Hero of Hearts Novel Chapter 7128

“This ascension journey might take hundreds of years.”

“So tell me, is spending hundreds of years on the road a blessing or a torment?”

The two men’s heads were spinning from his words.

Bowen rubbed his temples and said, “Senior Brother, you’re going too far.”

“It’s all baseless speculation. How are we supposed to determine its right or wrong?”

“Besides, to be honest, I’ve never thought about ascension in my life.”

“I’d be content if I could eat an elixir of eternal life like the wise ruler and live for another five hundred years.”

“Who cares how far Sun Wukong somersaults?”

“Yes,”

Buzzner said with a smile,

“Even wise rulers don’t dare to dream of ascension,”

“So we shouldn’t even think about it.”

“Senior Brother, didn’t you yourself say that there’s nowhere near Earth where no one can survive?”

“Maybe ascension is just a hoax from the beginning.”

As he spoke, he suddenly realized something and said excitedly,

“I think the stories about ascension are just like Sun Wukong’s – they’re all made up by later generations!”

“As for the so-called Dharma-ending Age,”

“I think that’s pure nonsense!”

“It’s very likely that Earth has been like this since its birth.”

“For thousands of years, cultivators have been hoping to ascend, but no one has been able to fly away.”

“Everyone thought about it and realized, ‘This isn’t right.”

“Everyone says they can ascend, but why hasn’t anyone flown away?’

“So, to comfort themselves, they made up the pretense of the Dharma-ending Age, saying that things are different now than before.”

“Now it’s the Dharma-ending Age, when even dogs could ascend.”

“It’s like in the late Qing Dynasty, when the old folks always said that the world was going downhill and that people weren’t as good as before.”

“I think it’s just a load of rubbish to kids.”

“Things probably weren’t much better back then, maybe even worse than they are now.”

“It’s just that we weren’t born in that era,”

“So judging good or bad is all based on his words.”

Bowen’s eyes lit up, and he exclaimed,

“Junior Brother is right! The highest level of cultivation is probably just living for a thousand or eight hundred years, like the master of the legendary ruler.”

“As for ascension, it’s all just the cultivators’ own conjectures and wishes.”

“Look at scientists now, they’re always talking about interstellar travel and interstellar migration, aren’t they?”

“But Senior Brother just said that even light takes years to reach the nearest star.”

“Humans might not be alive enough to reach it even in ten thousand years.”

“Ascension might be the same—just a theoretical height, something we can never achieve in reality.”

Brovnen smiled self-deprecatingly and said,

“You’re right.”

“Ascension is very likely just a pie in the sky that cultivators painted for future generations, a pie we can never eat.”

As he said this, Brovnen had his own calculations.

He knew that ascension couldn’t be interstellar travel.

Before the Dharma-ending Age, it was impossible for cultivators who had successfully transcended tribulations to act like idiots,”

“Flying all the way from Earth to outer space every now and then, spending tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years traveling through the universe just to reach another world.”

“Wouldn’t that be utterly insane?

He preferred to believe that ascension was actually a kind of teleportation mechanism.

Because in his speculation, ascension was more like an invisible imperial examination.

Except, the examination wasn’t administered by the visible and tangible imperial court,

But by a group of super cultivators with extraordinary cultivation levels.

Just as the imperial court needed to select new officials through examinations, super cultivators also needed to select new people to replenish the upper echelons with fresh blood.

Therefore, they created the so-called Heavenly Tribulation and Ascension.

It’s not that if your cultivation level reaches a certain point, the Heavenly Dao will actually strike you with heavenly lightning to test your destiny.

If there really was such a thing as the Heavenly Dao, it would be overseeing hundreds of billions of galaxies, hundreds of billions of stars, and countless planets throughout the universe.

The Heavenly Dao was too busy to care about some tiny speck on a certain planet.

Why would it specifically send you a bolt of lightning?

Did you really think you were so great?

Brovnen felt that the so-called “heavenly tribulation” was more like your cultivation level just meeting the minimum requirements for selection.

The higher-ups noticed you and gave you a chance to participate in the imperial examination.

The heavenly lightning was probably just that kind of test, nothing more.

It gave you a chance to take the exam; if you could withstand it, it proved you had passed the test from above.

Then, a powerful divine force would open a door and teleport you there, and you would be considered an official.

After that, you would start from the bottom, since there were always higher-ups above you.

Even the imperial examination involved three rounds: the provincial examination, the metropolitan examination, and the palace examination.

The tribulation might just be the first round of the provincial examination for cultivators.

In ancient times, even if you passed all three rounds of the imperial examination and became the top scholar in the final palace examination,

You were only qualified to enter the Hanlin Academy, a mere sixth-rank official.

Once in the Hanlin Academy, you were just a nobody, and you still had to climb the ranks little by little.

Even if you pass the imperial examination with top honors and rise through the ranks to become the prime minister,

The imperial court still holds you firmly in check.

If you’re even more capable, and you successfully rebel and become emperor, you’re still the ruler of a nation.

But what if your nation is small? What if you’re surrounded by powerful enemies?

What if you’re unlucky and, after enduring countless trials, become the leader of a country like the Dahomey or Zulu kingdoms of 15th-century Africa?

When the Portuguese colonists arrived, the entire country was seized and forced to grow cotton and sugarcane.

What could an emperor do? Being exiled was considered a blessing from his ancestors.

Anyway, it’s all about enduring, no matter where you are.

Once you survive one stage, there’s another. The biggest difference is that cultivators have a long enough lifespan to endure, living for thousands of years or even longer—that’s a huge attraction in itself.

Of course, if you can’t withstand the heavenly tribulation and are reduced to dust or disintegrate into a wandering immortal, that’s your own business.

The cruelty of ascension compared to the imperial examination is that you don’t get a second chance.

It was precisely because Brovnen had constructed such a logic in his mind that he was more ambitious than Bowen, Buzzner, and even Victoria.

Even Victoria never dared to dream of ascension.

Her thinking was simple: she just wanted to obtain the Hundred Reincarnation Pill and live for another five hundred years.

As for what to do after the second five hundred years, that was a problem to consider in the next stage; thinking about it now was a waste of energy.

But Brovnen felt that if the legends of Antarctica were true,

Ascension might no longer be an unattainable dream. Why not broaden his horizons further?