The hairs on his neck were standing upwards and a peculiar chilly sensation ran across his entire being. As he breathed his breath came out in icy clouds.

He s.h.i.+vered.

"I do not know what you mean? I did not sense anything Mao Lu?" Gates was confused.

"There is something very wrong, I feel that something is very wrong… Very wrong." he s.h.i.+vered violently.

It was as if someone had walked over his grave, he felt violated.

"How can you not feel it Gates?"

"My abilities are not as infinite as yours, nor are they as invasive and as connected to this Realm as yours. I am but a tool used for guidance. I am not a living being, simply a guide. There are many things that you will notice that I will not." Gates explained.

It watched as Mao Lu s.h.i.+vered more violently, his lips turning blue.

"What happened, what did you sense?" Gates asked, feeling increasing concern.

"It-it-it's not that I sensed anything. I can't sense it, yet I know it's there… Something is wrong. I can't explain it. I feel like this might be one of the irregularities I was warned about."

"An irregularity... a disturbance in the Realm. If that is the case this is very serious. If we do not find the source of this irregularity soon it will only grow bigger and bigger until it could lead to the possible collapse of your Realm." said Gates

"I already know that! But I can't sense it. I… I don't know where it's coming from."

"That is because you're too panicked. You need to calm yourself, expand your mind and expand your senses. That way you will find this irregularity. Remember you are in control." Gates advised.

"Un." Mao Lu said as he tried to control his breathing and calm himself.

He was in control.

He wouldn't let this irregularity turn him into a panicked mess.

He crossed his legs and closed his eyes. Soon he was back in the world that existed in his mind.

A silver flower that looked like a lotus and a rose, bloomed in the centre of the empty s.p.a.ce.

It's petals and leaves stretching out to the white walls showing a map of the Realm.

The petals were whispering to him, so quietly that he couldn't make out exactly what they were saying, but he could still hear it.

He tenderly touched the leaves and smelt the petals as he concentrated.

So far he could sense 150 Galaxies, and from all of them he felt the trillions upon trillions of countless living creatures existing inside them.

He felt something wrong, but there was so much going on in the Realm that he couldn't pinpoint it.

Where was it coming from? Where was the disturbance coming from?

He searched intensely, his consciousness overturning every rock, every ripple, and every breath but he still couldn't find anything.

Mao Lu's nose began to bleed as he concentrated and his head began to ache.

"It is difficult for you to find the source of this irregularity because you have yet to grasp this entire Realm.

A Realm is like a gla.s.s and all the information of the Universe or Realm is inside that gla.s.s. In this case the irregularity is a small crack in that gla.s.s. How can you find the crack when you can't see the entire gla.s.s yet?"

"So I must sense the entire Realm before I can pinpoint this irregularity?" Mao Lu summarised.

"It may be the only way. The irregularity is good at hiding. It is created by a key, and the key was made to go against a Gatekeepers senses. If you don't sense the entire Realm then you will continue to overlook it, even if it were right next to you. At least that is my conjecture." Gates confirmed.

"Then I will sense it all tonight." Mao Lu gritted his teeth.

"Tonight!? Don't be ridiculous Mao Lu, pus.h.i.+ng your body to such an extreme may deem fatal. You know how hard it has been for you to sense all the way up to 150 galaxies, you need to take your time to sense the remaining 250. There is no rush. I am certain with the amazing speed and progress you have shown so far, you'll be able to sense the entire Realm in less than a month or two months. You don't need to rush."

"Chàng Bo has been in this realm less than a month. The key was used less than a month ago and yet there is already an irregularity that is causing me to worry so much. There may be more irregularities than this one, if that is the case then two months or even a month is too long.

This Realm is my home, this Realm is filled with my loved ones. If there is something out there that could hurt them and something happened to them because I decided to wait two months to sense this thing. Then I would hate myself for eternity. What's the point of having all this power if I can not protect those closest to me.

I feel that this irregularity is nearby and it is scary. I want to find it soon. So Gates I am going to sense this entire Realm and no matter what state I am in, no matter how much I scream. I do not want you to stop me." Mao Lu's words were icy and determined.

He was a rock that could not be budged.

"I… I guess I'll let you have your way." Gates conceded, "but you must know I am not happy about this."

Mao Lu smiled slightly, "Thank you Gates."

Gates didn't like being thanked like this. It felt like It was sending Mao Lu away. If he overextended himself, his mind may break and his body may crumble. Even if he recovered it may take longer than any time he ever took to recover before and he may not be the same Mao Lu. But these were the worst case scenarios.

Gates had faith that Mao Lu was a one-of-kind genius who was meant to be a Gatekeeper. "He can do it, he can do it successfully without breaking himself. He can do it." Gates quietly chanted.

Mao Lu sat cross legged and concentrated on pus.h.i.+ng the barrier.

"POP" and his consciousness had stretched to the 151st galaxy.

"POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP,"

His mind burst again and again into different galaxies, like a rus.h.i.+ng flood. The amount of information increased and at first he was able to bear with it, but when his mind crossed into the 268th galaxy the backlash hit.

This time Mao Lu felt his blood churning, it ran out of his pores and oozed outwards. He was being drained. His hair was falling out in clumps. A terrible itching ran across his skin.

He beared the pain and chanted "I am in control. I am in control. I can do this."

When he pa.s.sed the 320th Realm all the blood from his body had been squeezed out. His hair was gone and he looked like a wrinkly prune. He barely had any energy to breathe or even move. His head hurt so much that he felt like it was breaking open.

But still he told himself, "I am in control. I am in control. I can do this."

As he pa.s.sed the 399th galaxy, the flower in his mind had grown immensely. It now wrapped around the entirety of the s.p.a.ce in his head. There were 399 large flowers blooming now, each contained the information of a galaxy. They swayed gently in the wind.

Mao Lu felt like he was dying, he was only one galaxy away from completing sense of the Realm but he felt like the distance was beyond far.

His gaze became cloudy

"Mao Lu, Mao Lu, Mao Lu!!!!" Gates called.

It wanted to stop Mao Lu now, Gates wanted to prevent everything now, but it was too late. Mao Lu could no longer hear Gates.

It was up to Mao Lu alone to pull himself through it all and complete Sensing the Realm.

If he failed his mind would vanish and he would become a zombie, a sh.e.l.l of who he used to be, controlled by the Realm like some other Gatekeepers. His potential and talent disappearing along with his mind.

"Why did I say yes? Why did I let him do this?" Gates fretted.

As It worried and Mao Lu tried to find the strength to move on, Chàng Bo hovered outside the door.

It had been twenty days since Mao Lu had ran into his room.

The terrible sounds Chàng Bo had heard coming from the west building had made him extremely uncomfortable.

It no longer felt like Mao Lu was training, in fact it felt more like he was being tortured.

Since Mao Lu had shut himself away for twenty days an almost perpetual snow had consumed Beijing.

The streets outside and the roads were covered in thick blankets of snow and the city had practically closed down.

Weather near a Gatekeeper usually reflected their mood.

The worse the blizzard, the more Chàng Bo began to worry about Mao Lu. He usually never worried but he felt distressed. Something about the way Mao Lu spoke to him or acted around him made Chàng Bo concerned about him.

Chàng Bo didn't like hesitation, hesitation showed weakness and he hated being weak.

So he knocked on the door and called out, "Mao Lu… I admire how hard you train. How hard you push yourself reflects the strength of your mind and your resolve. In person you appear weak and gentle yet you obviously have nerves of steel.

I hope you're not pus.h.i.+ng yourself too hard, because there's a difference between training and hurting yourself. Training is supposed to make you stronger. So I hope your strength improves so that you can soon tell me what the complication was at that meeting. I'm very curious."

There was no response to his words, Chàng Bo felt slightly awkward and said, "Sorry if I disturbed you" before turning away and going back to his own training.

Mao Lu's glazed over eyes came into focus.

Chàng Bo words stirred him. His voice was music to Mao Lu's ears. They energised him and filled him with excitement and he sparked with determination.

"I have nerves of steel. I can do this!" he told himself as he crossed into the 400th galaxy and his consciousness extended to the boundaries of his Realm.

The 400th flower bloomed in his mind and when it did all the flowers began to glow vibrantly and dance around.

Mao Lu's dried body filled with fresh blood that was as thick as mercury, filled with essence and purified. All his meridians and acupoints opened up. His hair regrew at a rapid rate, each strand was stronger than the toughest steel.

His skin soon regained its buoyancy, his lips filled with colour and his features contained a jade like flawlessness. He now looked like an immortal fairy.

As his eyes opened they glowed with a green purplish tint.

"Congratulations Mao Lu, you have completed Sense of the Realm and are now halfway to the Merging stage." Gates congratulated happily, "How do you feel?"

Mao Lu looked around his room that was covered in his blood and hair. He clenched and un-clenched his fist.

Compared to before he felt like an entirely new being, the entire Realm was at his fingertips.

"I feel… Powerful."

He now could sense the irregularity. It really was nearby.

"Let's go Gates. We have an irregularity to destroy."