Chapter 648: The Further Refinement of the Mental Realm Domain

I was currently toying with a piece of crystallized bone in my hand, which was the bone of a Mutated Beast.

My Clones not only had my appearance but also the appearance of others.

Perhaps it was to inherit the last wish of others, to assume the appearance of others, or to atone for the wicked, or to uphold promises for the good.

These Clones, who did not look like me yet were still me… were an experience.

The former me would only evade or treat with indifference many things that exceeded my expectations, because I did not allow too many accidents in my life.

These were clearly things of mere imagination, not yet truly happened, yet I characterized them as… bad things, and then proceeded to evade them.

But after experiencing them through Clones with no restraints, I discovered… things could develop into something even worse.

But I had no regrets.

Because I knew I had gone through this kind of event.

If this were truly something I encountered in my life, and not a Clone, then having gone through this experience, I was confident I could do better.

Life simply lacked too many opportunities for trial and error.

Confidence was not born from nothing, but cultivated by oneself, and the prerequisite for cultivating confidence was… being powerful enough oneself.

Whether it was powerful in strength, like me, using Clones to willfully experiment, constantly experience, and enrich my inner self.

Or powerful in my inner self, constantly trying throughout life, and not being knocked down by life's failures, gradually gaining strength.

These seemed to be two complementary and cyclical paths…

The former me thought too much and awoke too much while in the Academy, but could not truly change myself, because I lacked life experiences.

Knowing only great principles without experience was useless, neither deep enough nor piercing enough to the bone.

Many famous quotes, great principles, and inspirational platitudes were simply one person's summary of their actions.

They didn't tell you how to do it; they only told you to do it.

Just like overcoming laziness, the platitudes were others telling you to stop being lazy and work hard!

But they didn't tell you how to overcome laziness, how to possess executive power, how to defeat procrastination, and then how to work hard, what to work hard on, what state was suitable for effort, and what state required rest.

These were all difficulties that "don't be lazy" needed to overcome.

How could they be generalized by a simple "go work hard"?

These insights were my own form of adjustment, and also a form of cultivation for myself.

Because I found that the clearer the heart, the less fear of difficulty.

The less fear of difficulty, the more one can discern the laws of things.

This perfectly matched a form of Mental Realm cultivation.

The Heart Sense was the source of perceiving these things, the deep-seated meaning of understanding these things.

The former me simply thought that the Heart Sense was merely understanding what the Five Senses Enhancement perceived.

So, what was hidden beneath the perception?

It was emotion, and desire.

I could understand more about a person through the five senses.

Whether they were pleading or mocking, laughing or cursing, language was always so pale.

The expression of emotion and the venting of desire were the information a person truly released externally.

Before embarking on this journey, I had been searching for the "carrier" in the Mental Realm Domain that hosted my Five Senses Enhancement.

At first, I thought it was the Power of Knowledge, but clearly, I was being too presumptuous.

I tried using the Power of Knowledge as the carrier, and it turned into a technique under the Knowledge Power order system, which was not the order expression belonging to a Domain.

Although the attempt failed, I refined a technique: the Five Senses Enhancement technique constituted by the Power of Knowledge, similar to a… "Five Senses Bug**"?

But ultimately, I classified this technique into the "Annotation" technique, after all, the Annotation technique was the mainstream technique evolved from the Power of Knowledge.

Instead of one order having multiple techniques, it was better to unify them, as it would be more convenient to use later.

But in these few months, had I found a way for the Domain to integrate the five senses order?

I had, and it was… extremely simple.

The carrier for the Five Senses order, I had been misled by my own preconceived notions.

Since it was confirmed that the perception of the five senses could certainly be integrated into the Domain like the Seventh Sense Time Sense, then it was naturally part of the Domain, so… the Domain itself was its carrier!

But how it was carried, and how the five senses' order was expressed, was what surprised me…

First, I needed to understand one point: the Power of Knowledge was the superficial manifestation of my own Domain order, but it was not purely the product of the two Grand Spellbooks.

If I hadn't facilitated the Domain's birth, the Dual-Tree Structure formed by the two Grand Spellbooks also wouldn't have produced the Domain order, which is the Power of Knowledge.

The Dual-Tree Structure was merely the "Anchor" for my Domain extension.

Therefore, the Power of Knowledge itself was the order of my Domain, but it took on this appearance under the two Grand Spellbooks.

Without these two Grand Spellbooks, it would probably be a different sight, but there were no "ifs," so this was just my preconceived notion.

Therefore, as the Five Senses Enhancement integrated into the Mental Realm order, what it expressed was still… the "Power of Knowledge."

Blame me for choosing a bad name, but I don't regret it.

The Great Tree of Knowledge had a vast reserve of knowledge, so the Power of Knowledge had the ability to manifest knowledge.

The Tree of Wisdom's Enlightenment represented the enlightenment of wisdom, and also the deduction of wisdom, so the Power of Knowledge would continuously deduce and iterate.

And in that attempt in the Dream State, I also discovered that this deduction of knowledge could even surpass the stored knowledge that the Great Tree of Knowledge did not have.

So… theoretically, I now had two ways to acquire knowledge.

The first was to directly acquire it from the outside world relying on the Great Tree of Knowledge, and the second was to rely on the Tree of Wisdom's Enlightenment to deduce knowledge and acquire higher-level knowledge.

But the second method was difficult; I had only succeeded once so far, and it was achieved unintentionally.

Now, setting aside the two Grand Spellbooks, my Domain order "Power of Knowledge" also exhibited a brand new order characteristic.

An order originating from Body Cultivation!

Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

The five senses' perception transformed into the Domain order.

Innumerable corresponding phenomena continuously transformed into "eyes," "ears," "noses," "tongues," and "hands" within the Domain…

These were a layer of "phenomena," the "inherent impressions" formed as the representation of perception.

This was the Mental Realm.

If all of this didn't involve the two Grand Spellbooks, then this is what my Body Cultivation Domain would look like, utterly terrifying!

Like a human hell!

The five senses' phenomena would be continuously presented in a way that stimulated human reason.

But as I said before, there were no "ifs."

When these phenomena continuously merged and matched with the Domain, they ultimately transformed into… the "Power of Knowledge," a very peculiar Power of Knowledge.

How would the Power of Knowledge, which inherited "knowledge" and "wisdom deduction," express the five senses?

Instinct was always faster than my subjective thinking, and it gave me the answer.

The five senses' imagery transformed into Rune Rituals representing "sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch"!

And these five Rune Rituals were a brand new type; at least, I had never seen this type of Rune until now.

I think I must have gone crazy studying Runology during this time…

And… this might not necessarily be a Rune! But it was the Power of Knowledge, the order of the Domain.

It was I who assigned the meaning of a Rune and the corresponding Ritual within my Domain.

It would be the most "fundamental" and smallest "indivisible" Rune Ritual in my Domain!

Each Rune represented the entire, most direct meaning of one of the five senses.

After these five Runes were born, I pondered a question: could these Runes form a Compound Rune?

The Compound Rune gives it a spell structure and a spell ritual.

Could this Rune Ritual, which purely belongs to Body Cultivation power, give birth to a "Spell" that purely belongs to Body Cultivation?

Then, where was the boundary between "Body Cultivation" and "Spell Cultivation"?

Or was this… a "different path to the same goal" interpretation of different paths to the "Transcendent"?

These conjectures had no answers, as these questions required me to explore them myself.

I continued to toy with the beast bone and headed towards the distant front.

The place I needed to reach was so conspicuous because a massive crack had appeared in the sky above it, horizontally spanning the heavens.

And the cause of this miracle was the spatial rift created by the Witch Sisters merging the Small World.

It was a natural rift that traversed the Core Realm and the Expansion Realm, and it was the largest rift, a rift that had not fully healed even now that the Expansion Realm was completely merged.

I recall I seemed to have heard about the rift that opened up above the Horaso Swamp in the Main World's Core Realm, but I hadn't been too concerned about it. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

What's more, after I created the Destiny Gazing Technique, it seemed no more rifts were born.

And my goal for coming here this time was to witness this miracle.

Although I had traveled back and forth between the Expansion Realm and the Core Realm several times, and even used the established stable Teleportation Channel several times, this still couldn't stop me from trying to understand this more primitive and violent phenomenon of space-opening!

Of course, my understanding of the essence of space would also help me with my comprehension of the "Eighth Sense Space Sense."

The last time I encountered the Spatial Maze, I missed the opportunity for enlightenment.

Although I gained a deeper understanding of Material Space, the Eighth Sense Space Sense of Body Cultivation did not materialize, not even a prototype was touched.

So, I hoped to gain something this time.

But as I approached that area, I could see the rift more clearly.

That rift was like a scar stretching across the sky, with countless cracks around it demonstrating its former vastness.

But what was even more unbelievable was that the cause of this spatial rift was… a ridge formed by World Primordial Soil!

And beneath the ridge were various Transcendent Materials all formed from World Primordial Soil, and among them were large Material Spaces unfolded with spatial attributes, forming a solid Spatial Maze that encircled the ridge and mountains!

I came to a spot further ahead.

The terrain here was steeper, as if the earth had been squeezed and fractured in the most primitive way.

Between the land faults, countless torn Root Systems could be seen.

These were once the foundations of a civilization's development.

After sensing the might of the world, I felt satisfied with the cultivation of my own perception.

This was not only the great power of nature, but also the great power of the Transcendent!

Conquer nature, transform nature.

Although all of that was still far from me, I was moving forward step by step with determination.

If the students of the Transcendent Academies saw this mountain range constituted by World Primordial Soil, their eyes would surely light up, right?

But the most "worthless" item among the World's Three Source Elements had to be World Primordial Soil.

Because it was the most stable of the three.

Transcendent Primordial Crystal was unstable because it was energy, and could drop in energy level and release energy at any time.

But World Primordial Soil was very stable, so stable that even my strongest power could not shake it.

I also learned about the characteristics of World Primordial Soil from the information gathered by the Great Tree of Knowledge: World Primordial Soil could transform into any material, even rare Transcendent Materials, but all of this was not man-made.

Even a Transcendent powerhouse could not rely on brute force to make World Primordial Soil turn into other Transcendent Materials.

It required a special technique.

The only existence that mastered the technique of transforming World Primordial Soil was… the world itself.

The world itself transformed World Primordial Soil into the resources to enrich the world.

The prefix "World" was added before "Primordial Soil" because only the world itself could transform and utilize it.

Under normal circumstances, World Primordial Soil itself had no characteristics, or contained innumerable characteristics, but it was the most stable type of material, and also the most constant resource exchange between worlds.

But for us, its best use was to build houses.

Then you would have the most stable house in this world, one that even the Transcendent could not destroy.

Of course, there was a prerequisite for this: the house constructed from World Primordial Soil had to be a single, integral entity.

However, such a massive ridge, while spectacular, was also where a huge population of Mutated Beasts congregated.

This kind of environment was clearly not suitable for human habitation.

After arriving here, even with the Domain fully expanded, I could not perceive any human construction of shelters or dwelling places here.

This area could be said to be a human dead end and a Mutated Beast paradise.

And the World Primordial Soil at the foot of the mountain, which had already been transformed into various Transcendent Materials, formed a vast Spatial Maze.

Although it would not shift and change like the Seed Bank, the area covered by the Spatial Maze here was not even a fraction of the Earth Vein Convergence Point of that Seed Bank!

However, before truly researching that spatial rift, I was more interested in the "ecosystem" formed by the massive Mutated Beast population here.

Thinking this, I looked at the beast bone in my hand, then looked into the distance, as if I had found a brand new toy.

The reason I was so interested in the Mutated Beasts of the Expansion Realm was that I discovered that the Mutated Beasts did not seem to be the black sheep that needed to be eliminated from the Expansion Realm; they were also a part of its composition.

So, it was not impossible for me to lend them a helping hand.

Moreover… the exposed Transcendent Materials on the Expansion Realm's surface would eventually be mined out.

But the Expansion Realm needed a constantly circulating, stable output.

Mutated Beasts were the product I envisioned.

They possessed great developmental potential, and they would also be a group of "treasures all over the body."

Therefore, they needed wisdom and strength.

They were both the treasure trove and the guardians of the treasure trove.

Just like the crystallized bone I was toying with, it was a very valuable Transcendent Material.

The residents of the Expansion Realm could even develop a brand new power system based on these Mutated Beasts.

The power I gave them was, in the end, just "starter equipment."

The development of civilization and the path of the Transcendent required them to pioneer for themselves.