Chapter 722: Possibility of the will of martial arts

Inside this world-class giant ship, Li Qi was sitting opposite Shou Yu, whom he had met by chance, discussing some ordinary matters.

It was truly very ordinary; two young Geniuses who had only heard of each other's reputations but had never truly met, were exchanging their experiences.

This could be considered a kind of 'frankness', probably just the two sides exchanging their foundations and what they were currently doing.

Li Qi did not hide that he was on vacation and thinking about things, and also told stories of his interactions with the Demonic Prince, Yao Ji, Zhang Zong, Liu Junyi, and others.

Correspondingly, he also learned about what Shou Yu had encountered over the years.

After being defeated by the Demonic Prince, his Overlord Dao Foundation completely shattered.

In this Universe, there could only be one Overlord Dao Foundation; once two or more appeared, defeating the others would become something all Overlord Dao Foundation holders had to do.

Therefore, he lost.

Along with the shattering of his Dao foundation, his Martial Dao Divine Intent also shattered.

It might have been a coincidence, but as a Martial Artist, Shou Yu's goal for himself was 'Invincible within a Hundred Miles'.

Within a hundred miles, there would be no opponent, and everything would be defeated by him.

Of course, this was just a goal, his 'future', and what he had to do currently was to at least defeat anyone who opposed him within a hundred miles.

Yes, anyone.

Shou Yu was even more arrogant than the Demonic Prince.

The Demonic Prince pursued invincibility at the same level, hoping that under any circumstances, regardless of whether the Demonic Prince's state was good or bad, and no matter what the opponent was skilled at, he would be able to defeat opponents of the same level, and he indeed achieved this.

This was at least understandable; it was not strange to achieve invincibility at the same level with effort.

But Shou Yu's approach...

As long as someone was his enemy, even if their Grade was higher than his, Shou Yu would still defeat them.

Isn't it just challenging a higher level? Just fight.

And Shou Yu had always done this; when he was unranked, he fought Ninth Grade, when he was Ninth Grade, he fought Eighth Grade, and before his battle with the Demonic Prince at Seventh Grade, he had just crushed two Sixth Grade.

Moreover, it wasn't like Li Qi's cunning tactics or encirclement; his fighting style was head-on, directly smashing the opponent to death.

The grading of Martial Artists is very vague, usually based on combat achievements; if you kill a Sixth Grade, you are Sixth Grade, so at that time, many people thought Shou Yu was already Sixth Grade.

However, Shou Yu himself knew that he was actually no different from when he was Seventh Grade; the reason he won was simply because the opponents were too useless.

This point was also demonstrated in the Demonic Prince's later challenge; the Demonic Prince considered Shou Yu an opponent of the same caliber as himself, of the same level.

At that time, Shou Yu was not like he is now.

Known as the Little Overlord, he was full of vigor and spirit, seemingly about to soar, his Martial Dao Divine Intent establishing an absolute domineering aura, no one dared to challenge him.

After that, it was the battle with the Demonic Prince.

Shou Yu did not describe the specific details of the battle, he skipped over it, but the result was obvious: he lost.

According to Shou Yu himself, after his Dao foundation collapsed, the Demonic Prince did not kill him, but instead said to him: “Very good... this way, I will have confidence against the others.”

With that, he gently placed Shou Yu on the ground, then walked away without looking back.

After that, Shou Yu lay there for seventy years.

For seventy years, he did nothing, letting the dust blown by the wind bury him, lying like a corpse on the ground.

Shou Yu did not say what he was thinking specifically, but Li Qi could imagine it.

But...

While he could imagine, Li Qi found it somewhat incomprehensible.

To Li Qi, failure was completely acceptable; how could anyone be undefeated? Even the Demonic Prince would surely suffer a great loss in the future; pursuing invincibility... that was completely meaningless.

Even if one failed once, what then? What did it matter?

Who dares to claim invincibility? Who dares to speak of being undefeated? Those who speak of being undefeated will eventually be slapped in the face; there are always people beyond people, and heavens beyond heavens, someone will always come to deal with you; don't think the Demonic Prince is so arrogant now, he will surely be slapped in the face eventually.

No one will deal with you if you are at Fifth Grade, but when you reach Fourth Grade, you will face the monsters of Fourth Grade.

When you reach Third Grade, you will face the people of Third Grade; Third Grade existences cannot even be described as monsters, and finally, there are even Second Grade and First Grade.

You wouldn't be thinking of saying that even after ascending to First Grade, you would still be invincible at that level, would you?

You're joking, you might not even make it to Third Grade.

So, the pursuit of invincibility itself is just a meaningless act; in Li Qi's eyes, it has no meaning for cultivation, after all, cultivation itself is not for becoming stronger.

Becoming stronger is merely a side effect of pursuing the Dao.

Thus, Li Qi raised his question here: “Is invincibility... that important?”

“For you, it's not important, because failure is also part of your world; what you fear is not failure,” Shou Yu said, “But don't you also have things you fear? For example, discovering that you are wrong?”

“To know one's mistakes and be able to correct them is the greatest good. What is there to fear?” Li Qi asked, puzzled, “If it's wrong, then it means there's a correct path, isn't that a great thing?”

“That's easy to say, but that only applies to minor errors, doesn't it? If your very concept is wrong, can you still be so calm?” Shou Yu said.

If the statement “discovering one's mistakes means there's a correct path” was wrong, then how would Li Qi handle himself?

To be honest, Li Qi had indeed considered this question, and he also had his own answer, which was 'self-evident'; these things themselves did not need to be proven, presuming their actual existence was enough; these common senses were self-evident, and should be accepted without proof; to question this was purely self-inflicted trouble.

All tall buildings must be built on a foundation, and this foundation, in fact, needs to be established by oneself.

However, for Shou Yu, as a Martial Artist, to utter such words truly surprised Li Qi.

Thus, Li Qi replied: “If even the most fundamental cornerstone does not exist, then everything else ceases to exist. That is something the ultimate Dao seeks to pursue. Let us remain more grounded.”

“Therefore, my invincibility is also grounded,” Shou Yu said to Li Qi, “Do you understand?”

Li Qi was first stunned upon hearing this, then immediately understood, and suddenly realized.

Haha, how clever.

Since Li Qi could set up an 'axiom' as his foundation, and this axiom itself did not need to be questioned, then Shou Yu, as a Martial Artist, was also the same.

Invincibility was his axiom.

After that, all his power was derived from this axiom.

“It's just, isn't this too subjective?” Li Qi continued to ask curiously, “If so, wouldn't your method of constructing a Dao foundation in such an arbitrary manner be too precarious?”

“Being too objective means there's no end, just like the Dao of Reason; they directly gave up pursuing the ultimate Dao because they were too objective, thus losing the ability to continue their pursuit. If you keep asking 'why', eventually there will be a 'why' that you can't answer.” Shou Yu said, but at this point, he interrupted the discussion and suddenly said, “Oh, by the way, after so many years outside the domain, I haven't had any wine from this Universe. Do you have any wine with you?”

“I do have some, but I can't take it out right now. My Inner World is Sealed, so I can't retrieve anything temporarily,” Li Qi said.

Shou Yu seemed to shake his head with some regret: “Then so be it. Let's continue then, and see if we can find the answers we seek in each other.”

“Good, then let's continue.” Li Qi nodded: “We were just talking about the instability of an overly subjective Dao foundation. How do you resolve that problem?”

“There's nothing to resolve. Divine Intent is Divine Intent. When the mind and will reach it, it simply is. Why care about anything else? All this probing and searching, all that's sought is peace of mind. Your peace of mind lies externally; you feel joy when you understand the outside world. Martial Artists don't like to think so much. No matter what the outside world is like, I'll just punch it. As long as I understand myself enough, that's sufficient. It's that simple.” Shou Yu replied.

This made Li Qi nod slightly, seeming to understand a thing or two.

Although the two had met for the first time, their conversation was simple, their purpose pure, requiring almost no excessive pleasantries or probing, and the topic directly entered the point where both needed it.

This feeling made Li Qi very comfortable; communicating with Mortals always involved various doubts and probes. Their need for 'survival' was too great, and their need for 'Dao' was too small, so they were always suspicious.

But talking to people of the Universe was much more straightforward and comforting.

This kind of exchange lasted for about a day and a night.

Through this exchange, Li Qi was able to re-understand 'Martial Dao'.

Of course, not the entire Martial Dao, but the Martial Dao of the Little Overlord Shou Yu, which is where his Dao foundation came from.

He benefited greatly from the day and night of discussion.

The core essence of Martial Dao is 'conquest', which is also the original intention of Martial Dao; no matter for what reason, Martial Dao is ultimately born for battle.

Then, for the sake of battle, there will be many branches, such as understanding the enemy, or understanding oneself.

If you try to understand the enemy, you will never finish; how many kinds of enemies are there in all the Universes? How many kinds can you understand? Can you do it like Li Qi, reading extensively and studying all the Daos?

Certainly not; Li Qi himself couldn't do it, and he wouldn't dare to say that he understood all enemies; he still needed to learn slowly.

Therefore, instead of learning the enemy's strength, it's better to focus on oneself and make oneself 'invincible'; no matter what type of enemy, one can break through them, isn't that enough? How simple that is.

As for whether it can be achieved, that depends on 'Divine Intent'.

Therefore, focusing on one's subjective will and then twisting objective matter, this is Martial Dao Divine Intent.

Shou Yu's Martial Dao uses Martial Dao Inner Qi to influence objective matter and Martial Dao Divine Intent to influence subjective spirit, working in tandem, thereby completely ignoring all weaknesses and maximizing his destructive power.

So when his Dao foundation collapsed, his degree of interference diminished greatly, because he could no longer maintain his 'self-hypnosis-like' state of invincibility.

It might sound unpleasant, but Li Qi just felt that the so-called Martial Dao Divine Intent was 'self-hypnosis'.

Although this self-hypnosis could actually be very terrifying.

After thinking about it, Li Qi believed that he probably could never master this kind of power.

After all, this was completely not his Dao.

From the very beginning, Li Qi could not 'believe himself invincible' to construct his Dao foundation; although Li Qi would also construct a system similar to 'axioms' to support his various inferences and logic, these axioms were also built upon universal phenomena in objective reality, rather than subjective judgments.

Ultimately, he simply could not accept such an ethereal Dao Heart.

However, the Demonic Dao, Martial Dao, or Spirit Dao were very willing, and they also achieved it.

This exchange made Li Qi realize something he had previously overlooked.

The essence of Martial Dao Divine Intent is the subjectivity of the Universe.

This is undeniable; while this Universe itself possesses objectivity, it can also be twisted by subjective will, at least according to current observations.

When Li Qi was constructing the Universe, when he created parallel Universes with Fourth Grade Dao principles, using the Reality Universe as a template, he had already noticed this, but he couldn't explain it.

Li Qi couldn't explain it, and it was hard to explain.

Why?

Objectively real matter should be undeniably certain, yet it could be twisted by ethereal 'intentions'.

It was like the first appearance of the 'observer effect', where observation itself causes disturbance to the material reality.

He could, of course, forcibly interpret 'intent' as some kind of objective matter, for example, by understanding spiritual energy as a type of spell, forcibly classifying it within objective materialism.

But that clearly did not align with Li Qi's observations, because he was very certain that True Knowledge Dao Resonance saw it as an ethereal intention, and nothing else; it was not matter influencing matter, but spirit influencing matter.

It was simply incredible, too contradictory! So contradictory that Li Qi's cultivation was even on the verge of self-destruction.

And there was one answer that could resolve this contradiction.

That is... there was no objectivity to begin with, and everything was 'absolute subjectivity', meaning, flowers bloom when eyes open, and wither when eyes close.

In other words, it was the Demonic Dao.

But Li Qi was unwilling to accept the Demonic Dao.

He had to find a new answer.

Li Qi only felt his brain aching.

One could only say that he was lucky; he had Sealed his cultivation before, otherwise, he would have exploded, and becoming a Devil would have been absolutely unstoppable.

After discarding these distracting thoughts, Li Qi simply raised his head and said, “Then, your visit to the Illusion-Reality Domain... is it to seek improvement for your Martial Dao Divine Intent within the Illusion-Reality Domain?”

“Yes, but I needed to refuel on the way, so I just randomly picked a Universe. I didn't expect to run into you, what a coincidence.” Shou Yu smiled, admitting this.

That's right, he was here to refuel.

As for the gas station, it was the Advancement Alliance below.

They just happened to run into each other, that's all.