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Translator: adomman
Editor: Snorri
Bastet did not have the slightest thought of refusal before the goddess, not even doubt or hesitation. She took an oath and became a servant of the Ennead. The contents of the oath were complicated and difficult to express in words, and it was only through the spiritual reflection that its meaning could be clearly understood.
Bastet was accepted into a group of gods, more specifically a belief system, as she was not yet a goddess. There was an agreement between the gods that they would teach the ways of becoming a god to those who were most likely to become one, and that included beings like Bastet. However, doing so required the approval of the divine clan, and only a god who had truly transcended eternal life was qualified to do so. One such as Bastet who knew the secrets of divinity was not allowed to divulge the secrets without permission, and this was one of the terms of the oath.
After joining a divine clan, one had to remain loyal, since that was where the power came from. Such oaths weren’t empty promises uttered by mortal men but would leave an indelible mark in one’s soul, making it impossible to renege upon.
It was possible for conflict or even war to arise between gods within the same divine clan, and this seemed contradictory to the oath of joining a divine clan, but that was an entirely different situation, and it was impossible for Bastet to understand that then. There were pacts between gods, and there were also pacts between divine clans. For example, there was one such pact between the Ennead and the Anunnaki, and it stated that when mortal men waged war with one another in the name of gods, the gods themselves could not intervene directly. Instead, they could only interfere through various tests and pacts with the mortals.
Such a pact seemed to restrict what the gods could do, but it was a way to keep peace. For reasons that mortals could not understand, the gods all seemed willing to do things in this way. Of course, not every member of a divine clan is a real god. The real gods would send emissaries like Bastet to accomplish various tasks.
Isis had chosen Bastet for a reason. The cat had already been on the right path. She could almost present herself before the commoners in human form. Animals of likewise achievement would be worshiped by the commoners and be called a god. She would be a helpful assistant to the Ennead. Isis only had to guide Bastet to complete the path.
Through this experience, Amon had learnt the secrets of divinity, something which Crazy’Ole and Bair had sought for life, while Bastet automatically acquired when she joined the Ennead.
However, the answer was unimportant to Amon now, for it was in the power which he had just discovered by himself.
Crazy’Ole had discovered back then that a warrior’s advancement required various tests, and this was the most important breakthrough for him to solve the puzzle. In reality, the most important knowledge taught by Isis was not about the power itself, but about achieving transcendence through the various tests. In this world, there were many people who practised body arts or magic. Even though they made great achievements, their experience of the tests were incomplete, so they never could become a real god.
For some, even if they managed to achieve a very high level, it might be difficult for them to summarize and understand clearly what they have achieved. After all, everyone’s path varied wildly, and it wasn’t so easy to find the common points between all the paths. Commoners naturally placed the greatest attention on power, and neglected the understanding of the source of the power, the principle behind it. This was something that Amon had experienced deeply, but it was only after experiencing the past in Schrodinger’s spiritual imprints that it became all clear, since it was equivalent to reaffirming Bastet’s entire practising path once again.
Bastet had made an oath that she could not divulge the secret of becoming a god to others without permission. Only the king of the god in the Ennead had that right. The oath was taken in front of Horus. All those who received guidance from Ennead had to swear an oath of allegiance to this divine clan, and if there were any exceptions, Amon must be the only one.
Amon learned all of Schrodinger’s secrets through her spiritual imprints. It was hard to tell if Schrodinger violated the oath that Bastet made back then. It was true that she did not tell the secret of divinity to anyone. All these years, the answer that Crazy’Ole and Bair sought so desperately had always been right next to them. Amon had traveled such a difficult path, and all this while, Schrodinger had been with him and had given him a lot of help and guidance, but she did not tell him directly.
It wasn’t until Amon had achieved the eighth-level of the power of two sides and understood the real power that Schrodinger finally opened her spiritual imprints to him. Amon already knew the answer, and he had not received the guidance of any divine clan to obtain that knowledge.
One interesting thing was that, Amon himself had been doing what a the king of the gods should do in a divine clan, because he had taught this power to his disciples Hardedef, Metatro and Lynk, and these disciples all viewed him as their “only God”. Although Amon was not yet a real god, it could still be considered the birth of a new divine clan.
Schrodinger had been forced to do this, since she would never be free unless she could undo the seal imprisoning her. As for how Bastet became today’s Schrodinger, Amon did not find the answer in the experience this time. This time he stayed shortly in meditation, just going through Bastet receiving guidance from Isis.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking directly into the cat’s eyes in the early morning. It was like seeing the light after stumbling in the darkness.
Schrodinger asked, “Amon, what have you experienced tonight?”
Amon replied, “You received the guidance of Isis and joined the Ennead after taking an oath.”
Schrodinger sighed. “It was the beginning of everything, and probably the source of my problem.”
Amon narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to tell me that the oath you took back then is what keeps you imprisoned today?”
Schrodinger sighed again. “Maybe it’s not the oath itself, but my intent of getting rid of the oath. I wonder if opening my spiritual imprints to you is violating the oath that I took back then.”
Amon shook his head. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, I can’t answer that yet. I need to continue experiencing your past to find out. I once thought, even though you know so much, you have been unwilling to tell me about them. Today, I finally realize that it truly isn’t easy to tell such a long story!”
……
While Moses and his people were on a journey of suffering, Amon was also advancing on his own journey. After receiving Isis’s guidance, Bastet realized how lucky she was. She was already very powerful, but she was about to go on the wrong path. It was Isis who saved her from going astray by rectifying her path from the beginning.
While experiencing Schrodinger’s past, Amon had held his thoughts. But when he reflected on what he experienced afterwards, he was secretly surprised when he compared it to his own path of training. Amon had advanced step by step to reach the achievements he had today. Before stepping on his path, he could never imagine all the encounters he would have thus far. If it were a mortal who knew nothing, even if the gods had told him the secrets of divinity, his first reaction would have been: How is this possible!
It was indeed too difficult, so difficult that it was impossible to look back upon. From the beginning, he was pushed, even forced to take such a path. Recalling his experiences now, he realized that he still wouldn’t have a choice.
Amon was a Supreme General on the battlefield, but he experienced many thrilling and unimaginable battles in Schrodinger’s past through her spiritual imprints. Not only were there conflicts between divine clans, enemies also included monsters and various demons that ran amok in the clan’s divine realm. Besides densely populated cities and nations, a larger part of the continent was a vast wilderness with all kinds of monsters, some of which Amon had encountered himself. Then, where did demons come from?
Actually, these “demons” had the same origin as Bastet, and even Amon. Why was Bastet considered lucky? On one hand, she managed to acquire wisdom and obtained great power as a result. On the other hand, she did not lose herself or wallow in desire since she received Isis’s guidance just in time.
There may be more than one path that can lead to divinity or eternity. But it was difficult to tell them from the wrong paths. There were so many strange and bizarre paths that even the gods probably didn’t know for sure exactly where they led to. For example, if Amon hadn’t passed by, and El Mar had killed Metatro and Lynk, who knows what would have happened to it later.
Magic and body arts were widely practised in the world, but magic being so incredible, there came to be rules stating that only the hereditary nobles were given permission by the shrines to learn magic and the Hieroglyph. However, as it was human to err, exceptions were bound to occur and the secrets of magic would inevitably leak over the centuries. Bastet was one such case.
These people and creatures could have become violent and cruel, for example, if Hardedef had not met Amon, it would be difficult for him to control the restless power within him. Compared to impulsiveness and bad temper on the surface, hidden malice is more dangerous. Some would even use various evil methods for their training, and if not stopped, would eventually result in disaster.
As a servant of the gods, Bastet was often sent to battle these demons. Sometimes, the powerful demons in the wilderness would be slain by her directly. Other times, she would secretly assist brave humans fighting the demons.
Among the emissaries sent by the Ennead, Bastet had made great achievements in battles, and she advanced in her training rapidly, until one day, she lost her power and was summoned back to the Shrine of Isis. Amon had experienced that himself not too long ago, and one could see the importance of a divine realm in moments such as these, where Bastet needed guidance and protection. When she finally passed the test, Osiris appeared in front of her.
The god walked out of his statue, like a shadow in the night suddenly becoming alive. Bastet hurriedly took human form and prostrated before him. “Great Osiris, do you have any orders for me?”
Osiris’s voice sounded as if it came from a deep abyss. “Bastet, I have seen your performance, and you are the most outstanding one among all the emissaries. I will now give you further guidance on your path.”
From this day forward, Bastet became an emissary of the Underworld and executed even more dangerous missions. And as a reward, Osiris taught her a strange magic ]that could restrain living souls. A living soul can vaguely be described as the soul of a living being. When a life is destroyed and everything is over, only the actions carried out while alive will remain in imprints. Regardless of the intentions of the one who died, the imprints stay.
For example, when a person dies, he is still remembered by the people of the world, and the places he went and the things he used would still bear traces of him. This information can become another kind of existence, and sometimes, when people say that they saw ghosts, the things they saw are merely reflections of these imprints. However, if this information can coalesce into a self-conscious abstract form, it would become a living soul. A similar situation would be when Amon had seen his father and Mayor Dusti in Anunnaki’s Underworld.
Amon once suspected that Kella, the Queen of the Underworld, had been using a type of magic which people did not understand. Now, he had learnt this magic himself through Schrodinger’s past. This magic was recorded in the “Book of the Dead” given to Bastet by Osiris, and it was called spiritual magic. Not only could it be used to receive the souls of the dead, it could also be used to restrain the souls of the living things while killing them.
The spirits of the dead would disperse, just as the traces left by people would gradually be erased and disappear over time, but the souls that possessed strong desires or deep resentment could be received or restrained and led into Duat, the Ennead’s Underworld. Bastet’s main task was to slay the powerful demons, and restrain their living souls for Osiris to imprison within the Book of the Dead.
By this time, two months had passed Moses set off. Amon now had the same eighth-level of achievement as Bastet did back then. During this period of experiencing Schrodinger’s past, he also naturally learnt spiritual magic. From this, Amon understood one thing, and that was that the “true language” mentioned in the ancient records most probably referred to these spiritual imprints. However, he still did not understand how Kella had built the Underworld, and for what purpose.
Continuing on, Bastet’s level had already exceeded Amon’s. Schrodinger reminded him: “Amon, you are not a complete experiencer, but a non-existent observer. For the levels which you have not yet reached, you cannot truly breakthrough during the experience. But doing so will be beneficial for you. When you are attempting a breakthrough in the future, this experience will help you to understand it first before you verify it.”
Amon quickly understood why Schrodinger said that. It was because Bastet was now going through the test for breaking through to the ninth-level. Under Osiris’s protection, Bastet continued her training in isolation and meditated for half a year. It was as if her soul had entered a never-ending river.
This part was the most difficult experience Amon had gone through since he started experiencing Bastet’s past. It was not like anything before that because he could no longer stop anytime he wanted. It was necessary for Bastet to pass the test completely in order for him to escape from the meditation. Fortunately, Amon’s soul was much stronger than it had been a few months ago, and he was barely able to complete it at once.
Entering Bastet’s meditation while in a meditation himself resembled a dream within a dream. Amon had to wait for Bastet to wake up before he could wake up. This period of experience could be described as an “endless arising and ceasing cycle”.
It was no longer the experience of a cat, but the life journey of various living beings, and the huge amount of information was more than any soul could bear. A person’s life was limited, and so was their memories and experience, but right now, the memories of multiple identities flooded into her soul.
Bastet’s soul nearly drowned, lost in the river, and was unable to find the end, but eventually she passed safely. She experienced it and also forgot it. The only way to reach the end was to hold one’s thoughts together and stay uninvolved. Amon was able to do the same. He had spent so many “years” as a cat, and he was longer dazed by the experience. The soul of Amon’s self had become crystal clear.
After passing the test, Schrodinger became much stronger immediately, and now she truly had a human form without using message magic or transformation magic. At this moment, Osiris told her that she was the most powerful one among all the servants of the Ennead, second only to the real gods.
When Amon opened his eyes from meditation this time, his entire body was numb, and nearly all of his power was drained from him. An entire day passed before he could finally speak. Schrodinger kept looking at him and rubbed her furry little head against him from time to time. When Amon could finally speak, he said: “I heard Osiris speaking, but I could never get a good look at his appearance.”
Schrodinger: “You did not really reach the next level, you were simply experiencing my past through my spiritual imprints. That is why you were unable to see Osiris clearly or understand what kind of existence he is. I will not divulge any secrets of the Ennead on my accord, whatever you are able to understand through the experience, that will be it.”
Amon panted and moved his body with difficulty. “Osiris said that you are the most powerful one among the servants of the Ennead, but having fought Enkidu, that version of you wasn’t a match for Enkidu. If we are talking about pure strength, you probably won’t be a match for the current me either.”
Schrodinger shook her head. “How many are there in this world that are as strong as Enkidu? He was even capable of injuring Horus. You are certainly very strong right now, probably even stronger than me back then. But you do not yet understand the true meaning of the next level. There are many ninth-level achievers in this world who did not go through the test of “endless arising and ceasing cycle”, and they will never understand it until the last moments of their lives.”
Amon was unable to experience the true meaning mentioned by Schrodinger any time soon, because this time he had to rest for an entire month to recover. The following experience contained too much unknown for Amon, and even if mages or warriors who had achieved the ninth-level might have been able to fight with Bastet, there were many things which they have yet to understand. Being a god was not merely about having great strength.
Schrodinger learnt spiritual magic and passed the test of “endless arising and unceasing cycle”, naturally she also possessed the unique ability which Amon obtained from the Underworld. Amon finally understood that the ability was simply sensing the reflection of people’s mental activity. Anyone who had achieved the seventh-level would be able to guard against such an ability, and even the gods could not do anything about it, so it meant that the ability did not always work. At the same time, Amon was relieved, since it also meant that gods could not sense his mental activity if he was on guard.
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Really interesting how their martial and magic cultivation system works. I love their unique syatem.