Legacy Runes

For a long time after entering the Boundless Dao Library, Yaan didn't open his eyes, nor did he even move. Forcing his way past the collision between Defiance and the Heavenly Dao left him with serious injuries that he needed to tend to before anything else, or else his Dao Soul would be at risk of collapsing at any moment.

After he felt confident that his injuries were no longer critically endangering his life, he finally opened his eyes and looked around.

When Yaan opened his eyes, his vision was hazy, and for a moment, all that he could see was an all-encompassing golden light. After blinking a few times, he gradually adjusted to the intensity of this light, and his surroundings slowly came into focus.

His body felt weightless, and indeed, he found himself floating aimlessly through a golden world with no beginning nor end in sight. For as far as the eye could see, waves of golden space rumbled across the world. At first, the thick distortions of golden space made it difficult to see beyond a few feet, but after spending several hours getting used to this unusual environment, Yaan's eyes, when paired with Reveal Truth, pierced through dozens of miles of these golden waves.

The golden waves were extremely strange, it was as if they were formed by ancient aura, but also the fabric of space in this place itself. Yaan could feel a strange, confused mess of dao within the golden waves, but interestingly, the Heavenly Dao was completely absent from this world of gold.

"How exactly is this a library?" Yaan muttered to himself as he flew through the golden ocean cautiously and looked around. He had been flying for several hours now, but he was yet to see anything other than golden wave after golden wave.

"I suppose originally, this place really was a library, but after being transformed by the Origin, it became…this."

After flying for a full day and encountering nothing whatsoever, Yaan decided to increase his speed.

As he flew, his speed of movement steadily increased, as did the distance that he could see. The increase in both of these aspects would hopefully allow him to find something eventually.

It was difficult to estimate just how much time had passed by in this place. Although Yaan could still feel the existence of his cultivation base clone, the connection of consciousness was blurry, so he wasn't sure what was going on in the outside world, and neither did the cultivation base clone know what he had encountered beyond the giant doors. Even so, Yaan wasn't worried – he felt that so long as he put in a bit of effort, he should be able to leave this golden world by walking along the chain of fate to his cultivation base clone.

By now, Yaan was flying at the fastest speed that he could maintain for a long period of time. He didn't want to exhaust himself, since he didn't know what he would encounter in here, and what dangers might be lurking out of sight.

"The Heavenly Dao was so determined to keep me out of this place that it nearly destroyed its own balance and tore the world apart to do so. There must be something here that- hmm?"

Yaan suddenly came to a stop and stared directly ahead. At first, it was so brief that he felt uncertain, but then, it appeared again!

A golden flash of light - brighter and far more splendid than the golden waves throughout this world - came into his vision, before quickly vanishing.

Without hesitation, Yaan shot forwards, instantly reaching the location of the flash of golden light. As soon as he stepped past a certain golden wave, reaching the low point between two waves of golden aura, his eyes widened and he stared up at the peak of the wave ahead.

Previously, the flash of golden light had entered and vanished from his vision twice due to the rising and falling of the waves. Now that he was stood at the bottom of the wave, the golden light glimmered splendidly as it rode the peak of the wave effortlessly.

"Another rune?" Yaan's gaze shone. He took another step, immediately arriving next to the rune at the peak of the wave. He was worried that somehow or other, there would be a trap, or the rune might try to escape, but his concern was for naught – nothing happened. Now, however, he could see the rune clearly.

It was a single rune, similar in size and shape to a book. When he looked closely, Yaan saw that the rune was composed of countless smaller runes.

After a moment of thought, he sat down beside the golden rune, which was akin to a blazing sun in this golden sea. He didn't know what would happen if he touched the rune, so for now, he opted to study it.

Unfortunately, no matter how long he spent examining this rune with Reveal Truth, he couldn't understand what it meant, nor could he understand the meaning of any of the smaller runes. All that he was sure of, was that like the runes lining the doorway, this rune was also a so called 'Dao Rune' from the 1st Origin Era that had undergone some sort of transformation after passing through the Origin into the 2nd Origin Era, resulting in a rune that represented the peak of the 1st and 2nd Origin Eras. Yaan also felt certain that this rune was artificially created, and not something that had naturally formed in the world.

"The reason that I can't understand this rune, is because I don't understand the dao of the 1st Origin Era." Yaan mused. "But that doesn't explain how I was able to read the words 'Boundless Dao Library' on the door outside…"

Yaan had the feeling that the creator of this rune wasn't nearly as powerful when compared to the creator of the runes which lined the doorway, but rather, they were likely more comparable to the Empyreans of the 2nd Origin Era. This conjecture caused him to narrow his eyes as a realisation dawned upon him.

"In the 1st Origin Era, the path of cultivation extended beyond the Divine Step! Or perhaps, cultivation itself was completely different in the 1st Origin Era…regardless, the cultivation of the heart shouldn't be dependant on the cycle of the Origin, meaning that in the 1st Origin Era…there were four steps of dao, not three!"

In the 2nd Origin Era, the dao heart had three stages – mortal, immortal, divine. When one's dao heart transcended beyond the divine stage, they would transcend past the limits of the world and would be forced to leave the Origin.

However, the feeling Yaan got from the rune before him, was that it had been created by someone with a completed dao heart – that is to say, a divine stage dao heart. 

But the runes outside were clearly a level beyond this!

For now, Yaan shook his head and didn't think too deeply into this. If he wanted to learn more about the 1st Origin Era, then exploring this 'library' would be more useful than anything else.

"I have no idea what these runes mean, but the fact that the runes were all artificially created and the overall rune is book-sized, suggests that this was once a book in the library. Apparently, the books in this library were written in Dao Runes! Of course, after going through the Origin, everything has undergone strange transformations. These runes are no longer the Dao Runes of the 1st Origin Era, but unique fusions of the 1st Origin Era's Dao Runes, and the 2nd Origin Era's Divine Runes. Regardless, I don't feel any sort of threat from this rune, so it should be safe to touch."

Since examining it wasn't getting him anywhere, Yaan decided to take the risk and touch it. He also considered touching it with his domain, but honestly, there was no reason to believe that this would be any less dangerous than simply touching it with his hand.

And so, with his guard fully raised, Yaan reached out and touched the golden rune.

Whoosh…

He really didn't expect much to happen, so he was somewhat taken aback when the rune suddenly collapsed without a sound. It broke down into its constituent components of the many smaller runes which made up its total structure, but before long, those small runes also collapsed into a gentle but extremely thick golden wave filled with dao comprehension and enlightenment.

The wave of golden power spread outwards. It was gentle, but extremely fast, reaching Yaan and phasing through his body before he could even react.

He became tense after feeling a strange sensation flush through his Dao Soul itself, as if the distorted pieces of dao were washing his Dao Soul with incoherent musings and broken fragments of enlightenment.

Yaan briefly entered a daze, but he quickly snapped out of it. He felt alarmed that his mind had actually fallen into a dazed state for several seconds, but after examining his condition, he found that he was completely fine.

Yaan's eyes narrowed and he sharpened his gaze, focussing intently on the thick golden dao wave that spread out further. The wave was released in every direction, only around one tenth of it phased through him, the rest spread out further, but quickly faded away as it fused into the lighter golden waves of aura that made up the ocean of gold in this 'library'.

Before long, not a trace of those dao waves could be seen any longer, but Yaan's eyes shone brilliantly as he was struck with a seemingly incomprehensible revelation. 

As he slowly turned around and stared at the golden waves of aura that pervaded every direction for as far as the eye could see, Yaan's eyes widened incredulously.

"These golden waves…could they be the remnants of the dao waves left behind by the books which have long since collapsed?! This…if this really is the case, then it all makes sense now! This library was once filled with countless books written by many powerful beings in the 1st Origin Era, all in the language of Dao Runes. After the destruction of the 1st Origin Era, the library was washed by the Origin and went through a transformation. The books transformed into new runes, each composed of the Dao Runes which the books were written in. Most of those runes could not withstand the transformation and collapsed, causing the library to become eternally filled with these waves of aura, the remnants of the dissipated dao waves. In the end, only the books written by the strongest of authors managed to survive in the form of runes…"

Yaan's eyes shone brilliantly as he realised that this library…might just be the greatest treasure in the 2nd Origin Era!

Most treasures really didn't interest Yaan, but this place was so valuable to him that he could hardly believe his luck!

"The golden aura that fills the library is of no use; the dao comprehension within these waves has long since been diluted and degraded with time, I can't make use of it. As for the 'books', I can't read the language of the 1st Origin Era…no, perhaps nobody can properly understand the meaning behind these runes, since it's an unseen before combination of the peak Origin Runes from two different Eras. However, the dao waves released by the collapsing rune just now…"

Yaan looked around with a newfound sense of excitement.

Just now, he had been caught by surprise, so he didn't make good use of the dao waves. However, when he thought about the feeling just now, when the dao waves passed through his Dao Soul, he understood that those 'dao waves' contained the essence of the dao left behind by the author of the book!

"Dao Runes, huh…runes which embodied the peak of the 1st Origin Era's dao. And Divine Runes…runes which embody the peak of the 2nd Origin Era's dao. I don't know if texts written in Divine Runes exist in the 2nd Origin Era, but clearly, writing a book in Dao Runes was how the powerful beings of the 1st Origin Era passed down their dao legacy via text. Reading such texts would allow someone to muse over the author's understanding of dao. As for these dao waves…they can allow the Dao Soul to be sublimated in the very essence of that dao!"

The more Yaan thought about it, the more his eyes shone with excitement.

Perhaps something like these 'dao waves' were only possible to find in this Boundless Dao Library! If he could find more of these transformed books, he could use his domain to properly comprehend the dao waves, this time, not letting any of the passed down enlightenment escape from him!

Yaan's main priority after reaching the Divine Step was to comprehend his own dao heart to greater heights; only like this could he hope to transcend the Origin and take the next step along his path of cultivation. There were many ways to pursue one's own dao, but the method used by almost all divinities, was to comprehend the dao of others, be that the Heavenly Dao's earthly daos, or the dao legacies passed down in Divine True Inheritances.

Each one of these books was akin to the dao legacy that could be found in a Divine True Inheritance! Perhaps one book wasn't quite as valuable as the dao that was passed down in an intricately built inheritance, but this was a library with an unknown number of books from the 1st Origin Era!

Yaan immediately shot off into the distance, eagerly searching for more of the shining runes, which he decided to call 'Legacy Runes'.

"This is a unique opportunity that I absolutely can't afford to waste. In the outside world, I can pursue my own dao, I can comprehend the Heavenly Dao's earthly daos, and I can try to understand the daos of other cultivators. However, only in here can I comprehend the dao of cultivators from the 1st Origin Era! Not only that, but these texts were transformed by the Origin's cycle of Eras, meaning that each rune should contain the dao of both the 1st and 2nd Origin Eras! And perhaps…there might even be something else to be found within these Legacy Runes that were washed by the Origin itself!"