Crossing Calamity

After the Age of Declining Dharma began, the spiritual energy in the world grew weaker and weaker. Treasures of heaven and earth became scarce, spirit beasts and spirit plants neared extinction, and, for the past five hundred years, even grotto-heavens, blessed lands, and secret realms of every size had shown signs of collapse. The barriers between worlds also continued to thicken. Beneath the three thousand great worlds lay three thousand middle worlds, and beneath those lay three thousand small worlds. Small-world cultivators were supposed to break through the void on reaching the Golden Core stage and travel to a middle world; middle-world cultivators were supposed to reach the Spirit Severing stage and ascend to a great world. These transitions should have happened naturally, as smoothly as water flowing downhill. But now they no longer could. The barriers between worlds had become too thick to break through. Only at the junction between two worlds was there a weak point, which periodically thinned. When it was at its thinnest, everyone could join forces to break through the barrier and usher in those from the world below. Breaking through the barrier between a small world and a middle world was called “Opening the Earth Gate,” while breaking through the barrier between a middle world and a great world was called “Opening the Heaven Gate.” Such are the times! Such is fate! Such is destiny! Cultivators in the small and middle worlds all envied those born in great worlds. One less hurdle meant one more chance of becoming an immortal! If you successfully made the crossing between worlds by Opening the Earth Gate or the Heaven Gate, you would have survived a near-certain catastrophe with odds of survival of less than one in several hundred thousand. That was why crossing between worlds was also known as “Surviving the Calamity.”