Grand Ascension-Chapter 130: At His Core

How much of it was him and how much of it was his subroute?

Jorg had said something during that sparring session they had at the VEB HQ.

He had said berserks were different from most practitioners in terms of subroute selection.

Instead of choosing a subroute they were apt at, like a swordsman choosing a sword for his specialisation in the warrior route, the Deep directly forced chaos and rage upon berserks.

The reason he gave was that everyone who walked the berserk path had reached a state of rage and chaos so deep that they could only walk that path.

From that information, Makun had deduced whatever route a person filled with rage and chaos was walking, they were always going to be labelled as berserk.

A scholar would be a berserk scholar, a ruler a berserk ruler and so on.

The only way he could be wrong was if the subroute name changed.

For example instead of berserk ruler, it could be a mad ruler and so on.

However the concept of it, the foundation of the route would always be the same, these practitioners, those full of chaos and entropy had been forced on the path because of the rage and chaos present at their core.

That was why Makun could not refute the fact that the one murdering, the one who had stomped on that head, the one who had punched holes into people, and the one always smiling when fighting, and destroying was him.

It was him at his core.

His life had been terrible and after every traumatic experience his rage augmented, his hatred for everything augmented, the desire to destroy everything that always caused him harm bloomed.

But Makun knew it, if he lost himself to that part of him, he would attract more negativity, more of the traumatic events.

He might even die.

But that was not the problem, he already lived in misery, what was bad in getting some more misery.

The reason he had suppressed so much of his emotions and desires was the lack of power.

What could a kid do against foster parents, nothing.

Or could he hit on women who had destroyed his life without getting repercussions? Impossible, he would have been sent to jail on the same day.

The only time Makun had acted was when the consequences were ones he could subjugate.

But now, after his initiation, the Deep had acknowledged his pain, his frustration and his desire to destroy.

It had given him the power he had needed, the power he had unknowingly craved for, the power to act freely without thinking of consequences.

That was to say, it really was him, it was not his subroute.

All his subroute had done was enhance who he already was, and give him power to fully be himself without worrying about the consequences.

That was true, well most of it at least. But he could not accept this conclusion, it contradicted a lot of the information he got from Yime.

Which at the end made no sense.

At the pier Night Market, he had asked Yime three questions. His second question had been one he would never forget, the answer to that question had marked him.

He had asked what the price of mysticism was, and at that time Yime had answered that ascending and reconnecting to the Source meant losing your individuality.

That was for practitioners who followed the right path of ascension.

That finality had scared practitioners. What was the goal of having power if you did not exist. There was no point in that.

As such, they created a variation, the ego anchor path to ascension. Even so, you ended up losing yourself at the end, you lost yourself to your ego.

That was why Makun had asked himself that question, how much of what was happening was him and how much of it was the Deep.

Was he on the normal path, or the ego anchor path, well he knew it could not be the ego anchor path, he had not taken any extra measures to not directly reconnect to the Source after his initiation.

Which meant that he was following his normal path, that he was sure of.

But that day, Yime had mentioned the fact that losing your individuality meant a loss of fear, loss of emotions... Why was it that his emotions were enhanced.

So many questions he did not and could not answer.

They hung in the void, unanswered.

At the end, he shook his head, he did not want to think further about the Deep and the Source right now. He did not have enough information to make an educated guess.

The smartest choice was asking someone like Orel, asking him for his opinion on the matter and hoping that he answered.

That is going to be tough. He remembered when Orel aired him, during the disaster of Hope Rest Shelter.

Or Yime, she was his best option, she was always open to answer and he had a feeling she benefitted from him knowing more.

His thoughts jumped from Yime, to the book, to the libraries; digital and physical, possessed by MIO.

He had choices for where to get his information from, it was not the same as before when Zuri had been his only source of information.

Makun sat on the gravel outside, trying to meditate.

The deductions earlier had been important to him, yes he could not understand the machinations of the routes, subroutes and the Deep as of now. But what he could do was advance, climb that ladder and move from grade one to grade three, from apprentice to adept, till he reached that final stage.

And those deductions had helped him understand how his personality affected his fighting style, and he knew comprehending combat and his style of combat as a berserk could make him advance.

The normal him, without the influence of his Ashe, or without entering a semi-berserk state fought in a disciplined manner, similar to when he had sparred against Danielle.

However once he entered that state, everything went out of the window, he fought like a beast, some type of primate in the jungle.

He had to dig deeper into this, reason for the need of meditation.

He sat, gritting his teeth trying his best to ignore the pain. One breath, Two, he closed his eyes—

And heard engines.

Makun knew it, the MIO team had arrived.