Chương 347: Changes (IV)

Long Tao was more flabbergasted at the moment than he had ever been before in his life. He poked and prodded the extra core with all his might, thinking that it was Heaven's doing, but there was no trace of Dao. No trace of any arrays. No trace of, well, anything besides what he expected to find in a core. For all intents and purposes, it was as though someone had taken his original core and made the perfect replica--"Master!!" he audibly shouted, shooting up to his feet...

but in the process forgetting that he wasn't on land and instead falling into the lake, splashing about. Not even taking a few mouthfuls of lake water against his will could dull the sheer horror that swept through him. His eyes widened as they veered over toward the tent--the man knew this would happen. Not only that he'd achieve the Eternal Core, but that he'd also get the second one. How did he get the second one? It certainly wasn't of Long Tao's make.

For however many miracles he could perform, this went beyond a simple 'miracle' and into the realm of just outright impossible. Eternal Core, on its own, was already breaking the notion of Heavenly Laws and tearing free of them, but a secondary core? Of any kind? There literally was never another--Long Tao would swear on his soul that even among those mythological figures that battled dragons and gods, there never was one with dual cores.

The concept itself was antithetical to the realm--the point was to coalesce all Qi into the most durable and high-grade core possible. Even he, somebody who had spent almost every waking hour of his rebirth, with eons of knowledge, had just barely managed to ensure that he'd create the Eternal Core. But there was no path further than this--there was no 'excess Qi' that could be used to form another.... and yet, another resided within him. He remained floating for a long while, his head spinning like the night sky.

Even the cold, almost freezing water of the lake couldn't wake him from the terror. Though his Master had pulled off quite a few feats that would be considered heaven-defying, even the most heaven-defying of them were still things that Long Tao deemed possible, at the very least, however unlikely they may have been.

Be it the strange cultivation methods or arts he'd seemed to summon out of thin air that just so happened to be perfect for that particular situation, or the litany of weird trinkets and items, or the ability to 'have' things for both Shamans and Cultivators... The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. While it all pointed toward an abnormality that was an anomaly among anomalies, at the very least it was all theoretically possible.

Long Tao himself, given a year or two to search for his stashes, could replicate a good chunk of his Master's capabilities. He, too, had literal tens of thousands of martial arts and cultivation methods stored in his mind--very, very few of which could be utilized immediately, like Master's, but he could at least mimic the man. Secondary core? Even the mere mutter of it would have gotten him laughed out of every hall in existence.

That was precisely why he was no longer merely curious or defensive of the Master and why he was now a bit horrified. Not of the Master, per se, but more so of the source of the Master's powers. Whatever, or whoever, bannered the strangely kind man... didn't the secondary core imply that they, or it, were equal to Dao? The mere thought caused palpitations and shudders; he involuntarily wanted to punish himself for even thinking that.

Though he loathed the Heavenly Laws and the Heavenly Court, he revered Dao as every other cultivator in pursuit of Immortality--whoever they were, they had to conform to Dao, even if they rejected the Heavens. Dao was now and tomorrow; it was time and it was place; it was the everything and it was the nothing. Any doubt was akin to inviting demons into one's heart and ensuring that you would suffer a Qi Deviation during a breakthrough.... but how could he not doubt?

In the face of such overwhelming otherness, was he not to doubt? He swam out of the lake and to the shore, looking up at the moon that had just come out from between the clouds. There were countless things in the world that could not be explained--that stele standing suspended above the Divine Mountain, with lips and a finger over them carved into the stone. It stemmed from the very first era of existence, the Epoch of Silence, where, supposedly, there was no Dao, let alone any lifeforms.

Then there were so-called Cosmic Voids, spans of the heavens above that seem inordinately bereft of stars. Huge swaths of existence with nothing within them. Beyond all, there were those things: the otherworldly, misshapen amalgamations with no form or meaning. But, perhaps, he mused with a smile, to combat those, he needed an inexplicable thing of his own. In a way, the second core was even more of an anomaly than those things. He drew out his sword and struck backwards.

Seemingly nothing happened, but his lips stretched out into a wide smile; it wasn't just the matter of having twice as much Qi as somebody of his realm would have. At the moment of attack, he felt something --the two cores stirred, as they both tried to move unto themselves but also in opposition toward the other. He had a feeling that, once he'd reached the peak of the Revolving Core Realm, something even more absurd might come out of this.

It was already absurd enough, but if his suspicions were to be confirmed... he might never be allowed to utter to another soul the truth of his dantian. Putting the sword away, he headed back toward the tent. As his figure faded from the shore, a thin line appeared against it, moving further into the lake's depths and extending across its massive surface, connecting to the other shore on the opposite side.

The water stirred, kicking up a tiny splotch on the outside, while within, a wall spanning to the very depths of the lake appeared, dividing the two sides for a moment. All life ran and hid, panicked and horrified, as though the world itself were ending. It lasted for a singular moment, passing by as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind no trace of ever having existed--as though it were a dream.

The world fell silent once again as the ashen clouds covered up the light of the moon, turning the night starkly dark yet again.