Death… And Me

Chapter 4229: Unnecessary!

Default would be lying if he said he didn’t expect that question. ”Oh, so you finally decided to go up, uh? What, are you bored?”

”Pretty much,” Rean confirmed.

Default nodded. ”Very well.”

Default then brought the twins’ group somewhere else, where they could have a proper chat. Only then did he begin to explain. ”As you can probably imagine, ascending is easier said than done. When you consider the entire Great Void, we have plenty of Peak Stage Celestials. And yet, as you already know, there are only a few thousand experts above that level right now.”

”First, you must know that once you manage to ascend, you are also able to come down as long as you pay the necessary price. Well... in your case, there is no such thing. The Great Void has become kind of your Dimensional Realm. You can simply will it, and you will reappear here.”

He continued. ”Anyway, the real problem with ascension is that you don’t really ’move’ between one place and another. Instead, you are deconstructed and rebuilt in the most strict sense of the words.”

”Deconstruction and rebuilding?” That made them curious. ”So it is not like we need to cross a portal or anything like that.”

”Exactly,” Default confirmed. ”If you think about it, it is not that surprising, don’t you think? You have tried to use The Echo to read the thoughts of experts like Soza and others. Yet, you can’t, because they aren’t from the Great Void. To be more specific, it is because their entire existence has nothing to do with our Great Void anymore. The only thing they still carry are their memories, but even the soul connections that make those memories are not the same as before.”

Default’s expression turned serious. ”Here’s something that might bother you, something that has truly broken various minds in the past. The you that will appear in the Celestial Plane isn’t truly the same you anymore. In a certain way, you could be said to have died. You will cease to exist and will be rebuilt from scratch to fit the Celestial Plane.”

”Now, there are many opinions about this effect. Some think they are not the same people, others think that since you have your memories preserved, you are still yourself. It is all a matter of opinion. You should really take your time to think about whether you want to have these kinds of thoughts.”

Hearing Default’s warning made it clear that the problem wasn’t simple.

Yet, Roan simply snorted. ”Hmph! Memories are memories. If we truly go into that ridiculous rabbit hole, then we have to think about our own lives in the great void first. It is the same shit. Are we still ourselves? What a waste of time.”

”What do you mean?” Kentucky couldn’t help but ask.

Roan turned to him. ”Take sleeping, for example. Who can say that the one who slept the previous day is the same person who woke up in the next? After all, you more or less shut down during sleeping sessions. Reincarnation, too. You brand your memories to bring them to the next life, but are you still you once that happens? It never ends. That’s why I can say with certainty: these kinds of thoughts are absolutely ridiculous and meaningless.”

”Hahaha!” Default laughed after hearing that. ”Indeed. It will never end if you think about all the nuances. Well, I guess Roan has no issues with this deconstruction and rebuild.”

Rean shrugged. ”You will hear no complaints here either. We are a collection of memories and experiences. Regardless of what kind of storage is used, if the contents are kept the same, then we are still ourselves. I will have a problem if we get duplicated, though.”

Default looked at Celis and Kentucky. ”What about the two of you?”

Celis was even less interested in all of that. ”Can I cultivate further? Then that’s all that matters to me.”

Kentucky pondered a bit... and then gave up. ”I’m too lazy to think about all of that.”

Seeing that none of them had issues with it, Default finally continued his explanation. ”Alright. Since you are all fine with it, let’s talk about the next step. As I mentioned, the bodies of the Great Void can’t exist in the Celestial Plane. Thus, the deconstruction and rebuild.”

”You will need to overload your own existence so the Great Void rejects you. It is very similar to how the mortal realms of various universes reject cultivators who have reached a level of cultivation that is too high. The difference is that there is no breakthrough here.”

”Okay...” Roan understood the concept. ”But how do we do that?”

”That’s the tricky part that makes it so difficult for ascension,” Default continued. ”You need to let go of everything. Release your cultivation to the maximum, but don’t control it. Let it break the rules of the Great Void. Simply put, let your power run rampant. Release all the self-conscious restraints that make you the cultivators you are today.”

”Don’t misunderstand it. It is not the same as simply using and releasing all your power at once. That is still a kind of self-control, a decision, even in the most desperate moments,” Default added.

”That... sounds quite difficult,” Rean commented. ”You are basically asking us to go against what makes us, us. Even unconsciously, there is always a degree of self-restraint, regardless of how dire the situation might be.”

”Yep!” Default confirmed. ”I told you it wasn’t easy. The concept is simple, but it is a difficult thing to do.”

*Crack...*

Suddenly, Kentucky’s body seemed to break from within. All the cultivation energy in his body burst inwards and outwards, and the space itself collapsed as that happened. Both laws and energies seemed to be deeply affected by that.

”This...” Default was taken aback. ”How did you do that so fast...”

Rean, Roan, and Celis were completely lost. They could feel how Kentucky’s body was breaking, but it wasn’t dying. It felt more like it was being pulled apart little by little, but in an ordered manner. ”What did you do?”

Kentucky opened his eyes, and only then did he notice what was happening to himself. ”Wow! I didn’t expect it to work! Hey, I can feel it! It is like everything that makes me is being pulled away somewhere else.”

”Yeah, we can see that!” Roan complained. ”We are asking how you got there!”

”Ah! That!” Kentucky nodded, his body slowly going transparent as he seemed to disintegrate into specs of light that disappeared nonstop. ”Default said we had to release all restraints, so I did. I’m lazy as fuck, so even the simple self-regulation of my own cultivation was always a bother. So... I let it all go. Putting it in a way you can understand: I’m just being really, reaaaaaaly lazy, that’s all.”

Rean, Roan, and Celis had terrible expressions. Who could have thought that being a Minokawa was actually an advantage at this time? ”So we just need to be lazy like you were, uh?”

Fortunately, they had a role model! A role model who has lived through thick and thin with them for countless years, Kentucky himself! ”Lazy and useless like Kentucky...”

*Crack, crack, crack...*

And then, it started within them all.

Kentucky didn’t look happy, though. ”Useless was unnecessary!”