Chapter 217: CH. 217 | Understanding the Volcanic Dao

"I don't think this is the right time to talk about that," Lin Tian answered.

"You're the only one in this sect who can help me understand my own dao concept. You gained yours through heavenly enlightenment. If you help me with this, I'll dedicate my soul to the Lingxian Sect for the rest of my life," Cao Ying said.

"You're using the marriage arrangement for your own gain," Lin Tian countered.

"No," Cao Ying replied, "everything I've done has been for the sect. If I grow stronger, I can protect this place far better whenever you're away."

Lin Tian looked around at the volcanoes erupting all around them, the sky thick with clouds and black smoke, the air scorching and dry, the blackened ground crisscrossed with rivers of flowing lava.

He'd faced Cao Ying's dao dimension once before, during their fight at the Fenhai Sect. He still remembered exactly what it had looked like back then.

Today, he could see just how much her dao dimension had grown. Its range had expanded considerably, and its passive effect could be felt even by Lin Tian, though it stayed fairly mild given his own cultivation level.

Cao Ying's Dao Dimension was powerful, and her concept clearly dominant. Yet somehow, Lin Tian sensed something missing, something a little off, as if her concept felt incomplete, unfinished.

"Compared to the first time we fought, your dao concept has clearly developed," Lin Tian said. "But I still feel like something's missing."

"I feel that too. I can't wield my power with the same flexibility you do," Cao Ying admitted.

"Could you tell me... everything you went through to gain your true heavenly enlightenment?"

Lin Tian paused for a moment. Even with his heightened understanding and Yun Feng's memories, that didn't automatically hand him the ability to elevate someone else's dao concept.

Dao was part of someone's very life, tied to concepts, to how one understood things, to the path toward immortality itself.

Without grasping the fundamental nature of something, a person could never truly be called an immortal daoist.

"This might take a while, and it might get a bit tedious," Lin Tian said.

Cao Ying didn't mind at all. She raised her hand and swept it downward, and a lake formed perfectly, complete with a pavilion standing over its surface.

The two of them shifted position instantly, moving from the sky floor down into that pavilion.

Even though the surrounding temperature stayed intensely hot, the pavilion itself felt strangely cool and pleasant.

Water that should have been boiling remained calm instead. Aquatic plants bloomed peacefully over the lake's surface, seemingly untouched by the volcanic chaos surrounding it.

The two of them sat facing each other, a wooden table separating them. Cao Ying conjured a teapot filled with warm tea and poured it into two cups.

Lin Tian walked her through everything in detail, especially the moment he'd been given his heavenly trial.

"Senior Ling Weixi from the Saintess Spring Valley helped me. She made it possible for me to begin the heavenly trial and reach enlightenment."

"I couldn't choose what kind of dao concept I wanted. Instead, they showed me a series of connected events, all tied together somehow."

"Like a cycle, the same events kept repeating endlessly, over and over, until it nearly drove me mad and made me want to give up."

"But I realized giving up would get me nowhere. So I decided to slow down and try to understand it, piece by piece."

Cao Ying listened closely, choosing not to ask further, since she already understood what he meant.

Lin Tian had genuinely earned his heavenly enlightenment, but he'd gotten there through events that had been shown to him.

The heavens had been trying to guide him toward the answer, and failing to understand it had kept the cycle repeating.

Countless failures, countless guesses, countless possibilities. But Lin Tian had used every single one of them to arrive at a conclusion.

In short, he'd learned from his own mistakes to reach an understanding of his own dao concept.

"As for your own dao concept, you need to ask your own dao heart."

"Is the volcanic concept something you genuinely understand? Is that dao concept truly yours?"

"How deep does your understanding of volcanic dao actually go? What does a mountain mean to you? What is fire, really? Is a volcano harmful to life? Or is a volcano a sign of nature's balance?"

Cao Ying listened to each question, but she couldn't say for certain, couldn't answer a single one with confidence. She'd inherited her volcanic dao concept through the Fenhai Sect's legacy.

Whoever had first grasped that concept had probably understood volcanoes on the deepest level imaginable, some ancestor of the Fenhai Sect, though Cao Ying had no real idea who.

But what Lin Tian was saying rang true. Dao was the embodiment of someone's own understanding.

If she wanted to manifest a truly powerful dao concept, she needed a genuinely deep understanding of it first.

"So, what should I do?" Cao Ying asked.

Lin Tian paused for a moment. He couldn't help her with his primordial energy or his own dao concept directly.

The only thing he could really do was pose questions to test her understanding of volcanoes.

There was plenty to learn from a volcanic dao concept, though it was far simpler than the complexity of Lin Tian's own void based dao concept.

"Go to one of the volcanoes somewhere in the Qin Kingdom. Try cultivating there, sit and reflect, watch the changes happen, find meaning in those changes, and understand it all with your own dao heart."

"That's the only real way to deepen your understanding, and that's what will elevate your dao concept."

Cao Ying smiled. She'd actually considered going to a volcano before, but it had always gotten pushed aside by other things.

She hadn't expected Lin Tian to be the one telling her to actually do it.

Since Lin Tian himself was the one telling her, Cao Ying decided to treat it as a direct order from him.

"Alright, then. Seems like I really do need to understand this dao concept on my own, without anyone's help."

She raised her hand and dissolved her dao dimension. The volcanic landscape faded away, the black smoke in the sky vanished, and the lava evaporated until nothing remained.

The scenery shifted back to Tianxun Peak, with the Technique and Weapon Hall standing nearby, and most importantly, the sight of a woman in a red gown, her face still hidden behind a veil.

That was An Yue, Lin Tian's soon to be wife, the future Lady of the Lingxian Sect.

Lin Tian stepped forward, a wide smile spreading across his face. He reached out his hand toward An Yue.

She lifted her head gently, her eyes meeting his from behind the veil.

"Come here, Yue'er."