Chapter 697: So beautiful

From Li Qi's perspective, a full forty thousand years had passed.

Forty millennia had gone by; he sat alone, desolate, in the same spot, constantly attempting possibilities.

Failure, failure, and more failure.

Endless failure.

However, unexpectedly, Li Qi's spirit was not disheartened or stressed by this solitude and failure.

He felt… joy?

He reveled in it.

Failure was not terrifying, or rather, success or failure wasn't that important; what was important was that, in such a busy life, there was finally a period of time for Li Qi to sit down properly and consolidate his thoughts, knowledge, and experiences.

Li Qi had always been a very diligent person; from the day he began his cultivation, he ceaselessly read books, using various methods, and then traveled to other places to gain experience and broaden his horizons.

All of this had accumulated in Li Qi's mind, like a mountain of building Materials.

But Li Qi's life was simply too short; he had lived too little, and encountered too many things, so much so that he didn't have enough leisure to organize these building Materials.

He had also thought about taking time for secluded cultivation, but time in the Reality Universe was too precious; the Human-Shaman War's duration was unknown, and even now, the Rabbit was in a life-and-death struggle with humanity, deeply entrenched in a battlefield with no end in sight.

All of these things required Li Qi's attention; he couldn't possibly abandon everything to go into seclusion and organize; his original plan was to take his time after the Human-Shaman War ended.

But now, he had a lot of extra time out of nowhere.

Here, Li Qi didn't need to worry about external matters; he would enter and exit in the same state, and all expenses would be borne by Zhu Fengdan alone.

He finally had enough leisure to personally transport, compare, design, and then draw a blueprint for a magnificent edifice from all that he had accumulated in his cultivation, then painstakingly build it piece by piece.

This process required no concern for external matters, no consideration for anything else; there was only self-improvement, and nothing more.

Although this might have some side effects, such as… it was essentially completely building a cart behind closed doors; whether it was built well or not depended entirely on himself, and another way of saying not being interfered by the outside world was not being able to accept external help.

If he made a mistake, it would be a major issue leading to the severance of his Dao; even if the mistake wasn't big, once the edifice was built, changing it would mean tearing it down and starting over, at which point he could only commit suicide and reincarnate.

The old Li Qi would have been absolutely cautious and meticulous, never daring to do such a risky thing.

But now…

How to put it?

This was probably the 'spirit' that Teacher Zhu spoke of.

Just like the Demonic Prince's absolute self-confidence, he firmly believed that he simply couldn't lose; this confidence was unreasonable, everyone knew there was always someone better.

But if it's unreasonable, then so be it; I just did it, and the person better than me hasn't appeared yet, hopefully he will come later.

This spirit prompted Li Qi to make such a decision.

His knowledge was already sufficient, his accumulation was already complete; given time, the Fourth Rank was within reach; he would not be wrong, and could not be wrong.

Even if he failed, it didn't matter; sometimes, even if he succeeded, Li Qi would actively tear it down and start over.

What he wanted was not success, but to find a Dao Orthodoxy that aligned with his Dao Heart.

Firstly, whether this Universe is material-first or consciousness-first, it must first exist objectively, not as a subjective thing like 'flowers wither when eyes close, bloom when eyes open'.

But at the same time, one must acknowledge the influence of subjective consciousness on the objective Universe.

After that, it's about the interpretation of the Universe… about the essence of the Universe, for example… is matter composed of particles? Of Qi? Or of strings? And how is it composed? In what form does it exist without loopholes and paradoxes?

These are all urgent problems to be solved.

These answers don't necessarily have to conform to the Reality Universe, but they must be logically self-consistent, capable of self-perpetuation, self-composition, and must also be able to explain various phenomena.

This structure directly determined all of a cultivator's future power.

From this moment on, the cultivator himself would determine his own limits; the Great Dao he constructed would directly become all of his power; he would no longer rely on the Universe's original Great Dao, but on his own Great Dao, and all power would come from within it.

For one person to try and interpret a Universe was truly too difficult.

But this is what the Fourth Rank must do, even if the Fourth Rank doesn't need to achieve complete completeness.

Complete completeness in first-order logic is something utterly indescribable; Li Qi couldn't yet imagine how to achieve it.

But just this… was enough.

He didn't need to be that complete; for the current Li Qi, that was impossible; completely solving completeness in first-order logic meant solving the Barber's Paradox, which was too far away.

All he had to do was describe his own theory of everything.

Another five millennia passed.

Li Qi was immersed in his construction, completely forgetting everything else.

Because these things were so wonderful; the things he created were so appropriate; he set up a whole set of physical constants, such as the true speed of light in a vacuum and the charge of an electron.

Fine-structure constant, orbital quantum, the rest mass of fundamental Qi, gravity caused by mass, how gravity affects spacetime, how singularities work, and so on and so forth.

These constants were like the 'basic settings' in a game; these settings formed this Universe, and then more things were derived from them.

But if not considered thoroughly enough, many settings piled together would create 'bugs'; these bugs would become your flaws, and might even directly cause the game to crash, which means… the severance of your Dao, or even implosion.

Self-consistency, logical self-consistency, and at the same time, sufficient to interpret the entire reality, capable of explaining all physical phenomena, chemical phenomena, various things, Divine Ability, and principles of technology with the same theory, and there must be no paradoxes between them, and no arbitrary patching.

Patching is possible, but if patches like the cosmological constant are introduced, future repair work will likely be daunting, and ultimately one will only be able to reincarnate.

As the saying goes, 'a miss is as good as a mile'; for these self-consistent constants, adding a '1' after the millionth decimal place of any one of them might cause the entire Universe to collapse.

At the Fifth Rank, there was no need to worry about these things, because the essence of the Fifth Rank's Dao was supported by the Reality Universe; you were utilizing the already quite perfect Dao principles of the Reality Universe to maintain your own operation; if you made a mistake, you just corrected it, just like the path explored by countless Mortals.

But, for the Fourth Rank to want to break free from the influence of the Reality Universe, he must also break free from the support of the Reality Universe.

It's like parents and children.

If a child makes a mistake, parents can help them, help them deal with the consequences of their mistakes; if a theory is wrong, it's wrong, the Reality Universe won't change because of the theory anyway; these solid Dao principles support you, giving you a chance to start over.

But when you grow up, reaching the Fourth Rank… the consequences of your mistakes at this point can only be borne by yourself.

If you are wrong, no Dao principle of the Reality Universe will help you; you have already detached from reality; now… everything depends entirely on you; the 'parallel Universe' you construct will truly undergo drastic changes due to such a theory, and you will have to swallow the bitter fruit of its eventual collapse.

Li Qi took a deep breath.

To construct his own Dao was to prove that there was more than one possibility for the Universe; his Dao was also a part of the Universe, and could even give birth to a brand new Universe.

This was his view, so he didn't need to dwell on the primary nature; he set the primary nature as the Reality Universe.

Keep going.

Fifty-two thousand years had passed, a full fifty-two millennia.

Outside, Zhu Fengdan had already begun to frown.

This time was too, too long, abnormally long; he hadn't spent this much time back then; under normal circumstances, such a promotion wouldn't exceed ten thousand years, because it was a matter of course.

Everything was prepared, and the ideas were refined in advance before one could attempt it.

For promotion, without sufficient accumulation, no one would attempt it, after all, failure meant reincarnation.

So even though forty thousand years had passed in the peculiar cosmic light, he hadn't urged him.

But fifty-two thousand years… this was too, too long, so long that Li Qi might have failed.

Something went wrong inside?

But he couldn't investigate, because when his perception entered, it would interfere with Li Qi; this child was extremely sensitive, he could perceive any disturbance.

Zhu Fengdan maintained an extremely high level of cosmic light distortion, probably reaching a ratio of one to ten thousand, so only five years had passed in reality.

However, for both Zhu Fengdan and Li Qi, both had experienced fifty-two thousand years; Zhu Fengdan could clearly feel the passage of time on Li Qi's side.

This was actually a considerable burden; he was now simultaneously experiencing two different spaces and times; the vastly different speeds of cosmic light at two different stages created enormous paradoxes; the friction between the differential speeds of space-time could shatter a Mortal's mind.

Zhu Fengdan needed to overcome this paradox to continue maintaining Li Qi's acceleration.

Fortunately, he could endure it.

But he didn't know if Li Qi could endure it.

Another millennium passed.

Zhu Fengdan's expression was serious; he was preparing to break in and see.

It had been too, too long; had Li Qi failed? In this situation, it was easy for one's Dao Heart to collapse due to excessive failure.

When you try and try and never succeed, your Dao Heart can easily generate the thought, 'Could it be that I'm wrong?'

Once this thought arises, your subsequent attempts will be very difficult to succeed.

Mortals call this 'losing one's composure', but for cultivators, this is also very common.

If the Dao Heart wavers and no longer believes in its own Dao, all cultivation will become restless, and whatever you do will become more difficult.

Just as Zhu Fengdan was worrying, another millennium passed.

He was ready to forcibly open it.

Li Qi's situation was already severely abnormal; if it continued, his disciple might truly suffer the severance of his Dao.

Thinking this, Zhu Fengdan no longer hesitated and decisively terminated the peculiar cosmic light.

The spherical time dilation gradually disappeared, and the distorted light returned to normal.

Zhu Fengdan felt a harmonious and natural Qi emanating.

The surrounding 'Reality Universe' was naturally repelled, and around Li Qi, a 'parallel Universe' operated steadily, quietly, and slowly.

Within it, the primary nature, causal chains, various physical constants, phenomena, and the Dao built upon 'logic' clearly and lucidly arranged all things.

The Dao tells matter how to move.

The Dao tells space-time how to bend.

The Dao tells chemistry how to react.

The Dao tells all things in this Universe how they should be.

What is Qi like, and why does it have this property? Because the Dao told Qi that you should be like this, so it is like this.

Why is the speed of light 2s? Because this is stipulated by the Dao, this is stipulated by 'speed'; here, it is infinite speed.

Li Qi realized the essence of the 'Fast Universe'.

In fact, the so-called 'Fast Universe' was actually another Dao, a brand new interpretation of the Universe, and this interpretation could also give birth to a 'true Universe'.

With the help of this past knowledge and experience, plus his own thoughts, Li Qi had already interpreted his own Universe, his own Dao.

He was now at the Fourth Rank.

Although he had not yet become 'free and eternal' like the Third Rank, he had already initially broken free from the shackles of reality; his Dao had not yet reached the point of being 'equivalent to reality', but it was already higher than these lower-level substances existing in reality.

Zhu Fengdan clearly saw Li Qi's current state.

Li Qi had already succeeded long ago; he just seemed to still be immersed in this state of Epiphany, as if he was weaving his future path.

Seeing this, Zhu Fengdan walked forward without hesitation and kicked Li Qi over.

Li Qi suddenly woke up!

"Teacher… Teacher, what are you doing!?" Li Qi was annoyed; he was still immersed in the feeling of constructing a Universe; this stage of having ample time for self-reflection was truly too rare.

In Li Qi's short life, he had never had the opportunity to ponder like this.

But Zhu Fengdan gently waved his hand, and Li Qi was directly pulled over, his head grabbed by Zhu Fengdan.

He pressed Li Qi's head and said, "Kid, you're still far from 'reality'; detaching from reality and only constructing your own Universe is seeking death; by what right do you think the 'Dao' you construct can compare to the Reality Universe!?"

"Honestly, you've only taken the first step; from now on, you've embarked on 'your own Dao'; no one knows your future path except yourself, but spirit is confidence, not arrogance."

Zhu Fengdan's sudden reminder completely woke Li Qi from his own Universe.

"...Thank you, Teacher." He took a deep breath, shifting his thoughts from his own Universe back to the Reality Universe.

At this moment, Li Qi suddenly froze.

After distorting space-time, sealing off the outside world, and then constructing his own Universe…

He experienced the Reality Universe again.

So beautiful.

This Universe was too beautiful.

Much, much stronger than his own.