Life continued marching onward toward eternity, one small step at a time. Days passed like falling leaves during autumn, and before anyone realized it, a brand new day had arrived.

When the first rays of warm sunlight hit Laude's face, he let out a lazy yawn. He stretched his sore body and eventually woke up. It'd been a little bit over four and a half months since Laude had begun his stay at White Dew Society.

Spring and summer had come and gone, making way for the beginning of fall. And in that breadth of time, many intriguing developments had occurred.

For one, Laude had not aged a single day since his transformation. Time continued to slowly wear everyone down, but not him. Such was the life of a man caught in limbo, neither alive nor truly dead.

During that time, he had observed and learned a great deal about the nature of cultivation under the generous tutelage of Alnus and the other Head Elders.

To better understand his ailment, Laude accepted that the only way he'd ever have a chance of returning to his former life was to move forward — to become a cultivator himself, whether he liked it not.

If his abnormal condition was a product of the Heavens, then logically, the only way he'd ever fix his condition would be by seeking out the original source that caused it — the Heavens themselves.

It didn't get any simpler than that. After all, what else was Laude supposed to do? Spend the rest of unnatural existence in White Dew Society hiding like a coward? Or sit on his ass, hoping for a solution to get handed to him one day? Surely not.

Laude would die than live a life as pathetic as that, but then again, he wasn't sure he could even die anymore.

That was beside the point, though. He was determined to find a way to become mortal again and return to his family. Nothing else mattered.

Thus, Laude had begun walking down the path of cultivation. A seemingly contradictory decision given his end goal since the cultivation was all about transcending the endless cycle of reincarnation. To be fair though, there was barely anything normal about Laude's current dilemma in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, Laude quickly learned that the path of cultivation was neither easy nor fast. No, cultivation was a commitment that lasted for the entirety of one's life... and could even span several centuries depending on the individual.

Unlike the savage brutes that Laude had encountered during his time as an Imperial Delegate, the cultivators of White Dew Society were more akin to sages-in-training. The life of a cultivator was one of reflection, learning, and the continuous practice of "Consolidation."

Truth be told, disciples of cultivators weren't taught anything even remotely exciting in the beginning, such as Immortal Arts, until they completed a finely-tuned educational course.

All disciples were taught how to read, write, and articulate themselves properly before they moved onto the brunt of their schooling — learning history, herbology, mystic theory, and finally, the noble art of Consolidation.

The art of Consolidation was the method used by cultivators to perform Immortal Arts and eventually escape the eternal cycle of reincarnation.

By nurturing one's soul with Spiritual Qi found around the world and by harmonizing with the Heavens via self-reflection, spiritual debate, and tests administered by the Will of Heaven itself — heavenly tribulations — it was possible for a cultivator to one day transcend past their mortal body and ascend to the Heavens.

But it was not an easy feat to accomplish, for at the very end of every cultivator's journey, they would have to find an answer to the "Great Question" that the Heavens had tasked them to solve.

The Great Question was the final obstacle for all cultivators who had reached the end of their journey.

It was an important, personal question that the Heavens tasked a cultivator to answer before they would permit a cultivator to pass through the Gates of Heaven and escape the Great Wheel of Samsara.

Every cultivator had their own Great Question to solve, and no two Great Questions were ever alike, preventing any would-be cheaters from cheating the system. And if that wasn't enough to deter cheaters, the looming threat of complete and total destruction for lying to the Will of Heaven usually kept people in line.

The Great Question was profoundly tied to the destiny of a cultivator in more ways than anyone could imagine. It served as an important clue about the fate of a cultivator and therefore was typically used as a guidepost for what they should do in life.

Laude was horrified when he first learned about the essence of the Great Question.

The idea that something like that existed seemed to violate the concept of free will and infringed on the privacy of all things. Who in their right mind would ever wish to know that their life's story had already been penned before they were even born? That no matter how much they struggled, they would ever be able to escape the pull of a predetermined future?

Naturally, Alnus wondered why Laude had such strong emotions about it and asked, "I see. It certainly sounds nightmarish when you put it like that, but you are wrong on one critical point. Your future has not been set in stone. That is precisely why one day you will either be made or destroyed by the karma you have sown throughout your life."

"Think about it like this; If the Heavens or another comparable higher power had written the story of your lives, you would naturally never be held accountable for whatever acts you committed during your life. Humans without any true agency would logically be absolved of any form of judgment because they would've never had the opportunity to make any decisions of their own. I can assure you that you and I possess free will."

Alnus shook his head and said, "In any case, you must understand that the Heavens are not beholden to the laws that govern this world. The Heavens exist beyond the river of time, the immensity of space, the binding chains of causality, and the paltry logic of Man. That is why the Heavens can observe your destiny. It is a place beyond all places, little Tellstar..."

Fish can only dream of the world that lies beyond the sea...

Birds can only dream of the world that lies beyond the sky...

And Man can only dream of the world that lies beyond their limited foresight...

On average, it took about half a decade for the average disciple to finish their introductory studies. Fortunately, Laude already had a bit of an edge in this arena. As an ex-Imperial Delegate — and a learned scholar— he already grasped the fundamentals: how to read and write, elementary mathematics, general history, and so on. As a result, he had been permitted to skip those subjects and saved himself a pretty decent chunk of time.

But when it came to advanced subjects like the history of the world of cultivation, mystic theory, and herbology, Laude had no choice other than to start from the beginning. There was no way around it, but Laude didn't really mind it. He loved to read and learn new things, no matter how complex or trivial the subject was. He was a certified bibliomaniac at heart.

And that was exactly what Laude had done for the last four and a half months. Aside from practically living in White Dew Society's main library, the Spring Pagoda, he also attended lectures on the subjects needed to learn.

Each of the four Head Elders of White Dew Society specialized in a different field of the essential skills that every cultivator needed to master to fulfill their duties. Every cultivator was required to learn the four major skills: Immortal Arts, Mending Arts, Self-defense Arts, and the Art of Consolidation.

As a cultivator, one had a duty to exorcise demons, foul spirits, and other supernatural entities that threatened the mortal world. They also were duty-bound to heal the sick and those who could not afford the cost of medical assistance. On occasion, they'd also cure strange afflictions of a supernatural nature that could not be fixed with mortal medicine.

And on the scarce occasion, a cultivator needed to know how to protect themselves against mortal threats. Although cultivation dogma was based on pacifism, there were times in a person's life when it was simply impossible to resolve a problem diplomatically. Regrettably, there were certain times when the only way to solve a problem was through violence.

Rogue cultivators did not take kindly to the presence of orthodox cultivators. In fact, whenever an orthodox cultivator and a rogue one crossed paths, some form of conflict was all but guaranteed to occur.

These confrontations range from frigid, terse standoffs to bloody duels to the death; it rarely ever ended peacefully when two members of either side met...

But the worst part of it all was that rogue cultivators weren't the only enemies orthodox cultivators might have to contend with these days. Nowadays, even other orthodox cultivators posed a severe threat.

As Spiritual Qi worldwide had begun disappearing, it had become a source of great conflict and stress everywhere.

Societies that once existed in harmony for centuries, even millennia in some cases, suddenly had a significant problem on their hands.

They all had disciples who needed Spiritual Qi to practice Consolidation, but there was not enough for everyone. What had once been an abundant and effectively free natural resource was now being fought for by all cultivators, even to the point of bloodshed...

Spirit Stone mines that contained condensed Spiritual Qi in a special kind of quartz over thousands of years, and Spiritual ley-lines — natural sites where ambient Spiritual Qi still converged en masse — had become the only way for cultivators to acquire an adequate amount of Spiritual Qi.

Long gone were the old days when cultivators could draw in the abundant Spiritual Qi of their surroundings with concern. Now it was arguably the most precious resource in the cultivation world any Societies had fallen in the fight to obtain it.

The Age of Cultivation was coming to an end, whether cultivators wished to admit it or not.

No more than five hundred years ago, tens of thousands of cultivators roamed the world, and a grand alliance of extremely powerful Societies once defended the world from supernatural threats.

But now, it was all coming to an end.

These days, it was estimated that there were only ten thousand or so cultivators worldwide. All of the most powerful ancient Societies that served as pillars of the cultivation world in the days of yore had all but disappeared. Today's Societies were nothing more than fragmented, isolated islands in a murky sea of doubt.

The cultivation world of Oseo had entered a twilight era — soon enough, the sun would finally set on all cultivators.

Because once the last scrap of Spiritual Qi evaporated from Oseo and the last star in the sky eventually faded into darkness, a brand-new age would emerge.

An age of darkness.

It would herald a long, cold night that Oseo would not survive...

And there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from happening.