Several years had passed since the awakening wave had entered a new stage.
The emergence of the Transcendents had marked a true turning point in the history of the Upper Continent.
They were no longer mere legends buried within ancient records, but living existences once again walking upon the land of Iberon.
And with their return, the Super Races' view of the future began to change.
The Transcendents who had lived during the ancient eras knew something the new generation had yet to realize.
The awakening was not over.
It had only just begun.
Thus, it did not take long for new orders to be issued from the highest levels of authority within the racial empires.
They were not orders for expansion.
Nor were they declarations of war.
They were orders for training.
Within the Human Empire, the ancient training grounds were transformed.
A large number of academies and sects that had remained closed for ages were reopened.
Resources that had been stored within the imperial vaults for thousands of years were brought out once more.
Herbs were redistributed.
Treasure vaults were opened.
And some blessed lands were made available to young cultivators.
But the greatest change came in the training methods themselves.
The empires were no longer content with selecting only a limited number of geniuses.
This time, the objective was different.
The goal was to raise the strength of the entire race.
In one of the imperial cities, tens of thousands of young cultivators stood before a massive stone platform.
An old man dressed in white robes stood upon it.
He was an ancient Transcendent.
He did not need to release his aura.
Simply standing before them was enough to make the entire place fall utterly silent.
He stared at the crowd for a long moment before speaking.
“From this day onward, cultivation will no longer be a privilege reserved for the elites.”
No one moved.
“Anyone with talent that can be cultivated will be given an opportunity.”
He then added,
“But opportunity does not guarantee success.”
Several heads rose.
“The era in which you could rely upon the protection of the strong is over.”
His eyes swept across the young cultivators before him.
“If you want strength, then you must seize it with your own hands.”
His voice was not loud.
Yet his words reached everyone.
From that day onward, the way the human younger generation trained began to change.
Combat grounds became part of their education.
Some academies were transformed into places where cultivation was combined with actual combat.
Young cultivators were no longer judged solely by how quickly they advanced through the realms.
They were also judged by their ability to survive.
And when the first batch of cultivators entered the training grounds, many of them discovered that talent alone was not enough.
In the lands of the Dragons, the scene was different.
The academies were not opened to everyone.
Instead, the ancient Blood Arenas were reopened.
Deep within a vast mountain range, a group of young dragons gathered before an ancient dragon.
Even in human form, his body was enormous, and his eyes carried the harshness of an era that most of those present had never known.
One of the youths asked,
“You have all awakened, and our clan has grown stronger. Why do you still force us to undergo this training?”
The ancient dragon looked at him.
“Our strength is not your strength.”
The young dragon fell silent.
The old dragon continued,
“What has returned to us from the ancient era will not simply enter your blood because you belong to us.”
Then he pointed toward the mountains before them.
“If you wish to become worthy of your bloodline, prove it.”
Dozens of dragons charged into the mountains.
The trial was not meant to determine who could reach the summit.
It was meant to determine who could return from it.
Within the Elven forests, the ancient trees began to regain their vitality.
Lands that had remained silent for thousands of years gradually began responding to the increasing energy.
The elder Elves recovered ancient cultivation techniques that relied upon the Laws of Nature.
Training grounds that had not been entered for generations were reopened.
The objective was clear.
To create a generation capable of comprehending Laws, rather than merely gathering energy.
Inside one of the ancient halls, an Elven elder said,
“Our ancestors possessed tremendous power, but power without inherited knowledge will disappear once again.”
Thus, they began teaching the younger generation whatever remained of their ancient heritage.
The Dark Elves, however, chose a different path.
Within the underground cities, dark training grounds were established beneath the earth.
Cultivators learned to fight in darkness.
They learned to conceal their auras.
They learned to deal with poisons and Dark Laws.
Their goal was not to create the largest army.
It was to create an army capable of surviving when everything else failed.
In the lands of the Demons, the process was even harsher.
Groups of youths were sent into dangerous regions that had once been considered lands of death.
There was no teacher to explain every step to them.
They had to learn on their own.
One of the Demon rulers watched them from afar and said,
“Those who cannot survive here will not live long when the true era begins.”
Nor were the other races any less active.
The Phoenixes reopened their ancient trials of fire.
The Giants returned to tempering their bodies through their primordial bloodline techniques.
The Merfolk reopened ancient aquatic regions that had remained sealed since previous eras.
The Dwarves retrieved blueprints for weapons and treasures that no one remembered how to forge anymore.
The Qilin Clan began awakening the sacred lands connected to their bloodlines.
As for the Beasts, their territories underwent the greatest transformation.
Ancient bloodlines began reappearing.
Some beasts that had seemed ordinary for thousands of years began awakening rare bloodlines within themselves.
The Beast Empires began gathering these bloodlines and providing them with resources to aid their evolution.
Even the Vampires began awakening the pure bloodlines among their people and restoring their ancient cultivation techniques.
There was no agreement between them.
No one had ordered the twelve races to do the same thing.
Yet they had all arrived at the same conclusion.
A strong future could not be built by relying solely upon the past.
Years passed.
And the results began to appear.
The number of powerful cultivators increased.
Geniuses emerged who could never have been born under the conditions of the past.
Bloodlines once considered weak began to evolve.
And new armies began to take shape.
For the first time in a long while, power was no longer concentrated solely in the hands of a small number of ancient beings.
It was gradually being passed on to the younger generation.
But the Transcendents were not satisfied.
They saw something that others could not.
The stronger Iberon became...
the more something else was changing.
One night, several Transcendents from different races gathered in a place far from the territories of the empires.
It was not an official gathering.
There were no banners.
Only a small number of ancient beings who had lived through a different era.
One of them said,
“The younger generation has begun to grow.”
Another replied,
“And it will need time.”
Silence descended.
Then another Transcendent spoke.
“We do not have infinite time.”
One of them raised his eyes.
“Do you feel it as well?”
No one answered for several moments.
Because they had all felt it.
A faint change within the world.
It was not clear enough for ordinary cultivators to sense.
But it was there.
The air was different.
The sky was different.
Even the immortal energy seemed to carry something strange that had not existed before.
One of the Transcendents said,
“It is not immortal energy.”
The others remained silent.
Then one of them said,
“No.”
He looked toward the sky.
“It is older than that.”
At that exact moment...
Everywhere across Iberon...
some beings suddenly stopped moving.
A young cultivator raised his head from within his secluded cave.
A dragon stopped in mid-flight.
A Giant emerged from his cave.
A Mermaid halted her training.
Even some wild beasts raised their heads toward the sky without knowing why.
No one knew what had happened.
There was no lightning.
No meteors fell.
The earth did not tremble.
Only...
everyone felt something pass through the world.
Something faint.
Distant.
Yet real.
And high above the heavens, ripples that could not be seen by the naked eye appeared for a brief moment.
Then they vanished.
The younger generation did not understand what had happened.
But the Transcendents...
said nothing.
Because they knew what that sensation meant.
Something that had been absent from Iberon since the ancient eras...
had begun to return.
The awakening was not approaching its end.
Instead, it was opening an entirely new door.
A door that was no longer concerned with immortals.
But with gods.