Chapter 1374 - 656: Heavenly Dao Simulator

Chapter 1374: Chapter 656: Heavenly Dao Simulator

"I heard that you made quite a splash at the Age Star, didn’t you? But you’ve been in seclusion for years, so you’re somewhat unaware. It doesn’t concern you, nor does it concern me, so let’s not bother with these trivial matters.

However, now that you’ve returned to Earth, as the Earth leader, I must talk it over with you. At our current realm, every gesture we make carries the power to annihilate stars and destroy worlds. Earth’s ecosystem is still too fragile to withstand our exploits.

Thus, the Thunder Seal that was once loosened, I have re-established with a Magic Seal, and we have an agreement with the families of Taiyin and Suixing, to limit cultivator realms within the atmosphere to Refining Qi and Transforming God. Anyone who breaks through to Refining God and Returning to Void will be guided to Outer Heaven, where they can find their own Daoist field.

Naturally, everyone has tacitly agreed to only descend in incarnations, avoiding actions in the mortal world to prevent unnecessary damage. It’s not beautiful to ruin the flowers and grass.

Even if one must compete and debate on the Dao, it’s decided through chess, and as luck would have it, I’m in a game right now. Come, I’ll explain the rules to you."

The scene follows Xiao Liu outside to a picturesque courtyard with mountains and water as he sits before a chessboard.

That chessboard is made of white porcelain surround, engraved with seventeen vertical and seventeen horizontal lines, with positions set at Heavenly Yuan and four star holes. The side is decorated with pot door patterns, and the whole is glazed in white.

Xiao Liu holding white pieces sits across from a sheep and a big-tailed beauty, but it’s not the beauty playing, it’s the sheep.

Hmm, that beauty is a fox spirit maid with a fluffy big tail and sharp ears, grooming the sheep and feeding it grapes. When the sheep gives a look, she reaches out to play black, placing a piece for the sheep.

Seeing Xiao Liu return, she gets up to greet him, serving clear tea and snacks, and easily takes up the mirror, placing it for Tie Dan, allowing him to see the entire board and also enjoy the scenery.

Xiao Liu, meanwhile, sips tea with a smile, Divine Light flickering in his eyes, seemingly talking to Tie Dan while chatting with the sheep, living a rather leisurely life.

Tie Dan looks at the sheep, then at the board,

"Go, huh? I know the rules."

Xiao Liu laughs, "This isn’t Go."

Tie Dan squints, "No way, are you playing Gomoku at your age?"

Xiao Liu rubs his forehead, "It’s not that... Ah, this is called the Heavenly Dao Simulator."

"...That Heavenly Dao?"

"Indeed, the very one. Don’t people often say: heaven and earth are the chessboard, all beings are the pieces? Everyone under heaven is a chess piece, every piece is a person, and this is the chess we’re playing."

Xiao Liu smiles and nods, picks up a white piece, and places it on the board, capturing a large group of black pieces, then casually tosses the captured blacks into the courtyard pond, plop plop, creating ripples that turn into a swarm of black tadpoles, startling the koi in the pond to jump out as beautiful maidens, fleeing into the bamboo forest with their glittering skirts.

"See, I won this catastrophe, with each piece I capture, he loses ten thousand people to me, tossed into the Six Realms for reincarnation, they emerge as anything I please, be it avian or beast, or serpents and insects, completely to my liking, isn’t it fascinating."

The sheep who lost millions of people stares with wide eyes and a large tail, both with a look of grievance, probably thinking, weren’t you the one stubbornly insisting on playing there? But dare not argue, hastily peeling an orange for the sheep to apologize...

Tie Dan expresses confusion, as these two, cough cough, this one person and one sheep, seem not to be playing Go by the normal takeover rules.

Clearly, there’s still vitality, but Xiao Liu places one piece, wiping out a large area, it’s akin to someone playing half a game of Go and suddenly tossing out a bomb, utterly preposterous.

Xiao Liu uses the sheep’s deep contemplation to point at the chessboard and introduce it to Tie Dan,

"This chessboard was brought by me from beyond the gate, transformed from non-object by the Fu Xi Daoist Collection. The white pieces on the board are natives of Taiji Heaven, the black pieces are Heavenly Demons they brought from Outer Heaven.

Though the board is set by the two of us, the catastrophe is initiated by us, the ultimate outcome still depends on the effort of the pieces themselves.

If the piece I chose triumphs over the demon in the catastrophe, these Heavenly Demons enter my pot, they can reincarnate, for me to use.

If the piece he chose wins the catastrophe struggle, naturally it’s a direct body-seizing by the demon, the thief replaces the prince, my piece crosses over to him."

Tie Dan remains puzzled.

"Fu Xi Daoist Collection?"

Xiao Liu patiently explains,

"Oh, beyond the gate, there’s a mystical concept called Collection Consciousness, also known as Alaya Consciousness, also known as Humanity’s Collective Unconscious. It refers to the shared psychological sediment preserved through human inheritance, buried at the deepest layer of the subconscious, consisting of instincts and archetypes.

This concept is used to explain why beings born from different cultures, different star systems, different classes, even from different genetic coordination. All of them possess similar psychological responses and symbolic imagery, labeled as ’human’.

Just like now, standing on Nine Peaks Peak, you and I are personal consciousness with independent personality memory. The mountain beneath our feet represents the personal unconscious of fellow Mystic Sect taoists, while the Earth Vein rock beds below this mountain, this Qiankun that bears all beings, is the collective unconscious of all humanity.

And through Immortal Laws, science, Mystical Techniques, arithmetic, various means, this ’Collection’ originally belonging to humanity, invisible, unintelligible, indescribable, unawareness. Is made tangible, data-driven, information-rich, privatized, and can be interpreted, edited, rewritten, deleted, replicated to evolve countless new ’Dao’.

This is the so-called ’Daoist Collection’.

On the far side of the gate, in the Fu Xi world, the Alaya Consciousness has been fully parsed, achieving the collection of all humanity’s collective unconscious. Thus each person’s individual consciousness can be analyzed, replicated, preserved, and at the moment of death, injected into the id to be reborn, which is the so-called reincarnation.