Chapter 652: Spiritual Dao Observer

Inside the Illusion-Reality Domain, Li Qi's head exploded directly.

However, his Inner World was temporarily fine; by transferring his thinking organs into his Spirit Soul, he was able to temporarily retain full thinking ability.

Normally, if his head exploded, he would have suffered severe injuries, because the body and the Inner World are greatly connected and influence each other to some extent.

But this was the Illusion-Reality Domain, and through 'imagination,' his head immediately recovered.

The moment it recovered, Li Qi was about to explode again, but before that, he immediately looked up, trying to retract his True Knowledge.

He saw... the manifestation of True Knowledge Dao Resonance in the Illusion-Reality Domain.

Only then did he realize...

If Demon of Death’s Dao Resonance could gain enough power to manifest in the Illusion-Reality Domain, then True Knowledge Dao Resonance could obviously as well.

It was just that Li Qi was already accustomed to True Knowledge Dao Resonance being a part of him, so he subconsciously overlooked this situation.

But now, True Knowledge Dao Resonance shot out, telling Li Qi that it was also a tangible Dao Resonance.

"This, this..." Li Qi looked up, stunned to see True Knowledge Dao Resonance continuously expanding.

All things were 'decomposing'.

Yes, all things, including the Spiritual Artifacts Li Qi imagined, other things in the Illusion-Reality Domain, and even that Demon of Death’s Dao Resonance, were all decomposed by the continuously expanding True Knowledge Domain.

But True Knowledge did not absorb them; this was not consumption, but simply decomposition, and then... perceiving their essence.

These essences transformed into pure information, which was then transmitted to Li Qi.

Innumerable pieces of information, far exceeding Li Qi's processing capacity.

However...

Li Qi was not afraid; on the contrary, a huge, peculiar idea popped into his head.

This place was the Illusion-Reality Domain; this was where 'thoughts become reality,' where as long as one's imagination could sustain it, even a Mortal could create a star.

So, he immediately began to imagine.

Imagining his Information Stream Vision processing ability increasing wildly, soaring by ten thousand times!

This did not exceed his imaginative limit.

It's difficult for a person to imagine the answer to a complex math problem or to imagine four-dimensional space, because these things must be understood before they can be imagined.

But, it's hard for a person to train their own muscles, yet it's not difficult to imagine being a muscular man; muscles are a stack of quantity, and quantity... is not difficult at all in the face of imagination.

No, perhaps super large numbers like Graham's number, Asankhyeya, or Mersenne primes are difficult to imagine, but ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times, almost any educated person can imagine it.

And so...

Li Qi's information processing capacity began to increase rapidly.

True Knowledge Dao Resonance was still expanding, seemingly without limit, and soon, all lives adventuring within the Illusion-Reality Domain perceived a strong decomposing and scanning field approaching them.

This field had no destructive power or hostility; it merely swept by indifferently, replicating all 'inherent properties' into an Information Stream and then transmitting it to a certain existence.

So-called inherent properties are the fundamental qualities of things, for example, electrons, photons, or neutrons; their mass, charge, and spin all have definite values, and if these change, they are no longer electrons, photons, or neutrons.

Inherent properties are the most fundamental qualities of things, the root of things.

And all of this was completely investigated by True Knowledge Dao Resonance, then transmitted to Li Qi without reservation.

On Li Qi's side, he already felt one head was not enough.

Even if his information processing ability had increased a hundred thousandfold, as True Knowledge Dao Resonance expanded, the amount of information continued to climb.

But it didn't matter.

This was the Illusion-Reality Domain; if a hundred thousand times wasn't enough, then it would be a million times, ten million times.

Magnitude growth was irrelevant to imagination.

For imagination, the hardest part is going from 0 to 1.

As for how many zeros follow 1, it doesn't matter; there's no difference until a certain magnitude is reached.

For example, with Graham's number, the trailing digits are almost impossible to count; using all the atoms in a 90-billion-light-year Universe to write it, with each atom writing a hundred digits, even using them all up, you wouldn't finish writing the fifth layer of Graham's number's exponential tower.

And Graham's number has 7,625,579,484,987 layers of exponential towers.

This kind of magnitude truly requires imagination.

Clearly, Li Qi could not possibly reach that magnitude.

What he was using now, things like tens of millions of times, hundreds of millions of times, didn't require imagination at all; he could fully understand it and even achieve it personally through accumulated time and persistent effort.

But now, he didn't need persistent effort.

He only needed 'thoughts to become reality.'

In the Illusion-Reality Domain, all imagination would turn into reality; for a Fifth Grade like Li Qi, who could completely control his own thoughts, he could become incredibly strong here.

Thus, his thoughts continuously expanded, his information processing ability continuously grew, just like a 610 graphics card upgrading to a 4090ti.

Knowledge and information have an 'emergence effect'.

When a person's knowledge accumulates on a large scale, after reaching a certain level, "emergence" will occur.

It's like some people spend a long time learning knowledge but don't achieve great success, their spoken language is still halting, but one day, there will suddenly be a Breakthrough, and they become able to converse fluently.

Because if you learn 1 and 2, you can form the two numbers 12 and 21, as well as some variations.

But if you learn the ten digits from 0 to 9, you can combine them to form all numbers, and there will be no more limitations.

Even though only eight more digits were added, the resulting combinations increased infinitely; this qualitative change brought about by quantitative change is 'emergence.'

Generally speaking, it is also called 'filling in the last piece of the puzzle.'

Currently, Li Qi was experiencing this 'emergence.'

The improvement in information processing ability, coupled with the continuous expansion of True Knowledge Dao Resonance, caused countless pieces of information to flood into his mind; most of it was very ordinary information, such as information about other people, other items, and so on, but... there was something different.

For example, the information of Demon of Death’s Dao Resonance.

And for example, the Heavenly Demon’s Dao Resonance that currently formed this extraterrestrial marvel, the Illusion-Reality Domain, as well as the Spirit Dao Dao itself.

Under the blessing of the Illusion-Reality Domain itself, True Knowledge Dao Resonance quickly expanded to be as large as the entire Illusion-Reality Domain.

In other words, everything, all things within the Illusion-Reality Domain, were encompassed in Li Qi's mind.

Normally, he would have been directly overwhelmed and died.

But he had already expanded his thinking ability hundreds of millions of times through imagination, and these Information Streams flowed completely into Li Qi's brain.

Thus, in that instant...

Li Qi felt that his mind, after fully encompassing the Illusion-Reality Domain, produced a sense of 'Ascension.'

His spirit seemed to have reached a brand new level.

The previously lifeless Spirit Dao Dao Resonance, after completing all the details and even fully deciphering the entire Illusion-Reality Domain, 'death' turned into 'life'.

At this moment, Li Qi suddenly heard someone speaking to him.

"Ah... an unexpected young man, you've done very well, but... you cheated, which doesn't meet my requirements."

"Requirements?" Li Qi was stunned.

But the other party did not answer Li Qi's words, but continued: "However... after all, the requirements have been met. Although it differs from my original purpose, I can't just leave it alone. Young man, would you like to come up for a talk?"

"Come up? Where to?" Li Qi still couldn't understand.

But he understood one thing.

The Illusion-Reality Domain... was alive.

Here, that Spirit Dao Dao Resonance was not unowned; it was just placed there normally. The truly unowned one was only that Heavenly Demon’s Dao Resonance.

"Of course, come up to—the real world, would you like to?"

The real world?

What a boastful tone, now he had to see it for himself.

Although Li Qi still didn't know what was going on, he could generally guess that the Illusion-Reality Domain was likely a screening mechanism, similar to a fortuitous encounter ruin.

But this screening mechanism had been triggered by him, and now the other party seemed to feel bad and was preparing to invite him.

Which Great Power was this?

Li Qi was curious, but he knew he had the Shaman God's gaze, so he wasn't panicked; he firmly believed that no one could control his destiny now.

So, Li Qi nodded: "It would be disrespectful not to comply, please Senior—"

Before he could finish speaking, Li Qi felt his spirit detach from his physical body.

Not a low-level method like Soul Emergence.

But rather... pure spirit, separated.

Pure spirit had previously existed in Li Qi's conjectures as two distinct entities of himself, namely the material entity and the spiritual entity, both coexisting, thereby giving birth to Li Qi's 'I.'

In other words, the interaction of these two was the 'cause' of Li Qi's birth.

But now, one cause had been extracted; Li Qi's spirit, his true pure spirit, not a Spirit Soul or any other special material existence, but simply 'spirit,' was extracted from matter.

But Li Qi could still feel that his consciousness and matter had a certain connection, but it was only a certain connection; the two were no longer one.

Thus, he saw a brand new world.

A world composed purely of Information Stream.

This world had an extremely close connection with the external material world, yet it existed independently.

Here, Li Qi saw countless 'projections'.

Those were the projections of matter in this place.

The projection of a certain life form, a certain world, a certain race, a certain city, a certain stone, a certain river, a certain mountain in this world; through a concept Li Qi couldn't understand, these Information Streams arrived here, projecting into this world of information. These pieces of information could directly point to the location of a certain item in the Universe.

Similarly, the Information Stream pointing to Li Qi also existed here; if the Information Stream here were modified, it could even cause corresponding changes in Li Qi's material body.

It was like modifying the 'code' of the 'Li Qi' entity.

That's right, this analogy is very fitting: it's 'code.'

The material world is the graphical interface, and this place is the code layer; the two are closely related yet inseparable.

Then... if one were to be shallow about it? Could it be considered that this is 'Dao'?

Li Qi had previously undergone the torment of Five Aggregates Demonic Blood, and had already recognized the difference between the five aggregates and information, and also knew that information was the essence of perception.

Therefore, when he truly received these Information Streams, he was not flustered, but quickly processed them, and then began to discern the surrounding scene.

He quickly discovered that the scene formed by the Information Stream here was the area where his material body was located.

In other words, in terms of Information Stream, this place was a replica of the material world, completely identical, except... there was no matter here, only information.

But then... what was the difference between information and matter?

Li Qi didn't know for now; he only understood that in this purely spiritual, information-only world, as long as one used Information Stream Vision, or rather... the Spirit Dao's Dao Principle reader, there was actually no difference from the material world.

The spiritual world itself was two sides of the same coin as the material world.

Spirit and matter were inherently interdependent.

As Li Qi was contemplating these things, a vortex appeared before his eyes.

A vortex of Information Stream that Li Qi couldn't comprehend appeared before him.

Li Qi was very familiar with this vortex; True Knowledge Dao Resonance had read it before. This was the Spirit Dao Dao Resonance that formed the Illusion-Reality Domain.

To say it that way is a bit inaccurate... it should be said that that Spirit Dao Dao Resonance was merely an insignificant small part of the other party's body.

"I... I heard that the Spirit Dao Great Power here had fallen." Li Qi looked at the other party, somewhat curious.

Didn't they say he was dead? Why could he still be seen?

"Indeed, he has fallen, but I have no relation to him. I am merely here to continue this unfinished business, after all... dancing with the Heavenly Demon is very dangerous, and not everyone can succeed; one can only slowly pass the torch." The vortex transmitted a clear message to Li Qi.

"So... this is?" Li Qi looked around. What exactly was the Illusion-Reality Domain? What mechanism did he trigger to be able to face this Spirit Dao Great Power?

By the way, what Grade was the other party?

"I am Second Grade. As for why you came here, it's because of your Dao Resonance; it's truly formidable... unfortunately, it's not yours, and it doesn't meet our requirements," the Spirit Dao Second Grade said.

"Doesn't meet your requirements?" Li Qi tilted his head, somewhat puzzled.

The Spirit Dao Second Grade appeared very amiable and easy to talk to; he calmly said, "Mm, this Illusion-Reality Domain itself is used to find things that even we have never imagined. The so-called 'thoughts become reality' is to use information and imagination, with the power of Heavenly Demon’s Dao Resonance, to turn it into reality and make it a part of us. Perhaps this can achieve a First Grade opportunity for the Spirit Dao."

"We found something we had never imagined before, which is your Dao Resonance, but... this is meaningless. Your Dao Resonance has no replicability and cannot become an opportunity, but since you completed the challenge here, we should always meet you."

Li Qi understood; the Illusion-Reality Domain... so that was its purpose.

So, he asked, "Then... besides me, have there been others who completed 'things never imagined'?"

"Yes." The other party answered frankly. (End of Chapter)