Upon Varian's instruction, the Ghostship in its stealth mode quickly shot towards Bali.
Varian's outfit changed. His casual clothes were replaced by graceful whites. A white mask with golden edges covered his face.
And his temperament undertook a drastic turn.
With a wave of his hand, a golden throne adorned with ancient runic drawings appeared behind him.
He sat on the throne with crossed legs and supported his chin on his hand as it laid on the armrest.
He looked lazy, mysterious yet equally dangerous.
"Boo, is it done?" He asked in a bone-chilling voice.
"D-Don't scare me like that!" Boo stuttered. "When you enter this role, I feel like…"
"Feel like what?"
"Feel like being your true self," Boo said and asked a question that bothered it for a while now.
"Master, if you can strategize so well, why did you never do it before?" Boo's curiosity was evident in its tone.
Its master's performance in the Solar Trial blew away its mind. Was he really a genius? This battle maniac?
"…" Varian's eyes narrowed as his face under the mask stiffened for a split second.
"I was an unawakened a year ago. No matter what strategies I can plot, without sufficient strength to back them up, they're all futile.
Even in the trial, if I didn't have the minimum strength, all my plans would be futile." He answered in a careless tone, but his eyes were deadly serious.
"No wonder…except for being good at battle tactics, I always thought you were an idiot." Boo honestly confessed causing Varian to grip the armrest tighter.
Kaa!
The armrest creaked startling Boo. "Master, calm down! We don't have too many good-looking chairs."
"…contact Bali already." Varian facepalmed.
"I'm doing it. His space shuttle's AI is more resilient. I don't want to destroy it, I just want to shut it down. I'll slow down the shuttle and shut it down temporarily. Give me a few minutes." Boo said and a huge blue screen popped up in the air.
Bali's space shuttle in the distance slowed considerably. As they weren't near any reference point, and his AI didn't prompt him, Bali didn't notice the strangeness.
Before he was going to talk to Bali, Varian asked the System a few more questions.
'Isn't dual awakening a curse? It's a handicap if you have to take both paths to peak level 9 only to abandon one.' Varian said with a frown.
Where was equality of opportunity?
The System might've remained silent normally, but today, it seemed to have extraordinary patience as it explained.
[Dual Awakeners need not get both their paths to peak level 9 to advance to Sovereign. They can ditch a path and take the route of a single path.
But humans find this difficult to do. Your civilization is still too young.
And Dual Awakeners isn't a curse.
If you don't want to expend time on the second path, you can discard it early on.
But geniuses of higher civilizations don't do that. They take it to the end of level 9 without wasting much time.
How?
They'll forcibly upgrade this one path through treasures—but as a consequence, it gets harder and harder to advance in that path.
In the end, reaching Celestial Rank in that path becomes impossible.
But at the same time, they'd have diligently progressed in the main path in which they can advance to Celestial Rank.
This 'filled up' path will be discarded and the proper path will be used for Celestial Rank.
'Filling up' doesn't cost an awakener a lot of time, but it's relatively expensive.
Of course, true powerhouses actually diligently practice both paths.
Why do they not just discard?
Because if you reach a very, very high level—the peak of Celestial Ranks, all the experience in this other avenue will be useful to you.
In fact, it's recommended you experience other avenues as well. What better way than to review your own second divine path?]
'…' Varian was blown away by the answer.
In the end, it was only humanity's problem. They were too young. Too weak. Too ignorant.
'Being a dual awakener human in our era sucks.' Varian maintained a minute of silence for all human Dual Awakeners. But maybe he could change it?
[There is one more possibility for an awakener to be Celestial in two paths. Hybrid.]
'Hybrid? Sia…?'
[This System was sealed away thousands of years ago. Even the latest information known by the system is very old. A few thousand years ago, hybrids were still a budding concept.
This System isn't omniscient. It has its blind spots.
But theoretically, hybrids have more than one Origin.
A hybrid with two origins can also awaken in two paths, but they're fundamentally different from Dual Awakeners.
Because they have two origins, they can bind an origin each to an avenue.
This system doesn't know what stage the top civilizations have reached in hybrids at present.]
Varian's brows knit together as he thought hard about the implications.
Wait…if Sia admittedly is a hybrid, then who are her parents?
Can humans really give birth to hybrids?
"Haaa~" Varian sighed and shook those thoughts out of his mind.
To him, it didn't matter much if she was a hybrid or not.
All he cared was finding her and making up to her.
And it wasn't bad if hybrids existed.
It'd be less fun if he encountered Celestial Rankers of only one path.
The system said long ago that he was beyond the hybrids. So, he wasn't worried about meeting a monster like himself.
But knowing the System wasn't omniscient was a relief. He'd surely be troubled if an all-knowing being was with him all day.
'So, there's a chance that I might find a way to make Dual Awakeners get to Celestial Rank with one origin.
I must do it for myself anyway.'
[Only time will tell. But Divine Paths aren't fully explored yet.]
"Master!"
"Master!"
Varian snapped out of his thoughts due to Boo's calls.
"Eh?"
"Bali is online. Should I start?"
Varian adjusted his posture.
He leaned back into the throne, adjusted special lighting, and nodded.
"…"
A few thousand miles away, Bali was already feeling that something was off.
He was about to contact others when a hologram suddenly popped up in his space shuttle.
A man in white clothes was leisurely seated on a golden throne. His eyes stared at the dual peak level 9 awakener.
"Bali, age 90. You believe you are destined to be stopped before the Sovereign state. I am Dreamer, and I like to screw with destiny.
I am here to give you a chance. A chance that can turn your beliefs upside down. A chance to make your wildest dream come true.
A chance to make you a Sovereign."