Chapter 1568: Dao Essence and Divinity

Chapter 1568: Dao Essence and Divinity

"Where is the formation?" Bai XiaoSheng asked.

"I'm looking," Mo Hua replied.

"No way, you've been searching for half a day and still haven't found it?" Bai XiaoSheng said in surprise.

Now it was Mo Hua's turn to grow a little impatient.

With an indifferent expression, he said, "Could you be quiet? You're interrupting my train of thought... A man of your age, yet not steady in the slightest, babbling so much nonsense..."

Hearing this, Bai XiaoSheng ground his teeth and said venomously:

"With a sharp tongue and venomous mouth like yours, you won't find a Dao Companion your whole life."

"No need for you to worry," Mo Hua replied. "Aren't you single yourself?"

Bai XiaoSheng sneered. "How do you know I'm single?"

Mo Hua looked surprised. "You're not?"

Bai XiaoSheng fell silent for a moment before slowly admitting, "I am..."

Mo Hua: "..."

Bai XiaoSheng sneered again. "A mere Dao Companion is nothing. If I wanted to find one, it would naturally take no effort at all..."

"Right, right..." Mo Hua placated him as if humoring a child. "You're amazing. Now stop talking and don't disturb my thoughts."

With that, Mo Hua ignored Bai XiaoSheng and returned to his contemplation.

Bai XiaoSheng truly wished he could slap himself.

He really had a loose mouth. Why did he have to talk so much to Mo Hua?

Clearly, he could never win an argument against him anyway...

I should keep my distance from Mo Hua, lest I get dragged down when he stirs up trouble...

Bai XiaoSheng thought, but then felt a wave of helplessness.

He had no other choice.

His current identity was the Right Protector of the Tongxian Cult. As his duty dictated, he naturally had to guard Mo Hua, this damned counterfeit Esteemed Master.

Originally, the Left Protector could have served as guard instead.

However, the Left Protector, Gu Changhuai, had a background as a Dao Court Archive Officer and was richly experienced.

At this moment, he remained at the government office, allocating resources and manpower, auditing dossiers, drafting rules and regulations, and maintaining order within Qingchou City.

When Magistrate Gu handled affairs, he did not shy away from hardships and was steady and methodical. Though seemingly taciturn, he could handle the vast majority of matters within his purview exceptionally well.

In contrast, Bai XiaoSheng was lacking in comparison.

His skills were rather one-dimensional: he could only disguise himself as a beggar, or engage in killing and fighting.

Now that Gu Changhuai was saddled with heavy responsibilities, when all was said and done, only he, the Right Protector, was left to guard the venerable Esteemed Master Mo of the Tongxian Cult.

Bai XiaoSheng truly had no choice.

An unlucky year. He who nears Mo is touched by disaster...

Bai XiaoSheng sighed inward, fell resentfully silent, and resumed his role as a tail. With his hands clasped behind his back, he followed behind Mo Hua.

Wherever Mo Hua walked, he followed.

Mo Hua paid no heed to Bai XiaoSheng, entirely immersed in his own thoughts, trying to figure out where the root of the toxicity in the Qingchou Rotten Soil truly lay.

If a formation existed, where was it hidden?

The ground before his eyes was stained a crimson so deep it verged on black. Theoretically, this ought to be the place where the toxicity was most potent, and the closest to the source of whatever formation it was. Yet after pacing a dozen laps back and forth, Mo Hua still found nothing.

This, once again, was very strange...

Mo Hua pondered in his heart.

When an expert laid down a formation, they would certainly prevent ordinary people from discovering it, that was only natural.

Yet he was no ordinary person. A formation laid by an expert could fool an ordinary cultivator. However, if it could even hide from a formation genius of his caliber, that was clearly unreasonable.

If he had known nothing about such formations beforehand and overlooked it due to carelessness, it might still have been excusable.

Yet now, he had already performed sectioning tests and verified the consistency between the microscopic worms and the toxins at the formation level.

Moreover, he had personally arrived at the scene and surveyed it for so long.

There was no reason for him to fail to find even a single clue...

Mo Hua stopped in his tracks, his brows furrowing.

Following behind him, Bai XiaoSheng nearly bumped into Mo Hua. He glanced up at Mo Hua, feeling a sense of comfort in his heart:

Even this monstrous kid has times when he's stumped... Indeed, there are heavens beyond the heavens, and men beyond men. That serves you right for acting so arrogant on ordinary days...

At the same time, Bai XiaoSheng subconsciously looked around, a seed of doubt sprouting in his mind:

Was what Mo Hua said... true or false?

Could there really be a formation around here? Impossible...

Bai XiaoSheng was still quite confident in his own perception.

If it were about high-level arts like breaking formations or Formation Dismantling, it would be fine if he were not proficient.

However, it was impossible that he could not even accomplish something as fundamental as perceiving a formation...

Aside from rotten soil, bloody water, and decaying limbs—a scene of sheer filth and carnage—where were there any traces of a formation in these surroundings?

Bai XiaoSheng shook his head.

The more Mo Hua thought, the stranger it felt. "If it's not on the ground, could it be underground?"

Yet the problem was that Mo Hua had already swept through the underground auras back and forth many times.

He had not perceived anything beneath the earth either.

"Then... is it still not deep enough? Is it buried even deeper underground?"

"Is it related to certain existences in the deeper depths of the earth?"

"Does it even involve the earth's... Dao essence?"

Mo Hua's gaze shifted down slightly.

Great-Earth Dao Essence was nothing unfamiliar to Mo Hua.

In fact, the prerequisite to comprehending the [Profound Earth Absolute Formation] was communicating with the Great-Earth Dao Essence.

Only by establishing an affinity with the Great-Earth Dao Essence could one master the art of Drawing Formation on Ground, using the soil as a medium and ink as formations upon the earth.

Yet as for what the so-called [Dao Essence] of the earth truly referred to, Mo Hua was still somewhat vague in his heart.

"What exactly... is Dao Essence?"

"I remember, when I was very young, Master told me during our travels..."

"Master said..."

Mo Hua's brows knitted tightly as he recalled some words Mister Zhuang had spoken to him back then.

However, since he had been Proving the Dao through Divine-Sense, weathering prolonged battles of Divine-Sense Thoughts, entangled with the Fate Bane, and had ascended to Divinity with a mortal body, his Divine Nature had expanded while his humanity declined.

After his journey to the Endless Abyss Marsh, where his Sea of Consciousness soaked in the deep abyss, many of his memories had grown very blurred.

For a moment, he forgot what Master had actually said back then...

How could I forget Master's words?

Mo Hua felt somewhat self-reproachful and somewhat perturbed, feeling as though someone was unwilling to let him remember...

He simply sat cross-legged on the spot, closed his eyes, focused his mind, and drove his powerful Divine-Sense Thoughts to forcibly trace back the fragments of the past.

Back when they traveled, the voices and appearances of Master, Grandpa Kui, Little Senior Brother, Little Senior Sister were like reflections of the moon in water and images in a mirror, blending into one piece that floated in his mind.

Yet within this patch of memory, it seemed veiled by clouds and mist, hazy and indistinguishable.

Refusing to believe it, Mo Hua directly employed the Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm to tear through these mists.

After an unknown period, a corner of the mist was finally pierced by the Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm.

Beside Mo Hua's ears, Master's teachings from back then vaguely resonated once more, the words ethereal, seeming both real and illusory:

"All things between heaven and earth possess thoughts..."

"Where there are thoughts, there is consciousness..."

"Humans possess Divine-Sense, Yāo possess Yāo-Sense, and all other creations... be they birds, beasts, insects, fish, flowers, grass, or trees, also possess thoughts akin to 'Divine-Sense'..."

"Yet the thoughts of all creations and beasts are crude and singular, far inferior to the wondrous complexity of human Divine-Sense."

"However, there are exceptions..."

"Certain ancient 'thoughts', having grown immense to a certain degree, become return-to-simplicity and true by virtue of their antiquity and singleness of purpose... approaching the Dao more closely than human Divine-Sense, which is filled with selfish desires."

"Such are the thoughts of the earth."

"Ancient cultivators usually referred to these vast Divine-Sense Thoughts that exist eternally among all creations of heaven and earth, boundless and akin to the Dao, as... [Dao Essence]!"

...

Mo Hua gathered his Divine-Sense, concentrated his computational power, and utilized the Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm to piece together Master's words from his memory, bit by bit...

When he traced it back to the final sentence, Mo Hua's heart shook violently.

Existing eternally, akin to the Dao, referred to as... Dao Essence!

Back when he first heard this passage, he was only around thirteen years old, merely in the Qi-Refining realm, and was still completely lost regarding cultivation, especially matters concerning the Divine Dao.

Many of Master's words were too profound and wondrous; in his innocence, he had merely memorized them in the depths of his heart, never truly comprehending them.

Yet now, recalling them in detail and pondering them carefully, he found them utterly mind-boggling.

Because according to Master's explanation, heaven and earth were not 'dead objects'—they, too, possessed their own Divine-Sense Thoughts.

The so-called Great-Earth [Dao Essence] was, in a certain sense, closer to the Origin Intent of the earth's Divine-Sense Thoughts.

And a similar expression to the Earth Intent was something Mo Hua had encountered elsewhere before.

Namely, Evil Gods.

Evil Gods—especially ancient and mighty beings like the Great Wilderness Evil God at his peak—possessed Divine-Sense Thoughts that were unyielding, undying, and imperishable. To a large extent, this was because He had condensed His own Divine Dao Intent.

As for what this Divine Dao Intent truly was, or what its authentic designation was within the system of deities, Mo Hua did not know.

He could only guess that this was an existence akin to the Origin of a certain [Dao].

If so, then formless Divine-Sense Thoughts were actually closer to the [Dao] than tangible objects.

Were they closer... to the Origin of all things and humans?

And closer to immortality?

"All creations of heaven and earth possess thoughts and consciousness... Humans, Yāo, beasts, and even vegetation, all are like this."

"When humans die, they become ghosts; when Yāo die, they turn into wraiths."

"When a river possesses thoughts, it gives birth to a River God; when a mountain possesses thoughts, it gives birth to a Mountain God..."

"The Little River God of the small fishing village, and Huangshan Jūn (Yellow Mountain Lord) of Solitary Yellow Mountain, were both like this..."

"The Desolate Wilderness has Barbarian Gods; the lands of the Great Wilderness have the God of the Great Wilderness, who fell and became the 'Great Wilderness Evil God'."

"The Great Wilderness Evil God possesses myriad Divine Remains; though I killed so many of Him, He still would not die..."

"In a certain sense, isn't this precisely 'longevity'?"

"Even looking at it now, whether the Great Wilderness Evil God is truly dead remains an unresolved case."

"If not for the Calamity Lightning erasing His Divine Dao Intent, I wouldn't have dared to consume His Divine Marrow at all..."

"Otherwise, the moment I consumed His Divine Marrow, the Evil God's intent would have descended upon me, using me as a Divine Fetus to enact corruption..."

"Conversely, if I want to advance further in Proving the Dao through Divine-Sense, must I also learn from the God of the Great Wilderness and condense my own... Divine Dao Intent?"

"Refining Divine-Sense Thoughts to the absolute pinnacle, until one day I condense my own Divine Dao Intent, thereby becoming akin to the Dao, imperishable through a thousand disasters, undying through ten thousand tribulations."

"In that way, I could be like the Great Wilderness Evil God: even if killed countless times, as long as the intent remains imperishable and a single thought is unextinguished, I can live on eternally."

"And if such Divine Dao Intent is continuously strengthened, accumulated over time, condensed to the extreme, and grown infinitely vast, undergoing yet another qualitative change, would it then become... Dao Essence?"

"Nurturing Dao Essence with a flesh-and-blood body?"

"Can I cultivate my own Dao Essence? Just like... this ancient heaven and earth?"

"Dao-Transformed Divine Sense, an imperishable intent."

"Heaven and earth endure eternally; as the Dao is imperishable, heaven and earth are imperishable."

"In that case, could it be called... coexisting with the Great Dao, sharing the lifespan of heaven and earth, living long without dying?"

"Is this... an immortal?"

"Is it... like this?"

"Yet... is this correct?"

Mo Hua was stunned on the spot, feeling that his own thoughts were excessively audacious, wildly imaginative, and an utter load of nonsense.

Within the existing Cultivation System, none of these things existed.

Yet when considered carefully, these notions seemed not entirely without reason.

At the very least, within the logic of the Divine Dao, it made sense.

A great struggle raged in Mo Hua's heart, as all manner of insights, understandings, and knowledge regarding the Dao became jumbled together.

The tangible and intangible were mixed, physical objects and spiritual essence indistinguishable, a patch of Chaos impossible to untangle, impossible to sort out.

Mo Hua thought instinctively: If only Master were still by my side...

Just like in his childhood, whenever he encountered difficulties in cultivation, he would ask Master, and many questions would become clear...

Yet he had not seen Master for over twenty years...

Mo Hua's heart grew somber.

He wanted to calm his mind, but at this moment, his thoughts were incomparably active. With too many insights and chaotic thoughts, he desperately wished to find a person—or a god—to converse with and verify his conjectures.

Mo Hua raised his head and looked around, seeing only Bai XiaoSheng.

At this very moment, Bai XiaoSheng was also staring at Mo Hua, his gaze filled with confusion.

Why had an ethereal and wondrous aura suddenly emanated from Mo Hua just now, as if he were no longer human?

What had he had a Sudden Enlightenment about? What could he possibly gain a Sudden Enlightenment in?

As Bai XiaoSheng watched, he saw Mo Hua turn his head and look toward him.

Their eyes met. Mo Hua's expression was complex, carrying a trace of disdain. Bai XiaoSheng asked, "What is it now?"

Mo Hua thought for a moment before speaking. "The earth is 'alive'."

Bai XiaoSheng was taken aback. "What?"

Mo Hua said, "The earth has a spirit; it is 'alive'."

Bai XiaoSheng frowned. "Have you gone crazy? What do you mean the earth is alive?"

Without head or tail, what kind of gibberish was he spouting?

Mo Hua sighed, finding it pointless. There was simply no way to hold a conversation with an outsider to the Divine Dao.

Mo Hua paid no more attention to Bai XiaoSheng, instead knitting his brows again to ponder the matter of the Great-Earth Dao Essence...

"The earth's Divine-Sense Thoughts are vast and eternal, where Profound Virtue Bears All Things, condensing into Dao essence."

"If I want to verify my conjectures and understand the ultimate end of the Divine Dao, I must perceive the ancient Dao essence beneath the earth even more deeply."

"The greater my affinity with the Dao essence, the more principles I will be able to understand..."

"Furthermore, the core problem in Qingchou Prefecture right now was originally related to the earth..."

"If I develop an affinity with the Dao essence, then whenever I encounter an impasse, can't I directly ask the will of the earth?"

"Should I try to communicate with the Great-Earth Dao Essence?"

Mo Hua had been occupied with his studies, cultivation, wars, and disaster relief, and had not communicated much with the Great-Earth Dao Essence for a long time.

Great-Earth Dao Essence was inherently difficult to communicate with.

In different Prefecture Realms, the aura of the earth differed, and the Dao essence might not be entirely identical.

It was not something one could communicate with anytime, anywhere.

Moreover, communication differed from case to case.

A true 'communication' meant comprehending the Laws of heaven and earth, perceiving the will of the earth, and at the same time, receiving 'feedback' from the Great-Earth Dao Essence.

This two-way connection, the unity of human and spirit, was the true communication with the Dao essence.

This required a certain stroke of serendipity, and even a degree of auspicious fortune, capable of being felt only in a state of mutual resonance akin to a Sudden Enlightenment.

To this day, Mo Hua had truly communicated with the Dao essence only twice.

The first time, he comprehended the [Profound Earth Absolute Formation].

The second time, he received the blessing of the Great-Earth Dao Essence and obtained the authority to enact Drawing Formation on Ground upon the earth.

Aside from those instances, communication at other times was merely Mo Hua unilaterally perceiving the Dao essence, thereby enabling him to utilize a portion of its power to draw the [Profound Earth Absolute Formation] and execute Drawing Formation on Ground.

Under such circumstances, the Great-Earth Dao Essence had no perception of Mo Hua.

After all, the earth was vast and boundless, its Divine-Sense Thoughts infinitely immense, and its Dao essence eternal.

In comparison, Mo Hua was merely a minuscule cultivator standing upon the earth, like an ant.

It was easy for an ant to perceive the earth, but exceedingly difficult for the earth to perceive an ant...

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then pressed his palm against the earth. Calming his heart and focusing his mind, he sensed the existence of the earth, attempting once more to communicate with the Dao Essence in its deeper depths.

After a long time, there was not the slightest reaction from beneath the earth.

(End of Chapter)