"I get what you mean, but what's the point of doing so in the first place?"

Saying those words, I alternated my sight between the two sisters, as if I was unable to find any good reason to struggle beyond the sage realm.

"I mean, I understand that some people are just allured by the power itself, but seeing the entire buildup to the point of advancing further to the immortal stage or even this grand sage, I can guess that doing so is not the type of walk-in-the-part as the normal cultivation all the way to the peak of the sage realm is. My question is, what's the point?"

While I already saw what was the prowess of just a single protector, I couldn't tell that I could gauge the general or even average strength of the people in that realm. Recalling the words that I heard all the way back in that under dimension occupied by the sect master of the goose sect, I already knew that being a grand sage was the absolute pinnacle of what one could achieve in this world while turning immortal would give one the shot at advancing beyond the means of the mortal world.

Yet the question still stood. What for?

I read enough cultivation novels back in my life on earth to know that in reality, advancing to the greater dimension was nothing but a scam. Turning from the greatest emperor of countless lands, with unaccountable treasures, loyal following and overall, living stable and prosper life… Turning all of that for what? Starting over again?

Yet in reality, it was even worse than that. To advance beyond the mortal world, one had to reach its peak in the first place. While those born in the higher realm could enjoy having their slate sparkly clean, everyone treading their way forward from the lower realms would have to account for all the traumas, bad decisions, injuries or even faulty cultivation paths that one picked in his previous chapter of life.

"What? Are you really going to ask me what's the point of ascension? Don't you want to reach for the stars? Don't you want to enjoy greater lifespan than anyone in this world could imagine?"

Opening her eyes as wide as she could, Celleria was clearly lost for words, while all I could do was to just sign helplessly.

"And what for? You see, I have an under dimension on my own. In fact, as long as you move past this doorway, the flow of time would change, allowing you to enjoy life at a much slower rate. But even if you do so, the only change is that you would experience just as long life as you would do here, maybe a tiny bit longer due to different properties of space. Not giving any direct rations as I can only guess them, if the difference was twelvefold, then spending a month here, would mean spending a year in that under dimension. But for what? The time that you would have left wouldn't change at all!"

This was one of the points that always puzzled me. By advancing to a higher dimension, one would obviously be able to get even stronger, more resilient, more powerful… But even now, being only at the beginning of the sage stage, I could feel that my power was already slowly turning dangerous to the dimension I was in the first place. Even without my statistics maxed, I was capable of tearing the space open, sealing those fissures and manipulating the elements that were most likely the higher dimension private possession according to the universe diagram that I created after everything that I learned about this world.

This by itself was a proof that if that higher dimension would allow one to further his strength even more, beyond the limits of what one could achieve in this, mortal world, then the conclusion was simple. The rules that everyone had to oblige in said higher dimension, was way more strict just as well!

It's impossible to eat the cake and have the cake. Even with the use of magic, one had to sacrifice his energy to recreate the cake out of thin air. And when combining every aspect mentioned, then anyone who would bother to think about it long enough would realise that by advancing to the higher dimension, rather than enjoying longer lifespan, their body would turn soo weak against the laws of the upper world, that their life would shorten instead!

"Yyy… Don't you want to become one of the gods?"

As if I thought that the mentality of the people in this world had already reached its limits with that useless and pointless drive to become even stronger, Celleria now proved to me that just like Einstein said back on earth, there are only two unlimited things in the existence. The universe and human stupidity, yet as later science proved, the first part was actually wrong!

"And what for? To join their stupid wars? Yeah, I know that you lot like to put some additional meaning behind those conflicts like, this party has greater morals, this party offers greater sex and that religion can provide more drugs. But all in all, by advancing to the upper world, you are willingly turning yourself into but a soldier of those Gods that you revere, who would use you just like your father wanted to use you!"

In fact, I didn't even need to hear the rest of the story that I so abruptly stopped from continuing. Since both Eve and Celleria were about to go through the same thing, and I already learned the prowess behind the blood of immortals, finding out the reason why their father was so keen on producing offspring only to pick on it later, was something that your average joe who read even a single novel with an evil protagonist would do.

"Speaking of which, how many people with immortal blood one needs to gather in order to grow as immortal? Or is this requirement one has to fulfil in order to ascend?"