Chapter 60: Headmaster

I was escorted by an instructor through the long hallways of the academy.

The structure was quite confusing for me.

My actions so far hadn’t been the most refined…

The Headmaster had requested to talk with me—

Well, it was more of an order… But let’s keep the minor details aside!

Immortal Rank was something that elevated people to the status of a God.

Everyone desired such power, but most weren’t even capable of witnessing its might.

Becoming an Immortal was like surpassing the limits of death placed on your body.

Achieving such a rank was itself considered being in the top brass of the world.

An Immortal was an existence whose words couldn’t be ignored. No matter the powerhouse, everyone had to respect such an individual irrespective of their affiliations or race.

Most of the individuals that had reached the Immortal rank were undying monsters who belonged to eras long forgotten.

Some, like Arthur, were exceptions—individuals who had managed to reach Godhood in the early years of their life.

So if a being like an Immortal was something that couldn’t be ignored, then what about the rank above it?

There were a handful of individuals who stood above these undying Immortal monsters—

The Sovereigns.

If the condition for becoming an Immortal was becoming one with nature, then achieving the rank of a Sovereign meant—

Making nature one with them.

It might feel the same, but the actual difference was greater than Heaven and Hell.

When you become an Immortal, the mana essence in your core learns to coexist with the mana in nature.

Your body keeps on inhaling mana from the surroundings, similar to how you breathe.

The mana enters your body subconsciously without any active, forceful absorption, and then keeps on sustaining your body.

That is why the mana available at the disposal of Immortals always feels infinite, as their bodies keep replenishing their mana reserves from the surrounding mana without the individual having to actively do anything.

The mechanism behind the power of Immortals is more complex, but this is the basic process…that follows through every second an Immortal lives their life.

For a simpler comparison, in the case of an Immortal, their relationship with nature is one of mutual coexistence, in which power is shared between them.

It’s like the Immortal has permission to access the laws of nature, while nature uses the Immortals to purify its own mana in ways only Immortals know.

In the case of a Sovereign, nature is no longer an equal partner.

The Sovereigns do not coexist with nature; nature exists for them.

A contradicting statement indeed.

How can the world—the thing on which all creatures are born—exist for its own creations?

The core of a Sovereign becomes the Anchor for the world to exist upon.

When Jutan had been formed, it wasn’t the mighty world that it was today.

Jutan was just a planet with land and water, a place where even an earthquake could destroy the very ecosystem.

So how could such a weak planet support the lives of beings who had long surpassed the limitations of their bodies?

Jutan at first couldn’t support fights between Diamond rankers, let alone Immortals.

Every time such a fight occurred, it brought the planet closer to its demise.

Until—

The first Immortal was born.

The Immortals made use of nature, and in return, the nature used them to increase the density and purity of its own mana to support sturdier landscapes.

But the problem wasn’t resolved.

When more Immortals were born, conflict between them was inevitable. And when the first of such conflicts took place…

The lands were broken apart by the tremors caused by the fight between the Gods.

The seas were split open, with the inner core of the planet coming undone.

These broken lands evolved to become the continents of the present world.

The fights never stopped, nor did the destruction of the planet. But as the years passed, every powerhouse realized the consequences of their actions, resulting in a temporary global peace.

Still, the damage was done.

After years of wars, the planet was on its last brink, with everything breaking apart.

Then it happened—

Through some miracle, a monster at the Immortal rank evolved.

And as such, the world gained its first Sovereign. The birth of the Sovereign stabilized the planet.

The planet, realizing the solution to its current state, made a subconscious decision.

The day the Sovereign was born was the day it disappeared from the face of the world.

It was absorbed by the planet, and—

The first Anchor was created.

The core of the monster became the central Anchor upon which the planet of Jutan rebuilt itself.

It was a slap in the faces of the other intelligent races, as a monster—something they considered beneath them—was the first to surpass them.

Every Immortal had the flame of greed burning within them—

The desire to rank up, to achieve power beyond their current limits, but…

They were scared.

Scared to be absorbed by the world. For ages, this fear stopped anyone from ranking up.

The planet had now mostly stabilized itself and was stronger than ever before. The fights between Immortals no longer had the same effect on it as before.

Seeing what the power of a Sovereign could do, the fear in the minds of many washed away.

Thus began the race to evolve.

After centuries of effort, Sovereigns were born among the various races, including monsters.

As the world had already stabilized, none of the newly born Sovereigns were absorbed into the planet’s core like before.

All these Sovereigns now became the new Anchors of the world—or rather, external Anchors that supported the Central Anchor.

Hence, a strong framework was formed, and Jutan evolved once again to become what it is today.

The Sovereigns’ cores were the Anchors that held nature in place.

Immortals had to align themselves with the rules of nature, while Sovereigns—

They became the rules themselves.

And here I was, on my way to meet one such existence.

The Headmaster of Namda Academy—

Nemur Daithra.

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