Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 582: Advancement to Grand Mage (Part )

The air in the examination room seemed frozen. The invigilator began to hand out the papers, and he put away the sticky note.

At that moment, he suddenly became quiet.

Suddenly, a picture emerged in his mind: in the not too distant future, he will cross the cracks in the world, stand at the intersection of fire and fog, release magic, awaken the sleeping gods, and also awaken the boy who once was - even though his hands and pen were shaking, he had to force himself to finish an exam.

He saw that "one of the countless possibilities in the past" - his face was full of immaturity, confusion, and kindness. He stood in the examination room, holding not a scepter or magic, but a cheap gel pen and an answer sheet that would write the direction of his life.

“…I, it turns out, came from that kind of place step by step.”

The reason why Xingluo was so convincing was not because he was so powerful now, but because he had never forgotten the self who would not give up answering questions even when his palms were sweating. Even if he was in another world, even if he held the divine flame in his hand, he still refused to give up.

“Who do you want to be?” the voice whispered, coming like a dream.

The stars fall in silence.

The voices of countless fallen stars in the past overlapped together: "You once believed in light, longed for power, and hesitated between right and wrong... How much have you given up to get to where you are now?"

"I didn't give up." Xingluo responded softly, clenching his fists, "I just burned everything... as firewood to move forward."

boom--!

The gray world collapsed, the space mirror exploded, and the magic power behind him began to reshape, stripping away all the emotions and constraints of the past and injecting them into the divine flame.

Burn memories and transform them into magic power.

This time, he stood in a world made up of thousands of mirrors, and each mirror reflected a different version of himself.

Some are as cold as ice, some are as ferocious as demons, some are tired, and some are crazy.

"These are all your possibilities." An old voice came from the mirror, "To ascend to the Lord of Time and Space, you must acknowledge all of 'you'. You cannot keep only the ideal part."

There is a self in the mirror, killing people; there is another self, sitting on the throne, betraying all his friends.

In the sea of ​​mirrors, Xingluo gazed at his "future" self.

The man was wearing a tattered green robe, the corners of which had long been mottled by flames and blood, but still rustling. He stood on the top of a broken floating battlefield, the sky was torn apart, a demon was roaring, and behind it was a distorted black sun, like the pupils of a fallen immortal, slowly opening.

Xingluo is like a lonely swordsman, standing alone in the world.

The blade of the ancient sword was covered with traces of time, but there was no trace of rust. The blade was engraved with the names of countless people, and every inch of the sword spine had... those familiar souls, whether alive or dead, loving or hating, were all engraved into the sword by him, fighting with him.

Every time he swung his sword, every time his sword fell, the blood of the demons spurted out.

In the mirror, his eyes were calm and peaceful. He no longer spoke of hope or longed for salvation. He just stood there with a sword in hand, not for the common people, but for the little bit of his "true self" that had not yet been extinguished.

At this moment, Xingluo saw him falling from mid-air, and his body seemed to be pierced by the claw of the demon, but the next moment, time reversed, and he reappeared from the shattered space, his figure turned into thousands of afterimages, and fought with the demon again.

And behind the roar of the demon, Xingluo saw a forgotten figure - very similar to Pandora.

She was sealed in a huge crystal, her brows were peaceful, as if she had been sleeping for a thousand years.

At this moment, the sword immortal Xingluo in the mirror roared angrily, and the sword in his hand suddenly turned into thousands of sharp blades. The sword pierced through the sky and earth and forcibly cut off the demon.

"Did you see it?" The old voice sounded again, "This is where your future ends - lonely, powerful, and eternal."

Xingluo murmured: "If it is to save her, I am willing to have that ending."

The mirror trembled slightly, as if acknowledging his answer. Countless mirrors shattered at the same time, and a staircase leading to the Lord of Time and Space slowly emerged. Each step represented a mistake he had made, a person he had loved, and a vow he had betrayed.

And he stepped forward.

"I choose to be... the me who can bear everything." Xingluo stretched out his hand, and all the mirrors shattered. The space collapsed like a tide and poured into his soul. Xingluo's body became lighter, almost transparent, but his strength became even stronger.

Instead of being crushed, he integrated these fragments of space into a part of himself.

At this moment, Xingluo's body was completely burned, and his consciousness floated into a realm of "nothingness".

There is no direction, no up or down.

Only himself.

A burning divine flame.

A heart beating violently.

He heard a voice - a voice deep in his heart.

"You are no longer yourself. You have lost too much, burned too much, and reorganized too much... Are you going to become a divine fire, or..."

"I am fire." Xingluo smiled.

"I'm human too."

"But humans can also go to places that even gods dare not touch."

boom! ! !

All the constraints of light and space were broken at that moment.

The Divine Flame Crystal once again merged into Xingluo's body.

The night sky was silent, as if the whole world was holding its breath.

In a forgotten space fault, Xingluo sat quietly on a pale ancient stone platform, with a magic circle around him like a golden halo like a pendulum. His aura had long surpassed the boundaries of ordinary people, and the space around him naturally collapsed and folded, and even the light was distorted around him.

But he knew that simply controlling the space was not enough.

The Grand Mage of Space is only an observer; the Grand Mage of Time is the one who can modify the course of time.

This time, he is no longer satisfied with folding space and intercepting fragments of time. He wants to become the ruler of time itself.

To this end, he prepared to set up an even crazier breakthrough ceremony.

The divine flame crystal reappeared in front of his chest, like a burning star core. It was no longer just a source of mana, but the only bridge between his soul and the power of time. If the bridge was broken, his soul would be destroyed.

Under his feet, there is a triple nested magic circle:

The outer layer is a turntable representing the flow of time;

The middle layer is a magic circle where memory and destiny are intertwined;

The innermost layer is a magic circle engraved with his own flesh and blood.

He wants to separate himself from "time" in this magic circle.

This means: he will be free from his natural lifespan and no longer be bound by birth, aging, sickness and death; but the price is that he will be rejected by the entire river of time and become an existence that "violates the rules of time".

Xingluo whispered softly: "——Time only obeys God. But if God is no longer here... then it obeys me."

The ceremony started and the time array began to operate.

Countless fragments of memories emerged before Xingluo's eyes.

Pandora imprisoned herself in the family secret realm for him, Mo cried with him while drinking in the dormitory, the morning light of the seminary was not dazzling, and that day, he fell into the abyss, looking at his best friend Tiffany who betrayed him with bloodshot eyes...

"My past self...was my weakness, but also my starting point."

He bit his tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood mist, sealing his deepest memories into the Divine Flame Crystal, letting it serve as the introductory part of the Ritual of Time.

The divine flame crystal trembled, and the blue-gold flame became dim, but heavier. It began to rotate slowly, and the entire ruins echoed with a dull bell-like low hum.

This is not magic, but the echo of time.

The scars, faded hair, and even the damaged skin on Xingluo's body were all restored in the reversal of time. But he was not happy - he knew that the real test had just begun.

"The Realm of No Time" is the key stage in breaking through the Great Mage of Time. The Secret Book of the Abyss and the words of the old man in the dream both point to this section. Compared with the knowledge gap of the main material plane, the Abyss preserves a lot more information.

Xingluo forcibly cut off his connection with the real world, and used the magic circle to build a space without past, future, and only the present moment. Here, magic power cannot flow, language cannot be conveyed, and even heartbeats cannot resonate.

——This is a state of “absolute loneliness”.

Without time, there is no reference to existence.

Here, he is no longer Xingluo, but just a ball of flame of consciousness.

His divine flame began to weaken, because even the act of "burning" requires time to attach. In the "timeless realm", Xingluo can only use his will to maintain his own form.

"who I am……?"