Chapter 665: Catalyzing the Dao's First

Yu Lin couldn't go home.

Because just as he was about to leave, a stray ray of light caught something flashing ahead.

He looked, a ball of white light,

fist-sized, hovering in midair, bright for a moment, dim, then bright again.

Yu Lin stopped, stared at that light for two seconds, and felt a bit of interest.

He turned and walked toward the light.

The light moved, neither fast nor slow, always keeping the same distance from him.

When he walked faster, it walked faster; when he walked slower, it walked slower.

Yu Lin followed it and crashed straight into a wall.

One should say that wall wasn't a wall.

The tip of the light touched the wall, and the surface rippled outward in a circle.

Yu Lin extended his hand, his fingertip brushed the ripple, feeling icy, as if touching water.

He took a step forward, and his whole body passed through.

The next moment.

Yu Lin stood in a vague, ethereal void.

There was no sky, no ground, no up, no down.

It was nowhere, in no time, belonging to no dimension.

Yet it was here, always here, before everything began, after everything ended.

Similar to the void in Buddhism, but without karma or cause-and-effect.

The special thing.

It was that white light ahead.

In Yu Lin's sight.

That ball of white light exploded!

WhiteLight surged from the center outward in all directions, turning into myriad colors and lines.

All colors, all lines, all light and darkness, all existence, in that instant covered the entire space!

They crowded together, stacked together, intertwined, indistinguishable from each other.

Then they contracted!

Myriad colors simultaneously converged toward the center, myriad lines simultaneously folded toward the center!

They shrank cleanly, leaving not even a single Light Dot.

Coalescing into a tiny point.

A "point" without color, sound, or tactile sense.

At that moment,

the fish in Yu Lin's mind swam out.

As it leapt from his brow, it opened its mouth and swallowed that point in one gulp.

The instant the fish's jaws closed, the whole space trembled.

Text floated before Yu Lin's eyes.

【Task: Accelerate the evolution of Dao's First until it evolves all things】

【Reward: the Origin of Dao】

At the same instant the text appeared, a voice sounded beside Yu Lin's ear.

The voice was very ancient, very distant:

"There is a thing formed from chaos, born before Heaven and Earth, silent and vast, standing alone unchanged, moving endlessly without peril, can be the mother of all under heaven. I do not know its name, I shall call it Dao."

".............."

Yu Lin listened to the voice, his mouth twitched.

"Lao Jun, stop pretending with me."

He fell silent for a moment.

"... uh, haha, you're busy, you're busy."

The voice that drifted from the future vanished instantly.

Yu Lin placed a hand on his forehead and smiled lightly.

He withdrew his hand, his gaze fixed ahead.

He could feel that he was now inside a massive entity.

That entity had no boundaries, no shape, no texture, yet it truly existed.

It enveloped Yu Lin, permeated Yu Lin, and penetrated every inch of his being.

This place itself was something more fundamental than space, something older than time.

Yu Lin thought, this must be the Dao!

And in Yu Lin's perception,

inside the Dao, something was brewing.

It must be the "One" that needs to be catalyzed.

Yu Lin thought for a moment, then slapped his thigh:

"Create Great Luo!"

Great Luo is born with three qi, and the three qi generate all things.

First, create a Great Luo Heaven, then we'll talk.

Just give it a try, it won't hurt.

Thinking of this, Yu Lin extended his hand, spreading his five fingers.

The Great Dao gathered in his palm, hmm, it was drawn from the space itself.

What was extracted was not a part of the Dao, not a branch, not a projection, but the Dao itself.

The entire space began to tremble, the tremor spreading outward from the center.

Yu Lin's both hands moved; he molded the space like shaping clay, shaping the Dao into the form he desired.

First came the foundation of the Great Luo Heaven.

Yu Lin carved an independent area within the Dao; the foundation was paved with the Great Dao, its surface smooth as a mirror, reflecting the yet‑unformed Great Luo Heaven.

Yu Lin stood on the foundation and began constructing the skeleton of the Great Luo Heaven.

He used Great Dao rules for columns, time chains for beams, and space threads for joints.

Each column was straight, each beam was flat, each joint was tightly sealed.

After the skeleton stood, Yu Lin began filling the Great Luo Heaven.

He used pure Qi for walls, turbid Qi for the floor, and spiritual Qi for doors and windows.

Pure Qi is the lightest portion refined from the Dao, turbid Qi the heaviest part that settles from the Dao, and spiritual Qi is the Dao's essence, its breath, its heartbeat.

He drew pure Qi upward, pressed turbid Qi downward, and infused spiritual Qi in all directions.

The Great Luo Heaven began to take shape: east and west, south and north, up and down!

Yu Lin pressed his right hand onto the foundation and began drawing the Great Dao rules.

The Great Dao surged from his palm into the Great Luo Heaven, pouring into the foundation, spreading from the foundation to the walls, from the walls to the dome, and from the dome to the farthest corners.

The Great Luo Heaven trembled; each tremor meant a Great Dao rule had been successfully injected, each tremor made the Great Luo Heaven more complete.

When the final Great Dao rule was injected, a mass of Qi began to coalesce at the center of the Great Luo Heaven.

A blue Qi sphere!

It rotated slowly, one circle, another, and another.

Each rotation brightened the sphere a bit, each rotation expanded it a circle.

It breathed the Great Dao; with each inhalation the Great Luo Heaven dimmed a bit, with each exhalation it brightened a bit.

The blue Qi grew denser, heavier, brighter, shifting from pale blue to blue, then to deep blue.

It swelled—from fist‑size to head‑size, from head‑size to millstone‑size, from millstone‑size to house‑size.

But it did not keep growing; when it reached a certain size, it began to condense.

The blue Qi contracted inward, its volume shrinking, density increasing, temperature rising, brightness intensifying.

It shrank from house‑size back to millstone‑size, from millstone‑size back to head‑size, from head‑size back to fist‑size.

It did not return to the original state; it contracted to a critical point and stopped.

The blue Qi's color began to change, from blue to blue‑with‑yellow, from yellow‑tinged to half‑blue half‑yellow, from half‑blue half‑yellow to pure yellow.

A second‑colored sphere was born: yellow Qi!

Yu Lin continued drawing the Great Dao inward.

The yellow Qi sphere began to swell, to condense, to change.

Its color shifted from yellow to yellow‑with‑white, from white‑tinged to half‑yellow half‑white, from half‑yellow half‑white to pure white.

A third‑colored sphere was born: white Qi!

Yu Lin did not stop.

He kept drawing the Great Dao, injecting all remaining Dao, adding everything that could be added, stuffing all existence, all possibilities, all unknowns into this sphere.

Blue, yellow, white................

Bang.

The sphere exploded!

The blue Qi spread eastward, becoming Qing Wei Tian Yu Qing Jing.

The yellow Qi spread northeastward, becoming Yu Yu Tian Shang Qing Jing.

The white Qi spread southeastward, becoming Da Chi Tian Tai Qing Jing.

At the center of the Three Realms, light gathered.

The light was neither dazzling nor dim, just shining there, like a lamp that existed before heaven and earth opened.

Qing Wei Tian's blue spread across the dome, Yu Yu Tian's yellow sank below, and Da Chi Tian's white hovered in mid‑air.

The three colors each held their place, not intruding on one another, like a painting not yet brushed.

Deep within the light, something was taking shape.

From hidden to revealed, from nothing to something, leaving no trace.

Its origin unseen, its destination unseen, it simply appeared, just there.

Within Qing Wei Tian, a figure stood at the deepest blue light.

Its face was indistinct, its attire unrecognizable, even its very form uncertain.

But their presence could be felt—before everything began, before everything was named, they were already there.

Neither increasing nor decreasing, neither born nor dying, neither dirty nor clean.

Within Yu Yu Tian, a second figure emerged from the yellow light.

Their appearance was not a continuation; it coincided, shared the same place and source with the first, yet was entirely different.

The breath circulated, not moving from one place to another, but the circulation itself.

Yin and yang were distinguished within their breath, pure and turbid rose and fell within it, and all things found their laws of motion within it.

Within Da Chi Tian, the third figure emerged from the WhiteLight.

He was neither taller nor shorter than the first two.

His aura was the faintest, so faint as to seem nonexistent, as if it had a few more hints of humanity.............

It was like the source of all teaching, the foundation of all speech, the lingering resonance that all classics could not fully write.

The three figures stood within the San Jing, each independent yet seamlessly one.

Like a mountain's summit, midsection, and foot, it is the same mountain, yet not at the same height.

Like a river's upper, middle, and lower reaches, it is the same river, yet not the same stretch of water.

Their gazes fell on Yu Lin.

Thank you.

A voice came from the San Jing at the same time, neither loud nor soft, just audible.

Yu Lin looked at them, returned a bow, and smiled:

All friends, no need to be formal.