Hm.
Ares was scanning the various rows of blood vials and he'd come to an understanding of sorts as a result but it had only raised even more questions in the process. His own DNA was unfortunately not here. His metaphorical princess was in another castle but that was fine. It was stored here at one point but it was sent to the next lab along by some kind of spatial magic. Chances are, Tom Tom had to send the DNA through each lab one by one to have it reach the very top of the Riddlemyd where it could then be sent into the upper domains. Ares didn't know how much progress he'd made but it wasn't really a worry as the traces of the DNA in this room were still pretty fresh. If it took this long for the DNA to get here, since Ares first arrived then, assuming there were at least two more labs left, although there were probably even more than that, then Ares had more than a week to find his stuff based on his current rate of exploration. He didn't need that long, he was planning on being done with Xasca as a whole in roughly a week and that included everything else on his to do list too! Finding the next lab? Ares would have completed the entire Riddlemyd by then!
This discovery wasn't what caught Ares' attention, though, it was actually the Lighter Duo's DNA. Finding it wasn't unexpected, it was pretty clear by now that the duo had deep ties to this place, but it was the layout of the vials here that led to some interesting inferences about what Sevorus had been trying to do with them. It didn't answer the question of who they were but the resolution to that quandary would definitely be found in the documents, papers, and other such records the duo were browsing through and not the experiments themselves. Ares could share his findings with the duo after but right now his mind was racing with the various possibilities that stemmed from this discovery. Put simply, the vials were laid out in rows. There were about ten blood vials per row. Each row was for a different species however it was always the exact same test subject. Row one was a stepper's essence, row two was a qwaker's blood, etc.. None of the row's contained blood samples from multiple different entities of the same species. All ten vials in each row contained the essence or blood of a single test subject... Except for the row belong to the Lighter Duo. Half, so five, of the vials were Water Guy's and the other half were Lightning Guy's...
So then why?
Why were these two the exception to the otherwise neat and tidy pattern laid out and strictly adhered to by Sevorus? Why didn't they each have their own dedicated row with ten samples each? Even if Sevorus only needed five samples from each at most he still shouldn't have logically put them in the same row as they were different entities... Unless they weren't? Were they once one whole entity that got split? Was Sevorus trying to fuse them back? Or were they actually separate to begin with but Sevorus wanted to fuse them anyway for some unknown reason and so he was checking if their DNA was compatible with one another? Better yet, why these two specifically? What made them special? Do they have some kind of particular background? There were a lot of possible conjectures that could be made here and, unfortunately, this room didn't have any other secrets to pick out so nothing could be ruled out or guaranteed based on this alone. Ares would need to see the records the duo were browsing to get a feel for what was really happening here... "The clot thickens!... Hehehe." Ares dangled one of the duo's blood vials and cackled to himself.
"Definitely not sect master material..." Water guy raised his head, looked at Ares in the next room who he'd just overheard, and shook his head with a sigh. Lightning Guy would have done it too but he was seemingly engrossed in what appeared to be a diary of sorts. Plenty of experimental notes had been logged in it but there were also a few anecdotes that had him hooked. Water Guy was curious so he leant over his shoulder and peeked at the book which caused him to fall into a trance as well leaving Ares perplexed as to what was up with them. When they both suddenly gripped their heads at the exact same time, however, it became obvious it had something to with their memories. Something written in the diary had jogged their brains and sent them on a trip down memory pain lane. Nostalgia hit hard, in this case literally as they were slowly collapsing to the floor and stumbling around on their knees as they grunted and finally fell over. Ares had rushed over but there was pretty much nothing he could do other than oversee their descent into unconsciousness. He tried giving them some revenant blood to heal whatever ailed them but, contrary to his intentions, he knocked them out faster. In hindsight, that was a terrible decision as thy were regaining memories, not losing them. Healing them only meant their damaged memory banks were being replenished faster! His good intentions backfired... Sort of? If this was 'healing' then it would end up being a net positive for them even if it hurt like hell for now. They had to go through this ordeal at some point so Ares knocking them out faster and speeding up their recovery meant they actually had to deal with this less!... That was the excuse he was going to use if they woke up and decided to complain...
Until they regained consciousness, however, Ares was going to do a bit of peeping! And not the kind they accused him of earlier! Ares pried the diary out of Lightning Guy's cold, but thankfully not dead, hands and turned to page one... Which was utterly pointless because it detailed happenings literal eons ago. Time in this universe was tracked via a calendar system that utilised the alphabet to denote important eras. The beginning of the universe was calendar year A0001. The year after was A0002. 'A' was the first era and, when it came to a close, era 'B' began. There's no real definitive end to an era, a new one simply starts whenever any major event occurs. The spread of cultivation marked the end of era 'A' during year A7090 and, next year, B0001 began. Eras could last thousands of years, a mere handful, or potentially even many millions. It all depended on when major events occurred, if at all, and so the variation in how long each era wound up being varied a fair bit. For that reason, although billions of years had passed since A0001, the calendar was currently still only on era 'M'. To be specific, the year, currently, was M0019. The start of the era coincided with Ares' birth and, technically, was related to him. The birth of fundamental champions was officially confirmed precisely nineteen years ago, even though some of them were born prior, and that became the day a new era was ushered in and the old one was relegated to the history books.
There are usually big celebrations across the entire universe at the start of every era, provided the reason for it isn't some major war or anything negative, and most domains get involved but, due to the barriers interference, Sheryashka, and the other hidden away lower domains, had no idea such a thing even occurred. The calendar in Sheryashka was incredibly incorrect comparatively as what defines the end and start of an era became subjective to them, and what happened within the confines of the barrier, and so it was terribly misaligned with the rest of the world. Sheryashka was still, according to their own calendar, on era 'L'. They got the amount of years correct but the era was absolutely wrong. As an aside, once era 'Z' inevitably comes to an end, the calendar will 'reset' and the next era, the twenty seventh, will be era 'Aa'. The era after that will be era 'Ba' then 'Ca' and so on so on. The organisation that debates names of aspects and pillars is also responsible for naming the calendar eras after its reset and there have been many discussions about it. The most common complain was that the lower case 'a' made it look as though it was the first ever era and it should be a lower case 'b' instead for clarity. Others argued, in response, that using lower case 'b' made it look like an entire twenty six eras had been skipped or not recorded which would lead to confusion if ever records of history were destroyed or lost for whatever reason in the future. There were also a bunch of people who felt like it should be era 'A1' but then it would become hard to record the year properly as era A10001 didn't read well at all and could be easily mistaken for year 10001 of the era that happened twenty six years prior. The arguments were pretty heated, and there was a lot more to it, but the debate had outlived many legends of history at this point as records of the topic dated back to as early as A1055, the year the calendar system was officially declared. There were other ideas floated around but this one reigned supreme and won the vote at the time and had been in use ever since.
Why mention all this? Well the very first entry in this diary was from era 'E'... That was borderline ancient! Era 'H' alone lasted a few billion years and had been a real drag as nothing spicy happened for a long time to draw out the era to a close. How old was Sevorus exactly?!... No, that probably wasn't what was happening here. This diary must have been passed down to, or discovered later on by, Sevorus. Maybe his master, at most, wrote these initial entries but there was no way Sevorus himself had been around during era 'E', that was preposterous. What Ares had been given to understand about him, thanks to Dominus' occasional ramblings, was that he wasn't really considered old compared to the real ancient freaks lingering around here and there. Sevorus wasn't older than many Gods, some of who also weren't around during era 'E', so it couldn't possibly be him. Sevorus was probably responsible for later entries but Ares still read all the earlier ones regardless as there might have been clues about the origin of Sevorus' intentions tucked away near the beginning. He wouldn't keep this diary if it didn't interest him. Ares, as he wasn't impeded by long lost memories knocking him out like the duo, was able to go through the entire diary over the course of about four hours. Not every entry was relevant, and some earlier ones had details or dates smudged because time had taken its toll, but the ones that were both relevant and legible, in order, were as follows...
- Cal#ndar Ye#r E059#
The nature of a soul is perhaps not as indeterminable as we've been led to believe.
- Calen#ar year E0600
Though taboo, I've finally gathered enough 'material' to conduct a proper experiment. It's likely my work here will be d#scovered sooner r#ther than later, at which point I will no doubt become an exile and outc#st, if not a wanted criminal, but before that happens I seek to finish this test. It's impo#tant. Turning a us#less mortal into a G#d, or perhaps a God into a useless m#rtal, is, perhaps, finally within reach and is an authority that needs to be given the ample attention it #eserves. Millions of ##ves is a small price to pay and, who knows, they very well may return once all is sa#d and done.
- Calendar #### E####
Failure. Regrettable but not outside the realm of possibility given the calculations prior. I knew there would be compl#cations, nothing in life worth pursuing is ever simpl#. The question now is what exactly #ent wrong? The rejection of those millions of souls was... M#ssy... But what caused it? By all accounts souls ought to be capable of ####ing... Individuals with two souls in one b#dy are known to have existed multiple ti#es throughout the eras so why dis this particular endeavour fa#l? The end goal may be different but the pr#cess is not dissimilar. The q#antity of souls should n#t have been relevant, or caused the explosion, so I'm left scratching my he#d... Perhaps it was t#e vessel? More experimentation needed to form a conclusive analysis.
- ###e#### Yea# E10032
So it would seem there are multiple issues. After thous#nds of years of trial and error the list of problems h#s been narrowed dow#. Vessel quality is indeed a factor but it is a complicate# one. Talent is a major contributor and those who ar# not at least prodigious cannot handle the strain of the experime#t. Worse still, they need to have a high tolerance for m#ntal anguish lest they become vegetative and worthles#. It's not just the magical affiliation, mana, and essence of the souls that are transferred but also the m#mories too and the test subje#t needs to be able ot hold all of it. A normal mind cannot han#le such a massive influx of foreign #emories. This also bring# about the necessity for the test subject to have a sufficient cultivation base though, theoretically, it will all be lost afterw#rds a#yway. The cultivation can be regained as the memories are slowl# integrated with the host but, given how many millions of souls there are, recovering each and every memory will take a lot of time. Con#erning myself over that matter right now is pointless, however, as the other factors are still causing repeated failures and need to be addressed as wel#.
Compatibility issues with aspect affiliations are surprisingly a roadblock too. The test su#ject possessed an affiliation for the fire pillar and survived the ingraining o# souls up until one with a negati#ve affiliation for the pillar was funneled in. Every soul me#ged must, at least, have a neutr#l affiliation for the focus pillar. This isn't too surprising and I figured as such from the get-go. Creating the ultimate fire pillar cultivat#r... It would be strange if individuals who we#en't perfect for the job did anything other than contaminate the h#st. The rejection from incorrectly affiliated souls immediately ends the experiment in grues#me f#shion and need not be tested any further. This is more problematic than it initially seems, however, as test subjects with multiple pillar affiliations wil# explode if any of the implanted affiliations are incorr#ct and that raises the difficulty in harvesting appropriate souls. T# create the ultimate cultivator... it will be a Path of plent#ful blo#dsh#d. Even then, capturing a te#t subject with an affiliation for all pillars wh#n the t#me comes... They are rare individuals to begin with and th#n finding the appropriate souls on t#p of that too, thsoe with no negative affiliations for any pillar...
Perhaps there is another way?
I sincerely hope so otherwise my g#al may forever b# out of reach due to my own lac#ing talent in the field of cultivation as I can n#t procure the prerequist# materials. How pa#hetic... I'm getting distracted. There is a th#rd issue that needs adres#ing and that is the unreliability of restraining sou#s. Heaven's and hell's methods are abs#lute but I am not a denizen of heaven nor am I a dem#n. My method is but a mere mockery of their superior techniq#e, a crude mishmash that barely functions at the best of t#mes. Losing souls is the least of my concerns but the real scare com#s when the method fails during the funnelling process. One soul at a time is a must. If multip#e souls leak through the funnel at once... Again, gruesome failur#...
And finally, my greatest worry of th#m all... I may be caught so#n. My cultivation has stagnated in favour of my pursuit of this topic advancing like an unstoppable tide. My own l#fespan may not permit me to complete this endeavour after all... Even if old age does not claim me I fear those hunting me will. My research h#s long since become intolerable, they fear that I may create a perfect, untameable existence, or maybe even learn how to destr#y one, and that isn't much accepted in this world... That and the loved ones of those I've laid to rest are dem#nding answers too. Be they righteous or indignan#, I have many 'admirers' chasing my every whereabout. Rel#cating once every ten or so years has become standard practice where I once used to be able to go hundreds without being run out of town like some rabid d#g. Those who wish me harm have also grown stronger as I've become weaker... This may even be my last entry... I can only hope som#body else finds this diary and understands the importance of my work. Selfish though it m#y be, if anyone who discovers this diary in the futu#e has a conscience, do not burn this book and relegate its teach#ngs and results to the void of non-existence. I will not be the only one curious about this and those who follow in my footsteps may as well be given sufficient informati#n to skip a few processes here and there so that as little harm need come to innocents as possible... Maybe I've grown a moral compass in old age? Or perh#ps morality is but a guise to trick the foolish into letting this 'harmless' book slide. I have no choice but to leave that up to you, dear reader...
- Calendar Year G0001
Pillock. Absolute buffoon. The beginning of this era has been turbulent, so I will not spare this entry much time, more pressing matters await me, but I will certainly take a moment out of my schedule to ridicule the idiot who came before me in this diary. Your methods were shoddy, your work unreliable, your records smudged to the point it feels like I'm having a stroke attempting to decipher your intentions, and, above all else, your brain was inadequate. How many thousands of years did it take you to come to the simplest of conclusions? I am but a few hundred years old and I've already come to the exact same conclusions as you before laying hands on this diary so your work is borderline meaningless to me. Not to mention getting stuck on the most basic of conundrums. You dare call yourself a genius? How many of your braggadocios entries were little more than self-congratulatory spiel? A mere handful of 'meaningful' reads? And they were hardly worth the minutes it took to scour through them.
Let me enlighten you, dead fool, you need not use a cultivator affiliated with all pillars as the host. That is the end goal, not where you start! Create the perfect fire pillar cultivator, the perfect water pillar cultivator, etc, THEN merge them all into one perfect being like a house of cards. I know you mentioned this approach in your later entries, and found a roadblock along this path too that caused you to promptly ditch it, as merging these perfect cultivators together was theoretically impossible, but that was because, quite frankly, you are a shameful ignoramus. To even be considered the 'greatest' of your time is an insult to era 'E'. Then again, maybe it was true and you were all complete dullards. I don't much care but what is obvious to me is that my methods transcend yours as I have already long since proven my own theories about the nature of the soul with actions and results! I have already created the Celestial Cluster treasures in my youth, what did you ever accomplish you dusty bearded clown!? Whatever, I shan't bicker with the deceased any longer. You have been replaced. Fret not, though, for I will not burn your precious little book. In fact, from here on out, I shall make it infinitely more precious than it ever was when it belonged to the likes of you, Argyle Kazaz. Your name shall live on for now but soon it will be replaced by mine.
- Calendar Year G0002
Hm, I suppose I was hasty in writing my first entry. I never clarified how exactly I solved that old coot's issue. I've taken care of my business now and have time to repudiate you as a man of science should, with evidence overwhelming! Creating perfect cultivators of any given pillar is very doable, we know that imbuing a perfect host with sufficient souls works, the trick to combining the perfect cultivators with each other, however, is where I come in. My area of research always has been, and always will be, treasures. Humans cannot be combined so, instead of combining the perfect cultivators, Kazaz, we should first turn them into treasures. Oncer that is done, we may combine all the treasures into the ultimate treasure instead.
'The enabler of all'.
Do you like the name? I believe you called your original goal the 'All Father', did you not? A cultivator with the utmost talent for every single known pillar. My goal is similar to yours but far more reasonable as the process is very doable. Ah but you must think me mad? 'Treasures cannot possibly be combined and creating a treasure out of a living creature is fantasy', I hear your corpse complaining. That, however, is where you would be wrong. I HAVE SEEN IT.The Primordial Blade is an interesting treasure, one that has greatly fascinated me for many years. You see I was born in a remote village that had hidden it for the entire last era and so I practically grew up alongside it. I will spare you the details but the short version is that two powerful cultivators clashed for it one day and everyone died. All the village elders, all the little children, even the two cultivators themselves. They used their strongest treasures in one final clash above the Blade and, subsequently, everything was gone... Everything except for me, who had been clinging to the Blade in fear and praying for a miracle, the Blade itself, and the newly combined treasure that once belonged to the two cultivators as two separate entities.
I do not know what power the Blade possesses, exactly, but I know that it can merge treasures! This likely also means it possesses the ability to create them, I believe. That discovery was what kickstarted my obsession and resulted in me creating the cluster treasures to see if I could mimic the Blade's power through natural means. The Blade took away everything I ever cared for and replaced it with a boundless curiosity. Treasures are truly incredible things and there is nothing more that I want than to unearth all their hidden facets one by one! Here's another fun fact that may very well blow your prehistoric mind... But let me ask it to you as a question, Kazaz. If I could create the cluster treasures out of relevant cultivators' lingering souls in death, how do you think enablers came to be?
HAHAHA, it all adds up no?
You shoved millions of compatible souls into one person to create the perfect cultivator of any given pillar and enablers are fundamentally no different! Certain resources attract certain people. There are resources, for instance, that will amplify the magic of water pillar cultivators, thus leading them all by the nose straight to their graves in one solitary, dangerous place. From there, the creation process of a treasure begins and, BANG, an enabler is born from the souls of countless experts! Hahaha! Nature has already beaten you to the punch, Kazaz. It created 'perfect' cultivators long before you were even born! They just weren't humanoid or living creatures, they took the form of treasures! I can kill your 'perfect' cultivators and create an enabler out of their soul. That much is simple. In fact, I've spent the last year doing precisely that and putting your wayward creations out of their misery. Now I simply need to combine the enablers into the enabler of all and your goal, albeit not in the exact way you envisioned it, shall be complete at long last!.. Though this is where I must begrudgingly bite my tongue a bit as I am not privy to the method to combine treasures. I still have not grasped the power of the Blade that enables such a feat. The magic responsible is eerily similar to spatial magic and, yet, all my testing has proven it to somehow be the exact opposite! This magic is truly dastardly to wrap my head around, and clearly holds many mysteries, but, as soon as I make progress, I will create the enabler of all, the greatest treasure to ever exist!
- Calendar Year G0003
Kazaz... You blithering idiot. When I assumed you and your research I was loosely aware that I would be taking on all of your past grudges too. What I did not foresee, however, was that you had made an enemy of that detestable dog bastard Dominus! You cretinous traitor, not naming your murderer and roping me into this blind was truly a despicable move and I must admit you got me there! Of all the enemies to make, you seriously chose to go and bother Dominoes?! Kazaz... KAZAZ... you murdered his people in cold blood and were then, in turn, played like a fiddle! Dominus was already a weapon master beyond compare and then he fooled you into implanting those weapon pillar affiliated souls INTO HIM?! Your perfect weapons pillar cultivator was Dominus? Last time I checked, that man was perfect from the get go! You have created a MONSTER, KAZAZ! He bid his time, acted helpless before you and allowed you to turn him into a lab rat, and look where that got us!
Pardon my language, but you are a stupid cunt Kazaz!
This is why you must research and choose your test subject vessels wisely. It goes beyond just cultivation, temperament, and mental resilience. You need to damn well vet their backgrounds properly! Now that monster of your own creation is hell bent on chasing me down. It was bad enough I turned some of his old friends into treasures over the years and now I've taken up the mantle of this cursed research too! Damn it all. His relentless pursuit has turned into an unshakeable quest to bury me ten thousand feet under. Tsk, whatever. This research is directly intertwined with my own so I will not stop pursuing it for now. If ever I need to shake Dominus off my tail for whatever reason, however, I will be passing on the torch because he is not somebody I can deal with. I have said it once, and I will say it again. You, Kazaz, are a pillock!
Though there were still more entries, and definitely some worth reading, Ares had paused at this part because the logical conclusion to all of this so far... Meant that Ares was literally a walking, talking treasure. Cultivators' bodies became stardust in death but they, and their souls, if unlucky, were merged with mana and materials to become treasures. Enablers being the end result of many dead experts made sense, and the fact that Dominus had undergone something tragic explained a lot about his unmatched talent across al eras with weapons, but now Ares was in a bit of a strange place. Ares was the sole king of nothingness, now and forever, and what Sevorus' master didn't know was that it was nothingness that combined and created treasures. This was the missing link in his equations, and it implied Ares could technically create an 'All Father' or an 'enabler of all' if he wanted to, but the current issue was that Dominus' soul, the soul of a perfect cultivator, had been merged with Ares' own.
Dominus' soul was technically a weapon's pillar enabler in the making, which explained Ares' innate weapon mastery, but that also meant Ares was a living treasure! Ares could probably learn literally any single weapon art in the entire universe if he wanted to, which was neat, but being a humanoid treasure was... Bizarre! It didn't change anything about his genetic makeup, seemingly, but it was still a strange thought nonetheless! The Invincible One, the toad from way back in Baja, was a living treasure too, so it wasn't utterly mind bending for Ares that this was possible, but he took this whole situation a step further and became a living enabler!... Ares would become Sevorus' master's ultimate fascination if he knew of him... In fact, the connection between them was pretty deep as is as Sevorus' master had taken this path in life because of the Primordial Blade of all things... Small world...
Anyway, there was still more to read. Sevorus' master still had a few more entries but the real interesting stuff, about the Lighter Duo specifically, came during Sevorus' era as he'd taken over the project himself eventually and made great strides. It made sense, Sevorus' pursuit and obsession was the 'perfect being' after all, so the 'All Father' ideal must have tempted him greatly. It wasn't his final destination, he seemed to care about things other than the ultimate wielder of all pillars as well, but it was undeniably a large part of what he was doing and it unquestionably involved the duo. Sevorus, of all three quacks who owned this diary, had made the greatest breakthrough of them all. His time was not quite yet, however, as there were some interesting titbits regarding the fate of Sevorus' master that, unfortunately, indicated he might very well still be alive and kicking somewhere...