Chapter 1166 - Waves on Water

The whole place was rather chaotic, and battle could break out at any moment. However, Tianming calmed himself and focused his attention on the minorsky stele instead.

"I heard that it can absorb caeli…" There were two types of caeli, the living and the dead. Dead caeli contained only memories of life and cultivation, while a living caelum was tethered to a person's vita. It was only recently that he had come to understand that when he was drawn into the Grand-Orient Sword and saw the five gates, using their patterns to cultivate, he was actually in caelum form rather than vita form. If the vita left the body, anyone who wasn't Lingfeng would probably perish.

Wondersky realms only allowed caeli entry. The caelum, was in other words, the connection between the cultivator and the universe as a whole. Anything to do with insight and understanding was related to it. It was only because of that that Tianming's caelum was able to cultivate inside the wondersky realm.

When he turned to look at the minorsky stele, there was a light coming from it that turned into a vortex and sucked his caelum in the same way his sword did. In other words, it was also working like a wondersky realm, though Tianming remained conscious. Unlike the wondersky realm, his caelum wouldn't be able to fight and would only be able to observe. His vita would still have to do the thinking.

Standing far away, nobody noticed his caelum entering the stele. When it did, he had a new point of view from within the stele. His vita seemed to enter a sort of hibernation, causing his body to stop moving altogether. The common saying of one's soul being sucked away actually stemmed from someone losing their attention once their caelum was absent. The vita wasn't really affected at all, and it was more like a sleep state. When the body and vita were threatened, they would immediately be awakened and the caelum would spontaneously return to its original place. After all, it was still part of the tripartite soul.

The shimmering his caelum saw began to still. Soon, a whole wide world opened up before him. It was just like the sword formations of the Sword Insight Rock and the wondersky realm, made using intricate divine patterns. Looking at it another way, the five gates within the Grand-Orient Sword could be said to be a miniature wondersky realm, which probably served as the inspiration for the divine wondersky race.

He heard the sound of dripping water as the world before him began to clear. He found himself on a boundless lake with a calm surface. Though he could hear water droplets falling, he couldn't see any ripples on the lake's surface at all. The same was the case when he set foot on the lake. The water seemed to be frozen in time.

"This is…" Shocked, he suddenly looked ahead and saw a wooden hut at the end of the mirror-like lake. It looked dilapidated to the point that a single breath would topple it.

"The Sky Palace?" According to what he had heard, the Sky Palace was a wooden hut on the surface of a lake. "It's within the minorsky stele?"

He didn't dare to believe that he had found the Sky Palace so easily. He hadn't even done anything yet. He decided to head toward it and wasn't surprised to see that it behaved just like the Skyward Stele on the outside. No matter how far he moved toward it, the distance between him and the building didn’t seem to change. After some time, he gave up on approaching it, knowing this wasn't a problem that could be solved with brute force. Anyone could run; that was hardly a distinguishing characteristic of a true genius.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

He decided to let his mind do the work. Stopping, he spun around and looked at the boundless world. When he looked up, he noticed that there was another lake and another him, looking 'down' on himself.

"The Voidsky Realm…" He finally knew the meaning behind the name. There wasn't a sky above, only the reflection of a lake—infinitely many of them, for beneath him was another mirror-like surface. He saw the same thing when he looked down.

"This is where everyone gets stuck." Tianming looked at his own body, or rather, his caelum, and could see the text of his Aeonic Grandbane. This might be the part of him that allowed him to see through the illusions of the world that confused so many others.

"The lake is an endless mirror." Squatting down, he looked at his own reflection in the lake. The water still didn't move in the slightest.

"The surface of water should generate waves when disturbed… so why aren't there any? Is it simply the case that I can't see them? Why wouldn't I be able to see them? Maybe it's because I have tunnel vision."

He had always excelled at contemplation, part of it in thanks to his Lifesbane talent. Just like any person born in a supreme clan, his affinity with the laws of the universe was notably high. Most others would stupidly chase after the wooden hut or endlessly sink down into the infinite reflections, yet he was looking for waves on the surface of the lake.

"That's the only flaw this world has." It was a facet of the fundamental laws of the universe. Where there's a water surface, there must be waves. Like a child, he squatted on the surface and inspected it with a child's curiosity. His Caelum Prime also allowed him to remain calm and sound.

"Come out, come out, waves, wherever you are…" He kept prodding the surface of the lake as he simulated how the waves would spread in his mind, where they would start and end, and how the power of his pokes would affect the force of the waves. "Waves result from the laws of the universe. Similarly, divine patterns are also like countless waves gathering together and becoming a coherent whole."

Divine patterns were the most mystical things in this world. They were a physical manifestation of the universal laws, controlling everything from the fundamental cosmic forces to the birth of divine ores and hazards. In other words, they were the cornerstone of cultivation! Even heavenly and divine wills came from them. That was why he was able to cultivate using the patterns in the Grand-Orient Sword. Arcane knowledge was hidden within each fold of those patterns, each oscillation of every wave!

Gradually, his imagination was filled with a simulation of how the waves on the surface of the lake would behave. A single thought was all he needed to see waves appear beneath his finger when it touched the surface. It was as if he had found the key to unlock the lake. Soon after, waves began to appear and interfere with one another, either collapsing altogether or building each other up. The surface of the lake was filled with billions of such waves and began to change, intersecting to form a divine pattern.

"The nature of the universe truly escapes the human imagination." Tianming began floating upward. The reflection above him was no longer there. When he was high enough, he managed to get a good look at the entire lake area. Then the surface of the lake turned gold as it continued undulating from the waves. The golden waves began to form into a gold divine pattern that looked like it was burning. It looked like a golden vortex and an eye at the same time, which was oddly familiar to him.

"The Grand-Orient Vortex?" Wasn't this what he had seen behind the first gate in the sword? However, the entire vortex was simply a single divine pattern. "Don't tell me…" Suddenly turning around, he saw his physical body on the outside as well as his spatial ring, Skydragon, glowing and shaking. Something within it was strongly reacting, and it had to be the Grand-Orient Sword!

"This divine pattern of indeterminate grade might well be part of the divine pattern of the Grand-Orient Sword…"

The God-Emperor had said that the Grand-Orient Sword was the ultimate divine artifact. But now it was merely a part of the original whole. Tianming hadn’t thought that he would come across one of the shards here.