Chapter 450: The Path of Refining Void

On the third day of the Great Perfection of Spirit Transformation, Wang Ping went to the Scripture Pavilion.

He didn't go to read books—he had already read over half of the books in the Scripture Pavilion these past years, from the first book on the first shelf, a Foundation Establishment manual, to the last book on the last shelf, an ancient fragment.

Faint wear marks from his fingertips were on the pages, light traces from his robes on the shelves, and even the spider plant in the corner, untended, habitually turned its leaves toward his shoulder as he passed each day.

He was going to find a person. That person sat in the deepest part of the Scripture Pavilion—not the innermost secret chamber, whose door could no longer close, its hinge warped, warped for who knows how many years.

He sat outside the secret chamber, behind a row of the oldest bookshelves, those books on the shelves never borrowed, and even if borrowed, couldn't be understood.

Dust lay thick on the tops of the bookshelves, so thick it resembled a carpet.

Among a pile of dust-covered ancient texts, the covers were illegible, the spines' lines broken, pages spilling from the cracks like loose teeth in an old man's mouth.

Before him lay a lamp made of rough, unglazed clay, its surface pitted with the marks of hand‑shaping.

The lamp oil was nearly dry, the oil level shrunk to the bottom of the basin, leaving only an extremely thin, pale layer through which the raw clay color showed beneath the oil film.

The flame was tiny, as small as a soybean.

Not the normal flame of an oil lamp—a normal flame is layered: the wick‑core dark, the inner flame bright, the outer flame transparent.

This lamp retained only the wick‑core; the inner and outer flames had retracted into it.

It was barely burning, not consuming oil but the wick itself.

The wick was burnt black, its tip constantly charring and then licked away by the flame, like a person tormented by illness yet refusing to close their eyes.

He read under the lamp, the book as thick as a brick.

Not bamboo slips, not silk scrolls, but paper.

The pages had yellowed, turned brown, and the edges began to brittle.

To turn a page, one had to pinch the corner with the utmost gentleness and slowness, lift it, wait for the foot of the page to bend a tiny amount at the brittle spot, then continue.

If turned too quickly, the corner would break, the fragments falling onto the accumulated paper scraps of many years.

His fingers slowly traced the pages, fingertips rolling over each character—not reading the words, but 'reading' their shape.

Because his eyesight had deteriorated.

So deteriorated that he had to bring the book close to the lamp, very close, until his nose almost touched the paper.

His breath exhaled from the nostrils, blowing on the page, causing the page to tremble ever so slightly.

He pulled the book back, waited for the breath to pass, then brought it close again.

Xuan Yan Dao Zun.

The only person still alive in the Spirit Realm who has entered the Refining Void.

Not that he was the only one who had entered—the Lord of Order had also entered, and the loose cultivator called Wuchen had entered as well.

But the Lord of Order died, dying under Wang Ping's Chaos Creation, after his core fragments were assimilated by chaos.

Wuchen the loose cultivator departed, entering the Immortal Realm and never returning.

Thus he is the only one still 'in' the Spirit Realm who has entered the Refining Void.

Although his cultivation had fallen from Refining Void back to Unity—three times.

The first time, from late Refining Void to mid Refining Void, when the Lord of Order first awakened and his pressure swept the Spirit Realm, he used his own Dao Fruit to block a strike for the realm, and the Fruit was shaken by the pressure into an extremely fine crack.

The second time, from mid to early Refining Void, when he helped Jiang Mingyuan stabilize a great defensive formation, he lent his Dao Fruit as the formation's eye, and the formation's backlash peeled away a layer of its flesh.

The third time, from early Refining Void back to the peak of Unity, when he refined that Spirit Transformation Pill for Wang Ping, he infused the last trace of the Dao Fruit's Refining Void origin into the pill.

After three falls, his cultivation retreated to Unity, but he still remembered the way.

He knew what pitfalls lay on the road—where a stretch of void had hidden currents, where a deep region of the Return to Ruins held chaotic law zones, and which fork would lead a cultivator into qi deviation.

He knew what obstacles existed—the Dao Heart Tribulation wasn't the hardest; the hardest was 'letting go'.

He knew what the forks were—Refining Void wasn't a single straight path but countless forks existing at once; whichever you chose became your path, and once chosen you could not turn back.

Wang Ping needed him.

"Sit."

Xuan Yan Dao Zun did not lift his head.

His voice was very soft, soft as a breeze blowing over pages—not the rustle of a windstorm flipping books, but a gentle draft slipping through a window crack, lightly lifting the corner of an open page on the desk.

His fingers were still moving across the page, fingertips slowly shifting from one character to the next.

Three characters remained on this line, and he wanted to finish reading them.

Wang Ping sat opposite him, the floor having no cushion—this reading area outside the secret chamber never had cushions, and the mat Xuan Yan Dao Zun sat on, which he had dragged out of the chamber, had been sat on for countless years, its edges frayed, the brown fibers poking out from the tears.

Wang Ping sat directly on the stone slab.

The stone slab was cold, not a surface chill but a deep cold—beneath it lay the foundation, beneath the foundation the mountain's rock strata, where deep groundwater accumulated, its temperature constant year‑round.

The cold crept up from his buttocks, first seeping into the skin, then the gluteus maximus, then the sciatic nerve, then up the vertebrae one segment at a time.

It climbed to the waist, then the back, then the neck.

He did not move—not because he wasn't afraid of the cold, but because he was 'waiting'.

He was waiting for someone to finish reading the line he wanted to read, the oldest rule in this Scripture Pavilion.

The lamp oil had diminished a little more.

It wasn't a decrease visible to the naked eye; the flame flickered— the oil level had dropped to the wick's base, the wick's capillary action began to sputter, drawing up a drop of oil made the flame flare, failing to draw it made the flame dim.

It repeatedly struggled between being out of oil and still having some.

The shadow on the wall wavered, growing large then small.

Each time the flame flickered, the shadow Xuan Yan Dao Zun cast on the rear bookshelf changed shape—when it flared large, the shadow resembled a standing giant; when it dimmed small, the shadow shrank into a tiny clump.

Like a person dancing—not the dance of dance, but the 'struggle' dance: the shadow was pushed back by the lamp's light, yet surrounded on all sides by darkness, it opposed the darkness with each sway's magnitude, but the energy of the sway came from the flame, and the flame's energy came from the oil about to burn out.

Wang Ping watched that shadow for a long time.

He thought of Jiang Mingyuan—his master also liked reading under lamplight, reading the Dao Institute's classics, reading disciples' assignments, reading the Spirit Realm's battle reports.

His eyesight was fine, but he liked to get very close, so close his nose almost touched the paper.

He said, getting close, you could smell the ink.

That is pine-soot ink; pine branches burned in a kiln become charcoal, charcoal ground into powder, powder mixed with glue to make ink, ink ground on an inkstone yields liquid.

The smell of pine soot is the smell of pine after death—not a rotten stench, but the smell of "burned pine resin", with an extremely faint pine fragrance mixed in the astringency of charcoal powder.

Master said the smell of ink is the smell of the Dao—the Dao too has been burned, burning away impurities, leaving the purest charcoal.

Charcoal is black, but the written characters are bright.

Wang Ping couldn't smell the ink here, because he sat too far.

Xuan Yan Dao Zun turned a page.

His fingers pinched the page corner, waiting for the bottom of the page to bend a tiny arc at the brittle spot, then he turned it.

The page made a very soft sound—a "shh".

Not like turning a page, but like a leaf falling to the ground—not the crisp sound of green leaves landing, but the soft sound of dry leaves landing.

The dry leaves had hung on the tree too long; the leaf flesh had been dried by the wind, leaving only the veins; when they landed they did not smack the ground, but "drifted" onto it, touching down first with the leaf edge on the stone slab, then the petiole, the whole process without bounce, just a single extremely light and soft "shh".

He closed the book, not from the middle— but from the back cover upward, flipping the back cover over to cover the text, then he lightly pressed his finger on the front cover, flattening it.

He set it aside.

He raised his head, looking at Wang Ping.

His eyes were very old—the whites yellowed, not from jaundice, but from age.

The conjunctiva on the surface of the eyeball had been oxidized by air over the long years, slowly turning from white to pale yellow.

The pupils were gray, the lens protein had denatured over time under UV light, changing from transparent to pale gray.

There were tears at the corners of his eyes—not from crying, but from age.

The sphincter of the tear glands had relaxed, the tear fluid could not be contained, it spilled out on its own, tracing down the eye corners.

It wasn't sorrow; his eyes were crying on their own.

"Has the Nascent Soul reached Great Completion?"

Wang Ping nodded.

It wasn't a forceful nod; his chin simply sank down a little.

The extent of his nod was exactly the same as whenever Youying asked him, "Are you ready?"

"Want to Refine the Void?"

Wang Ping nodded again, the extent exactly the same as before.

Xuan Yan Dao Zun gazed at him for a long time—not examining, but "looking".

He looked at the white hair at his temples; those few strands, lit by the lamp's faint glow, turned an extremely pale warm yellow.

He looked at the old scar on his brow ridge, a scar carved by shards of order, now healed, yet the healed skin's texture differed from the surrounding skin, revealing under the lamp an extremely subtle unevenness.

He looked at the point of chaotic-colored light in his eyes; it wasn't bright, it was "there"—the light didn't shine outward, it simply rested quietly deep in the pupil.

Then he reached out and picked up the lamp on the table.

The lamp oil was nearly exhausted—so little that when he lifted the lamp shade from the tabletop, his hand inevitably trembled ever so slightly.

The oil swayed in the base, the surface tilted, almost spilling—but it didn't.

When the oil surface tilted to its limit, he steadied it; his hand may be old, but it was steady.

He held the lamp up before Wang Ping, the flame dancing before Wang Ping's eyes.

Very close—close enough that Wang Ping could feel the flame's heat radiating onto his nose bridge.

Very bright—though in darkness looking at the lamp one doesn't feel it bright, but brought close to the eyes it is bright.

Very hot—not a burning heat, but the heat of "life".

The flame is alive; it needs oil, it is seeking oil.

"Refining the Void means replacing lamp oil with light."

Lamp oil runs dry—you add oil from outside, each addition burns once, and when it's burned out the lamp goes out.

Light doesn't run out—it grows from the wick; as long as the wick remains, the light remains.

Lamp oil is added from outside—spiritual power extracted from spirit stones, replenished from medicinal pills, absorbed from places rich in spiritual qi.

Light is one's own—it is the light produced after igniting the source deep in one's Dao foundation, using one's own existence as fuel.

Lamp oil is borrowed; light is one's own.

Wang Ping watched the flame.

The flame danced in his pupil—not that the flame was actually in his pupil, but the flame's light entered his pupil, forming a tiny inverted spot of light on the retina behind his lens.

His pupil contracted slightly under the stimulation of the light spot, the iris expanded outward, and the pupil became smaller.

Like a person in heartache—when heartbroken the pupil contracts, not a physiological reaction but a reaction of the "heart".

He reached out, his finger approaching the flame.

Not to test temperature, but to test "light"—can light be touched?

His finger drew ever closer to the flame, near enough that the flame's outer lick touched his fingertip.

The flame burned him—a sharp pain shot from the nerve endings in his fingertip to his brain instantly, and his brain reacted in an extremely short time.

It hurt so much his finger jerked back.

Not because he was startled, but his body retracted on its own—the body's reflex arc is faster than consciousness.

Xuan Yan Dao Zun put the lamp back on the table.

His hand released the lamp shade; as his finger moved away from the ceramic surface, a speck of extremely fine ceramic dust clung to his fingertip.

The lamp oil was completely dry—the oil level had dropped below the last ring of fibers at the wick's base that could still draw oil.

Before going out, the flame didn't struggle; it merely shrank from the size of a soybean to that of a mung bean, then from a mung bean to a pinpoint, and then vanished.

Smoke rose from the lamp shade—not black smoke; the smoke from burnt-out lamp oil is bluish-gray, extremely fine, extremely light.

Very straight, in a windless secret room, the smoke pillar extended straight upward, rising from the wick tip to several feet above the tabletop.

Like a thread—silk thread, the kind drawn from a spinning wheel, so fine it's almost invisible, yet spun very straight.

The thread broke—not blown apart by wind, but the smoke pillar dispersed on its own after reaching a certain height.

The smoke dissipated in the air, and the lamp grew cool.

"In the past thirty thousand years of the Spirit Realm, three people have entered the Void Refining."

Profound Extension Dao Venerable's voice became clearer in the darkness after the lamp went out.

When there is no light, a person's hearing automatically compensates; Wang Ping heard his own heartbeat travel from his chest to his eardrum.

I, the Lord of Order, still have one.

Wang Ping's heart gave a thump—not an acceleration, but a 'heavy'.

At that moment, the tip of his heart struck the inner side of his sternum with greater force than usual.

The Lord of Order is Void Refining, he knows.

Profound Extension Dao Venerable is Void Refining, he also knows.

But the third person—he had never heard of it; he had read through all the books in the Sutra Pavilion concerning Spirit Realm history, realm breakthroughs, and biographies of ancient cultivators these past years, and not a single one mentioned a third person entering the Void Refining.

"Who?"

Profound Extension Dao Venerable did not answer.

He reached his hand toward the thick bound book on the table—not the one he had just looked at, but another, thicker one, whose cover was not paper but some kind of animal hide that had aged and hardened.

He turned the book to a certain page and pointed his finger at the characters on it.

The characters were tiny—small as an ant—not a black ant but a brown ant, and the ink color had faded until it was almost the same as the paper's base color.

Wang Ping leaned in, bringing his face close to the page, until his nose was only a finger's width away from it.

He smelled the ink's scent—not pine-soot ink, but older graphite.

Graphite is made by grinding graphite ore into powder and mixing it with glue; it lacks the burnt pine-resin smell of pine-soot ink, having only an extremely pure, aloof carbon odor.

He saw the line of characters—"The Spirit Realm has passed thirty-seven thousand four hundred years; the dustless lone cultivator comprehended the Dao deep in the Returning Ruins, broke through the barrier and ascended, and his whereabouts became unknown."

It was not written with a vermilion brush, nor with an ink brush, but was "carved".

Someone used an extremely fine, extremely hard pointed object to scratch the characters onto the paper surface; the edges of the scratches slightly curled up, which is the paper fibers' edge after being cut.

"Breaking the barrier and ascending"—not death, not sitting in meditation until dissolution, not being slain by an enemy.

It is "breaking the barrier", breaking the barrier of the Void Refining.

Ascending, he rose to another place.

That place is called the Immortal Realm.

"The dustless lone cultivator. No sect, no disciples, no heirs."

"One person came, one person left."

When he came, no one in the Spirit Realm knew—a rogue cultivator, with no sect's protection, no master to guide him, no senior or junior fellows.

When he left, no one in the Spirit Realm remembered him—not that they couldn't, but he wouldn't let them.

He erased his name from all the classics—not by scraping with a knife, not by painting over with ink, but by erasing it with the "Dao".

A gentle push of his existence at the level of law, and the law cleared away those ink traces recording his name as "something that should not exist".

Only this line of text remained—this line was not written with ink by him, but carved directly into the paper fibers with his fingertip.

The law could not erase it, because this line of text itself is the law.

It was he who wrote it; after writing it, he left.

The finger of the Profound Expansion Dao Venerable paused on that line of text for a moment.

His fingertip pressed on the four characters "unknown whereabouts", pressing for a long time, long enough that his fingertip warmth heated that small spot of the page.

Then he withdrew it, placing it on his knee.

His hand was very old—the skin wrinkled like bark, not smooth wrinkles, but "cracks".

The skin on the back of his hand, over the long years, repeatedly alternated between dry and wet, the keratin layer cracking into countless irregular polygons, each polygon's edge slightly lifted.

The joints protruded like stone, the cartilage in the finger joints worn thin, bone directly pressing against the skin, forming several hard bumps at the knuckles.

The fingernails yellowed like aged paper, the nail surface bearing vertical fine lines—marks of the nail matrix aging.

"The Lord of Order is not a person of the Spirit Realm; he came from the Immortal Realm."

When he came, he was at the Void Refinement stage; when he left, he was also at the Void Refinement stage.

He did not break the barrier—breaking the barrier means breaking through this side's barrier to go to the other side; he originally came from that side, so no need to break.

He went back, returning to his old home.

"Not ascension, but going home."

Wang Ping fell silent.

He recalled the moment the Lord of Order died—that strand of silver-white light surged out from the core fragments, not an explosion, but a "leak".

Like liquid flowing out of a shattered vessel, but the liquid was in a state of light.

The light flowed over the ruins of the holy hall, seeping into cracks in the walls, into gaps between rubble, and alongside those corpses.

His existence shifted from being to non-being—being is order, non-being is chaos.

Chaos encompasses all things; non-being is also one of all things.

From non-being to ash—after the light scattered completely, what remained was not a void, but extremely fine, minute silver-white dust.

From ash to dust—the dust floated in the ruins of the holy hall, blown apart by the void storm, drifting for a long time, perhaps still drifting.

He did not return home; he died.

He wanted to return home, but could not.

The dustless rogue cultivator returned in his place.

"Where is that third person? The Dustless Wandering Cultivator. Where did he go?"

Xuanyan Dao Venerable raised his head, looking at the ceiling.

There was no lamp on the ceiling—the lamp had gone out, leaving only darkness.

The shadow was gone too—when the lamp went out, there was no shadow.

He stared for a long time, as if he saw something on the ceiling—not really seeing, but "memory" automatically projecting an image into the void within his field of vision.

Wang Ping also raised his head, seeing nothing but darkness.

"Immortal Realm."

Wang Ping's heart beat faster.

Immortal Realm—not fragments; fragments are the remnants left after the Immortal Realm shattered, hovering in the Return to the Ruins, with incomplete laws, thin immortal spirit energy, leaving only ruins and slumbering stele spirits.

It is the true Immortal Realm, the place where the Primordial Chaos Immortal Venerable came from, the place from which the Transcended Ones walk out behind the gate, the place the Lord of Order wishes to return to but cannot.

It is there, above the myriad heavens—not in the spatial sense, but in the sense of the "law hierarchy".

At the end of the Return to the Ruins—the Return to the Ruins is not a bottomless pit; it has an end, and that end is the edge of the Immortal Realm.

In the deepest reaches of the Dao—the Dao is layered; the Dao of the Spirit Realm is the superficial layer, the Dao of Primordial Chaos is the middle layer, and the Dao of the Immortal Realm is the deep layer.

The gate was closed; a silver stone gate appeared once atop the holy hall ruins, and the Transcended Ones walked out saying, "The Immortal Realm is open; those with affinity may enter."

But the gate disappeared again, and no one knows how to reopen it.

But someone has entered before—the Dustless Wandering Cultivator has entered.

He alone set out from the Spirit Realm, crossed the Return to the Ruins, crossed the fragments, and arrived before the gate.

The gate opened, and he walked inside.

He never came back.

"How did he get in?"

Xuanyan Dao Venerable shook his head.

Not that he doesn't know, but that he "cannot speak of it".

Some of what he knows can be conveyed to Wang Ping in words—for example, the essence of Void Refinement is to replace lamp oil with light.

But other things cannot be conveyed in words; one must experience them personally.

He does not know how the Dustless Wandering Cultivator opened that gate, because they had met once, in the back mountains of the Spirit Realm, when the Establishing Tree had not yet sprouted.

At that time, there was no Establishing Tree here, only a barren slope.

On the barren slope there were only stones, and in the cracks of the stones grew a few clumps of withered wild grass.

The Dustless Wandering Cultivator stood on that barren slope, holding a dry twig in his hand—very thin, as thin as a chopstick, its surface cracked, the bark peeled off more than half.

There was a leaf on the dry twig, yellow—yellow like autumn ginkgo—not the yellow of withering, but the "ripe" yellow, the golden yellow of ginkgo leaves naturally turning in autumn.

He stared at that leaf for a long time—observing the veins' direction, the connection of the petiole to the branch, and the extremely fine serrations along the leaf's edge.

Then he inserted the dry twig into the soil—no digging, no watering—just pinching its middle between thumb and forefinger and pushing it down.

The moment the dry twig entered the soil, he released his hand.

He turned and walked away, without looking back.

The dry twig came to life—not after a few days or months, but at the very moment he released his hand.

The bottom of the dry twig, upon contacting the soil, produced extremely fine rootlets from the cut surface; the rootlets burrowed into the soil's crevices and absorbed the first drop of groundwater from deep below.

That yellow leaf did not fall; it changed from gold back to verdant green.

It grew into the Establishing Tree—from a dry twig to a sapling, from a sapling to a small tree, from a small tree to a towering giant.

The Establishing Tree waited countless years, until Jiuer arrived—Jiuer is a descendant of the Return to the Ruins clan, of the bloodline of the Myriad Phenomena Star-Observers, and a person capable of symbiosis with the Establishing Tree.

Jiuer was waiting for Wang Ping—she did not know why she waited, she only knew that someone should stand beneath the tree.

Wang Ping's heart sank.

Not sinking into his stomach, but into his dantian, into the depths of the Primordial Chaos Spirit Sea, into the lowest layer of his Dao foundation.

The Establishing Tree was planted by the Dustless Wandering Cultivator, and when he inserted the dry twig into the soil he had already reckoned all of this—reckoned the awakening of the Lord of Order, the crisis of the Spirit Realm, that a person named Wang Ping would walk out of the mortal realm, enter the Return to the Ruins, enter the Immortal Realm fragments, and enter the Primordial Chaos Immortal Stela.

He planted the Establishing Tree here—not to plant a tree to shade the Spirit Realm, but to plant a coordinate for later people to find their way.

He left Jiuer here—not to abandon her to die, but to place her in the safest spot, awaiting the one who could bring her home.

He opened the gate here—at the moment the Dustless Wandering Cultivator ascended, the roots of the Establishing Tree pierced the Spirit Realm's law barrier behind him, leaving an extremely thin, narrow passage between the Spirit Realm and the Immortal Realm.

The passage was sealed for thirty thousand years, but it still exists, within the roots of the Establishing Tree, in Jiuer's dreams.

He reckoned everything, but he did not open it himself.

Wang Ping asked—"Why didn't he open it himself?"

Xuanyan Dao Venerable smiled.

That smile was so faint, it was hardly visible in the darkness—just the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly, not even enough to move his laugh lines.

But his eyes held amusement—not brightness, but "wrinkles".

The loose skin at the corners of his eyes bunched together when he smiled, making his already narrow eye slits even narrower.

Like a calm lake surface ruffled by the wind, ripples spreading outward—the ripples were not large, just a few extremely fine, shallow lines spreading from the corners of his eyes.

Because he could not prevail—not due to lack of strength, but because the Dustless Wandering Cultivator could not kill the Lord of Order.

The Lord of Order is a Void Refinement cultivator, and so is he.

Void Refinement versus Void Refinement—no one can kill anyone—not a draw, but a "stalemate".

Two forces of Void Refinement–level law collide, yielding no victor, only mutual cancellation.

He trapped the Lord of Order—using his own Dao fruit as a cage, confining the Lord of Order in a space where time flows extremely slowly.

He had been trapped for countless years, until the Lord of Order fell asleep within—not normal sleep, but "forced hibernation".

Beings of Void Refinement level do not need sleep, but his law cage gradually suppresses the Lord of Order's presence, pressing his consciousness down to the lowest layer.

He left——while he trapped the Lord of Order, he also trapped himself.

His Dao Fruit turned into a cage, and he himself lost the power of Refining Void.

With Refining Void cultivation he planted the Establishing Tree, with Unity cultivation he entered the Return to the Abyss, and at the edge of half-step Refining Void he again broke through to ascend.

He left, and the Lord of Order will awaken——the cage is not eternal, the law barrier formed from the Dao Fruit will gradually weaken with the passage of time.

Once awakened he will still come back——no one can stop him, in the Spirit Realm no one is his match.

He needs someone to guard the Spirit Realm for him before he returns.

That person is you.

Wang Ping's hand was trembling——not because of fear.

He had been afraid——afraid in the Return to the Abyss, afraid on the ruins of the Holy Hall, afraid when the Yin Shadow transformed light.

Now he is not afraid.

It is "heavy"——the burden is too heavy.

It is not weight pressing on the shoulders, but "meaning" pressing on the heart.

When the Dustless Loose Cultivator planted the Establishing Tree, they already counted him in; before he was born, he was entrusted with a Spirit Realm.

His shoulders were making a sound——not the bones, but the faint tremor produced when the tendons were pulled tight.

His waist was bending——not the spine, but the body itself wanting to lower its center of gravity and plant its base firmly.

His legs were trembling——not because he couldn't stand, but the leg muscles were automatically adjusting tension, preparing to bear this burden.

He held up, did not fall.

Because he knew he could not fall.

If he fell, the Spirit Realm would be gone.

It fell, the dust-free wandering cultivator vainly troubled the Lord of Order for so many years.

It fell, Jiu'er waited in the Jianmu tree but saw no one.

It fell, Youying's shadow will grow cool again.

「How does one walk the path of Void Refinement? 」

The Profound Extension Dao Venerable did not answer directly.

He picked up the lamp on the table that had gone out—not the motion of just putting it back on the table, but picking it up again.

The lamp lay in his palm, very light; after the oil dried, it weighed less than half of its original weight.

The lamp was very old, its surface coating had peeled off—not lacquer, but a ceramic slip.

A lamp made of clay was dipped in a very fine layer of ceramic slip before being fired in the kiln; the slip contained iron powder, and after firing it turned a dark brown.

Now the ceramic slip has been polished smooth, exposing the clay underneath.

The clay is black, black as night—not tonight's night, but a moonless night.

Like ink—not graphite ink, but pine-soot ink, with the astringent taste of burned pine resin.

Like an abyss—not a bottomed abyss, but a 'bottomless' one, where if you fall you never hear an echo again.

His finger slowly traced the lamp, from the rim to the base.

The rim has a circle of extremely fine grooves, decorative lines the craftsman scratched into the clay blank with his fingernail back then.

The base has a small patch where the ceramic slip wasn't applied, exposing the bare clay; touching it you can feel the grain of the clay.

「Void Refinement is not cultivating power, but cultivating the 'fruit'. The Dao fruit. 」

Condense your Dao into fruit.

When the fruit ripens, it falls from the tree into your hand.

When you eat it, you become a Void Refinement cultivator.

Wang Ping listened.

He recalled the forest of obsessions he had seen in the Return to Truth realm—the Mountain-Moving Old Ancestor's laugh was a tree, Jiang Mingyuan's eyes were a tree, Lei Wanlei's thunder was a tree, Bingyue Immortal's ice was a tree.

They took root, sprouted, and bloomed in his heart.

The flowers have bloomed, but have they fallen?

After the flowers fall, will they bear fruit?

What kind of tree is his Dao?

What flavor does the fruit it bears have?

The Profound Extension Dao Venerable placed the lamp in Wang Ping's hand.

Not a hand‑over—it was a 'placement'.

He gently set the lamp's base on Wang Ping's palm, waiting for Wang Ping to close his fingers around it himself before releasing his hold.

The lamp was cool; after the flame went out, the clay quickly lost its residual heat, and its temperature now equaled that of the stone slab.

It was cool like ice—not the kind of ice that melts, but the inherent coolness of the clay, the coolness of clay buried deep underground.

Like snow—not fresh snow, but aged snow that has lain in a shaded spot for days without melting, its surface crusted with ice.

Like death—not a corpse, but an 'extinguishing', the death of the lamp as a lamp after its flame goes out.

But his hand was warm—the perfected Nascent Soul's chaotic power flowed through his meridians, from dantian to fingertips in an instant.

Warm enough that the lamp grew warm, the clay began to absorb the heat from his palm.

It wasn't the lamp that was changing; it was his hand telling the lamp, 'I have come.'

The lamp gave no response, for it was a lamp that had gone out.

When the flame went out, it ceased to shine—not because it was broken, but because it had no oil.

The oil was borrowed—it used to borrow lamp oil, later it borrowed the essence of the Dao fruit.

When the borrowed oil was exhausted, it went out.

It's just that he himself grew——he needs to grow light himself, relight the wick, let this extinguished lamp shine again.

How does one condense the Dao Fruit?

Profound Extension Dao Venerable stood up.

Not by pushing up with his hands on his knees—he simply stood up, although he stood very slowly.

His legs were very thin, thin as dry firewood.

The anterior tibial muscles of his calves had atrophied; when walking he had to compensate with his quadriceps, so his steps were very slow, each step requiring him to lift his knees a little higher than normal.

His back was very hunched, because he had stayed too long in the Returning Ruins.

The void laws of the Returning Ruins compress the spine, flattening the intervertebral discs.

He hunched his back to reduce the direct friction between the vertebrae.

He walked to the bookshelf——not the row of the oldest shelves, but the inner, darker row.

He pulled out a book from above; the book was very thin, thin enough to have only a few pages.

The cover had no characters, the back cover was also blank, and the spine had no title.

He handed the book to Wang Ping.

This was left by the Dustless Loose Cultivator.

It says that the Dao Fruit is in the depths of the Returning Ruins.

Further beyond the fragments of the Immortal Realm, at the end of Chaos.

You must go there, find your Dao, and pluck it.

Wang Ping took the book.

Very light—not the weight a book should have; even a few pages should have some weight.

But this book had none; it was light as if empty, as if made of shadow.

He opened the first page—blank, with not a single character; the paper glowed with an extremely faint light in the darkness after the lamp went out, that being the paper's own fluorescence.

The second page, also blank.

The third, fourth, fifth pages—all pages were blank.

He flipped through the book from beginning to end, and there wasn't a single character.

He lifted his head and looked at the Profound Extension Dao Venerable.

Where are the characters?

The characters are in the heart.

You can't see them because you haven't arrived yet.

It's not that your cultivation is insufficient—you have already reached Nascent Soul Great Perfection, your spirit power capacity is sufficient, your Dao foundation is stable.

It's that your 'heart' hasn't arrived yet—you haven't walked to the depths of the Returning Ruins, haven't walked to the edge of the Immortal Realm fragments, haven't walked to the end of Chaos.

When you get there, the characters will appear.

They are not characters written in ink, but characters written by the Dao.

The Dao will use your footsteps to leave marks on the paper; each step you take with your feet will become a stroke in this book.

Then you will know how to condense the Dao Fruit.

Wang Ping closed the book and put it away in his lap.

The book was very light, light enough that when placed against his chest he could hardly feel its presence, but he knew it was there—because the spot where it lay was the position of the Chaos Immortal Stele.

The surface of the Immortal Stele already had six layers of inscriptions carved; could this book be the seventh layer?

He asked in his heart, without speaking aloud.

He stowed the book away, pressed a finger on his collar to confirm it was there.

The Profound Extension Dao Venerable turned around and walked back to the lamp.

The lamp had no oil, but he still sat down.

He sat in the darkness, able to see the characters on the book without light—those characters he had long memorized.

He had memorized them for countless years, starting when he was still in the Void Refining stage, continuing even after he fell back to the Union stage, and still memorizing them now.

He sat there, like a stone statue.

Not a temple statue, which is worshipped.

He is a forgotten stone statue, sitting in the deepest part of the forgotten Buddhist canon pavilion, guarding a row of bookshelves that no one borrows from.

Wang Ping looked at him, for a long time.

He wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say.

Thanks are too light—he gave not only guidance on the Void Refining path, but also that Nascent Soul Pill, and also that path he walked in the Returning Ruins for thirty thousand years.

Sorry is too heavy—he did not owe the Profound Extension Dao Venerable an apology, and the Profound Extension Dao Venerable does not need his apology.

He stood up, bowed—his spine bent down vertebra by vertebra from the lumbar, until it was parallel to the ground, paused a few breaths, then straightened up vertebra by vertebra.

He turned and left.

When he reached the doorway, the Profound Extension Dao Venerable's voice came from behind.

Very soft—not deliberately lowered, but due to old age causing insufficient vital energy.

Very distant—although they were only a few steps apart, when the sound reached him it seemed to come from the end of the corridor.

Like a bell's echo in a morning temple—the bell striker has long left the bell, but the reverberations still ripple outward in layers through the air.

Those three people all went to the Immortal Realm.

The Lord of Order came from the Immortal Realm and returned to the Immortal Realm—he wanted to go back, but he was driven out by others, he cannot return, so he came to seize the Spirit Realm.

The Dustless Loose Cultivator went from the Spirit Realm to the Immortal Realm—he walked alone, never looking back, the Establishing Tree is the marker he left for the Spirit Realm.

I came from the Immortal Realm, and cannot return.

His Dao fruit shattered, his cultivation fell, his path was cut off.

He could only wait in the Scripture Pavilion, waiting for someone who could walk that path for him.

Wang Ping stopped, without turning back.

It wasn't that he didn't want to turn back, but that he dared not—he feared that if he turned back he would see not a stone statue, but an old man weeping in the darkness.

"Where is the Immortal Realm?"

"At the end of the Return to the Void, in the depths of Chaos, in your heart."

"When you arrive, you will know."

Wang Ping stepped forward and walked out of the Scripture Pavilion.

The light outside the door was very bright—not sunlight, but the noon sun falling straight down from above.

Before coming out, he had sat in the darkness for a long time, his pupils dilated; now, when the sunlight hit him, his iris sphincter muscles contracted sharply.

He squinted slightly, and his eye sockets felt a faint soreness.

Sunlight fell on his face, warm and gentle, like a mother's hand.

He didn't know what a mother's hand felt like, but Youying had told him—Yuliuli had once played a tune for her, and the tune said that a mother's hand is not really a hand, but the feeling of "being caught".

He stood there, letting the sunlight shine on him for a while.

The sunlight swept away the chill from the Scripture Pavilion, inch by inch, from his robe.

Then he stepped forward and walked toward the Building Tree.

Under the Building Tree, Youying was waiting for him.

Not standing waiting—she leaned against the trunk, her back touching the bark, her head slightly tilted to one side.

With her eyes closed, she wasn't asleep; she was using void perception to listen to the movements behind the mountain.

She could tell it was him from his footsteps—his steps were lighter than Cangxuan's, heavier than Yuliuli's, and each step landed with exactly the same interval.

Her hair floated in the wind, a wisp of stray hair slipping from behind her ear and blown sideways across the bridge of her nose.

Sunlight fell on her face, warm—so warm that a faint pink hue appeared on her cheeks.

She had a smile at the corner of her mouth—not because she dreamed of something happy, but because she felt relieved.

Relieved that he had returned, relieved that he hadn't sat too long in the Scripture Pavilion, relieved that he was still here.

He walked over and sat beside her—not on a cushion, but directly on the grass.

The grass was soft, the blades warmed by the sunlight.

She didn't open her eyes, but her hand reached out—not feeling around, but accurately finding his wrist, then her fingers slid down his wrist into his palm.

She held his hand; her hand was still small, cool, and soft.

He placed her hand over his heart, letting her feel his heartbeat.

It beat steadily—thump, thump, thump—not the aura of a perfected Spirit Transformation cultivator, nor the resolve of the Void Refinement path.

Just the heartbeat of a living person—each contraction pressed the base of her palm gently toward his chest, and each relaxation pushed her back.

He was saying—I am here.

Not spoken with his mouth, but said with his heartbeat.

She heard it, and placed her other hand over the back of his hand, not pressing, just covering.

She held it for a long time—long enough for the sunlight to shift from noon to afternoon, long enough for the Building Tree's shadow to move from above their heads to their knees.