One hour later – Inside a grand luxury restaurant on Planet Zaron, nestled within one of the floating city-towers
Clink... clink...
The delicate sound of polished silver eting fine porcelain echoed softly through the lavishly decorated hall.
Robin, seated in the very center of the dining area, carefully sliced through yet another piece of premium at. The knife glided through the marbled flesh like a whisper through silk. He raised the piece slowly to his lips, as if conducting a ritual rather than having a al, and closed his eyes.
He chewed.
"Hmmmm..." he exhaled deeply, his voice rich with satisfaction.
"Incredible. Just... incredible."
He remained like that—silent, savoring—for a full minute. When he finally opened his eyes, they sparkled with an almost childlike curiosity. He scanned the multitude of dishes around him, then pointed to another.
"You are next."
Robin stood up, walked with poise across the extravagant stretch of tables, and began carving into a different dish. This ti, he tore into it with a hint more eagerness, chewing as though rediscovering the joy of existence through his taste buds.
"..."
The rest of the restaurant had fallen into a stunned silence. Nobles, dignitaries, cultivators, rcenaries, all stopped mid-bite to stare at him. Their forks hovered in the air. Their mouths were slightly agape.
Because Robin hadn’t just ordered a few dishes like any sensible elite.
He had ordered everything.
Every dish on the nu.
Every specialty from every region. Every delicacy, every rare at, every soup, sauce, herb, and exotic ingredient this fad restaurant had spent decades perfecting.
And he hadn’t ordered samples. No, he had demanded full servings.
"If this dish contains duck," he had told the chef, "bring the entire duck."
"If this recipe calls for the thigh of a beast—bring the whole thigh."
Thus was born a monstrous banquet, a surreal and gluttonous parade of culinary magnificence. More than half of the restaurant had to be cleared and rearranged just to accommodate the volu. Rows of tables had been lined up like soldiers on parade, bearing platters that shimred with heat, color, and spice.
Robin—unbothered by stares—moved from dish to dish with reverent appreciation, as if savoring the sacred secrets of the cosmos one bite at a ti.
For the other guests, he was a puzzle. A madman. King of the extravagant.
But strangely... when many of them would return ho that evening, sothing in them would feel changed.
So would sit and write for the first ti in years.
So would break through a bottleneck in their cultivation.
Others would look at their partners, their children, their lives—with new eyes.
No one could explain why. Only that watching him eat, hearing him... had awakened sothing.
Robin, anwhile, held a spoon delicately over a bowl filled with shimring silver broth—Ice-Lizard Bone Soup, a rare delicacy brewed over 7 days beneath a cryo-lantern. He studied the soup like a scholar studies scripture.
"Patterns..." he murmured. "Everything is patterns. The food before , the saliva in my mouth, the nerve signals firing in my brain—all patterns."
He dipped the spoon and took a sip, eyes narrowing.
"I, too, am a pattern. A living equation written in flesh and soul. Truth... Truth is the ability of seeing these patterns—comprehending them as they weave through the vast mbrane of space-ti."
He lifted his gaze slowly, his voice rising with philosophical awe.
"Even space itself... is a pattern. A lattice of invisible threads. And yet... what are these threads really? What is everything made of? And why... why can I taste aning in this fruit?"
He took a bite from a large crimson fruit the size of a closed fist.
"Mmm. This is delightful."
"......."
Many guests had stopped pretending to eat. So stared blankly. Others looked inward, as if trying to understand their own essence. One noblewoman was on the verge of tears for no apparent reason.
(Is the food really that good?) Neri’s voice broke through the mont in his mind.
Robin spoke aloud, uncaring of who heard:
"What’s truly astonishing is that all of this—every dish—grew from the sa soil, drank the sa water... yet every single one has a distinct flavor, a different texture, a unique benefit. The duck and the wind-ram—they grazed in the sa fields, breathed the sa air... but everything else about them is different."
He gestured toward a roasted giant duck and a slow-cooked leg of wind-ram.
"No mutual agreent, no shared destiny... yet they coexisted. Why? What defines identity? What makes one thing truly different from another?"
He sampled another dish, his tone becoming more somber, more grounded.
"I always co to restaurants like this after a deep retreat... or before a great upheaval. I order the best food, the widest variety I can afford... to remind myself of sothing."
He set down his fork.
"No matter how far I climb, no matter how much I conquer—at the end of the day, I’m still small.
And no matter how great my ambitions—I remain helpless in front of one simple truth:
I don’t understand what I eat."
(Oh my, must you ruin every mont with your gloomy reflections?!) Evergreen whined in his head, (The trouble of making profits is over, you are free to adventure now!)
"I’m not so sure anymore..." Robin muttered, slowly reaching for another bite—but his hand trembled slightly. His motions were slower now, almost reluctant.
"The truths of this universe... they don’t reveal themselves to violence. They yield to stillness. To clarity. To silence."
He stared into the distance.
"I don’t know if I’ll ever find that kind of stillness in the ti I have left.
I don’t know... if it’s even possible to find a way to elevate Nihari before her 700 years are over.
I just... don’t know anymore."
(My lord...) Neri’s voice ca through calm and steady. (I believe your next step is clear. Go to Mid-Sector 99. et with Holak. Force him to slow the pace of this madness. Only then will you see clearly. And besides—Holak and the Imperial Guards will offer you the protection you’ve lacked all this ti.)
"Haha... Why do I feel like all this trip will bring is headaches?" Robin chuckled darkly, slapping his forehead and standing up with a sigh. He dropped his utensils and clasped his hands behind his back, then looked around with a smile.
"But you’re right... staying here won’t help."
He turned to the silent guests with a wide grin:
"Today’s feast is on , ladies and gentlen! Eat your fill! Don’t hold back—haha!"
And with that, he walked out with slow, heavy steps—like a man leaving behind a version of himself.
"......."
"The duck’s mine!"
"Move aside, I saw it first!"
Later that day — Near the massive orbital space portals of Planet Zaron
"Hmm~ hmm hmm~" Robin humd lightly, a soft tune rising from his lips as he approached the towering structure before him—the space portals he hadn’t laid eyes on for over 170 years.
In this world... on this planet... he had spent an entire lifeti.
If he had married upon arrival... if he had children, and their children had children... by now, he might be a great-great-grandfather. The founder of a full-fledged bloodline.
"Hmm... I wonder if they’d inherit an affinity for the Law of Truth?" Robin mused with a smirk. Then he laughed and shook his head.
It was a foolish thought.
For everything he had learned told him this: there is no such thing as a natural affinity for a Master Law.
The Truth Chosen are not born.
They are shaped.
Truth doesn’t seek bloodlines.
It seeks decisions.
It watches, quietly, from the mont of birth. And only when one’s choices align with the essence of reality itself... only then does Truth reach out.
Only then does it choose you.
His affinity for the Master Law of Causality?
Robin had dived deep into that question, peeling back layer after layer of his own being. What he found wasn’t so grand blessing, nor a gift of divine birth. It was sothing else entirely—sothing twisted.
It wasn’t "affinity" in the classical sense, no.
It was more like... a wound.
A thread of fate, severed in the past, that had grown back wrong—twisted into a hypersensitivity to any event that might once again attempt to alter his destiny.
You could even call it an illness. A taphysical disorder.
What about spaceti users, balance users, and so on? They’ve tracked down the law and comprehended it, that’s all. But how many can find the law? How many can comprehend it once they’ve found it? Well... not many have.
But that, too, was natural.
These were not ordinary cosmic forces—they were the eight pillars that wove the material universe itself.
Who could be born with a natural affinity toward Creation, Causality, or Identity?
What kind of creature would that be?
Surely, it would not rely exist within the universe—it would stand above it. Beyond it.
A being like that... would be terrifying. A thing to worship—or to fear.
A creature that could cut the threads of cause and effect at will, or generate new realms with a flick of its hand.
A being for whom the walls of reality were re curtains to pull aside.
Robin exhaled softly, shaking his head.
Even one such existence... even just one... would be enough to topple the great balance of the multiverse.
...By the ti he reached the stairway leading up to Zaron’s Grand Space portals, the sky had shifted color slightly—hinting at the onset of dusk.
Robin stood in line behind a crowd of travelers. From nobles and rchants to rcenaries and cultivators, the queue was filled with n and won chasing futures only they could see.
He waited quietly.
Eventually, he reached a bored-looking official, slouched behind a counter stacked high with old paper forms. The clerk barely looked up.
"I’d like to book passage to another sector," Robin said kindly, handing him a chip. "Sector 99. These are the planetary coordinates."
The clerk nodded lazily. "That’ll be one thousand pearls."
"Of course," Robin replied, transferring the sum.
"Enjoy your travel."
Robin stepped aside. Yet, even before he fully turned away, the conversation was already fading from his mind—washed away by the storm of thoughts rising once again inside him.
He had long ago made a decision that his path to the truth would be through the Master Laws.
That conviction had only grown deeper when he touched the First stage of the Law of Creation.
Sothing about it whispered to his soul. Like a voice long lost in ti, calling him ho.
But the path ahead had begun to fork.
Should he now chase Causality, that grand weaver of consequence and fate?
Or go deeper—into the Second and Third Stage of Creation?
Perhaps the Fourth Stage of Spaceti?
His gaze dropped slightly, brows furrowed.
No...
The law that had haunted him most in recent months—the one that burned in his thoughts even during sleep—was Identity.
Bzzt!
The portal flared. One more traveler vanished in a silent flash of white-blue light.
Only two people remained ahead of Robin now.
Identity...
It might be the missing key—the reason why the patterns of existence were different.
If Truth was the vision that allowed him to see patterns, then Identity might explain How those patterns diverged.
Understanding that... would be like giving a tiger wings.
Bzzt!
Another traveler vanished. Only one remained before Robin.
But would it be wise to begin exploring a new Master Law when he already held fragnts of Spaceti and Creation?
What if... what if the attempt corrupted his mind?
What if it tore his soul in two?
...And then—just as he was sinking deeper into thought—he heard a voice. A voice that sliced through his mind like a whisper in a dream:
"Young man... your mind is far too distracted. That is a dangerous on."
Robin blinked.
He glanced ahead. The last traveler in line stood before the portal.
He was shorter than Robin, wearing a shabby, tattered cloak, and over his head was draped a blanket so old it looked fossilized. He sat hunched. Yet despite this, his presence was heavy—oppressive, like a storm waiting to fall.
"Were you... speaking to , elder?" Robin asked, cautious.
Bzzt! The portal activated.
"Yes, you," the man rasped, still unmoving. "Why are you so uncertain?
Why not let your master lead you?"
Robin smiled gently, out of courtesy.
"Sadly, I don’t have a master. But thank you for the advice. I’ll try to focus."
"No master?" the old man repeated, his tone turning... bitter. "How tragic."
And then—very slowly—he turned.
A horrible smile stretched across his face like a scar carved into wax. Beneath terrifying empty eyes, he grinned like a corpse that had rembered how to mock the living.
"I’ll be your master."
Robin’s body reacted before his mind did.
"Oh shit—!"
He spun, pouring every drop of energy he had into his limbs, ready to tear Zaron’s skies apart and escpe.
That man...
That thing...
It was the sa old man from the market!
"Heheheh..."
With a light motion—too fast to see—the old man raised one arm, grabbed Robin by the back of the neck like a child...
...and jumped forward.
Together, they vanished through the gate in a burst of light.
Bzzt!
The portal closed behind them like nothing had happened.
A soft silence fell.
The clerk blinked. The crowd remained still.
Only the portal remained, its energy fading...
...as if the two had never been there at all.
------------------------------
------------------------------
Tomorrow Begins the ninth volu : Master
User Comments
0 comments from readers