Chapter 237: Fangcun Protects Its Master

After a long while, the myriad visions before Li Shun's eyes finally receded like a tide.

Having seen through the secret of the divine mountain's connection to the heavens, he seemed to have grasped some profound mystery.

Yet upon carefully examining himself, he found that neither his cultivation realm nor his divine abilities and techniques had undergone the slightest tangible change or improvement.

After pondering for a while, he awakened Ancient Net and told it what he had comprehended.

“What do you think?”

Ancient Net fell into a brief silence before replying in its usual mechanical and emotionless manner:

“What you people in this world call Grotto Mystic is, in the end, nothing more than an attempt to use the eyes of lowly mortals to forcibly pry into the laws governing the operation of the Great Dao.”

“The Great Dao is vast and boundless. To mortals, it is inherently something that cannot be looked upon directly or measured.”

“As for this so-called Dao-Rhythm Stone, it merely borrows a trace of the divine mountain's remaining aura, taking advantage of an opportunity to draw upon its power.”

“However…”

“Since you have already taken me as a puppet, why bother abandoning what is near in favor of something far away?”

“If you truly wish to see through the ultimate mysteries of the Grotto Mystic realm, you would be better off concentrating your consciousness entirely within that [Dao Seeker] body.”

“Through my eyes, you can truly see the underlying structure of this world.”

Ancient Net's voice, devoid of even the slightest emotional fluctuation, echoed quietly through Li Shun's sea of consciousness.

Hearing this, Li Shun could not help but laugh wryly.

The Kong Clan's Dao-Rhythm Stone was certainly a rare treasure in this world. Yet compared with an imprint left behind by an Outer God, it was like comparing a small witch to a great sorcerer.

“Rest assured. Even if the Dao Seeker descends here, those guards outside will never notice anything,” Ancient Net said with absolute confidence.

Li Shun contemplated this for a moment before finally giving a slight nod.

Then, with a thought, the puppet Dao Seeker within Fangcun descended into reality.

It maintained the same cross-legged meditation posture as before, sitting opposite Li Shun.

The instant their four eyes met, Li Shun suddenly felt that an unfathomably deep abyssal mirror had appeared out of thin air between the two bodies.

Immediately afterward, heaven and earth were overturned.

His field of vision began to collapse wildly, retreating backward at an infinite speed.

The Kong Clan's imposing ancestral residence, the towering Mount Dai, the vast and boundless realm of Qing Province...

Even the entire territory of Great Qian encompassing its one hundred and eight provinces...

All of them were instantly pulled away until they became insignificant, tiny as a speck of dust.

What ultimately filled Li Shun's entire field of spiritual vision was an incomparably magnificent, boundless silver-white giant net!

Countless strands of law interwove and crisscrossed throughout the void. Every single one circulated with the profound and supreme rhythms of the Great Dao.

Only now did Li Shun realize with horror that the heavenly-reaching grid he had glimpsed through the Dao-Rhythm Stone earlier could not even be considered the tiniest node within this enormous net.

Ordinarily, when cultivators directly faced such a manifestation of the laws, all kinds of insights should instinctively surge through their hearts like mountains collapsing and seas roaring.

Yet when Li Shun truly faced the ultimate truth of the Great Dao of heaven and earth without any concealment, his sea of consciousness was instead completely blank.

Even though he had genuinely seen the source of the Great Dao, he felt nothing and comprehended nothing.

After a long while, the enormous net of the Great Dao that had blotted out heaven and earth slowly faded away.

What surged into Li Shun's heart was instead an intense sense of emptiness, accompanied by the feeling of having lost something.

“How do you feel?”

This time, it was Ancient Net who asked the question.

Li Shun shook his head before finally understanding.

“I saw it, but it was already beyond the limits of my vision. I couldn't comprehend even the slightest bit of it.”

“Compared with forcibly nurturing my growth by directly gazing upon the source, the gradual approach offered by the Dao-Rhythm Stone in my hand is actually more suitable for me.”

“Not even the slightest reaction?”

Ancient Net was clearly somewhat surprised by this result. It was extremely rare for it to fall into such a prolonged silence.

Only after a long while did it finally speak, slowly revealing the result of its deduction:

“I think this is due to the protection of the great power of your [Fangcun].”

“After all, you merely used the perspective of my puppet to observe it just now. Your true spiritual soul did not personally behold the Dao.”

“Ordinarily speaking, one who hears the Dao in the morning may die content in the evening. After directly facing the source of the Great Dao I displayed for you, it should have been absolutely impossible for you to experience not even the slightest trace of sudden enlightenment.”

“The only explanation is that the great power of Fangcun forcibly isolated everything.”

“Even fluctuations that touched the level of the source of the Great Dao were completely confined within the puppet's body, unable to affect your main consciousness in the slightest.”

“So this is the difference between a puppet and its master.”

“I see.”

Ancient Net had deduced the entire reason in an instant, and its words carried a profound awe toward the great power of Fangcun.

Having understood the cause, Li Shun felt little regret or unwillingness.

Although he could not use Ancient Net's eyes to fully glimpse the mysteries of the Great Dao, this had also confirmed something from another perspective: Fangcun possessed absolute control over its puppets.

Even though Ancient Net was an imprint left behind by an Outer God, it was absolutely impossible for it to influence Li Shun through a puppet.

And in Li Shun's eyes, safety was undoubtedly more important than opportunity.

Since the shortcut was no longer viable, Li Shun completely put aside such thoughts and devoted himself wholeheartedly to cultivating in seclusion with the Dao-Rhythm Stone.

Soon, seven days passed.

Li Shun could keenly sense that his ability to perceive the Great Dao through Grotto Mystic had gradually reached a bottleneck and was beginning to solidify.

“According to the rumors, those truly peerless geniuses can see through the mysteries of Creation not long after first entering Grotto Mystic.”

“Yet I have cultivated painstakingly for ten days, even with the assistance of a Dao-Rhythm Stone, and I still haven't been able to touch the threshold of the Celestial Phenomena realm.”

“Looks like the Grotto Mystic realm is the theoretical limit of this body of mine.”

Li Shun slowly opened his eyes and shook his head with a hint of self-mockery.

This ability to Observe the Dao through Grotto Mystic could certainly continue to improve little by little through painstaking effort over the long years to come.

But compared with the heaven-defying, explosive growth he had experienced upon first entering Grotto Mystic, future cultivation would undoubtedly yield half the results for twice the effort.

Granted, one's ability to perceive Grotto Mystic was by no means completely equivalent to the ultimate height a cultivator could reach in this lifetime.

The upper limit of a cultivator's cultivation was also closely connected to factors such as fate and temperament.

Nevertheless, the ability to observe the Dao through Grotto Mystic was undoubtedly one of the most crucial links among them.

Fortunately, Li Shun was not particularly surprised by this result.

After all, this body called [Li Shun] had originally been nothing more than a lowly laborer in Lengshan of Great Qian, with a life as insignificant as grass.

Although the so-called bloodline of the Qian Emperor flowed through his veins, over the years he had already understood that this physical body actually possessed nothing particularly extraordinary.

It was utterly ordinary.

“Relying solely on my own cultivation truly makes everything incredibly difficult.”

“In the end, I still have to rely on the advantages of Fangcun.”

“Through puppets, I can turn other people's cultivation experiences, and even their insights into the Dao, into my own.”

“Although after what happened this time, I should also understand that a puppet's enlightenment cannot completely replace my own comprehension.”

“As the saying goes, knowledge gained from books is ultimately shallow. To truly understand something, one must personally put it into practice.”

“That is precisely the principle at work here.”

Li Shun's heart remained utterly calm.