Chapter 891: Discussion

Realizing how astonishing his Master's actions were, Li Qi immediately chose to contact him.

Fortunately, contact between Sovereigns did not require him to return in person; he could do it while working in the Desire Realm.

He only needed to follow the threads of Karma and lightly touch the other party—

Touch…

The other party.

Wait, no response.

He had indeed found Zhu Fengdan, just as before.

Even when Li Qi was at the fourth or even fifth rank, he could follow the threads of Karma to find people. This was one of his Sovereign traits, and he had even found some Sovereigns before, even foolishly wanting to touch them. (See Chapter 618 for details)

In Li Qi's eyes at that time, he had found some 'monsters', indescribable behemoths. This was actually quite dangerous; if the other party hadn't carefully waved him away, he probably would have died upon contact.

But now, he could contact similar behemoths, and he was even one of them.

He had clearly become a giant gravitational source pulling all things, and he was already crucial in this Universe, no longer the ant that touched monsters along a spider web.

In this situation, Li Qi should have been very noticeable. Zhu Fengdan absolutely could not have failed to notice him.

So what exactly was going on?

Li Qi immediately withdrew the power he was using to operate the Desire Realm, gathered all his thoughts and computing power, retracted his Dharma Body, condensed his power, and in the next moment, disappeared from his original spot, returning to Shaman God Mountain.

On Shaman God Mountain, inside Zhu Fengdan's Immortal Cave, a corpse suddenly opened its eyes.

"Oh, I didn't expect to fall to the point of being worried about by you one day. It's a bit embarrassing," Zhu Fengdan's corpse sat up and then quickly recovered.

For him at this moment, it was not difficult for a body to appear perfect. Even if he declined to the extreme, he could still appear noble in the eyes of Mortals.

"Master, is this why you didn't come over when I advanced? I was wondering, although you're usually unrestrained, you wouldn't be so careless... I didn't expect you to be so badly injured," Li Qi quickly walked over to check Zhu Fengdan's condition.

He didn't even need to use True Knowledge; just a glance was enough for him to perceive his injuries.

"Oh, this is truly... there's even this kind of fighting style, forcibly inserting the Dao Law of humanity, distorting cognition, causing an internal Dao conflict, making it impossible to be self-consistent and leading to an implosion. Isn't this kind of move cheating?" Li Qi exclaimed.

This was indeed cheating.

The power of Sovereigns was almost unsolvable; this was no longer something that could be dealt with on a physical level. Their power was entirely based on their own 'Dao'.

But the problem was, 'Dao' was rooted in their own cognition. Could this cognition be forcibly inserted with other Dao Laws? Was it fake?

If so, wouldn't that mean that a Sovereign's perception of the world could be tampered with?

That's impossible!

Zhu Fengdan shrugged: "It depends on the Dao Orthodoxy. The Demonic Dao and the Spirit Dao don't fall for this. They are immune to any forced tampering because their own independence is relatively high."

"You also have this quality. This is not a weakness for you. Your 'self-possession' is very high."

"But I can't," Zhu Fengdan lazily got up, then thought for a moment, lay back down, and said, "I acknowledge the Reality and self-possession of this Universe, so my thoughts must submit to the self-possession of the Universe. In other words, my thoughts cannot be superior to matter itself. As long as matter is interfered with, my 'Dao' can be interfered with."

Li Qi frowned: "That's not right, is it? Distorting the Universe for—"

"It's matter, not the Universe," Zhu Fengdan interrupted Li Qi faintly. "Calm down, don't be like a fool."

These words made Li Qi take a deep breath.

Then, he suddenly realized what the other party meant.

Matter is not equal to the Universe.

Matter can even be superior to the Universe. Under 'natural', which is what Shaman Dao and humanity consider the world, the existence of matter has infinite, eternal, and absolute properties. These properties are more solid than space-time.

Specifically, the most typical example is the Return Ruin.

The Return Ruin is nothing special; it is simply a large amount of matter condensed together, but its mass alone is enough to distort space-time itself.

In the Shaman's natural world, the unity of this Universe lies in its materiality. Every individual, concrete thing in the world, from vast galaxies and even the true forms of Star Officials, to tiny fundamental particles and Qi, has a beginning and an end, but the entire material world is infinite, eternal, and absolute.

Matter itself has the ability and conditions for continuous transformation. Any individual thing is not generated from "nothing," but is transformed from other things. The demise of things also does not become "nothing," but transforms into other forms of matter.

No method can eliminate matter itself; it only changes the original form or structure of matter.

Even Li Qi changing the entire Universe is like this.

Under the influence of various 'forces,' various 'lights,' various 'Qi,' and many, many patterns of change in the world governed by rules, what is changed is only the way matter operates.

However, matter itself still exists, in various forms.

Even gravitational chemistry is essentially matter.

It's like... spirit.

Li Qi had already seen the world of pure thought. The spirits created by the Spirit Dao have no material existence; it is a completely abstract world that can exist solely by 'ideas'.

And Li Qi just realized that he had actually seen a world of pure matter.

That is the Shaman's 'Inner World'.

The Inner World, which Shamanes have cultivated since the beginning of their practice, contains no spiritual existence. The Inner World is alive, but if viewed apart from the Shaman themselves, this thing is a typical 'dead object'.

In the Inner World, there is no 'advanced intelligence'. If Li Qi wanted to, he could assemble some living creatures, but living creatures do not imply advanced intelligence.

In other words, these creatures cannot appear in a world of pure thought.

Is a world of pure matter, and a world of pure spirit, actually... equivalent in some sense?

But in the Reality Universe, it's different.

In the Reality Universe, spirit and matter are equal.

Just as things in the world are diverse, appearing as if there is a Sovereign, or a creator, or some other 'first cause,' whose will makes the world as it is, but if one seeks the traces of that creator, the result can only be nothing.

Therefore, things create themselves, independent of each other, and all concrete things are self-sufficient, and so are spirit and matter.

"So that's it, I understand. So your Dao, Master, is rooted in the most basic matter, unchanged by physical Laws or cosmic constants. In essence, it's the same as pure thought, but one is based on spirit, deriving matter through spirit, and the other is based on matter, where matter forms spirit."

Li Qi had actually understood the difference for a long time, but only today did he realize that Zhu Fengdan's foundation was like this.

The Spirit Dao or Demonic Dao, these Dao Orthodoxy, believe that all matter is merely a derivative of spirit, that spiritual concepts are eternal and immortal, and that tangible things in Reality are participations in and imitations of these concepts.

Only in pure spirit does a perfect 'Perfection' exist, and all circles and spheres in Reality are essentially clumsy imitations of this abstract 'Perfection', and can never perfectly imitate it, because pi is infinite, while all circles in Reality are finite. The geometric definition of a "circle" is the set of all points equidistant from a fixed point in a plane, but in the Real world, nothing can be made to perfectly conform to the definition of a circle; there are always deviations, and none are perfectly circular. No concrete thing in the Real world conforms to the definition of an abstract concept.

But advanced intelligence can recognize an abstract circle even without ever having 'seen' it.

So, can advanced intelligence recognize things it has never seen? Or... because of the Perfection of spirit, do they naturally, innately, acquire Knowledge about 'abstract' concepts?

From this argumentative perspective, spiritual things are superior to material things, just as an abstract circle is superior to a concrete circle.

Similarly, whether a person is alive, the difference between a living person and a dead person, is not determined by whether the body is alive, but by whether he has a soul, whether he has consciousness. One with a soul is a living person, one without a soul is a dead person.

This soul does not refer to the Spirit Soul; in fact, the Spirit Soul is merely a form of matter. This 'soul' refers to the essence of its thought.

The existence of the soul, a spiritual entity, is more the essence of what makes a human being than the body, a material entity. Therefore, advanced intelligent life, or as Buddhists call them 'sentient beings', are able to have rational understanding of some abstract concepts precisely because they possess this advanced, purer spirit, which transcends matter.

However, this statement is pure nonsense for humans, Shamanes, and demons.

Because spirit itself is part of matter.

Is a world of pure thought not a world?

What does pure spirit depend on for its existence?

All thought itself is material, and so are so-called 'abstract' things. Thought exists because matter exists, and the foundation of thought's existence is because 'matter' exists. Who says 'abstract concepts' are not matter?

They are merely another form of matter, and they follow the same rules. From this perspective, 'matter' is 'existence' itself.

All statements about the existence of the soul—consciousness—are merely names for matter.

One must first 'exist', and then 'perceive'.

Matter itself exists, and then there are so-called norms, time, space, and physical Law.

Physical Law are properties of matter, and also a form of matter's existence. It is not that a Universe first exists, and then there are some physical Law and rules in the Universe, and then matter evolves and develops according to these Law. It is not like that.

Matter exists first, and matter itself includes all of its properties, which is why the Universe is the way it is.

The Universe is not a place that provides space for matter to move; the Universe is matter itself, it is the "reality" produced by all movements that do not depend on external will.

The Universe has and only has one way of existence, which is 'natural'. This natural state is inherently present in the properties of all things.

And the divergence between humans and Shamanes lies in their attitude towards 'natural'.

As for demons, they naturally believe that they are 'natural'; 'demons' are things born from natural itself, which is why 'all things are demons' appeared, and everything can be 'demonized', thereby producing distinctions.

Of course, this debate between matter and spirit is meaningless, and the Great Dao Orthodoxy will not fight over it; at most, they will just curse a few words.

Because everyone knows that before the 'Ultimate Great Dao' is explored, this debate has no result, because the essence has been studied almost completely. No one can convince anyone else. At least at the current level of cultivation Divine Ability and cognition, 'the essence is unknowable' is the actual situation. It is possible that these two are not contradictory, but merely different perspectives for understanding this world.

And 'exploring the essence', which is the process of finding the 'Ultimate Great Dao', is what the current Great Dao Orthodoxy need to do.

However, in a practical sense, this cognition can indeed produce concrete effects, the simplest of which is 'foundation'.

Zhu Fengdan's foundation is rooted in matter itself. Therefore, as long as one can interfere with matter, which is the composition of 'natural', at least formally interfere, one can implant a bomb in his 'Dao' like a virus, directly interfering with the operation of his Dao Orthodoxy.

Theoretically, this method is also applicable in the Demonic Dao, which is commonly used by the Demonic Dao: changing the mind, implanting demonic thoughts, or even replacing your 'thoughts', making you 'think that you think this way'.

And Shaman Dao, which is not afraid of demonic thoughts implantation, is precisely afraid of this material change, just like directly modifying the brain, the organ of thought.

Having figured this out, Li Qi sighed: "Then, it seems there's no solution."

"Isn't the solution very simple? Be careful, cautious, and also guard yourself. At the same time, you can do the same to others, or use a simpler method, which is to beat the opponent to death with brute force," Zhu Fengdan said with a smile.

"Beat to death with brute force? For a Sovereign, can brute force still kill someone?" Li Qi was a little confused.

"Do you know Sovereigns very well?" Zhu Fengdan retorted.

Li Qi was speechless.

"You haven't truly established yourself as a Sovereign yet. There's still a lot to learn. Actually, I really want to tell you the answer directly, but you should also understand that some things cannot be spoken."

"However, as your Master, I can at least tell you now—"

"In the Desire Realm, it's definitely correct."

Li Qi nodded: "I understand."

"If you understand, then scram. You can't cure me anyway," Zhu Fengdan waved impatiently.