Chapter 11

When the old man spoke to this extent, everyone understood what he was trying to say. A broken stele could prop up a Divine Pattern Academy, and now they had such a piece in their hands. The old man's words also carried another layer of meaning, but he did not explicitly state it, nor did he show any hint of blame towards Long Zhaor. An hour later, everyone returned to the meeting hall. The old man had already made it clear that if they did not want to bring about the destruction of their clan, they must keep this secret buried deep in their hearts. He especially glanced at Long Zhaor. "If that poor child really died, I won't punish the living for a dead person I've never met. But I want to see the person alive or the body dead." After saying this, the old man left alone. The old man was going to use his connections to have the Tianzhen Academy fully cooperate in the search for the person. Hero did not know that people outside were already searching the mountains. The misty valley was protected by a magical array, making it impossible for even a powerful psychic to detect its existence. Hero's figure moved forward in the misty array, taking strange steps in all directions. He had already initially understood the theory of the six-door array, but to fully grasp it, he needed to practice and refine it. Now he was using this misty array for experimentation. After a few steps, he broke out in a cold sweat. When he first entered the misty array, he was like a newborn calf unafraid of tigers. If he had taken a few more random steps, he would have been trapped in the array. He knew that this misty array was only at the level for his practice. If it were a real array, he would have been instantly killed with his first random step. This misty array also contained a sword array, which made Hero and Old Turtle extremely excited. Sometimes they would have intense arguments about which step to take next, and in the end, they would take one step after another, as if they were on the brink of death. When Hero appeared in a completely new world, he was thrilled: "Finally, I've escaped that cursed array..." The next moment, he blinked and found himself at the bottom of a sinkhole! Looking at the spirit herbs and medicines covering the bottom of the sinkhole, Hero and Old Turtle drooled like waterfalls. But they did not dare to take a single step out of line, as they had just left the misty array and entered an even more dangerous one. This array had only one straight path leading to a huge ancient building at the end! As soon as they stepped off this ancient brick road, they would immediately be dead with no place to bury their bodies, unless they had a high level of array expertise. "The Hall of Creation?" Hero, with Old Turtle, shouted at the ancient building: "Is there any immortal inside? Is anyone there?" After shouting for a while, he changed his tone: "I'll count to three, and if no one opens the door, I'll kick it open!" "One" As he counted to one, he was about to kick the door, but it suddenly opened. Hero and Old Turtle were startled: "Damn, is there a ghost?" After the door opened, they saw a series of pavilions and jade buildings, but inside, it was so silent that it felt like nothing existed. Old Turtle, who knew everything but was extremely afraid of death, hid in Hero's pocket, only sticking out his head. He felt a ghostly and eerie atmosphere inside, urging Hero to leave quickly. "The brave die of hunger, the cowardly die of overeating. I've already died once, so I'm not afraid of any ghosts." Hero said as he stepped into the Hall of Creation. As soon as he stepped in, he suddenly saw several children scattered around, playing and laughing, while some disciples were drawing strange patterns on the ground, deep in thought. Seeing these patterns, Hero became interested. The disciples were drawing two types of patterns: arrays and emblems! Then he felt his scalp tingle. Before entering, it was clearly dead silent. When Hero came to his senses, there was not a single ghost in sight. No matter how brave Hero was, he subconsciously wanted to retreat. Just as he was about to turn back, he heard Old Turtle instinctively shout: "Don't turn around. The Hall of Creation does not exist in reality. Once you enter, you can only move forward, not backward, or the consequences are unpredictable." "Doesn't exist in reality?" Hero felt like he was seeing a ghost. If it doesn't exist in reality, where does it exist? At that moment, Hero saw children in the courtyard lighting furnaces to refine elixirs, practicing, and discussing the Dao. What is the Dao? Existence is the Dao, the rise and fall of tides is the Dao, the blooming and withering of flowers is the Dao, the rooster's crow at dawn is the Dao. Arrays, talismans, and elixir techniques are the Dao, so what about emblems? Existence is the Dao. Hero seemed to understand something. He didn't know that the Hall of Creation, where he was, was a manifestation of a great Dao, and what he saw was the profound understanding accumulated by powerful beings over thousands or even tens of thousands of years. The books the children were reading were all written in oracle bone script, but they discussed emblems, using emblems to represent the arrays, elixir techniques, and Daoist methods... Hero felt something but gained nothing. With every step, he saw different people from different eras and periods discussing and practicing the Dao in the Hall of Creation. "This should be one of the once-prosperous emblem sanctuaries," Old Turtle said, a bit confused. Hero looked at Old Turtle in surprise. Old Turtle's expression was hazy as he stared ahead, trying to recall something. Then he said to Hero, "The Hall of Creation has been sealed in the Time Exile Zone. The people you see are real, but they are in the past. After being exiled here, all the people and events that existed in the Hall of Creation from its founding to the moment of exile are preserved, eternally intertwined and overlapped in the Time Exile Zone. So, once you enter the Time Exile Zone, you can either move forward or stay, but you must never look back. Once you look back, you will be trapped here forever." Hero was startled by Old Turtle's excessive knowledge and couldn't help but blink and say, "Damn, Old Turtle, you really know everything. But what you know is too much and too strange." Hero felt this was unscientific. The current Old Turtle seemed to have a different brain. Old Turtle, however, was like a possessed person, staring ahead and saying, "Don't ask about me now. You'll know what you want to know as you go. When we enter here, all the time periods before we entered are folded and preserved. I also want to know what's at the end of the Hall of Creation." As Old Turtle spoke, he felt his mind becoming increasingly confused and weak, so he urgently urged, "Quick, keep moving. There's something at the end calling me. Everything I know is sensed from that unknown existence at the end." Urged by Old Turtle, Hero took step after step. The deeper he went, the more the events that had once occurred in the Hall of Creation and were forgotten by time appeared, as if Hero was traveling through different time periods simultaneously! When he reached the peak of a mountain, he looked down as if he could see the entire world. The mountain was so high that it almost made Hero's legs weak! In front of him, a person with his back to the world was looking at a huge stele at the horizon. The stele read: "The heavens and earth may change, but the Dao remains eternal. The heavens, earth, and humans follow the Dao, and I am the Dao. Through the cycles of time, the great Dao continues, boundless and ever-renewing, formless yet vast." In that instant, Hero read the words "torch" and "fire." It was not a stele but a torch in the darkness! He also read the heart of the person with his back to the world. Then he heard the man sigh, "I never thought the sages of the previous civilization would have such a broad-minded spirit. To preserve the transmission of the Dao, they all entered this chaotic divine stele before the previous civilization shattered, and when this civilization was born, they transformed into the Dao stele, stealing the new heavenly Dao laws to create a new civilization and pass on the torch of the human Dao." At that moment, Hero felt a catastrophic threat from above. Without thinking, he took a step forward, and just before entering the next time period, he heard a few indistinct words.

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