Chapter 198: Chapter: 198 So this what grandmaster feels like?

“So… this is enlightenment?” Vivian muttered as he slowly opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

Dark clouds rolled above him, thick and heavy. Thunder fell again and again, shaking the land as flashes of light split the heavens.

Vivian lowered his gaze and looked at his right hand.

He clenched it tightly. The feeling was real. The memories were still there, painful, sharp, and heavy.

They belonged to the old Vivian, a life filled with regret, anger, and weakness.

He had passed through countless lives, countless forms, and endless experiences.

Time had lost its meaning.

It could have been years, or it could have been an eternity. Yet, despite all of it, his face was calm.

His eyes were steady, carrying a quiet sense of age as he stared at the sky.

“So this is how it feels…” he said softly.

A warm force flowed through his body. His bones, blood, and flesh all began to change.

His cultivation rose without stopping.

This was not a slow growth. It surged forward like a raging river, pushing him beyond his limits.

From the early stage of Swordmaster, he broke through again and again, rushing straight toward the Grandmaster realm.

Vivian took a deep breath. There was no joy on his face, no excitement. Only understanding.

The pain, the struggle, the endless trials..none of it was meaningless.

As his cultivation continued to rise, Vivian’s body began to change.

When he reached the peak of Swordmaster, something strange appeared within him.

In his lower dantian, something began to form. It was hot, powerful, and violent.

The energy pushed outward, forcefully opening his lower dantian and settling there.

It was pure spiritual energy, dense and overflowing.

The energy kept gathering, growing stronger with every breath he took.

Vivian slowly raised his hand and pointed toward the sky. His voice was calm as he muttered a single word.

“Lightning.”

A blue bolt tore through the clouds and struck down from the heavens, landing directly in his hand.

The lightning did not hurt him. Instead, it wrapped around his arm like it belonged there.

He looked at the lightning quietly. It felt endless, wild, and alive. Yet it did not resist him.

Vivian’s expression did not change.

This was his main element.

Lightning.

From this moment on, lightning answered his call.

The thunder above, the bolts in the sky, none of it was beyond his reach anymore.

The storm roared, but Vivian stood unmoving beneath it, holding the power of lightning in his grasp.

With these two things complete, it was finally time for him to reach Grandmaster.

It was time to awaken his Genesis Heart.

Vivian closed his eyes.

His mind returned to that strange state once more.

In the beginning, he was everything, yet at the same time, he was nothing.

There was no body, no name, no thought….only existence.

Then came the five elements.

After that, forms began to appear.

A mountain.

A sea.

Clouds drifting without purpose.

Then smaller lives followed.

A fly.

A tree.

A dog.

A fish.

A horse.

After 8.4 million lives, he was finally born as Vivian.

He lived Vivian’s childhood.

He lived Vivian’s youth.

He lived his short adulthood.

He felt the pain of dying too early.

He felt the grief of a father who could not live to see his newborn child grow.

But Vivian’s life was only one among countless others.

There were lives filled with joy, and lives filled with suffering.

In one life, he starved to death, his body slowly giving up as hunger consumed him.

In another life, he was a lion born without front legs. His pride abandoned him, and he died alone on the open land.

In one life, he was a snake, swallowed whole by a honey badger.

In one life, he was a bee, dying moments after stinging a human who tried to steal its honey.

In one life, he was a tree, rooted to the same place for hundreds of years, watching seasons pass without moving even once.

He lived as the strong.

He lived as the weak.

He lived as prey, and he lived as predator.

All these lives, all this pain, all this time…

They taught him one simple truth.

Nothing was meaningless.

Life did not exist to be fair or unfair. It existed to continue.

Everything, every form, every life is meaningful.

Without life, there can be no beginning.

And if there is no beginning, how can anything exist at all?

If life itself is the beginning, then how could life ever be meaningless?

Vivian understood this truth.

But this was still not his Genesis Heart.

In that dream-like state, he slowly spoke. His gaze was calm, deep, and carried the weight of countless years.

“I have seen through life, death, and karma.”

Life, death, and karma were tied together.

Life was the cause.

Death was the result.

Without a cause, there could be no result. Without life, there would be no death. And without both, karma would not exist.

Cause and effect moved endlessly, binding all living things.

However, beyond life, death, and karma, there was one more thing.

Something without which this world would collapse.

Fate.

Fate guided causes.

Fate shaped results.

Even life and death walked within its path.

And without fate, everything would collapse.

This world itself would vanish.

Vivian lifted his gaze to the sky as thunder cracked above him.

“So my Genesis Heart is fate,” he said softly. “And this is my path.”

Just like his father, whose Genesis Heart was the bond of family, who walked the path of protection, Vivian had also found his own way.

His path was different.

It was fate.

He did not yet understand its full depth. He could not see its end.

But he could feel it clearly. That quiet feeling that had followed him all along was right.

This was his path.

This was his Genesis Heart.

“Fate,” Vivian said once more.

As the word left his mouth, the cultivation that had stopped after reaching the peak of Swordmaster began to move again.

This time, it did not hesitate. It surged forward, breaking through its limits and charging toward the Grandmaster realm.

Vivian closed his eyes and sat cross-legged in the air.

Lightning cracked loudly as bolts gathered from every direction, rushing toward him and merging into his body.

Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.

The earth shook as deep power rose from the ground, flowing upward and fusing with him.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

The wind roared as fierce currents wrapped around him, then sank into his body.

Then, a massive flame burned through the air, flying straight toward him and merging without resistance.

The clouds in the sky rumbled deeply as rain began to fall.

The rain did not soak his clothes. It did not splash against his body.

Each drop merged into him the moment it touched his skin.

Water, gentle yet endless, joined the other elements within him.

Lightning.

Earth.

Wind.

Fire.

Water.

The five elements he had once lived as, suffered as, and understood now gathered around him.

They did not resist.

They did not clash.

They accepted him.

As the final element merged into his body, the storm above fell silent, and the world seemed to hold its breath as Vivian stood on the edge of Grandmaster.

After the five elements fully merged, Vivian slowly stood up.

He clenched his hands, raised his head, and looked toward the sky. His voice was low as he spoke.

“Stars, shatter.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the six stars rotating within his sternum trembled.

One by one, they shattered and merged together, forming a small vortex.

The vortex rotated endlessly.

With every breath Vivian took, mana was drawn into it without pause, like an endless pull that could never be filled.

Originally, cultivation stages were divided by stars.

One star.

Two stars.

Three stars.

When someone reached the sixth star, they were recognized as a Swordmaster.

Up to the Swordmaster stage, everything depended on talent.

But beyond Swordmaster, talent no longer mattered.

To reach Grandmaster, one needed enlightenment.

Vivian was the clearest example.

Despite being born weak and sick, he reached the fourth star at the age of fourteen.

After curing his illness, when he was fifteen and only at the middle stage of the fourth star, he broke through to Swordmaster in just three months.

His growth was terrifying.

Yet after that, it took him almost seven long years to reach Grandmaster.

This alone showed how difficult the Grandmaster realm truly was.

Upon reaching Grandmaster, the stars no longer existed.

They shattered and fused into a vortex, one that could draw in limitless mana with each breath.

At this moment, as Vivian fully stepped into the Grandmaster realm, he clenched his fists.

A smile finally appeared on his face.

“So this is what Grandmaster feels like,” he said softly.

••••••••••

A/N

Hello readers, this ends Volume 2. Thank you for reading. The journey continues in Volume 3.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep