Death… And Me

Chapter 3545: Isn’t That Interesting?

”That makes me wonder, how many of these portraits even appear every time?” Kentucky asked.

”Well, we have to take into consideration that many weren’t even found to start with. It is known that once the Celestial Supreme Palace disappears, so do all the portraits,” Elsie explained. ”But, from what I found during my research, it’s definitely at least a thousand of them.”

It looks like a lot, but if you take the size of the Universe into consideration...

”Wait, who cares bout how many?” Elsie went back to the main topic. ”How will we even find a Divinity Expert to help us that can be trusted. We don’t know what the Camazotz Bats do to make them loyal.”

Rean and Roan knew that it was related to the Werdlem Empire System. They even saved Diliy back then from the system’s influence after bringing him inside the Celestial Soul Dimensional Realm. They are pretty sure the Camazotz Bats were using something similar. But then again, that’s something they absolutely had no access to.

At that moment, someone arrived outside the Celestial Soul Dimensional Realm. Seeing who it was, Sister Orb immediately brought him inside.

*Zush!*

”Oh!” Rean noticed it. ”Zangeshu, you are also back.”

”Master,” Zangeshu nodded. ”So you reached the Elemental Space Realm, uh?”

Just like Rifindio, Elsie didn’t know about Zangeshu. She might have spent decades inside the Dimensional Realm, but only today did she meet those two since Sister Orb kept her isolated. She wasn’t surprised, though. Having more people inside your Pocket Dimension Realm wasn’t all that uncommon.

”That we did,” Rean nodded. ”And look at you, Elemental Space Middle Stage. Your master is proud! Also, we found out some nice things. Listen up.” Then, he proceeded to explain to Zangeshu about what had happened since he last came back.

”Wait, you got a portrait?” Zangeshu was taken aback. ”The Werdlem Network is on fire, with offers of astronomical rewards being given by Divinity Realm Experts to anyone with a Palace Portrait or with information regarding one.”

”That’s to be expected,” Roan nodded. Only five years remained until the opening, after all. Those without a portrait or a friend willing to share a slot were starting to run desperate.

”Astronomical rewards?” Rean’s eyes lit up. ”Would we be able to offer the slots in exchange for Starlight Stones or some other kind of Starlight Energy source?”

”That... might be possible,” the others had to admit, the chances were high.

”Ahem!” Elsie got their attention. ”Why are you talking about selling the slots of MY portrait for things YOU need instead of ME?”

”Tch!” Roan clicked his tongue. ”We should have kept the portrait.”

”Hey!” Elsie wanted to cry again.

”Hahaha!” Rean only laughed, finding their interaction funny. ”Anyway, Zangeshu. We are struggling to find a way to get a Divinity Realm expert to join us. Entering that place without a Divinity Realm Expert will make us quite big targets, even if most of the experts entering the Palace aren’t really in the Divinity Realm.”

”Hum?” Zangeshu looked at them as if he were looking at a bunch of idiots. ”Why would you even care about that? Cultivation in the Celestial Supreme Palace is limited. Everyone who gets inside has their cultivation realms suppressed back to the Transition Realm.”

”Wait, what?!” Rean, Roan, Kentucky, and Celis immediately looked at Rifindio and Elsie. Shouldn’t they know about this fact?

”Err...” Rifindio looked away. ”You know how my situation was back then. I didn’t really have a reason to learn much about this Palace thing, so I didn’t know. If the Camazotz Bats’ Supreme Palace didn’t carry the same name, I wouldn’t even have found out about it.”

Elsie, on the other hand, seemed extremely and genuinely surprised. ”No! That’s not possible! I researched the Celestial Supreme Palace a lot before I tried to sell some of my portrait slots! There was no information about such things! How could such a crucial piece of information not be available in the network? If it were there, I would have known!”

Zangeshu immediately understood the problem. ”Oh, I see... Elsie has been confined in the Dimensional Realm for the last 91 years, right? Well, she could have left at any time, but she didn’t want to.”

”Shut up! You don’t need to remind me that!” Elsie complained.

Too bad Zangeshu completely ignored her. ”The information regarding the cultivation limit only appeared in the last decade. I’ve been following it since it is such a huge topic online. From the looks of it, those with the portrait found out about this limitation recently after entering the portrait to check.”

”Entering the portrait?” Rean asked back, confused.

Rifindio didn’t know about it since he never paid much attention to this back then, so Zangeshu explained more. ”That’s how you go to the palace. Once there are only ten years remaining for the Palace to appear, you will be able to enter the portrait, and you will be teleported to the Celestial Supreme Palace through that method later on, or so I read. It’s just that entering the portrait now is meaningless.”

”He is right,” Elsie confirmed. ”Why do you think I said it only worked in the outside world? If you try to use it in the Pocket Dimensional Realm, the portrait can’t connect to the Palace.”

Roan narrowed his eyes. ”I seem to remember you saying that you need the portrait outside so it can point out the right direction. You never talked about entering it.”

Elsie looked away again. ”Well... I have some kind of tracker on me, right? I thought that, if I convinced you we would need to move there, perhaps you would remove the tracker before we departed... If I said the real transfer method, you might have given up. Then, now that we have decided to go together, I forgot to tell you this tiny bit of information. Hey, it is not that big of an issue, right? The point is that we can go anyway.”

Roan didn’t look the least bit happy. Still, he wasn’t the type to believe everything he heard, especially in a situation like this, so he wasn’t surprised she lied about that point. ”So be it. So we can enter the portrait. Zangeshu, you said someone went to check, but you also said entering it now is meaningless? Is the one-hundred-year waiting time before entering the palace incorrect?”

”No,” Zangeshu shook his head. ”The time is correct. However, you can enter the portrait already if you want in the last ten years as the portraits start to get active. It’s just that you won’t be teleported to the palace. Instead, you will appear inside a very tiny Dimensional Realm that exists inside every single portrait. It’s this Dimensional Realm that will connect you to the palace later on. That’s also why no one can tell where this palace really is located.”

Then, he added the last piece. ”However, whatever the conditions are found inside the portrait during this time, it will also be the conditions at the palace. So, after some of the experts and powers tested the portrait in the last few years, they found out about the limitation. Even Divinity Realm experts were no exception... but there is a catch.”

’Sure enough, there is always a catch,’ everyone thought.

Zangeshu continued. ”If you are capable of using laws, you will continue to be able to do so, even if your cultivation is suppressed down to the Transition Realm.”

That was indeed a very important catch. So what if the cultivation realms become all the same? The difference between someone who can use laws and someone who can’t is like the an ant and an elephant. It is not even worth mentioning. But then again...

”Well, well, well...” Roan finally showed a smile, although it gave chills to anyone looking at it. ”Isn’t that interesting?”