Twelve Daos

When Yaan encountered a third Legacy Rune, he once again attempted to study it first, but didn't waste too much time and gave up after finding nothing one hour later. And so, as with the 2nd Legacy Rune, he released his domain to cover the rune after stepping in as close to the glowing golden symbol as possible. Knowing that his mind would quickly enter a dazed state, he urged his domain to erupt outwards as fast and as far as possible. 

As expected, moments after releasing his domain, the dao waves released by the collapsed Legacy Rune caused Yaan's mind to fall blank and he entered an enlightened daze.

He saw fire, exploding in the night sky. The sun burned in the sky without end or fluctuation, illuminating the day with light. An entire forest set ablaze and spread across dozens of mountains. All sorts of various colour flames erupted in waves from countless different spells. Even simple weapon on weapon collisions caused sparks to fly, igniting nearby flammables…

Other daos, such as the faint quenching of water, and the trembling of the earth beneath his feet, also popped up in these visions. Sometimes, these additional daos just lingered nearby, without really doing anything.

When it came to the first and most prominent dao, however - the dao of fire - the dao itself could actually be seen directly, raging about with a highly destructive explosion. Conversely, this same dao could also be seen lingering within a large camp-fire as a large three-horned beast was cooked until its meat was safe to eat. This was the first feast in a long while for the small, famished tribe.

When Yaan finally came to, his self-control was much better off compared to last time. He could think clearly, but he chose to discard his clarity of mind, sitting down in the lotus position and pondering over all that he had just seen and experienced.

Several hours later, Yaan opened his eyes. As his crimson eyes opened, a faint flash of a terrifically hot flame flared within the depths of his gaze, but it was quickly suppressed and hidden deep down.

"Interesting. That legacy was clearly left behind by someone with a heart of fire. They valued the dao of fire so highly that they basically disregarded everything else. Their dao heart was a heart of fire; even when they studied the Heavenly Dao, they almost only ever sought out its flames. Other daos manifested as supplementary laws to maintain the order within the extremity of their burning dao heart, but this author only intended to leave behind their understanding of flames in their Dao Legacy, no more, no less."

Yaan smiled and slowly shook his head.

"This is essentially the Legacy of an Empyrean, and yet, they saw so much value in the simplicity of a simple, ordinary flame."

Without lingering around any longer, Yaan moved on.

His speed gradually increased as he adapted to this environment, and he was now able to spread his domain out for several hundred miles to assist with his search. Travelling like this did risk bumping into a Legacy Rune and causing it to collapse before he prepared his domain to properly receive it, but there seemed to be many, many books in this place, and Yaan didn't feel like wasting time.

When he found the 4th Legacy Rune, he did exactly as he worried he might - before he even saw it, the edge of his domain made contact with the Legacy Rune, instantly causing it to collapse.

Yaan was already prepared for this, however. He took a step towards the rune as his domain erupted out even further. The dao waves spread away from him as he approached, but he reached the rune almost instantly, and his domain spread out far more rapidly compared to before.

In the end, he still managed to enclose every trace of the complete dao waves within his domain, and those waves lingered within his domain for a good 18 seconds, before dissipating into the golden sea.

"18 seconds again…" Yaan murmured half a day later. "It seems that 18 seconds after a Legacy Rune collapses and the dao waves appear, the dao waves rapidly break down and distort beyond repair; it's not possible to sublimate my Dao Soul under the dao waves for longer than 18 seconds, even if I do manage to improve my domain-encompassing technique. That is, unless I come across a more profound, more powerful, and more durable Legacy Rune!"

Yaan mused to himself as he thought back on the dao imparted from that 4th Legacy Rune.

"Once again, there was a core dao, and 11 supporting daos. In the fire legacy, the dao of fire was the core and made up 99% of the legacy. In this legacy, the dao of beasts was the core, but this only took up around 80% of the legacy! The other 20% included daos that were clearly designed to support the core beast dao, such as the dao of blood, the dao of tyranny, and the dao of devouring…"

Yaan was learning a lot from these legacies - about dao, about the differences in cultivators' attitudes towards dao in the 1st Origin Era compared to those in the 2nd Origin Eras, but also…about the 1st Origin Era itself.

"Every single dao that I have experienced in these legacies, was clearly integral to the dao hearts of the 1st Origin Era cultivators. However, all of these daos were not just comprehended by the legacy creators in their hearts, but also in the world around them…in the Heavenly Dao!"

"The dao of beast does not exist as an earthly dao under the Heavenly Dao in the 2nd Origin Era, but in the 1st Origin Era, it did. The same is true of the dao of tyranny. It's strange…it's almost as if, not only did the 1st Origin Era cultivators comprehend the daos under the Heavenly Dao…but the Heavenly Dao also comprehended the daos attained by those cultivators! This suggests that in the 1st Origin Era, the Heavenly Dao really was just a newborn entity, born without prejudice or knowledge. It had to learn from the world, during a period when the world was continually changing…

It wasn't just this that Yaan found intriguing, but before coming to any conclusions, he decided to continue seeking out more Legacy Runes.

The 6th Legacy Rune…

The 7th…

The 8th…

The 9th…

The 10th!

In a single month, he encountered ten Legacy Runes, and benefited from the sublimation of his Dao Soul ten times now.

Ten times, he had felt the differences between dao of the 1st Origin Era, and the dao of the 2nd Origin Era.

Ten times, he observed the changes in how the daos manifested under the transformed Heavenly Dao.

Ten times, he experienced the same thing…meaning that he could no longer dismiss it as a coincidence.

"In every single Legacy Rune, there is a core dao, and 11 supporting daos, a total of 12 daos. In some of the Legacy Runes, the core dao takes absolute precedence, to the extent that in the Legacy Rune just now, I couldn't even discern what the supporting daos actually were…but they were definitely there. However, other Legacy Runes gave greater importance to the 11 supporting daos, especially that 9th rune; the core dao only took up 12%, the other supporting daos all made up around 8% of the total Legacy each! And then there was the 6th Legacy Rune, where the major dao made up 60% of the legacy, one of the supporting daos took up 30%, leaving just 1% for each of the remaining ten supporting daos…"

As Yaan pondered this matter, more and more, he felt that it was quite bizarre.

How come every single Legacy Rune contained the mysteries of exactly 12 daos? Why was it that some of the Legacy creators valued those supporting daos and treated them as important supplements to their Dao Legacy, but others were reluctant to leave behind even a trace of their supporting daos…?

"I don't think this was caused by the Origin's transformation to a new Era; these Legacy Runes are just Dao Legacy Texts that were by chance transformed into these unique dao sublimation legacies. The content within the legacies shouldn't have changed much at all. The only changes won't affect the daos passed down in the legacies anyway - there are now dao changes caused by the Heavenly Dao and the Origin cycling from the 1st through to the 2nd Origin Era, but that's about it." Yaan thought aloud.

After a while, his eyes shone with a fascinated light.

"Then the matter of 12 daos - 1 major dao and 11 supporting daos - is related to the cultivation of the 1st Origin Era? Could it be that to progress past a certain point in their cultivation, the 1st Origin Era cultivators needed to integrate a core dao and 11 supporting daos into their cultivation bases and paths? This…is very different compared to the systems found in the 2nd Origin Era! In the 2nd Origin Era, whilst dao is obviously connected to cultivation, our dao comprehension and the dao heart isn't so inseparably integrated into our cultivation bases like that!"

Yaan felt thoughtful as he realised something.

"In fact, the dao heart is almost unrelated to the 'cultivation paths' of the 2nd Origin Era. Until a cultivator is looking to ascend from the Ancient Immortal Realm to the Dao Immortal Realm, the dao heart has nothing to do with cultivation progression, not directly at least. And even then, gaining an immortal stage dao heart is just a requirement to gain eternal longevity in the heart, that's all. Hmm, but I suppose at the Divine Step, attaining a completed, divine stage dao heart, is indeed integral to our cultivation…"

Yaan suddenly stopped and his eyes widened. In a single instant, it hit him.

"In the 1st Origin Era, the Heavenly Dao did not separate dao from cultivation, simply because it didn't know any better. Dao comprehension, the dao heart, and one's cultivation base, were all completely intertwined, fused into one path! The Heavenly Dao learned from its mistake and separated dao from cultivation in the 2nd Origin Era, to the best of its abilities at least…but even the Heavenly Dao could not halt the natural path of a cultivator with a completed dao heart! When a cultivator ascends their dao heart to this point, they absorb the so called 'Divine Essence' from the world, and I'm fairly confident that 'Divine Essence' is actually some sort of power that we absorb directly from the Origin itself! Developing a true Divine Power is a form of natural, unobstructed cultivation progression, similar to the sort of natural cultivation that was around during the 1st Origin Era!"

Soon enough, Yaan, feeling better and better about his excursion to the Boundless Dao Library, set off once again. 

"Even so, I wonder why it is always 12 daos? Why 12, why that number, is there a reason, or is it just arbitrary? Hmm, since it really does feel somewhat arbitrary, this might be thanks to the Heavenly Dao, for whatever reason. The Heavenly Dao didn't separate dao, heart and cultivation in the 1st Origin Era, but I'm sure that it interfered in some way. If I could find a Legacy Rune with a different number of daos, that might help develop my understanding…"

Yaan was eager to learn more about this, but at the same time, he still felt like there must be something else in this library that he was yet to find. The Legacy Runes were a huge help to him, but it wasn't enough to prompt the Heavenly Dao into being so reckless, surely?

Yaan found another Legacy Rune, and another, and another…

He found a Legacy rune every 1-5 days, and even after crushing five more of these unique runes, his rate of discovery remained unchanged. Either he was getting supremely lucky, or there were simply far too many surviving Legacy Runes floating through this enormous golden sea.

When Yaan found the 16th Legacy Rune, he immediately felt like something was different. This rune emanated a more imposing, transcendent pressure compared to the previous 15 runes, but it wasn't because the legacy creator had surpassed the realm of a completed dao heart.

No, like all the other Legacy Runes in this place, this one was clearly created by a cultivator with a completed, divine stage dao heart. However, as Yaan examined closely, he realised that the will imbued into this rune was deeper, filled with more confidence, and even bordering on arrogance.

Like always, just studying from afar wasn't all that helpful. And so, he released his domain and focussed on suppressing the explosion of dao waves under the power of fate, illusions and paintings within his domain. This was only slightly effective, giving him perhaps an extra half-second to expand his domain further. The more space around the Legacy Rune that was shrouded in his domain, the easier it would be to absorb all of its complex teachings from the unstable dao waves.

The collapse of this brighter Legacy Rune was more sudden and the dao waves were thicker. Everything swept outwards at a much faster speed when compared to the dao waves released from the previous Legacy Runes.

Thankfully, with Yaan's improvements over the past few weeks, he was able to expand his domain to such an extent that even these rapidly rippling dao waves remained intact for the entire time they spent within his domain. The dao waves started to collapse after approaching very close to the edge of his domain. It was a close call this time, but regardless, he managed to avoid wasting any of the dao legacy from this clearly higher level Legacy Rune.

The dao waves spread out for 18 seconds from the collapsed rune, before they too collapsed into distorted fragments of incomprehensible dao enlightenments. At this point, the useless fragments fused with the golden sea and quickly vanished from Yaan's sight.

He spent a full day meditating as he pondered over this Legacy Rune. 

Its more eye-catching appearance, its superior aura, the sense of confidence and self-assuredness that he felt emanating from the Legacy Rune itself - these things were no doubt aspects of its creator's dao heart…

And then, his Dao Soul was sublimated under the thick dao waves, once again for 18 seconds. It seemed that even more powerful Legacy Runes could only produce dao waves with an 18-second longevity. Of course. those dao waves were thicker, more imposing, and spread out much faster.

When containing everything within an Absolute Domain, however, none of that mattered. Yaan's understanding of this Legacy Rune was no lesser than the previous ones. However, he did spend longer in contemplation, firstly because there was more to digest, and secondly…because he needed some time to mull over a certain feeling he had.

Finally, Yaan opened his eyes with a smile.

"I'm sure of it now - that was indeed another Legacy Rune, but it was't formed from 12 cultivated daos like the others…but from 13 cultivated daos!"