A myriad of expressions crossed Hypnos's face, as he looked at the jade pin he silently mouthed the words "sovereign system".

His bone hands clenched under his cloak with strong envy for a few seconds, until he quickly regained his composure.

Chàng Bo remained seated, unaware of the changes in Hypnos's mood.   

"So as I was saying before" Hypnos began to speak again, "Our Grandfather was the first Gatekeeper. As I mentioned Gatekeepers have rules, one of those rules being that they're not allowed to have children. This rule is there for good reason.

The Gatekeepers are a race of their own. When a Gatekeeper awakens their bodies begin to change, they are modified to handle terrifying amounts of essence, their minds can process huge quant.i.ties of information, and they attract large amounts of energy. And the training they go through only improves such abilities.

If a normal being was made a Gatekeeper and underwent such a ma.s.sive change in their bodies physiology they would die from the burden, but as I mentioned before, people chosen to be Gatekeepers aren't normal people.  They volunteered their souls when they lived in the Real Realm. So they've always been inherently different than regular people in the 400 realms.

Before being reincarnated in the 400 realms, the Gatekeeper volunteers went through some type of ma.s.sive treatment. I'm not sure about the details but I heard from a source of mine that there were 8 million people signed up for Gatekeeper positions, and after this treatment known as a soul refinement, there were only 8,000 volunteers actually used in the project.

I'm trailing off now, but the point I'm trying to make is that Gatekeepers are made to be the perfect most powerful overseers of their realm down to their very last cell. They're so powerful in fact that even the people in the Real Realm fear them or rather fear their potential. Gatekeepers were meant to be tools for this experiment, but One accidentally made monsters that could become a real threat to the real realm if not controlled.

That's why One made strict rules and even Watchdogs known as Gates to keep the Gatekeepers under control. These Gates are made from the souls of criminals from the Real Realm. As punishments for their crimes they are enslaved to watch the Gatekeepers and keep them in line. I believe they're even allowed to kill Gatekeepers if they show signs of knowing too much or rebelling."

Chàng Bo's blue eyes now glowed like black holes, his aura was cold with rage. All he could think about was Mao Lu.

He knew how hard Mao Lu trained, he remembered the screams of pain he'd hear coming from Lu's bedroom door. Mao Lu put so much effort into being a Gatekeeper, it made him suffer, and yet his effort was rewarded with being monitored and likely killed at the slightest misstep. Used like a tool for such a dumb experiment.

Why would Lu volunteer for an experiment such as this?

Chàng Bo clenched his fist, "Mao Lu is so naive and so pure like a ray of suns.h.i.+ne or a fresh breeze. He's also too trusting, he would never suspect he's being made a fool of or being used like a puppet. And even if he did suspect there is nothing he can do about it, he'd be more at risk."

With these thoughts running through his mind Chàng Bo felt increasingly nervous for Mao Lu. He felt a growing and desperate urge to find him.

Inwardly Chàng Bo was shocked by his own desperation and fear. He never used to be like this. He never used to get nervous or feel afraid on another person's behalf.  Ever since he'd met Mao Lu his emotions had begun to change.

….

Unaware or unconcerned of his feelings Hypnos continued, "If a Gatekeeper has a child after their abilities have been awakened, than that child will inherit their abilities. They will inherit the Gatekeeper physiology and genetics. Becoming a child with Gatekeeper abilities but without the restrictions and the rules. Such a child would be hard to monitor and could be a potential threat to the Real Realm. Hence one of the rules is that a Gatekeeper is not allowed to reproduce, if they do they are killed straight away. Which is why our Mother's birth was and still is miraculous."

"Our Grandfather was very close to One, unlike other Gatekeepers he knew secrets and had a good understanding about the 400 realms and the Real realm. I believe that in our Grandfather's previous life before the experiment, he was someone very close to One. Which is probably why One twisted a lot of the rules and made a lot of excuses for him. It is because of this that when our Grandfather fell in love with a woman in his realm he was able to hide their relations.h.i.+p and even consummate with her. When he found out she was pregnant though, our Grandfather realised he was in trouble, but he couldn't bring himself to kill the woman that he loved. Instead he decided to hide her, he distanced himself from her and pretended that their romance never happened. Of course the creators aren't stupid, and One knew what had occurred, but due to his fondness for our grandfather he kept it secret and made sure the existence of our mother was well hidden."

The scenery around Chàng Bo and Hypnos changed yet again, the darkness around them had transformed into a large field of gra.s.s and wheat. In that large field sat a pretty woman with bright blue eyes, she was holding a baby girl and staring up at the starry sky, whispering "My dear darling you have no idea who your father is nor of the significance of your existence, but he's someone important, someone that owns this world. One day you'll be able to meet him, one day we'll be a real family." She continued to hug the baby girl as she sat in the field and stared at the night sky.

Chàng Bo and Hypnos watched this scene in their black boat.

"This is our Grandmother obviously, she was a pract.i.tioner, a mage who practiced healing magic. She wasn't anything too special, her limit was the Nascent stage, she died near the age of 60,000. Staying in this secluded mountain province in hiding. Waiting for the day our Grandfather would return for her, but he never did."

The scene around them changed yet again. Their mother was a toddler in this scene, perhaps only 2 years old, energy was concentrated in her hands, swirling around her as she flew high in the sky above the wheat fields. For someone so young her ability was rather frightening.

"Gatekeepers see the world differently than we do, they can see all the essences that make up a world, all the energies. Something even people in the real realm aren't capable of, it's one of the reason's Gatekeepers are so frightening. They are bestowed with a natural affinity to magic and cultivation that puts them many steps ahead of everyone else and allows them to learn things and improve on things far faster and better than others.

Even the creators and all the scientists in the real realm don't even quite understand essence or this verscence yet. Even when they created the 400 realms all they did was make the environments, copying places from the real realm, and then they just allowed the essence and evolution to take place and bring life. And eventually the 400 realms began to look like what they do now."

"if they had to wait for these processes to be made, for this life to be shaped, than this experiment must have been going on for a very long time, even billions of years!" Chàng Bo raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Hypnos giggled, "Actually, you're wrong this experiment has only been going on for exactly 1000 years in the real realm. Time in the 400 realms is sped up by the creators often. Sometimes one second in the real realm could be equivalent to 1000 years in this world sometimes 1 second could be much more or less, depends on what the Creators are up to."

Chàng Bo nodded, the answer made sense.

"Going back to Gatekeepers, they have this ability to control and see the essence in a way that the people in the real realm can't, they threaten the real realm because they can control such a dangerous and unknown factor." Hypnos added

"Surely if the creators could make Gatekeepers then they can find out what makes them tick and they can find out more about the essence, why should they fear it so much?" Chàng Bo questioned

"What makes you think they haven't tried?" Hypnos laughed, "all I know is that they did try to find out such information but it didn't go too well. And because of that they have deemed the Gatekeepers as dangerous elements which need to be controlled."

Hypnos glanced at the scene of their mother playing with her abilities, he moved his bone hand and soon they were at another scene.

Their Mother was sitting next to a bed in a small cottage, crying. She was holding the skinny and wrinkled hand of their grandmother.

"Nyx, my child, I'm so sorry for keeping you confined here all your life. I told you your father would come for you but he never did. I must have made you suffer all these years."

Nyx squeezed her Mother's hand tighter and cried, "You didn't make me suffer, you never have."

Chàng Bo was shaken as he watched this scene. Seeing an older version of Nyx made him realise she really was his Mother. She had those bright blue eyes, that long silky silver hair, that gorgeous face. The face he remembered giving him the sovereign system and the Gatekeeper key before saying farewell to him that day.

...

"I know now that your father will never come for us. He, as I told you before, is a gatekeeper. Don't blame him he has many responsibilities. I don't know what they do in that gatekeeper organisation, but I do know that they are against your very existence. That they may kill you just for living. And that it is in your best interest to keep hiding for the rest of your life here... stay hidden sweetheart." These were their grandmother's last words that she said with her last breath before her hand went limp and the light faded from her eyes.

Nyx barely had time to cry before her mother's corpse had turned to dust and strong gust of wind picked it up and she disappeared with the wind out the window.

"Of course if our mother had listened to our grandmother we would have never existed." Hypnos interrupted the scene, "Our mother obviously left, and then she learnt things. She found out the truth, she found out about the real realm and she escaped the 400 realms. She then created a movement named the 'Liberation' and their goal is to liberate the 400 realms from the oppression that is the real realm. It is a very large movement. Many people in the real world are against this experiment, the 400 realms are a huge violation of universal rights and some see it as the real realm governments overextending themselves. Our mother is the pioneer of the 400 realm liberation movement. Regardless of what the scientists and the brainwashed Gatekeepers tell you about our mother, she is a freedom fighter."