Emperor of the Source

Adrian looked toward the six alien beings floating before the dark stone door. Maintaining the restrained courtesy of his Aeon identity, he inclined his head toward Kaelen and the five other figures gathered beside him.

"The Wandering Sovereign was indeed a figure of peerless stature and honor," Adrian said. "I am grateful to the cosmic currents and the threads of fate for carrying this final key back to its origin, and for granting a mere wanderer like myself the opportunity to stand beside you and face the trial of an Upper Major Sect."

Kaelen's features softened into a genuine smile, and he inclined his head in mutual respect. "The seventh ring has returned, and with it, the cycle is finally complete. Let us not keep the heavens waiting any longer."

The translucent woman with the crown of floating, rotating shards glided forward first. With a slow motion, she slid the dull ring from her finger. The metal, though seemingly ordinary, began to hum with a deep, liquid blue starlight as she placed it into the first slot of the circular indentation on the stone door.

Clack.

A golden thread of energy erupted from the slot, weaving itself into the runic carvings of the door.

The stone giant floated forward next. He removed his ring and pressed it into the second slot.

One by one, everyone floated forward to return their keys to the monolith.

Soon, the six slots were filled, and the golden resonance of both Fate and Causality within the door began to pulse with a violent frequency.

Adrian stepped forward last. Every eye in the semicircle locked onto him as he approached the monolith. He slid the dull-grey ring off his index finger.

With a smooth motion, Adrian placed the seventh ring into the final slot.

Clack.

The moment the final key locked into place, the golden threads of energy that had bound the dark stone door dissolved instantly into nothingness. The monolith shuddered, splitting apart to reveal a swirling vortex of white light.

Before anyone could react, a suction force erupted from the open threshold.

Adrian did not invoke his Source Domain or use his willforce to resist the pull. He relaxed his body as he allowed the vortex to claim him. Beside him, the six Peak Rule Stage beings surrendered to the suction as well, their figures blurring as they were pulled headlong into the brilliant white abyss.

The moment the final figure crossed the threshold, the stone door slammed shut. In the next fraction of a microsecond, the monolith collapsed inward, folding into a singular point of space and vanishing from the void.

…

Adrian blinked as his vision cleared, his body rapidly processing the spatial transition.

He had materialized inside a vast circular chamber whose walls were forged from an unfamiliar silver-white alloy. The material possessed a smooth, almost liquid appearance, yet the faint pressure radiating from it suggested a durability far beyond the metals that Adrian had seen.

At the far end of the chamber stood a white-skinned alien man dressed in elegant golden robes. His back was turned toward the newcomers, and a large holographic projection floated before him, displaying streams of data.

As the spatial ripples caused by their arrival faded, the man casually swept one hand across the interface. The projection collapsed into motes of golden light, and he turned slowly to face them.

His features were sharp and refined, and his head was completely devoid of hair. Yet neither his appearance nor his golden attire commanded Adrian's attention as strongly as the aura surrounding him.

The man was an Astral Stage sovereign.

"Welcome to the Kaalatva Trial," the golden-robed alien said, his gaze moving across the seven newcomers. "You should be the descendants of the galaxy that saved Master Roo millions of years ago."

The moment the name Roo passed his lips, the six alien beings beside Adrian stiffened. In unison, they bent at the waist, bowing their heads in respect. Adrian, maintaining his disguise, followed their movements with a respectful incline of his own head.

The white-skinned alien offered a slow, approving nod. "I am Khyron," he introduced himself, his tone polite but distant, as befitted the representative of an Upper Major Sect. "I am Master Roo's personal disciple, and I have been assigned to guide you through the trial he promised your ancestors so long ago."

Khyron stepped forward. "You are no longer within your own galaxy, nor even the immediate sector of the universe you are familiar with. You have been teleported into our territory, into the home galaxy of Master Roo. This chamber serves as the gateway to his lineage's legacy."

He gestured to the room. "The trial you will face is simple. You will be granted access to the concept of Kaalatva. If you are able to comprehend its mysteries, even merely to the Basic Galactic level, you will pass the test and be formally granted entry into our Kaalatva Sect as disciples."

"The time limit for you is one million years."

Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"If you cannot pass the test within this time," Khyron warned, "the keys will be reclaimed, and you will be returned to your galaxy to live out the rest of your lives in the dark. Do not waste the opportunity your ancestors secured."

Khyron raised his right hand, a subtle thread of his mana touching a hidden rune on the wall. At the far end of the metallic chamber, a doorway of pure golden light appeared.

"This is the first level," Khyron declared. "You may enter now."

Kaelen turned to the others. "Let us go, my friends. Our ancestors have waited millions of years for this day."

With their resolve hardened, the six aliens marched toward the doorway of light. Adrian walked silently among them, his robes swaying gently. As they crossed the threshold of light, the spatial rules shifted once more, and they stepped into a completely different environment.

…

They materialized within an immense, empty room. The chamber was so vast that its boundaries were lost in a thick fog of golden essence.

The moment Adrian's boots touched the ground, his consciousness expanded automatically. His perception swept through the golden fog, and a sense of familiarity washed over him.

"This resembles the phenomenon zones back in the Edge structures," Adrian realized, his eyes narrowing as he examined the ambient essence.

Back in the Milky Way, when he had traversed the trials of the Edge structure, he had encountered zones designed specifically to teach the fundamental truths of a concept in a structured order. This room operated on the same principles.

As Adrian concentrated, the dense golden fog began resolving within his vision. What had initially appeared to be featureless energy separated into countless rule fragments. He saw the planetary-stage knowledge embedded throughout the chamber, the rules dictating how the concept behaved, the manner in which it interacted with reality, and the equations governing its influence upon reality.

Adrian immediately understood the meaning hidden behind the unfamiliar name.

"Kaalatva is Time," he thought. "These beings refer to the Concept of Time as Kaalatva."

Before anyone could speak, a voice echoed throughout the boundless chamber.

"Welcome to the First Threshold. To pass this level, you must comprehend the planetary stage of Kaalatva and successfully convert your pure mana into Kaalatva mana."

Adrian looked up into the golden fog, a sense of irony washing over him.

"So you two led me here to comprehend Time?" Adrian muttered within his own mind, directing his thoughts toward the chambers of Fate and Causality resting within his Source Seed.

Time was one of the arcane concepts for which Adrian had never obtained complete knowledge. Even now, his comprehension remained limited to the Basic Galactic stage. That understanding allowed him to cast techniques such as Temporal Veil, accelerating his perception, but he had never discovered a reliable path for advancing beyond that basic threshold.

Throughout the wider universe, comprehensive knowledge related to Time was treated as one of the most valuable guarded resources. Temporal techniques were rarely sold in open markets, and sects possessing true inheritances of Time maintained strict monopolies over every fragment of knowledge.

Even gaining the opportunity to participate in a recruitment trial associated with such a concept ordinarily required surviving complex selection processes established by the faction controlling the inheritance.

And now, the ring had delivered Adrian directly into the legacy of a sect devoted entirely to Time.

"If I can comprehend Time completely to the Advanced Galactic stage, it will contribute enormously to the divine concept of the Origin Sect," Adrian thought. "It will also unlock numerous benefits beyond the immediate purpose of this journey."

Advanced knowledge of Time could improve his existing temporal spell, enhance the temporal formations within the Azure Garden, and perhaps reveal methods of manipulating the relationship between internal and external time on a scale far beyond what he currently understood.

However, as Adrian surveyed the chamber, he quickly recognized that the first level contained nothing new for him.

The surrounding phenomenon zone offered only planetary-stage knowledge of Time. It presented the foundations of the concept, the equivalent of an alphabet from which more complex truths would eventually be constructed. Adrian had already acquired that level of comprehension during his earliest years upon Earth.

Beside him, the six Peak Rule Stage aliens were already staring at the golden fog in stunned silence.

"This is... incredibly complex," the translucent woman whispered, her crown of shards rotating unsteadily as she tried to parse the glowing rule symbols. "The flow... the equations... I cannot grasp where the cause begins and the effect ends."

They were Peak Rule Stage cultivators, yet in front of the planetary truths of Time, they felt as helpless as mortals. The sheer difficulty of the concept was laid bare before them, and the reality that they had one million years to master it suddenly felt terrifyingly short.

Adrian looked at their tense frames and decided there was no point in waiting.

He extended his right hand.

With a simple thought, the Mana Sea within his body stirred. A minuscule fraction of his pure mana flowed through his channels, passed through the chamber of Time within his Source Seed, and transformed into pale-golden temporal energy.

Kaalatva mana gathered within his open palm.

The six alien beings, who were silently agonizing over the knowledge, suddenly sensed the distinctive fluctuation of temporal energy.

They turned as one.

Every eye widened as they stared at the pale gold mana coiling around Adrian's hand.

"What...?" Kaelen stammered, his voice failing him.

"How is this possible?" the translucent woman gasped, her luminous eyes shaking as she looked from the Kaalatva mana to Adrian's face.

All six understood the immense difficulty of the concept surrounding them. From the complexity of the planetary-stage rules alone, they had already concluded that initiating the conversion of ordinary mana into Kaalatva mana would require centuries of uninterrupted observation and meditation.

Yet the supposedly High Rule Stage wanderer they had welcomed had completed the first threshold within a single breath.

Adrian offered them a faint smile, but before he could speak a single word of explanation, the space around his body suddenly warped.

A brilliant flash of golden light enveloped him, and in the blink of an eye, Adrian's figure disappeared from the chamber, leaving the six beings standing in the silent room, frozen in their shock.

…

The spatial distortion resolved, and Adrian found himself back within the vast metallic chamber.

Standing a few paces in front of him was Khyron, the golden-robed personal disciple of Master Roo. The Astral sovereign's calm expression had cracked, his eyes wide with a rare display of genuine astonishment. He stared at Adrian, his mind struggling to reconcile the report his arrays had just delivered.

"Impressive," Khyron said after a brief silence. His gaze examined Adrian with far greater attention than before. "You already possess planetary-stage comprehension of Kaalatva. For someone originating from a lesser sector to arrive with prior knowledge of Time is no insignificant accomplishment."

A trace of anticipation entered Khyron's eyes.

"You have completed the elementary threshold," he declared.

He raised one hand, and a second doorway of golden light manifested at the center of the chamber. The energy radiating from it was denser and far more complex than that of the first entrance.

"You may proceed into the second level."