The Dawn of the New World

Hao Xuan's ethereal body which was made from a collection of his deepest thoughts and desires and fueled by copious amounts of soul power that was sealed within his mind palace still floated within the corridors of the Celestial Webway without any restraints.

Time moved differently here. It could be both faster and slower depending on the location and how long one stayed in a particular place. It had been close to an hour and a half for his physical body but in here, barely fifteen minutes or so had passed.

Yet Hao Xuan was already to beginning feel the effects of being away from his body for so long. But the time difference made it that much more difficult for him to accurately judge how long he had been there for which was very dangerous.

He felt untethered, detached from his physical self.

'I need to return soon,' he thought looking at his hands becoming more transparent by the second.

And the more time he spent in the Webway without his physical body to protect and shelter him, the more in tune with the Webway he became. He could already feel the existence of some other kinds of spiritual beings wandering within the tunnels.

He couldn't actually see or hear them but instead felt their presence almost like a sixth sense. They felt like different types of energies brought together by various emotions and given a new form that could not even exist in the physical realm.

And the more he tried to understand them, the more they perceived his existence in return. Hao Xuan needed to leave the webway quickly and he knew that.

He directed his attention back towards the three gateways in front of him. He had narrowed it down to just these three out of more than a hundred and seventy.

Since he was using himself as an antenna to "feel" for a connection, it was not easy to narrow it down with much accuracy. All he knew was that within each of these gateways, there was something or someone that had a very strong connection with him.

He didn't know what exactly that connection was or even what was on the other sides. The only clues he could pick up came from the things that were nearby.

The first gateway felt the most...."peculiar" of all. It was the only one out of all 170+ gates that felt this different. Not to mention where all the others looked yellowish-orange in color, this one was changing colors every few seconds.

One second it would be pure white, the next yellow, the next red, and the next purple. There was no sequence to it. Standing in front of it, Hao Xuan could feel a foreign energy emanating from its surface.

It was not any kind of spiritual energy that he knew. It was thicker, denser, and more solid than anything else. When he focused his senses, a great number of different things entered his mind.

Anxiousness, distance, wide-open fields, the sensation of being imprisoned and confined, a lack of technology, senselessness, confusion, and great power. These 'sensations' were the most powerful out of everything else.

'No, this isn't it,' Hao Xuan swiftly concluded.

Maybe there was something or someone in there that was close to him but he had never been to that place himself, so it was not a priority. Hao Xuan made a mental note of the 'feeling' of the gateway in case he wanted to find it again before moving on to the second one. This one was the most familiar.

Hao Xuan closed his eyes and once again opened his mind, trying to perceive what could be waiting for him.

Strictness, cruelty, old and decaying, love and hate, hegemony, rigidity, authority, blood, shame, austerity, the mysterious feeling of a home he had never visited. They were all calling out to him in droves.

It was the last sensation that suddenly opened his eyes and gave a clue as to what could be on the other side. It felt like family.

'Is it...them?' his expression became grim. Was that where his blood relatives were? Once that thought settled in his mind he could not get it out. His blood was calling out to them, for better or for worse. It seethed and smoldered, making Hao Xuan even more agitated than he currently was.

'I will most certainly pay you a visit,' he said to himself and remembered this gateway as well.

Finally, he moved over to the last one. But not a second after closing his eyes Hao Xuan abruptly opened them again. He did not feel any personal connection to any of these worlds but this one was the clearest.

While what the others showed or told him were mere thoughts, sensations, or emotions, from this one he could hear a voice loud and clear. It felt like he was standing next to it.

It started out as a tune that someone was humming absentmindedly at the back of their minds but quickly changed to full-fledged coherent sentences.

"Why is it so cold? I really should have worn another layer. Maybe something black. I did have that cute jacket...."