The Dao of Thread and Root

The sharp ache in Zhì Yuǎn's head lasted only two breaths before it vanished.

When he opened his eyes, he found Yù Qíng's serene face bent over his. The First Wife said nothing, but the relief in the connection of their souls was so dense it could almost be touched.

Zhì Yuǎn raised his hand. His fingers brushed the woman's cheek as he sat up on the jade floor. The weight of mental exhaustion had disappeared.

Seeing him wake, the oppressive air in the courtyard seemed to lift. Xú Lán, who had remained frozen a few steps away, finally blinked, the worship in her eyes shining even stronger. Yù Méi let out a long breath and crossed her arms to hide the tension, while the rest of the sisters drew closer in silence.

Zhì Yuǎn made no announcements. He simply raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

A thread of Primordial Qi rose from his skin. Before, the dark energy of his core had run like an aggressive river, crushing everything in its path. Now the texture was different.

Under Bái Wǎn and Mò Yán's wondering gaze, the dark thread split in the air. One became ten. Ten became thousands of hair-thin lines. They crossed and separated into geometric forms, moving through the air with absolute precision.

Zhì Yuǎn smiled, a dark gleam in his pupils. The complexity of that new flow would not only improve the use of his energy. Seeing the Primordial Qi copy the immortal network, a new idea was born in his mind.

Primordial Qi forms all things, he thought, drawing the energy back into his body. If Qi can mirror the foundation of an Immortal energy, it can copy the structure of the Laws themselves. Their Conceptual Laws are already born bound to my Universe because of it, manifesting by instinct. But if I master this complexity… I will not merely need to manipulate this world's Laws, or wait for them to arise on their own in mine…

I will be their Creator.

He stood. His dominant presence returned, swallowing the courtyard's quiet. Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang knelt in the air at once.

"The headache is gone," Zhì Yuǎn remarked in a calm tone. He looked toward the horizon, where the giant lotus mountains held palaces that pierced the clouds. "Let's see what this dead world left for us."

The sound of Zhì Yuǎn's boots echoed as the group left the safety of the vitreous courtyard. The departure toward the lotus mountain was not an ordinary ruin exploration. It was a plunge into the scale of their own insignificance.

The closer they came to the first palaces, the more the size of the constructions crushed the group's perspective. Nothing there had been made for human stature. The stairway leading to the entrance was formed of steps several zhàng high.

Yù Méi frowned, measuring the stone wall in front of her.

"Was this the house of giants, by any chance?"

The question broke the oppressive tension, drawing short, relieved laughs from the sisters. Instead of walking, the group decided to fly, rising quickly up the stairway of forgotten gods, while Qīng Yǔ levitated Lín Jié at her side.

Silence was the only rule of that place. There was no wind, rain, or signs of weathering. All that existed there was the heavy pressure of time.

They stopped before a gate formed of an unknown mineral of greenish metallic color, like oxidized bronze. The doors measured hundreds of zhàng in height. Their tops vanished into the stagnant mist of the ceiling. They were only slightly open, but the forgotten gap between the two metal plates was already wide enough for a giant flying beast to pass through without folding its wings.

When they crossed the gap and entered the first pavilion, the weight of eternity struck them.

A thick layer of gray dust covered the polished stone, muffling any sound. It was no ordinary dirt. Yù Méi flew a little ahead. The tip of her boot struck what had once seemed to be a handsome fallen shield. At the exact moment of impact, the metal and wood did not crack. They simply crumbled, turning to powder and mixing into the gray carpet of the floor.

Everything that was weak, organic, or that lacked the structural strength of Immortal Qi had been destroyed countless millennia ago.

Behind them, Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang stared at the columns with clear shock in their eyes. All the arrogance they had worn as former untouchable Hegemonics looked like a pathetic joke in there. Even Mò Yán and Bái Wǎn remained silent. The dead world did not need to fire lethal arrays to oppress the family. The mere size of those structures was enough.

Half a day of exploration passed with nothing to show for it but dust. The group crossed the giant courtyard and entered an immense side structure whose doors no longer existed. The interior was a dark abyss.

It was an archive. Thousands of immense shelves filled the hall, rising until they vanished into the darkness of the ceiling. The wood that formed the shelves had not rotted. Across the ages, it had turned to stone, gaining the weight and cold gleam of black iron.

On the shelves, arranged in perfect rows beneath the dust, rested thousands of Jade Slips.

Yù Méi's eyes shone. The explorer's instinct overpowered the tension of the place. She took light steps through the air with the Void Lotus. The displacement of air kicked up small clouds of dust on the smooth surface, even without her touching the floor.

She gathered a thin layer of her finest Qi at her fingertips. Trying to be as careful as possible, she touched a milky jade slip.

It was a disaster.

Yù Méi's Qi was of extremely high quality, but it was not compatible. Applying it to an immortal object was like pouring acid onto thin glass. The instant her energy struck the stone, the jade cracked. A tiny fracture spread like a spiderweb and, with a soft sound, the entire slip turned to powder. Only a glittering little pile remained on the iron shelf.

Yù Méi yanked her hand back as if she had been burned, gritting her teeth in frustration at destroying a treasure.

"Time corrupted the structure of the slips," Bái Wǎn explained, analyzing the dust from a distance, without touching anything. "Any external energy that tries to force contact will act like a poison."

Zhì Yuǎn stepped forward and appeared at Yù Méi's side. Without saying anything, he raised his hand toward the shelf.

This time there was no brute force. The thousands of microscopic threads of Primordial Qi he had refined outside left his skin. The dark lines formed an invisible net. They did not merely grab the jade slip. They embraced it, isolating it from the environment. The Qi imitated the exact stagnant energy he had swallowed in the trap.

The jade slip floated slowly into his palm, intact. A pale, ancient light pulsed from inside the stone.

Zhì Yuǎn closed his eyes and used his Divine Sense. What he found was not a book of spells. It was a sea of dense information. Energy paths that did not exist in ordinary mortal physiology. Knowledge dense enough to shatter a normal cultivator's mind on the spot.

When he opened his eyes, his dark pupils seemed even deeper. The harvest had begun. He was finally holding the key to how that world worked—and to how to refine his still-idealized Primordial Loom.

Zhì Yuǎn lowered his hand. The faint archaic light vanished the instant he sent the jade slip into his Inner Universe.

The knowledge proved what he had perceived during the array's near-disaster. The way cultivators outside used Qi was primitive, forcing the energy through straight, rigid channels. The Immortal method folded the energy into many small layers. That multiplied its power dozens of times without requiring more space in the body.

With his mind illuminated by that secret, he swept his gaze across the black-iron shelves and then looked into the darkness of the ceiling.

"I won't have time to absorb all this knowledge now. It will take a few years of seclusion for that," his voice echoed calmly through the silent place. "And for now we'll have to go back. After all, Lián still needs our help."

Huáng Bìyù frowned.

"We're leaving the treasures here, my Heaven?"

"We're taking the entire domain," Zhì Yuǎn warned, his tone loaded with a natural arrogance. "I'll anchor the limits of this dead world straight into my Inner Universe. I'll swallow this space and erase the fissure we used to enter. This entire world will become our private backyard to explore whenever we want."

The women and the slaves held their breath at that absurd declaration.

Zhì Yuǎn turned his back on the old shelves and began to fly toward the hall's exit.

"But first, we need to get out of here."