarves, the wyverns, and even the near-extinct Dragonaians. Ghosts too. Honestly, I get lost sometimes just trying to understand all the races that exist in this era. They were around in my time too, but I'd never seen most of them. Just heard about them. Elves, dwarves, spirits... amphibian humanoids, even. It's only through scattered books and the words of those around me that I know they actually exist.
One thing's certain: the elves are important. From everything I've gathered, they wield mana in ways that border on impossible. Rumor has it they can hear through mana—across dimensions. Like mana itself is unbound when it flows through them. I don't know how or why, but it's clear that they sit near the top of the magical hierarchy.
The tension, though—it's not an outright war. Not yet. It's all politics. Careful maneuvering, diplomatic snubs, veiled threats. I assume my father, with all his veiled talents and strategic genius, is managing it behind the scenes... though honestly, I still don't know what exactly his job is. He's vague. So is my mother. They never speak plainly when they talk about the world. Everything they say is coated in layers.
Even the language here—it's the same universal tongue we spoke back in my old life. Or... close to it. I don't remember its name, but the structure's nearly identical. I need to study more, understand the syntax and the roots. And that's not even scratching the surface.
What really caught me off guard was how advanced this world is. They've got these things called "TVs," and clothes that seem tailored with some kind of magical fabric. Heated floors. And vehicles—actual flying transportation. I've heard rumors of ships that travel beyond the sky, and others that float over cities. Apparently teleportation isn't just theoretical anymore either. It's ancient tech now. Long-distance instant movement—refined, mass-produced even.
Electric and flame mana users seem to run most of the infrastructure, but earth users? They're the most common... yet they hold the fewest specialized jobs. Not many roles seem built for them. And a lot of new inventions weren't even designed—just stumbled into by scholars experimenting with magic. That says something about the minds of this age.
There's more talk of gods now, too. I never believed in them, even back then. Not truly. Because in my day, I saw men rise. Mortal men who carved their way to godhood with their own two hands. That's the kind of truth that shatters belief.
But I'll admit—while the rest of the world pushes forward, I've got other matters to attend to.
***
That night, I sat cross-legged on the floor of my room, bathed in the soft glow of moonlight streaming through my window.
I focused inward, searching for the energy I had felt before—the remnants of my past cultivation mingling with the Yin energy of the moon. It was subtle, but as I reached for it, I felt a slow, pulsing rhythm deep within me.
A core.
It wasn't like the magic cores others possessed. It wasn't something I had been born with, nor was it a product of this world's magic system. No, this was something else entirely—something I had forged.
It was small, barely the size of a pebble, and its energy was unlike anything I had encountered before. The Yin energy from the moon gave it a cold, ethereal quality, yet the remnants of my past cultivation gave it depth and complexity.
And it was still growing.