Chapter 424 - True Seclusion
It could not be overstated when explaining just how much Yaan had gained back in the Boundless Dao Library. He had absorbed so many Legacy Runes, and Dao Aura Waves, and at the end there, the monstrous Boundless Dao Sea!
However…
He had never really spent long enough to properly process any of it. It was like eating a huge meal, but then not digesting it for energy.
Now, Yaan was finally digesting his meal properly. Even if the sky collapsed - which was fairly likely in the current world - he wouldn’t be disturbed! Unless he was physically forced to escape from something for some reason, then he wouldn’t bother himself.
Perhaps because he had completely removed himself from worldly affairs, but Yaan found that his dao comprehension speed was faster than ever before, quite significantly so actually. He realised that sacrificing his cultivation base clone also improved his speed of comprehending dao, as he had removed his physical connections and limitations to the world, becoming a more ethereal being, and thus, removing any potential distractions.
Cultivators usually had various worries and concerns, they were pressed for time, or at the very least, they had to keep a watchful eye on any intruders into their seclusion abode.
Yaan didn’t have this problem. So long as nobody targeted him, he basically couldn’t be injured, unless of course, by pure chance, someone like Defiance just so happened to punch Rainbow Mountain with his full strength, aura, killing intent, and domain.
But, if Defiance or another Empyrean so much as entered this sector, he would immediately be alerted by the wisps of indiscernible aura that he had left around the region.
As for Love Empyrean laying on the mountain below, she was harmless - she literally swore a dao oath to follow his orders and not harm him, so, he wasn’t too worried about her.
Yaan continued to comprehend dao…specifically, he was focussing on the Boundless Dao Sea that he had been forced to devour back then. The Boundless Dao Sea was formed from a complete transformation of the Boundless Dao Library, when a Will Rune transformed 33,333 Legacy Runes left behind by beings whom were all at the level of divinities, at least.
He had finished his exploration of ‘will’ as a concept, and now, Yaan wanted to properly understand those Dao Legacies…
This wasn’t exactly easily done. The Dao Legacies had essentially been blended into an enormous vortex of pressure to force him to the absolute extreme, otherwise, he never could have absorbed it all.
As a year passed, and then 10, 100 and 1,000, Yaan found himself returning to several fundamental daos and concepts, simply due to the nature of that ‘inheritance’.
Firstly, was the concept of Runes themselves. There were Divine Runes, runes that depicted a certain concept at the peak of the 2nd Origin Era. Similarly were Dao Runes, which were the same, only, their designs were created under the 1st Origin Era’s rules.
Legacy Runes, the high number of runes that Yaan had devoured in the library, were originally Dao Runes, created by 1st Origin Era elites, but after the Boundless Dao Library underwent the metamorphosis of the Era’s change, they adopted half of the qualities of the 2nd Origin Era’s Divine Runes, and retained the other half of the 1st Origin Era’s Dao Runes.
He found that Dao Runes had more intricacy, based on his deduction on which part of every Legacy Rune was from which Era.
There were more daos under the Heavenly Dao in the 1st Origin Era, and it was also clear that cultivating multiple daos as supplementary daos, on top of one’s core dao, was common practice for 1st Origin Era cultivators.
There also seemed to be very little differentiation between where their cultivation ended and their dao hearts began. There was so much overlap, that eventually, Yaan could only accept that in the 1st Origin Era, the dao heart must have been connected to the cultivation base!
There also seemed to only be one major cultivation path followed by every cultivator, but there were many variations of that path.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
It made him wonder why the Heavenly Dao had made the changes that it did in this Era…
Well, take a look at Shi - she was an example of the cultivation prodigies that could appear, if there was a singular cultivation path connection everything as one…humans, at a certain level, became threats to the Heavenly Dao.
For similar reasons, the Heavenly Dao had removed emotion-based and weapon-based daos from its earthly daos.
Even though there was no rule that said the dao heart needed to align with one of the Earthly Daos, in the end, most people followed the Heavenly Dao as an example. If the Heavenly Dao removed the daos which were most dangerous in the hands of man…man became less dangerous. It was that simple.
The 2nd Origin Era’s changes all existed for the same reason - to weaken the next Era’s cultivators…
However, there was one dao that the Heavenly Dao had always omitted, ever since its creation of the earth below.
The human dao.
Yaan didn’t know exactly why, but it was related to humanity being the Heavenly Dao’s first attempt at creating ‘something extreme’. It succeeded…too well. The Heavenly Dao embodied balance, and part of its balance was the inclusion of extremities…but the Heavenly Dao had clearly decided that its human extremity project had gone too far.
Progenitor Yang made this clear in the first part of his Legacy. That part was written before he awakened the memories of his true identity, but he kept it in anyway, suggesting that he still held some sort of belief in the power of human extremity, even after his awakening.
Yaan comprehended Runes of all varieties. He comprehended the Heavenly Dao via runic changes between the 1st and 2nd Origin Eras, which could be seen in every Legacy Rune when compared to the equivalent 2nd Origin Era Divine Runes. From this, Yaan learned to also produce the 1st Origin Era’s Dao Runes, but he found that in this Era, they held no power.
From how each Rune of each dao changed between Eras, he could see the changes in the Heavenly Dao, but also the changes in the Origin.
He wasn’t just studying these runes, remember - he had literally absorbed 33,333 Legacy Runes! Well, 33,433 if you counted the 100 prior to the library’s transformation into a sea.
The dao comprehension contained within every Legacy Rune had always been flowing messily in his Dao Soul, but it was only now, after finally spending an extremely long period of time going through everything and properly processing it all, that eventually, after 18,000 years, Yaan finally stood up and stretched his legs.
Only 2,000 years until the end of the world, huh.
He had no idea what’s he’d missed, but no matter.
His understanding of illusions had deepened, as had his understanding of space and time. With this, he should be able to peer into the past and watch all the excitement that had unfolded during his 18 millennia of seclusion.
Yaan’s eyes shone with bright crimson light, and even his robe seemed to glow with a gleam of the dao.
33,333 Legacy Runes…33,333 of the daos that divinity-equals from a past Era wanted to pass down…
He couldn’t absorb that in just 18,000 years, that would be beyond impossible. But, he had finally processed the top one tenth of all the dao enlightenments that came easiest to him, and this was no joke of an accomplishment.
His dao of fate had again moved forwards, to the extent that he could feel himself pushing against the Origin boundary at all times; he was growing too strong, and it wanted him to leave. However, he kept himself within this world, with no intention of leaving, not until he was forced to.
Fate, such an interesting concept, one with many interpretations…in the end, Yaan only needed to define his own interpretation clearly, that was the only fate that mattered to him.
His sword dao had reached the level of an elite Sword Deity at the absolute least, if not better! He needed to test this out in battle to properly confirm his gains, of course, and for now, that wasn’t an option.
His karmic dao, so heavily tied to fate, forming the beginnings, the endings, and the connections, between all events, all causes, effects the events, linking everything together.
His illusion dao had always been one of his favourites to use and comprehend. Not only was his body and everything about him literally formed by illusions, allowing him to define reality and illusion at will, but now, after ridding himself of his cultivation base clone, Yaan had transferred over those Divine Spells, fusing their strong points into his every corresponding Dao Spell. Now, he had developed a true Dao Art based upon the dao of illusions - the Dao Truth Art, currently consisted of Reveal Truth, Conceal Truth and Define Truth. That was no more than before other than all-round improvements, but with his recent advancements, with merely a few decades of focus, he could surely develop another.
Yaan had always incorporated certain elemental daos into his techniques in his early days of cultivation, especially those of water and air. He decided to continue with this, comprehending not just each individual dao of the elements, but the complete elemental dao as a whole. Whilst not central to any powers, he could easily now utilise the elements in almost any other technique, without even thinking.
Growing his space-time dao understanding was a priority of course; to travel through the Chaos, this was an essential. Also, he planned to travel the world and peer back through time in quite a few places to catch up on his missed years.
His dao of runes had already found an incredible use - Yaan inscribed a sequence of Divine Runes into his Dao Treasure. He didn’t know how that would fair in the Chaos, but in this Era, the wooden sword was now at least thrice as strong thanks to the runes alone!
His dao of painting had improved. He planned to paint various scenes as he travelled the world, though he wasn’t yet sure what he would do with the paintings. His last painting became the core of his domain, so clearly, they could possess great power when used properly.
There was also his dao of creation. The dao of creation was on this list, because after studying runes, formations, alchemy, refining, smithing, forging, and so on…it all circled back, to ‘creation’. By studying creation directly, Yaan believed that he could master any of those ‘creation-based skills’.
Yaan had delved deeply into the intricacies of the dao of heaven - the dao used by the Heavenly Dao to control and balance the world. He realised the use of this, in helping him observe the world, but also to balance his own Dao Soul and his massive accumulation of dao comprehensions from so many different daos.
And lastly…the dao of origin.
Hardly anybody had even touched this dao. In fact, aside from himself, perhaps only Shi and the Sage understood the dao of origin at all.
To put it simply, the Origin was the source of all things…it was also all things itself…it was, in essence, existence.
Origin Gods were essentially gaining the power to become independent existences when they ascended, that was why they were baptised by the Origin and absorbed its power as they ascended. Of course, his understanding went deeper than this, but for now…Yaan wasn’t sure quite how to explain it.
Because he had seen the Void, which was everything that the Origin was not, he possessed a unique understanding of the Origin, and that was a fact.
After leaving his seclusion, the first thing Yaan did, was look towards the golden crack in space. Whether it was coincidence, fate, or perhaps he had unknowingly awoken in this moment due to his instinct towards impending oblivion, but…the moment he looked out, he watched Shi fleeing from Defiance, finally flying straight into the golden spatial tear.