The Seal Bestowal Succeeds—Across the Threshold!

The Wolf Knight statue's voice came first, and Bai Zhou's voice after. The last words were still humming and echoing among the temple's stone pillars when, above the open skylight of the dome, the High Priest's eyelids suddenly trembled. "Hum!!" In a flash, a point of "light" that no color could define surfaced without a sound on the dome above the skylight, so that all the light in the temple seemed to bow its head and press close around it. The shape of the light was tiny, yet look closely and it seemed infinitely vast. His sight was filled, as if by the radiance of an entire world, and he could see no end to it at all. When he closed his eyes, the shape of that point of light rose of itself within his heart—an ancient, exalted seal, like jade and yet not jade. Looking closely, he found that what formed the seal was not any material at all, but countless mysterious lines, finer than a hair and flowing without cease. Each line seemed blended of innumerable colors, hazy and indistinct, complex beyond imagining. Even with his mind as active as it was now, Bai Zhou could not make out the courses these lines took. When he opened his eyes again and looked at the point of light in the real world, he suddenly realized it had already drifted down into the air above his head. Everything around him seemed to warp and blur. The temple's stone walls, the ancient tree that pierced the sky, the flowing air—all of it rippled gently, like water, around the point of light. This was the Celestial Pivot. It seemed inseparable from the world, one link in the world's very essence, and yet it seemed to stand as a world of its own—incomparably minute, and at the same time incomparably vast. It was hard to imagine what precious materials the Troy of those years had used, or what process it had passed through, to forge a Celestial Pivot such as this. But for a mere human body to fuse with a thing like this... The difficulty could well be imagined. "..." The Celestial Pivot turned slowly in midair. A plain, profound stream of light swept toward the center of Bai Zhou's brow. A peculiar flow of information surged through Bai Zhou's mind. —The method of the Celestial Pivot Seal Bestowal. Bai Zhou closed his eyes, received the flow of information, digested it in the shortest time he could, and engraved it upon his heart. When he opened his eyes again and looked up at the point of light overhead, his gaze already carried a measure of comprehension and resolve. "Hoo..." Bai Zhou let out a long breath and settled himself. The spirituality within him lit and woke, point by point, as if the stars of the whole heaven were arrayed across the night sky. Then he raised both hands. His knuckles shifted through one form after another, and he shaped several complex mudras. "I humbly petition the Celestial Pivot for Seal Bestowal!" Bai Zhou murmured once more. The Celestial Pivot seed spinning above his head shuddered in answer. As if it were being peeled away and unfurled, stream after stream of mysterious light flowed into Bai Zhou's body. The instant that flowing light touched his skin, did Bai Zhou feel no contact with any solid thing? Yet the muscles all over his body tightened of their own accord, and he felt an enormous pressure. The pressure was as if, in that instant, the whole world collapsed with a roar and the sky fell upon him all at once. A chill struck Bai Zhou's heart. At once, following the Seal Bestowal knowledge he had just digested, he drew the spirituality within him into motion. Endless streams of light entered his body. Each one seemed to hold countless runes. Spirituality led them from the front, from chaotic darting into orderly motion, as if through a maze, so that these scrambled tens of thousands of lines might be reassembled into a complete Celestial Pivot rune. It was an exceedingly long labor. A human body was not large to begin with, and all this spirituality and all these lines were packed together in one heap. Lines that had nothing to do with one another would react if they drew near, and at any moment an explosion beyond all reckoning might occur. Spirituality was the guide. The lines were the tourists. Bai Zhou now had to lead those lines to the places they were meant to go, and while they were jammed together in a dark, pressing mass, the risk was very great. Following the Seal Bestowal knowledge he had digested, Bai Zhou gathered the clustered spirituality into a wondrous vortex of spirituality. The vortex rose and fell as if breathing, and the mysterious light glimmered within it, now hidden, now revealed. The spirituality vortex turned slowly to a strange, peculiar rhythm, at times clockwise, and only occasionally counterclockwise. With every turn, a strand of mysterious light slipped out, and little by little, deep in his body, the framework of an enormous rune was pieced together. Gradually the vortex spread wider, like a tide rising and falling, now fast, now slow. This peculiar rhythm was also a point on which the Seal Bestowal knowledge gave the strictest warning, because the countless tiny runes that formed the mysterious light were shifting at every moment, and the makeup of the light itself changed as time passed. Only by drawing out, in its own particular moment, the light unique to that instant could one join it to the strand before it and raise the framework of the rune. One wrong step, and he would have to begin again. A few more errors, and the rune's framework would collapse. The mysterious light wrapped in the tide of spirituality would explode, stream after stream—and then the Celestial Pivot Seal Bestowal would have failed. The peril and hardship in the midst of it were beyond words. Bai Zhou stayed wholly focused from beginning to end, careful in every particular, not daring the slightest slip. The foundation Crow had long laid for him as a ritualist helped him now, especially in fine control and precision. Back when Bai Zhou was learning to sketch and to trace rituals, a single wrong stroke—even a stroke that was not straight enough—would be taken by Crow and sent back to be done over. That had formed in him a long-standing habit of caution: either he did not set the brush down, or, once he did, it was right. In the silent temple, time slipped past, second by second. Beads of sweat appeared on Bai Zhou's forehead, but no sooner had they formed than the air in the temple brushed them away of its own accord. They never had time to fall. This was the Wolf Knight statue at his side, quietly at work. Bai Zhou's Celestial Pivot Seal Bestowal was the foremost matter it had waited on through all these years, and it would absolutely not allow Bai Zhou to suffer the slightest disturbance in its presence. If a fly were to appear here now, it would not hesitate to wield the divine might of a powerful Extraordinary and pulverize the fly at the most microscopic level of its structure before the fly could make a sound—though Troy's civilization, silent for countless years, would never possess so extravagant a thing as a living creature. "Hua-la..." Amid the surge of the spirituality tide, the reconstruction of the Celestial Pivot within Bai Zhou's body was nearing its end. The towering, immense, deep and intricate rune was all but complete. And just then— Bai Zhou's mind, focused far too long, was nearing its limit. His body seemed somewhat unable to bear the rune's mighty power. The whole rune began to flicker with a faint light, and an invisible pressure swept over him from head to foot. In that moment, the nearly finished rune seemed to begin swelling and swaying of its own accord. A hum-like echo rose from every corner of his body. Stinging pain spasmed through every part of him. Bai Zhou realized that his earlier building of the rune might still have held tiny slips he had not noticed, and that those slips had left the whole rune unstable now. The pain was worsening. The pressure was spreading. Beneath the oppression of the rune above, Bai Zhou's tide of spirituality was on the verge of collapse. "So it has failed after all?" The Wolf Knight statue looked at Bai Zhou's pained face. Its gaze seemed to pass through the surface of his body and see the half-formed Celestial Pivot rune flickering with faint light. As if this were no surprise, it nodded, then shook its head. "Victory and defeat are commonplace in war. Look across the nineteen generations of saintesses of the Sun Temple. Only three succeeded at Seal Bestowal on the first attempt." "Afterward, every one of them reached the very summit in ritual studies, and even opened new roads ahead." "The third, and the last saintess to succeed on the first attempt, was Our King." "All agree that, had she not split her focus and become a king, the saintess would have been the most accomplished ritualist in the history of Troy, bar none." "And so the difficulty of a first Seal Bestowal can well be imagined. Success is certainly worth rejoicing over, but failure is the ordinary way of a life." "Only..." Here the Wolf Knight statue's voice hesitated slightly. The Celestial Pivot's effect upon the body was extremely domineering. Only success on the first attempt let the body perfectly accommodate and bond with the Celestial Pivot. If the first attempt failed, then even if another Celestial Pivot were brought and one succeeded on the second try... Because of the first Celestial Pivot's influence, the second Celestial Pivot's fit with the body would show some flaw. After three failures, one could never again accommodate a new Celestial Pivot. So it was even between Celestial Pivots, to say nothing of a Seal Bestowal of ordinary grade. A ritualist who had received the Celestial Pivot Seal Bestowal could never again accommodate a Seal Bestowal of any other grade. "Could it be that the ritualist lineage Troy prizes most is to be lost here?" In the Wolf Knight statue's eyes, the emerald light glimmered, deep and faint. "If one were only to walk Troy's Adventurer pathway..." Gazing at Bai Zhou's pained face, the artificial intelligence housed within the Wolf Knight statue seemed to ponder, and to hesitate. All at once the Wolf Knight statue gave a soft sound of surprise. The emerald light that served it for eyes flared bright, and it stared hard at Bai Zhou. For the pain in Bai Zhou's expression was gradually easing. The humming that had circled every corner of his body slowly died away. Clearly, something unforeseen had arisen. "Hum, hum, hum!" On the surface of the Sea of Ignorance, the character Soothe trembled. Invisible ripples washed through his whole body. The humming sank little by little. The tide of spirituality grew stable, and even the swaying Celestial Pivot rune gradually came to a stop. He did not know how long had passed. After the pain reached its peak, it receded like a tide, and a new balance and clarity took its place. Then the character Light upon the Sea of Ignorance shuddered as well. Boundless light surged out with it and washed over all of Bai Zhou's body. That radiance answered, from afar, the mysterious rays that formed the Celestial Pivot. The light welling from the character Light actually began, little by little, to mimic those mysterious rays and draw toward their likeness, reinforcing and filling in the whole framework of the Celestial Pivot. And so the Celestial Pivot steadied—steady, one might even say, to an absurd degree. Bai Zhou was first astonished, then stirred. In one surge he called up his spirituality and, under spirituality's guidance, sent the last of the mysterious light across as well. "Condense!" With the fall of the final stroke, the Celestial Pivot ritual—formed together of more than ten thousand mysterious lines, moving and changing at every moment—was declared successfully constructed within Bai Zhou's body! In the next instant— "Boom! Boom, boom, boom!" The rune-light of the Celestial Pivot ritual blazed outward. Like a small sun, it shifted rapidly from place to place within Bai Zhou's body. At last it came near his navel and settled beside the Fate Principle Sun. Two suns, one great and one small, shone above the Sea of Ignorance. In the Seal Bestowal knowledge Bai Zhou had digested, this was the final step of the Celestial Pivot Seal Bestowal. It was called— Celestial Pivot, Homing! "Hum." In the instant of Homing, with the Fate Principle space as the center, the light of the Celestial Pivot swept swiftly over Bai Zhou's whole body. Dawn-glow lit every corner of him. "Hualala..." The light raced past like a tide and then, as if waking all things, the spirituality throughout his body grew livelier and more solid. Surging strength and vigor seemed loosed from hidden corners of his body. Bai Zhou felt only a sudden clarity, spirit bright and clean. The exhaustion of a moment before was swept entirely away. "This feeling..." Bai Zhou drew a deep breath and carefully took its measure. This feeling was extremely like what he had felt the first time he stepped into the extraordinary and woke the spirituality within him. Now, the liveliness of that spirituality nearly made him think he had awakened spirituality a second time, and set foot in the extraordinary a second time. But it seemed this was simply how it was meant to be. Because only at this moment had Bai Zhou's path as a ritualist... truly begun. "The ritualist's way... is an Extraordinary path that reaches all the way to heaven, too!" Of this, Bai Zhou was certain. Then he slowly opened his eyes. Compared with before, Bai Zhou's eyes were now unusually bright and vivid. Light flashed, and a mysterious, profound ritual rune flickered past in the depths of his pupils. He raised his eyes and looked around. It was as if an especially clear, brilliant filter had been laid over the world. Bai Zhou could see the flow of the air. If he quieted his heart and sensed, he could even catch the course of the spirituality within it! He lifted his gaze to the Wolf Knight before him, emerald eyes glimmering, and on its body he made out many traces of rituals. He tried to catch the flowing traces of those rituals, but very quickly, and decisively, he gave it up. For the rituals were unfathomable. He had barely begun to peer into them when an extremely ominous intuition of death rose in his heart. Then Bai Zhou thought of the Hundred-Paper Corridor Ritual and the Lesser Amber Domain-Sealing Ritual. They were not of a kind that could be compared with the rituals before his eyes, and yet to him they were treasured beyond measure, and powerful. The Celestial Pivot hung high. Beneath it, the Sea of Ignorance rose and fell. His thoughts turned. He shifted the Celestial Pivot into simulation and deduction, and felt that the two great rituals which before had been unfathomable, obscure, and impossible to understand no longer seemed quite so far beyond reach... And not only that— Bai Zhou's mind stirred. Within the Fate Principle space, the light of the Celestial Pivot blazed. A rune flashed through the depths of his eyes. He merely raised a hand and lightly patted the back of it— The Super Agility micro-ritual: construction complete! The Body Enhancement micro-ritual: construction complete! His physical prowess shot upward with it. Bai Zhou felt his body extraordinarily light. Strength from the rituals was reinforcing him. Before, the trump cards Bai Zhou needed Crow to carve upon him ahead of time—the micro-rituals which, in his days as a ritualist apprentice, he had to trace with care for a good half day, and trigger with a specially formed mudra— now needed no medium, no mudra, and no carving of ritual symbols. Formed in a single thought! Cast in an instant! The Celestial Pivot ritual could simulate and deduce other rituals. These simple micro-rituals from his time as a ritualist apprentice would still need a few symbols drawn if they were used on someone else. But if he used them on himself? For the Celestial Pivot, he had only to mobilize spirituality. In the space of a breath, Bai Zhou could lay them successfully upon his own body! "You actually..." As an artificial intelligence, the Wolf Knight statue had thought that, long used to great winds and great waves, it could remain calm forever. But now, with its mood flung so violently up and down, it could not help looking at Bai Zhou and crying out: "You actually succeeded!" "Seal Bestowal on the first attempt—the Celestial Pivot is complete!" "—You have an aptitude to match Our King's in those days!" "A first Seal Bestowal..." Bai Zhou felt the Celestial Pivot within him endlessly washing his whole body in dawn-glow, and grew thoughtful. He recalled the Seal Bestowal knowledge he had digested. Only now did he understand, clearly and in his own flesh, the difference spoken of there between a first Seal Bestowal and a second. —The fit was too perfect. His body, his mind, and the Celestial Pivot fit together without a flaw. It moved as the arm commands the fingers, so perfect that there was not the slightest barrier or seam. As Bai Zhou understood it, an initiated ritualist who possessed a Celestial Pivot gained by a Seal Bestowal successful on the first attempt was like a Maserati fitted with the most compatible engine of the highest grade—and any alteration to that engine would only spoil what needed nothing added. It was the original, just as it had left the factory. "At last. I've been initiated." In Bai Zhou's eyes there was the fear that comes after danger, and a heartfelt swell of feeling now that so much lay behind him. With this, the Celestial Pivot Seal Bestowal was declared complete! Bai Zhou drew a deep breath, raised a hand, and wiped the Super Agility micro-ritual from the back of his hand. The spirituality attached to it scattered of its own accord. "From this day on, I am an initiated ritualist!" —An initiated ritualist comparable to a level-5 Destined! In Tinghai's mystical world, only past level 5 did one count as a high-level Extraordinary. In other words, from this moment on, in the mystical world, Bai Zhou could no longer be counted by anyone as a nameless nobody! —He had crossed the threshold into the art!