Mortal Plane

The mortal plane is where the story starts. This is where cultivators begin their journey with the eventual goal of transcending to the immortal plane. The weakest people on the mortal plane are those without cultivation while the most powerful are half-step transcendents.

Originally and for trillions of years the mortal plane consisted of countless universes. These countless universes would eventually experience heat death but new universes would come into place. Once cultivators came along, things changed. In the beginning and most of the mortal planes history, cultivators taking energy didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. But in the modern era, those countless universes have dwindled down to ~10,000 and fewer and fewer new universes are being created. Many believe that the heat death of the mortal plane as a whole is coming. This led to the creation of the balanced and chaos paths.

Eras
There have been four major eras each with different ruling races. Each era had a different evolution of humanity that dominated other humans. These races were more powerful versions of regular humans and were the greatest beings of their times. It is still unknown what caused the downfall of these incredibly powerful races. Different eras also had beast rulers but like the ruling human classes, those changed.

Earlier eras had far greater amounts of energy in their universes than later eras. There were also more types of energies available too. The abundance of energy made it easier to cultivate but the chaotic nature made it harder. It also made everything far sturdier. While a weak celestial could cause major damage to a planet in the modern era, even high level dao formation experts fighting couldn't effect a planet on a large scale in the primordial era.

The earlier eras also had primordial energy which is the purest and most useful form of energy there is. Though useful it is also more chaotic making it harder to absorb. This slowed down cultivation speed but massively increased power at the same level. A chaos era cultivator could easily kill a modern era cultivator. The talents of those born in earlier eras was greater than that of later ones. All of these factors helped create far more experts in the chaos and primordial eras than in the subsequent ones. This can be seen because without the epistemic towers, transcending in the modern era would be nearly impossible.

Chaos Era
The Chaos Era was ruled by Titans. Titans were humans that were tired of being suppressed by beasts so they created cultivation. The titans only used body cultivation, as that was the only one they created, to emulate the power of beasts. Over time, the changes made by body cultivation happened at the genetic level creating a new race, Titans. The chaos era lasted for an unknown amount of time but it should be at least a few dozen trillion years.

On the beast side, celestial beasts ruled the chaos era. They were supreme beasts with incredible bloodlines that even after diluting to the transcendent grade, still possess incredible abilities.

Primordial Era
After the Chaos era came the primordial era. The primordial era was ruled by Angels. Like the titans before them, the Angels were regular humans tired of being suppressed, this time by the titans, so they created energy cultivation. Angels could be split into Angels and Hell's Angels with regular Angels specializing in energy cultivation and Hell's Angels specializing in body cultivation. Angels had white wings while Hell's Angels had black wings. The primordial era lasted for an unknown amount of time but it should be at least a few dozen trillion years.

Golden Era
The golden era was ruled by the elves and the dwarves. Elves are known for their beauty and affinity with nature while dwarves were known for their short stature and forging capabilities. Elves were the best soul cultivators of all evolved humans. The Golden era was the shortest era but it still lasted a few trillion years.

Modern Era
The modern era is when the story takes place. The leading race of the time are the sprites or rather the offspring of sprites. Sprites are creatures born from nature such as rocks, metals, flames...etc. When they have a child with a human, the offspring has the talent of a heaven grade constitution (at a minimum). Of the three most powerful tower quadrants, two are controlled by sprite clans.

Though the half-sprites are considered the masters of this era, they are not the most powerful race nor were they supposed to be. The two strongest outer quadrant powers are the nephilim and the Sapientia Family. The people meant to be the strongest are Dyon's people. Since the talent of the Mortal Clan was sealed it is only recently that their true abilities have been discovered.

The modern era has not been around for very long (at least compared to other era) and it may be the last. With the decrease in energy and new universes across the mortal plane, the modern era may be the last before heat death comes.

Heat Death
Like scientists have predicted, there is a finite amount of energy in existence. This also applies to the mortal plane as a whole. With the decline in energy density and new universes, experts began to predict that the end of the mortal plane was coming soon. This led to the rise of two major paths, the balanced path and the chaos path. For millions of years these two paths have been fighting over how to deal with heat death.

Balanced Path
The balanced path believes that the key to saving the mortal plane is two-fold. The first and main method is to maintain a status quo. This status quo supports neither good nor evil. It accepts that both exist and going down only one bath is wrong. It is not their job to stop evil from occurring so long as the status quo is maintained.

The second part revolves around array-alchemy. One of the leaders of the balanced path, the creator of array-alchemy believed that one could rewrite laws to even create new universes. This would ensure the continued survival of the mortal plane.

Chaos Path
The chaos path believes that rather than keep a constant balance, the scales are constantly moving back and forth between times of chaos and times of harmony. To try and force a balance is not right and eventually, when heat death occurs, a new mortal plane will take its place. As such, killing and destroying for your own benefit is not bad since it won't effect the final outcome. While this is the belief of the chaos path, most use it as an excuse to kill and destroy for their own benefit.

The most powerful being of the chaos path is the younger apprentice brother of the creator of array-alchemy. He is an origin transcendent who descended to the mortal plane to study the a universe in its earliest form. He is currently sealed inside the earth.

Immortal Plane Path
While not a real path, some believe that the mortal plane is a test while the immortal plane is where true existence lies. The immortal plane has shown no sign of deteriorating, even though it has been around for at least as long as the mortal plane.

Universes and Quadrants
The mortal plane can be split into universes and quadrants. A universe is what we define as a universe, a massive amount of space filled with stars, galaxies and planets. A quadrants is 100 universes that are clustered together. Each universe is its own entity, a space that should forever be separate from any other universe because each universe has its own frequency. Universes that are "next" to each other just have similar frequencies. Universes in the same quadrant also have similar frequencies. This is why traversing The Void, which is the "space" between universes, is harder for inter-quadrant travel than intra-quadrant travel.

One of the most important aspects of a universe is that is has a will. This will boosts the power of those from/associated with that universe while suppresses those from without. This suppression increases between quadrants. Conquering this will increases the faith accessible to a clan. The will of a universe can also lean towards certain attributes. Universes in the 4th quadrant have more fire will making it easier for flame cultivators to conquer the will of its universes. Soul Rend quadrant has powerful soul energy making soul cultivators the best for conquering it.

Ancient Games
The ancient games are three "games" created by the heaven's to challenge cultivators and help them improve. One of the defining features of these games is that nobody can talk about the rules. It is impossible to tell another how to play these games, one must figure it out for themselves.

Gates
The most "played" ancient game are the gates. Unlike the other two it is possible to communicate about the gates though how to play is so straightforward that it doesn't seem necessary. Each gate has a maximum cultivation level. All those at or under that level can enter a gate and try to conquer the towers in the gate. By conquering all the towers it gives their universe control over the gate and a place to invade another universe from.

Dimensions
The second ancient game is called dimensions. It challenges the player to move according to a complex constantly shifting puzzle to reach the end. Players can do the ancient game on their own or challenge others to see who can complete the course faster. There are also variations of the game like in the elven kingdom's ancestral grounds there was a fog that made it harder to analyze the game.

Ancient Battlefield
The least played game of the three is The Ancient Battlefield. This game has only been played twice and will occur a third time soon. The purpose of The Ancient Battlefield is to ensure the most powerful and rightful people rule the mortal plane. When clans that possessed a lot of faith decline and would soon reach their end, the universe gives them a way out. The clan can sacrifice their faith to be sent to The Ancient Battlefield. There they live in a place with the environment of the chaos era waiting for the game to start. When the game starts, the clans in the battlefield will fight those of the mortal plane for dominance. By winning and claiming territory in the actual mortal plane, clans from the battlefield can reclaim their right to live on the mortal plane.

The first two times this ancient game was played was during the primordial and golden eras. During these games the angels and the elves managed to fend off the battlefield clans and keep their claims to the mortal plane. The reason they could do so was because they managed to fully develop. The battlefield only descends when the chosen people of an era have reached their maximum potential.

The problem with the current era is that the chosen people never came to be. The people of Dyon's home universe were supposed to be the first step in the current evolution of humanity but with The Entity's interference, that never came to be. Now the battlefield is descending early because the heaven's want a stronger people to be in charge, a people who might be capable of stopping its collapse.