Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

The few murals, paintings, and literary depictions of Asclepius Sorin remembered seeing in the Kepler Clan were surprisingly accurate, given how few documents pertaining to the gods had survived the Cataclysmic Emergence and the resurgence of humanity.

The god—Sorin assumed that the god was real and that he was not hallucinating—bore a serpentine staff. It was one of the few symbols of the gods that had survived their deaths, in this case, in the form of the symbol of the Medical Association and the Kepler Clan's crest.

Where Asclepius differed from expectations were his eyes. They weren't kindly eyes but the eyes of a cold-blooded predator. Before those eyes, Sorin's secrets lay bare, including the corruption polluting what little divinity he possessed.

Another notable difference was the transparent scales that covered every inch of his skin. They made Sorin wonder whether the god would sympathize with him, a human, or the demons in the wilderness.

"Descendent of your mortal line?" asked Sorin, picking out a clue in the deity's words. "Is that why I'm here? Is that the reason I was able to open my Governing Vessel?"

Asclepius shook his head. "At most, it made you more receptive to my legacy, the Ten Thousand Poison Canon, the culmination of many attempts at creating a divine tier cultivation art suitable for mortals."

"What about the Divine Medical Codex you penned?" asked Sorin. "It, too, contains a cultivation method."

Asclepius merely smiled. "Mortals are much more audacious than I remember them being. In my time, no one would have dared question a god. Have the Evils not yet taken the next step, or is a deeper game afoot?

"In the end, it doesn't matter. We don't have much time here, so we'll get back to the topic at hand: You are here because you fulfilled several conditions and have proven suitable to inherit my divinity, which is currently stored on Mount Olympus.

"I'll be honest with you—your path is not as straightforward as I would have liked. You have incorporated corruption and evil into your path, an interesting take on my personal philosophy of fighting poison with poison.

"I do not know where this path will take you, but what I do know is that without knowledge, resolve, and courage, you will not go far."

The deity summoned a table into the small room where Sorin stood, and the deity sat. On the table lay two cups, one gold and one silver. Each cup was half full of a similarly colored liquid.

"Divinity is not a path that can be traveled just by anyone, Sorin Abberjay Kepler," continued Asclepius. "Even I, an established deity, had to prove my worth by overcoming several trials. And even after my ascension, I continued to encounter difficulties, which caused me to run afoul of Hades, who beseeched his brother, Zeus, to seal me.

"I therefore offer you a choice: drink from the silver cup and abandon your path, or drink from the golden cup and confirm it. The silver liquid will chase out the fused corruption and divinity in your body, transforming you into an ordinary hero. As for the golden cup, it contains the first deadly trial you must overcome to inherit my great strength." He flicked his scale-covered hand, and the two cups floated before Sorin, urging him to drink them.

"You have sixty seconds to choose a cup and drink. If you do not drink by the time the serpentine sandglass runs out, I will retract my divinity but not your corruption. You will become a demon who wishes nothing but Violence on the world while simultaneously armed with your talent, your intelligence, and your knowledge as a physician."

"What if I drink both cups?" asked Sorin.

"Then there will be no need for any of this, as the surge of conflicting energies will destroy you in body and soul," replied Asclepius. "The time starts now. Think, and choose wisely."

An archaic time measurement device appeared on the table. It consisted of two conic pieces of glass. Grains of divine sand trickled from the top to the bottom of the glass.

Option three, not drinking, is downright terrible, so I must drink from a cup, thought Sorin as he weighed the two choices. I can't discount trickery, but my body is telling me that resting even this remnant shred of a deity would be impossible.

In terms of benefits, returning to being a hero is quite good. It avoids the complications of divinity while simultaneously taking care of my latent corruption problem.

Accepting the divinity, on the other hand, is problematic. Though I'll gain great power, I sense great danger from the cup. Further, Asclepius mentioned something about taking his philosophy to the extreme and diverging from his original path. This means that I'll need to pioneer a new path instead of walking down an established one.

No matter how he looked at it, the downsides outweighed the benefits. And yet…

Sirius Abberjay Kepler spent a lifetime trying to figure out human potential. The gods forbade him from doing so, but here I am, conversing with a god who seems unsurprised by me opening my Governing Vessel.

This leads me to believe that humans are more closely related to the gods than I was led to believe. Are humans a contingency plan? Are we descendants of gods in some fashion, like the myths of old? Or do we share a common origin with the gods?

Sirius had pursued the truth via human experimentation, but that didn't mean that Sorin needed to follow the same path. By using modern technology and old data, he would be able to find a better starting point and figure out a more ethical method of experimentation.

Regardless of success or failure, this was proving to be an interesting puzzle. Sorin had a strong urge to see it through.

Time was ticking, and the sand had almost completely filtered through the top of the serpentine hourglass. Unwilling to let indecision paralyze him and not wanting to abandon his gains thus far, Sorin took the golden cup into his hands and drank it down.

"I do not know where your path will take you, Sorin Abberjay Kepler," said Asclepius, whose projection was turning faint. "But what I do know is this: time waits for no one. Disease strikes when one least expects it. Men and gods alike must adapt in the face of adversity.

"Your trial is the trial of Divine Bone Rot, which has entered your bones through the liquid in your cup. It will gnaw away at your forged bones until you either eliminate the poison or the last of your bones wastes away.

"Passing the trial is simple: treat the Divine Bone Rot before it kills you. The method doesn't matter. I only care for results."

With that, the projection of Asclepius faded along with the imaginary world that Sorin had found himself in.

***

A quick scan of his bones was all it took for Sorin to confirm that the bone rot was real and that what had transpired was no illusion. Moreover, the bone rot defied his first few attempts at identification. It didn't match up to anything he remembered from the Ten Thousand Poison Canon or the Divine Medical Codex.

Was it a disease? A poison? A curse? Sorin had no idea. What he did know for sure was that his bones were slowly disintegrating in a way that resembled a slower version of the erosion and unsealing of his original bones.

Does that mean that the divine bone rot will gradually unseal my bones? thought Sorin. And if that's the case, will anything change once my bones convert from the bronze grade to the silver grade?

He knew next to nothing about the affliction, but according to the rate of disintegration, he had at least a year before the bone rot finished breaking away his bronze runes.

Sorin, therefore, pushed the matter to the back of his mind and focused on the results of his breakthrough. Lorimer was doing fine and was sleeping on the ground. A small portion of the corruption and dense energy he'd ingested from the plated armadillo core and pills had been digested during Asclepius's visit. He showed no visible signs of mutation or other anomalies.

This strength, thought Sorin, flexing his hand. I'm much stronger than before my breakthrough. Sixteen times stronger, to be precise. This applied to his mana, his physical strength, his endurance, and his regeneration.

As a test, Sorin took out the two-star Dagger of Amplification the governor had gifted him and cut open a deep gash in his hand, severing nerves in the process. It took only thirty seconds for the wound to heal, much faster than normal. His blood was also much more acidic, to the point that it was threatening to dissolve the protections applied to Mr. Primrose's cultivation chamber.