Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 1466 Cosmic Path of Eternal Flames!
Previously on Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100...
"As far as I can observe, the fires in this test are remarkably plentiful," Max whispered gently while seated in a cross-legged position inside the twenty-first level. His respiration was fully evened out, and his awareness stretched beyond, blending with the heavy yet deep fire principles enveloping him.
The fires in this place differed from typical blaze. They avoided erratic dancing. They steered clear of aimless raging. Despite their disorder, a sense of flow persisted.
Max permitted the intense warmth to bear down on his form without opposition. Rather than pushing it away, he examined it closely.
He followed the framework of the fire principles he had faced from the initial level up to the twenty-first. In the beginning levels, the fires had surged turbulently and dispersed, readily shaped by insight. As he ascended, they grew thicker, more organized, more controlled. Upon arriving at the higher levels, the disordered fire principles no longer seemed shaky. They appeared whole.
He started connecting the elements into a design.
Nowhere along the Path to Eternal Flames did the blaze fade by itself. The fires kept getting renewed. Even after being taken by the Chaos Tree, they came back. Even under the weight of superior presence, they burst forth anew.
No trace of weariness existed in them.
Max concentrated on the core of the disordered fire principles encircling him. He avoided pushing for insight. He just watched.
The fires pursued more than mere ruin. They aimed for ongoing existence.
Even under crushing force, they reshaped themselves.
Even when dispersed, they reassembled.
The disordered fire principles of the twenty-first level held a continuous beat. Under the dominating force, persistence lingered. A faint yet firm denial to fade away.
Max gradually lifted his eyelids.
"These fires aren't just focused on strength," he whispered to himself. "They're centered on lasting."
He brought to mind each level he had passed through. The further he delved, the tougher the fires turned. The elevated the level, the less they depended on fierce outbursts. Rather, they captured a constant, unyielding force.
He recalled the way the fires in the higher levels didn't erupt showily when opposed. They merely kept being, advancing with steady determination.
An insight built steadily in his thoughts.
"The core of this Path isn't solely disorder," he uttered softly. "It's the everlasting quality of fire."
Fire, once sparked, yearned to keep going. It fed, it expanded, it maintained itself while fuel remained. The disordered fire principles here didn't signify a brief wave of ruin. They signified a blaze that rejected ending after starting to burn.
Max directed his sight downward a bit as the idea took hold.
"This heavenly route… it might not concern dominating ruin. It might concern dominating ongoing flow."
He hadn't yet grasped the heavenly route. He hadn't seized it completely. But by examining the framework of the fire principles from the first to the twenty-first level, he felt its orientation.
The test wasn't checking who could withstand the greatest scorch.
It was leading those on the cultivation path to grasp a fire that wouldn't die out.
A fire that held firm under duress.
A fire that lingered despite being held back.
Max shut his eyes once again.
"I haven't grasped it yet," he confessed to himself inside. "But I perceive its course."
The Path to Eternal Flames indicated something beyond normal blaze.
It indicated forever.
"Cosmic Path of Eternal Flames…" Max whispered gently as he remained in the twenty-first level, the heavy warmth flowing over him like an unending wave. The words resounded in his thoughts as he pondered the course the Path to Eternal Flames directed its followers to. An everlasting fire that denied dying. A blaze that lasted without end after being kindled.
It held great depth.
It held great might.
Yet it failed to connect with him.
Max lifted his eyes leisurely and let his own dark fires emerge softly around his frame. They didn't shine vividly like the fires of the Path. They didn't gleam with golden glow. His fires were profound and shadowy, like darkness shaped into being. They took in brightness instead of giving it off.
His dark fires carried a yin quality.
They engulfed.
They took in.
They didn't aim to last forever just for the sake of continuing. They aimed to take and merge.
The deeper he pondered the lasting quality of the fires in this test, the more evident it grew that this wasn't the route intended for him. The heavenly route of eternal fires concerned flow, concerning keeping being against all restraint.
His fires varied.
They didn't just hold on.
They swallowed what stood against them.
"They wouldn't pursue this route," Max uttered softly. "The path of eternal flames doesn't fit my dark fires."
He sealed his eyes anew and turned his attention inside.
Since the birth of his dark fires, they had held an engulfing trait. They took energy, principles, and even ideas. They weren't content with just being. They advanced by merging what they took.
If he tried to push them onto the route of forever, he would hold back their real essence.
Max realized that a heavenly route had to match one's core. If it didn't echo strongly with one's base, it would turn into a barrier instead of a boost.
"I ought to form my heavenly route based on engulfing," he whispered with clear insight.
His dark fires already bore that trait. If he could hone that element into a real heavenly direction, his fires would surge far stronger. An engulfing fire wouldn't just continue forever. It would take forever.
And through that, it would keep itself effortlessly.
The greater the engulfing trait, the mightier the fire.
The mightier the fire, the more it could take.
The link would build on itself without stop.
Max's breath eased as his focus intensified.
"The heavenly route for my fires needs to match their core," he reflected steadily. "Not lasting forever, but unending taking."
The fires of the Path to Eternal Flames kept blazing nearby, representing the idea of forever. But in his personal space, his dark fires moved with silent craving.
He didn't turn away from the heavenly route presented by the test.
He merely decided against pursuing it.
Rather, he started thinking about how to hone his own route, one based in taking, one that would let his fires expand limitlessly by swallowing all in their path.