Chapter 1015: Protocol
A long time later, Li Qi and Zhu Fengdan left the place where the Immortal Heaven resided.
Li Qi remembered this place, which did not belong to the Reality Universe, but was merely a part of a 'coordinate system'.
For Mortals, this place didn't even exist; it couldn't be found through any temporal or spatial connection, and it had no Karma with the outside world.
In fact, this was similar to the gap in substantiality.
For Mortals who lacked substantiality, they couldn't realize that their lives weren't as stable as they once thought; at a certain point in their experience, time would suddenly erase the past completely, turning it into an illusion.
Thus, these erased 'illusions' were 'non-existent' to Mortals.
These were things of fantasy; they could never touch these 'non-existent histories'.
And the Immortal Heaven created its own branch timeline within this 'non-existent history', so under normal circumstances, without obtaining its coordinates, the Immortal Heaven wouldn't be found.
It缩 in its own turtle shell, not interacting with anyone, not existing in any spacetime that anyone could interfere with.
So, the question arises.
...Zhu Fengdan, how did she obtain the Immortal Heaven' coordinates?
Perhaps it was a secret, but Li Qi wasn't going to ask what the secret was.
No need to ask.
After leaving the Immortal Heaven, Li Qi could see that because the Immortal Heaven hid in this place, the things it created couldn't interfere with the so-called 'Reality Spacetime' of the outside world.
This was the brilliance of what Li Qi created; by inserting into this Karma chain during the evolution of ordinary spacetime, the power and completeness of Li Qi's constructed form made his established branch seem alive, capable of Transmigration through eternal spacetime, self-improvement, and even actively breaking through the creator's shackles.
This was the form of Taiyi, which is why the Immortal Heaven was very interested in learning this kind of thing, even willing to help Li Qi for it.
"The Immortal Heaven matter is settled, so next we just wait for Shamansan to leave. During this time, I'll teach you how to act!" Zhu Fengdan said to Li Qi.
"Yes, alright." Li Qi immediately agreed.
Zhu Fengdan was very satisfied with Li Qi's answer, snapped her fingers, and the two instantly teleported to a hidden spacetime.
This place wasn't as isolated as the Immortal Heaven, but it was also difficult to find; it was a spacetime where possibilities had been severed, with no one inside, and no one would be there for tens of millions of centuries.
In this timeline where possibilities had withered, all things had withered, possibility and change had completely died, and nothingness occupied everything, with shadows of the Universe's destruction everywhere.
But in reality, there were no corpses, no shadows; there was only nothingness, and the so-called corpse shadows were merely an illusion, an illusion brought about by this nothingness.
Here, Zhu Fengdan clapped her hands, and a galaxy stretched across the sky.
This galaxy shimmered in the Void Realm.
This was a spiral nebula with a diameter of one hundred thousand light-years, very similar in shape to the Milky Way.
The place where Li Qi and Zhu Fengdan were located was relatively close, so they couldn't observe the complete shape of the entire galaxy; in fact, from their position, only half of the sky was covered by this nebula.
This nebula emitted intertwined silver and red light, dotted with some colorful halos caused by scattering.
These halos were all excited by cosmic rays.
Large masses of luminous fog and various colorful halos enveloped the sky, as if a luminous sea hung in the firmament at night, with shimmering light spots constantly surging, emitting a faint silver glow.
A beautiful galaxy, but such a thing wouldn't surprise Li Qi and Zhu Fengdan.
They had witnessed even more magnificent scenery; the light emitted by a mere spiral arm galaxy was nothing extraordinary, and Li Qi was still waiting for Zhu Fengdan's explanation.
Zhu Fengdan's hand gently picked up a piece of something resembling 'jade', which was scattered throughout the surrounding space with an incredibly high density, like snow falling in winter, everywhere.
The jade piece was very thin, about the size of a USB drive, semi-transparent greenish-blue, but it could reflect different colors when illuminated by light.
Holding the jade piece, she said, "These book Qi are what we need to learn."
Li Qi raised his eyebrows.
Of course, he knew what those jade pieces were.
They were carriers of book Qi, with extremely high density; the small piece in Zhu Fengdan's hand was enough to store all the information produced in the history of a Sixth Grade civilization.
And a Seventh Grade civilization could already Transmigration between galaxies, colonizing millions of light-years.
If it were a weak civilization that hadn't even left its own planet, even if the entire civilization's records were crammed in, it would only occupy a few hundred billionths of a single jade piece's storage capacity.
And now, countless such jade pieces formed a spiral galaxy.
One can imagine how much information this nebula stored.
This was a nebula with a diameter of one billion light-years, containing infinite information, even enough to write down every person and every insect's every second of history in several hundred trillion Observable Universes.
It wouldn't be wrong to say it was backing up the multiversal log files.
This amount of information was not small, even for Li Qi.
"Taking other people's things is a technical skill; ordinary methods can't find a gap from these people, so the first lesson is to memorize all their methods."
"Aren't you good at memorizing? This should be your strong suit, right? Come, this is just one person's. To Breakthrough Shamansan's guardianship, let me count... there are probably seventy people; you can't make a mistake."
Zhu Fengdan extended her thumb and pointed to the nebula behind her.
Li Qi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Although there was no air here, it didn't prevent him from performing such an action.
Then, he reached out and picked up the first piece.
"Then I shall trouble Teacher to explain them to me one by one."
"No trouble at all, no trouble at all."
The master and disciple began their instruction in this empty Void Realm.
And to be honest, this seemed to be Zhu Fengdan's first proper lesson for Li Qi; before, she had always let him grow freely.
However, in the face of Second Grade and Third Grade power, the so-called free-range upbringing was actually no different from watching him grow up.
But this could only be felt when the child grew up; before Li Qi became a Great Power, he had complained that Zhu Fengdan didn't care for him.
But those were things of the past; now Li Qi also had his own things to do, and he had inherited Zhu Fengdan's Dao Orthodoxy, and was even prepared to go further.
This was quite good.
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Meanwhile, at the Immortal Heaven.
This savage beast left its own reality and came to the reality jointly constructed by other First Grades, which was the so-called 'Reality Universe'.
This was an ultimate coliseum, a battlefield where First Grades intertwined and fought.
The Immortal Heaven was always afraid to come here.
Once caught in the struggle, it couldn't directly confront other First Grades; although a Second Grade couldn't fight it, it was also difficult for it to fight other First Grades.
It had only one role to play.
Its existence, in theory, could restrain other First Grades; as long as it existed, one First Grade had to be left to guard against the Immortal Heaven.
One could also choose not to leave one, but besides a First Grade, no one else could handle the Immortal Heaven; if the Immortal Heaven were to act without being watched, it was hard to predict how much trouble it could cause.
Therefore, the Immortal Heaven' position was very subtle.
On the one hand, it could do what a First Grade could do, so it had to be treated as a First Grade.
On the other hand, there was a considerable gap between it and other First Grades, which made the Immortal Heaven highly unpredictable; both sides had to treat the Immortal Heaven carefully, guarding against any foolish actions it might take under stimulation and pressure.
Many gambits had been made between the Human Dao and Shaman Dao regarding the Immortal Heaven; this unstable element was truly a bomb for all sides, yet it was also the biggest variable.
If not handled well, the Immortal Heaven might repeatedly jump back and forth, perhaps jumping to some unknown place and causing a whole host of new problems.
However, for the Immortal Heaven... this was also what it feared most.
The Immortal Heaven could not control the variables here; here, reality would always undergo random mutations, and the evolution of reality had countless possibilities, but the Karma chain would always close.
The Karma chain would close in countless realities.
This was what the Immortal Heaven feared most.
The closing of the Karma chain was difficult to judge; no single number was magical, no special number could define this possibility—once, twice, thrice, or even a randomly generated number, all were possible.
That is to say, the Karma chain could close at any time under any circumstances; randomness was infinite, this was 'true infinity', not 'infinity within finiteness'.
It's like you can draw infinitely many circles with a pencil, but each circle can only enclose a certain area; countless circles are 'infinity within finiteness', no matter how many circles there are, each circle is fixed, and even if all the circles are added up, they are actually traceable and can be deduced.
But this 'Reality Universe' does not follow this rule; the Karma chain will always close repeatedly in different realities, but each time it will lead to specific events.
Due to the uncertainty of reality, the Immortal Heaven was always uneasy every time it appeared in this place.
It was terrified of being killed by a sudden possibility.
"Oh, a rare guest." At this moment, Shamansan appeared behind the Immortal Heaven.
For the Immortal Heaven, any First Grade would pay close attention, especially Shaman Dao, which had reached an agreement with the Immortal Heaven.
"You usually hate coming to this place the most, don't you? Why did you come voluntarily this time?" Shamansan said to the Immortal Heaven.
"I came for our previous agreement; I think there's a problem with this agreement and it needs to be changed." The Immortal Heaven said.
"Oh?" Shamansan's eyes scanned the Immortal Heaven.
Personified concepts, minds born from laws, this was the Immortal Heaven.
And now, this personified concept actually had its own subjective initiative, instead of being manipulated by the instinct to survive?
This change made Shamansan realize something, so he smiled and said, "Did Li Qi and Zhu Fengdan send you? Are they going to steal the Desire Realm?"
The Immortal Heaven flinched and immediately replied, "No, why would you think that?"
"How else could I think? However, your matter can't be put aside; this is an open scheme. Since you're here, it means your change has reached a point I can't ignore, so I can only have the guardians pay attention." Shamansan shook his head: "So, Immortal Heaven, what do you plan to do with me?"
"I really hate talking to you; it's as if I'm the only fool." The Immortal Heaven grumbled complainingly: "So, the Spirit Dao side..."
"Don't worry, I won't let the Spirit Dao catch you, and besides, your appearance here has probably already surprised the Spirit Dao, hasn't it?" Shamansan chuckled.
The Immortal Heaven remained silent.
And Shamansan continued, "They should be very anxious now, so it's time for me to act too."
From the very beginning, Shamansan had made arrangements.
Shamansan himself couldn't summon the Immortal Heaven because the Immortal Heaven was very cautious and didn't trust these First Grades, so he needed to use others' hands.
The best candidate was Zhu Fengdan.
And to find Zhu Fengdan, the best catalyst was Li Qi, and Li Qi needed to go to the Spirit Dao to be effective, because... the Immortal Heaven was the Spirit Dao's bait.
This was a secret.
However... it wasn't really a secret; it was actually quite easy to guess.
The Immortal Heaven was a 'personified law', which many people knew.
For the Spirit Dao, the Immortal Heaven was actually their 'Dao opportunity'.
The so-called personified law could actually be understood as an 'idea' that had awakened self-awareness, and what it looked like for an objectively existing 'idea' to be personified was something the Spirit Dao had always been very curious about.
But Shamansan wasn't going to hand over the Immortal Heaven, and he also wanted what the Spirit Dao had.
Before, during the Human-Shaman War, he was tied up.
Now he was free.
So, everything began to revolve around Shamansan's will.
Just waiting to see how the Spirit Dao would respond.
If the Spirit Dao couldn't hold back... Shamansan would have a chance to go for a 'second time'.
As for Li Qi and Zhu Fengdan?
As for the Desire Realm, it depended on his ability.
If he could get it, it was his.
If he couldn't, he shouldn't blame Shamansan for not giving him a chance.
Being a Second Grade, one should definitely figure out what to do, what needs to be done, and how to do it.
Shamansan didn't think Li Qi would be unaware of these things; besides the Immortal Heaven' attraction and importance to the Spirit Dao, Li Qi's information wasn't wrong, so he should also make the correct choice.
Thus, Shamansan showed a benevolent smile and looked at the Immortal Heaven.
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"So, Teacher, everything's ready, right?" Li Qi asked, feeling his mind full.
"Of course, Shamansan must be wrangling with the Immortal Heaven right now. That old fellow always gets things done himself and won't borrow others' hands, so don't believe his act; he wouldn't really hope for you to go to the Spirit Dao."
"I know, so... the Immortal Heaven won't be killed, right?"
"Who knows."
Check the translation notes section.