After the fight, Koji was pretty devastated at the fact he had just been absolutely shit on by a girl his age.
'How did she even move that fast? She's literally my age!'
He then started to wonder about what her potential was, because his was very high; hers may be even higher considering her strength.
He started to think more about being a Transcendent, what also came to his mind was history; he knew nothing about this worlds history. Especially how Transcendents even became a thing in the first place.
'History isn't too important to me honestly, especially back on earth. We always talked about the same things, and the same people were considered legendary. But to me, it's all bullshit. Intelligent philosophers, warlords, people who invented things. All bullshit, nobody was legendary to me. Truly, everything they did was just as meaningful as what anyone else does. An average guy who spends his life working and does nothing for society would be considered legendary to me if I considered them legendary...'
Philosophers were intelligent, but they were not strong or happy. Warlords may be strong and intelligent, but they were not happy. Inventors may be intelligent too, maybe they are even strong and happy, but they still suffered.
Of course, none of that was definite; there may be outliers. But the point still applies, they all suffer from multiple issues and aren't completely superior at all. In fact, they could be considered inferior in a way.
If one was flying, they were falling.
Worst of all, they all would still die around the same time.
But even considering all that, he was still interested.
He thought about it for a bit then turned his head to Lin, who was using his giant hand to pat Ivory's small shoulder.
"Master Lin, how did Transcendents become a thing?"
Lin raised one eyebrow; he didn't expect Koji to ask him this anytime soon.
"Well ok, if you're curious I can tell you the most widespread belief. Basically, there were two beings that formed in the universe before the realms were even created; two beings were formed. One was the pure representation of good, everything that was righteous or moral. The other was the opposite, they were an absolute demon; the two existed in utter conflict with each other for centuries. Until the evil one forced itself upon the righteous one; the child that was born was the representation of balance. As balance was born it witnessed the conflict between the two and it decided to involve itself. Eventually, it killed both of them. But balance died when they died, giving birth to earth. Nature was created due to Righteousness's death, life was created due to evil's death. Balance died and became the force that kept the two from overtaking each other. It also kept species of life in check from taking over the other, everything was balanced. But even balance had it's flaws. Eventually, one day there was a break in balance. A human was born with a second Xin core, which was not possible according to balance; but it happened. It was unknown why this happened, but it did. So balance decided to adapt, it made Miniscule monsters target him; but the man kept growing and got a third Xin core, so balance sent Midstreamer monsters after him. This happened until the man eventually grew eight Xin cores, and balance itself had to put it's full force until dealing with him solely; this created a flaw in it and from then to now, humans have been able to break balance. Of course, breaking it to the point of having eight Xin cores is a one in over a billion chance."
Koji took in all this information; of course this explanation was extremely broad and only surface level, however he still paid his upmost attention to it.
'Balance...This concept, this idea, this force; the sole reason for suffering is because of balance. Why does death exist? To balance life. Why does suffering exist? To balance joy. Why does evil exist? To balance good.'
But there was another perspective.
'Well, maybe it's the opposite; life exists to balance death.'
Koji considered many things about balance after hearing this story.
'Because without life, then existence could not be perceived; therefore there is no existence. But why does death exist to balance life? Well, I guess one could say that with only death the universe seeks life, but with only life everything would seek death.'
But in Koji's mind, this had some issues.
'Death...'
The more he thought about it, the more he hated this idea of balance.
'Why does death have to exist? Who is to say that life would seek death if they had the absence of it? If our minds suffer because of the everlasting worry that we will one day perish, what would life be without it? Well, the best thing would be living until you chose to die. Because then you would have neither of those options. So how does this defy balance?'
Well, there was one more issue.
'Bliss and suffering, two things. If you were able to chose when you die; there would be an extreme imbalance of bliss and suffering.'
But this also had it's issues, the more he thought the more issues formed. There was only one thing he was sure about.
'Balance is why we can't exist in pure bliss, or why I can't exist in pure bliss specifically. Actually, it is not possible for everyone to exist in pure bliss; to exist free of worry and hardship, the only way is to be completely above others, and to enslave them and suppress them from getting to your level.'
But that in of itself, would mean you aren't existing free of worry, because you have to suppress others and worry about them becoming as strong as you. Which leaves one more option, to kill everyone else.
But this was not an option, because Koji would not enjoy killing everyone.
But maybe there was a secret third option, who says that he couldn't completely defy balance and become so powerful no one could ever possibly reach him?
Defy balance, and then enforce it on every other living thing.
That was the only way, but this was not easy.
In fact, it could be said to be completely impossible.
'This is not something I should worry about right now, because I don't even know if I'll be able to do this way in the future, let alone now...'