Avery still had a lot to discover about how this new state was affecting him, but he decided to leave his question for later. He wanted to see what had happened to his mental world, and did not want to waste any more time on the dull outside world.

  He looked within himself, and instead of a detailed but dead mental picture, he was greeted by a small sphere of golden light. It looked slightly similar to the Tao fruit he had imagined during the creation of the world, but it felt much more real and impactful.

  Without any resistance, and guided by new instincts he did not know he had, Avery let his consciousness fall into the glowing ball, merging with it. Immediately, he felt a joyful feeling, as if he was being welcomed back into his home. It was not the overpowering elation he had felt in front of the Tao, but a more of a comfortable and cozy feeling, reassuring him that everything was going to be fine, and that he was exactly where he needed to be.

  Finally, he lost all contact with the outside world, and his perception sphere snapped into place, englobing the entire virtual world and revealing a beautiful galaxy.

  The Dao sight was as complex and mystical as it was in the outside world, but this time it was in a world he was perfectly familiar with, one which held no secrets from him, as he was its creator. It had become infinitely more understandable, granting almost effortless access to all of the world’s data.

  However, this did not mean he was omniscient in this world. It was more akin to being directly plugged into the internet. With a computer, you had almost all of mankind's knowledge at your fingertips, with an uncountable number of obscure facts only a quick google search away, but that did not mean you actually knew everything that was on the internet.

  In the same way, Avery only needed a thought to learn how many grains of sand there were in his world, or which mountain was the tallest, but before he got curious enough to ask, he would have no idea. If he did not pay attention, he could even forget what he had previously learnt like any mortal.

  He technically had infinite knowledge at his disposal, and that was definitely awesome, but it was very hard to reconstitute a general understanding of a world from countless very specific facts. Just like it was hard to picture the geography described in a book, even if the author detailed the width, height and depth of every single mountain and ocean. The drawing of a map was still required to better grasp the global landscape.

  Avery played around with his new Dao sight, trying to find an easier way to display all of this data. After all, even if you knew how to read morse code, you still wanted to play the game with a graphical interface.

  It took an unknown amount of time tweaking his perception sphere and adapting to his new existence, but he finally managed to familiarise himself with this new sense and translate it into a more coherent view. It was still a little bit fiddly, but it would be good enough for now.

  Suddenly he was able to see the entire world at once, becoming instantly aware of all of the stars and their orbits. It still wasn’t omniscience, but more a general understanding of what was happening in the world, with limited details.

  He could see the movements of the stars, and could find their exact speed with just a thought, but not much more. He knew stars were not perfect spheres, and there were a lot of chemical reactions that caused solar storms and nuclear fusions, but all he could tell was that it was a ball of flaming gas.

  Feeling a strong vitality rising from the center of the universe, he turned his attention to the small globe of earth around which the galaxy orbited. His vision suddenly shifted, and he suddenly zoomed in on the planet.

  Just like before, as he zoomed in and his perception got smaller, the time also slowed down, to match the relative space-time scale of whatever he was observing.

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  His vision stabilised, and what sprung to his eyes first was how green the planet had become. It was no longer a brown mudball with only a few oceans as decorations, it was now covered in lush forests and animated with a huge variety of animals. Far from the barren world he had despaired over, this was a thriving land full of wonder and life.

  Unsure of how so much life had just appeared in his realm without his input, Avery habitually searched for the black turtle, but was surprised to find it dead.

  Well, not dead exactly, instead it seemed it had never existed, and a huge turtle-shaped island took his place. The same thing had happened to the other three divine beasts, their bodies had been replaced by striking landscapes.

  Wanting to understand what had happened, Avery tried divining their fates, and found it ridiculously easy to do. His authority and partial omniscience over this world coordinated extremely well with his divination skill, so that viewing the past of his world was almost effortless.

Ding, Congratulations, you have completed a false divination. +0 Points

  Avery stared at the notification, dumbstruck. It wasn’t the fact he had failed to gain any points that stunned him, as that was of little consequence.

  He already had centuries worth of points saved up , and he hoped that would be more than enough to become immortal. Besides that, now that his mental world had been perfected, it would be able to improve again, which meant he would soon be able to engrave runes again.

  The reason he was so amazed was because he knew why he had not received any points. For the second time in his life, he had felt the system working, and this time he had understood a little bit of how the system points worked.

  When he had completed his divination, he had felt the Tao react, and it had rewarded his augury with some mysterious golden energy. At the same time, the system had reached out to harvest that energy, and transform it into a translucent substance Avery understood to be his experience points.

  The problem was that since he was divining his visualization, it was not the real the Tao that had reacted, but his own Tao, the one of the mental world. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it his Dao?

  Anyways, that was what had responded. Since the Dao was a part of Avery, this was just him giving himself something, and nothing was actually gained. This was why he had gotten zero points.

  However, if he tried a new divination in the outside world, it would presumably provoke a response from the true Tao, and the system would convert whatever the Tao gave into points. Sadly, he would not be able to feel the reaction of the true Tao, so for now it would remain an unconfirmed theory.

  That theory did have a lot of implications. This was the first time Avery had ever heard of the Truth responding to a mortal's actions, and he had never seen any reference to this while studying the Avenue.

  He knew he would eventually learn more about what it was as he delved deeper in the mysteries of the Avenue, but even with the help of his world, comprehending the Tao remained a daunting task.

  It was as if you noticed a problem with your car, and wanted to fix it yourself. You knew almost nothing about how a car worked, but you had a technical manual that explained everything about it. That did not automatically make you an expert. You knew that all the information you wanted was there, easily accessible, but it would still take a long time to read and understand it, and even more to be able to make use of it.

  The fact that the Tao rewarded his actions was fascinating, but it didn’t really change anything for now. What was perhaps even more interesting was the fact he had felt the system work.

  It had been incredibly hard to sense, and it was even more elusive than mana had been, but at least now he knew it did not break the laws of conservation of energy or anything.

  There was no doubt it was still extraordinary, still far above Avery’s realm, but since he could feel it work, it meant that it operated according to the rules of reality. It had to work in a defined way, and therefore it would not disappear without a reason, leaving him to die.

  This did mean that it was possible for something to be powerful enough to mess with his system, and that it was not infallible. He should not blindly trust it, but one day as he grew stronger, he would also have the opportunity to completely understand and control his system.

  He found the idea that this was not a gift from god, or something that so utterly transcended his reality he would never be able to understand it rather reassuring.

  It was more real and grounded than that, and it gave Avery the sentiment he had control over his own destiny. Nothing was impossible to attain, not even the legendary system, and achieving his goals was just a matter of time, effort and opportunity.