Ascension Gains

"What stage are we in right now, exactly?" Almost all of them—Sonia and the others—were agonizing over this question, torn by anxious apprehension, hovering between anticipation and timidity. If they said they had already taken that final step, there hadn't actually been any physical union; but if they said they hadn't, the sensation of melting completely into one another still lingered vividly on their skin. Yet this was merely a trivial matter. Whether they dwelled on it or treated it as just a dream, their relationships with Yaxiu wouldn't actually change much; they would still interact the way they always had. If he expected this alone to make them docile and submissive, Yaxiu couldn't pull it off even if he were a 1,000 percent pure-blooded Veela. So the point wasn't what one thought oneself, but what the others thought! Diya wore fluffy white-rabbit pajamas, her white hair cascading down like silk. Sonia held a hair tie between her teeth as she casually swept her red hair into a simple ponytail. Weise didn't look at all like she had just stepped out of a bath; her silver braided plait rested over her left shoulder, giving her the poised, mature air of a virtuous wife and loving mother. Weixi remained in that intensely provocative maid outfit, exaggerated twintail curls hanging down on either side. Everyone harbored different thoughts. Someone couldn't wait to clear the final stage of the boss raid just like in the dreams; someone else wasn't psychologically prepared and wanted to take it step by step, trading moves with the boss; and someone didn't even qualify to take on the real boss... But no matter what pacing they preferred, they shared one firm consensus: under no circumstances could anyone else be allowed to pull ahead and claim first blood! "Papa!" Lisi slapped the table, teary-eyed. "It's been so long since we slept together!" *As expected,* the others thought. The Witch played her ultimate trump card right off the bat, seizing the moral high ground and twisting a romantic contest into a family drama, leaving the others without any room to intervene. The Witch herself lost nothing; before separating Lisi from herself, she was incapable of advancing her own progress anyway. If she couldn't have a taste, then everyone else would just have to sit and watch! Sonia felt a twinge of disappointment, but beneath it, a faint sense of relief. She lowered her head, tracing the swirling grain of the wooden table. Her thoughts tangled and twisted through countless turns, like an impossible knot of snarls. This was fine. With the Witch holding everyone back, all of them would have to halt here, remaining merely lovers. If things stayed just like this, she could still swallow the grievances in her heart, conceal the venomous resentment in her soul, pull the blanket over her head to weep in secret—where only her damp pillow would know her wretchedness—and keep playing the role of the perfect lover, shaming all her rivals into feeling inadequate while driving Yaxiu to rapturous distraction. But this was as far as she could hold out. Though she didn't know what the others' dreams had been like, Sonia knew her own dream was the least likely to ever come true. Because there had only been two people in it—her and Yaxiu. Only surrounded by flawless, undivided love could she become a flawless lover, clinging tightly to an unforgettable devotion. Whereas in reality... The rough feel of the swirling wood grain pressed against her fingertips. Sonia glanced at Weise and Weixi, then at the Little Witch beside them. Amid the bitter sorrow in her heart, an anticipatory thrill fraught with malice and hatred stirred in the depths of her soul. Once their relationship was pushed to the stage of true spouses, she would never be able to suppress the venom in her heart or hide her violent temper any longer. A hysterical possessiveness would transform her beyond recognition. Sonia clearly foresaw what the future held, and Yaxiu had long braced himself for it; but since Yaxiu insisted on shattering the crystal of love they had cradled so gingerly, Sonia was more than willing to oblige. Yet the love would not disappear—it would simply cease to be flawless. Their hands would grip those shards tightly, refusing to let go even as blood poured out and the agony became unbearable, until the fragments pierced into flesh and fused into bone. They would never part again, spending the rest of their lives tormenting each other in an inextricable tangle. Much as Sonia yearned for the warmth and peaceful bliss of the dream, if Yaxiu chose to lead her down this crooked path choked with thorns, a near-suicidal longing to die for love secretly stirred within her. *If you cannot make me happy, then at least you must suffer alongside me—even if the sentence is for a lifetime.* "Sorry, Lisi." Yaxiu drew his gaze back from the starry sky, pressing his palms together in apology. "I can't sleep with you tonight; I have some things to take care of." *What are you going to do?* Yet Yaxiu didn't pursue that topic. Instead, he said, "We haven't properly sorted through our gains from the ascension ritual yet. Aside from summoning our respective gods, our most important harvest should be..." "The sorcery temples!" At this, delight showed plainly on Weixi's brow. "Furthermore, the five of us ascended simultaneously. While the difficulty escalated exponentially, our sorcery temples will have received that much more in gifts of the Void Realm! If we were willing to become angels of the Kingdom of Heaven, our starting point would already be at the finish line of the vast majority of demigods!" "You've definitely already inspected your sorcery temple," Yaxiu said with a smile, looking at her eager-to-brag expression. "Let's hear it." "Tsk, tsk, tsk. A sorcery temple is every demigod's secret, not something to casually divulge to others. But since you've asked so shamelessly, Master, I shall show mercy and give you an introduction." Weixi extended her palm, and a phantom of a faint blue castle manifested above it. "My sorcery temple covers an area of 1,200 palaces, ranks at the Heavenly tier, and naturally comes with a minor secret realm, 'Requiem'!" "1,200 palaces?" "Heavenly tier?" "A minor secret realm?" Weixi gestured for everyone to stay calm and continued, "A 'palace' is the fundamental unit of a sorcery temple, as well as the minimum capacity needed to accommodate a single god. Temples are generally divided into Low, Middle, High, and Heavenly tiers based on size: 1 to 10 palaces make a Low-tier temple, 10 to 100 palaces make a Middle-tier temple, 100 to 1,000 palaces make a High-tier temple, and anything over 1,000 palaces is a Heavenly-tier temple." Diya gasped. "Then wouldn't 1,200 palaces be able to hold 1,200 gods?" "A suitcase can fit an adult too, but would you live in one?" Weixi laughed. "If you actually crammed a god into a one-palace temple, it wouldn't even be able to unleash one percent of its power. Even in a ten-palace temple, a god could barely muster thirty percent. While gods vary in their living requirements, on average, a god needs a living space of at least a hundred palaces to exert a hundred percent of its power. "While multiple gods can live together, compatibility between them plays an enormous role. If their compatibility is superb, they can share their entire living space; if their compatibility is awful, overlapping their living areas will diminish their power. "What's more, even without housing gods, the larger a sorcery temple is, the larger the spectacles that can be constructed within it. Just like sorcery temples, spectacles are classified into Low, Middle, High, and Heavenly tiers according to size. Though there are more variables involved, a larger-scale spectacle is invariably more powerful." Yaxiu and the others nodded in understanding, fully grasping the importance of temple size. It was just like people: if you were forced to live in a suitcase, you certainly couldn't work properly; if you lived in a cramped room with only a single bed and neither toilet nor kitchen, depression and gloom would sap your productivity; only by living in a fresh, spacious house with quiet, amicable neighbors could you slave away for the company with boundless energy. "Among them, the Heavenly tier is completely different. Do you know why?" Weixi blinked, looking excitedly like someone who couldn't keep a secret—not at all like an evil demigod renowned for prophecy sorcery. "Because of the minor secret realm?" Diya asked in a crisp voice. "Exactly! Every Heavenly-tier temple naturally spawns an incomplete minor secret realm!" Weixi tapped the phantom in her palm, revealing the castle's interior to everyone. "These minor secret realms cannot compare to true world secret realms, but if I can have a god govern it and continually expand its scale, it will one day grow into a true world secret realm!" Inside the castle, the Soul Lock God stood in an auditorium, playing a violin alone. The faint, serene notes created subtle ripples in everyone's souls, smoothing away all worry and dread. "'Requiem' is a sound-type secret realm...?" Yaxiu murmured thoughtfully. "If a minor secret realm grows into a world secret realm, wouldn't a demigod be able to directly raise the Kingdom of Heaven and step into the rank of Divine Lord?" "Though there are still many steps—and one must join the Kingdom of Heaven along the way to condense the fifth pair of virtual wings—that is indeed the general direction." Weixi nodded, then sighed. "Still, developing a minor secret realm isn't that simple. The materials and time required are beyond measure. The only sorcerers capable of truly developing a minor secret realm are probably those five Supreme Divine Lords who govern the Kingdom of Heaven. "It's just that, compared to demigods who don't even have a minor secret realm, a Heavenly-tier temple gives us something to strive toward." Weixi explained the method for calculating palace capacity. Weise could only watch from the sidelines; though she had undergone the ascension trial as well, she had received no sorcery temple as a reward—presumably the price for integrating her new authority. The Witch opened her small hand, and a circular temple with a garden inside appeared upon her palm. In the center of the temple stood a small bell tower, upon which the Fairy Tale God sat perched atop the roof. "My sorcery temple covers 1,266 palaces, and its minor secret realm is 'Bell Tower'." Weixi's face darkened. "How is it bigger than mine...?" "My sorcery temple covers 1,314 palaces, and its minor secret realm is 'Sword Table'." A cross-sword-shaped temple materialized in the Sword Princess's palm. At the intersection of the cross stood a massive round table bristling with broken swords of every kind, beside which sat the Shattered Lake God, wearing a black veil. Weixi fell silent for a moment, her gaze turning toward Yaxiu with a dark glint. Yaxiu flushed. In theory, Weixi's sorcery temple should have been far larger than the others; after all, Weixi had seized so much of the Kingdom of Heaven's share in the Dream Treasury, and her soul foundation already far surpassed that of an ordinary legendary sorcerer. That the Sword Princess's and the Witch's temples were larger than hers only proved Yaxiu had played favorites. Looking across the entire ascension process, their virtual wings had been shared as a single whole—either they all thrived or they all perished together. There had been no way for Yaxiu to give anyone private tutoring on the side. Therefore, the only part where he could have favored anyone or put in extra effort was... the dreams. "Why are the shapes and decor of your temples all different?" Beside them, Felix tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and asked curiously. "That is the influence of our sorcery affinities on the temples; specific factions perform more efficiently within our respective temples," Weixi explained. "Mine is the soul faction, the Witch's is the time faction, and the Sword Princess's is the swordsmanship faction." "But didn't we achieve four-wing harmonization?" Yaxiu paused, startled. "Why would there still be factional bias?" Weixi thought for a moment. "Put it this way: if four-wing harmonization had failed, what appeared in our temples would be a 'chain of discrimination'—a malignant hierarchy where the superior looks down on the inferior. But what our affinities produce is merely a 'prevailing trend'—much like ordinary people respecting scholars, teachers, and healers, while scholars and healers don't turn around and discriminate against ordinary folk. "Taking my temple as an example, when I construct a spectacle using soul sorcery spirits, sorcery spirits of other factions won't impede their function; rather, they will minimize interference between factions as much as possible. It's the same for the Sword Princess and the Witch: when they construct swordsmanship or time spectacles, the friction caused by spirits from different factions is drastically reduced." "Everyone has shown their sorcery temple." Sonia rested her chin on her hand, looking at Yaxiu with curiosity. "What about you, Yaxiu?" "His isn't a sorcery temple; it's a sorcery Kingdom of Heaven!" Weixi's tone carried a hint of jealousy, as though watching prized cabbages rooted up by a pig. "Yaxiu, you don't even need to count palaces; it's bound to be outrageously massive anyway." Yaxiu hesitated a moment, then reached out his hand, allowing his soul Kingdom of Heaven to materialize. A phantom world constructed of six tiers appeared before them: at the very bottom was an ocean, where a giant fish carried a continent on its back; atop the continent stood a Ruby Mountain; above Ruby Mountain was a pitch-black Hell; above Hell lay a desolate earth; and above that earth shone a radiant paradise. Apart from Weixi, this was the first time the others had laid eyes on such a magnificent, intricate soul Kingdom of Heaven, and they were momentarily transfixed. Diya murmured, "You could easily fit all of our temples inside..." "Where is your minor secret realm?" Weixi looked around, puzzled. "Where is it? The Void Realm didn't cheat you out of your reward, did it?" Yaxiu pointed to the pitch-black Hell above Ruby Mountain and below the desolate earth. "My secret realm," he said, "is the Six Hells." "But wasn't the Six Hells something you made up yourself...?" Felix began, only to be cut off when Daedalose glared at her with lovely eyes, silencing her instantly. Everyone fell silent, the crackle of the nearby campfire the only sound breaking the stillness. In Yaxiu's story, Igola, Harvey, and Hell were the three most critical elements, for according to his narrative, Igola and Harvey had already become demigods and stepped into Hell. A minor secret realm undoubtedly bore a deep connection to a sorcerer's inner spiritual world. Diya's Bell Tower, Sonia's Sword Table, and Weixi's Requiem were all physical manifestations of their sorcery pursuits. Yet Yaxiu's minor secret realm was the Six Hells he had fabricated himself—a construct unrelated to any of his sorceries. Clearly, his mental world could no longer distinguish reality from illusion. Even though he seemed normal right now, reviewing their gains with everyone, his psychological condition was likely far from reassuring, mired deep in delusion. "Yaxiu," Diya pleaded with genuine tenderness, "let Lisi sleep with you. She's very good now; she won't kick you out of bed." "I know what you're worried about," Yaxiu said with a helpless sigh, rising to his feet. "Rest assured, I can take care of myself. Go on and get some rest." The women exchanged glances, thinking: *Just as expected.* Although the Witch could prevent them from progressing their relationships, if Yaxiu actively wished to push forward, the Witch could only watch helplessly. The bath earlier had been a test. If Yaxiu believed having those dreams entitled him to establish a harem, he likely would have crossed the bamboo partition to bathe with them. Whether they accepted it was secondary; the crucial point was that once Yaxiu signaled he wanted to evolve their relationship to the next stage, every one of them would have to decide in what capacity she would take part. Yet just as Sonia and the others had anticipated, Yaxiu had not crossed the bamboo divider to join them in the bath, and for the night's rest, he chose to sleep alone. Evidently, he wished to keep things as they currently were, rather than fast-forwarding to sharing a giant bed just because of unrealized dreams. "Weixi." Yaxiu lifted the tent flap and beckoned to the maid. "Come inside with me."