His Many Talents Take Effect, His Ranking Soars
There were actually many books floating around Chen Du all the time.
Those books were all books of Dao Resonance that he had previously condensed in different worlds using the concepts of "Become a Saint on the Spot" and "the [The World as a Book]."
The Celestial Master Realm's "Grand Pure Heavenly Master Dao-Subduing True Scripture" and "Divine Firmament Nine Extinctions Purple Extreme True Thunder Great Method"... the Motian Sect Red Sun Immortal Realm, and the Spirit Martial Realm's Divine Status comprehension, all transformed into semi-transparent scrolls of light, slowly swirling around him.
But at this moment, the words on those books became blurry and faint, as if viewed through a layer of water.
Chen Du knew that those books were his road signs along the way, but road signs are ultimately just road signs.
The true path is never found in books.
There are also some books that are derived from the Dao Resonance found in inscriptions.
However, he could only conjure up a very small portion of the Dao Resonance and transform it into a portion of the books.
Because the inscription is too profound and obscure to be understood in its entirety, it can only be broken down little by little.
Overusing talent is actually not very useful.
He looked down at the forty-odd graphics in front of him. They floated in front of the inscription, arranged in an irregular shape.
But if you look closely, you'll find that the shape is actually a flower.
The very first image of a seven-colored flower was a single, colorless, transparent petal, as thin as a cicada's wing, almost invisible.
That was the first layer he grasped when he first sat down—the roughest, most superficial, and least substantial layer.
But as it penetrated deeper and deeper over the course of a month, the colorless petal gradually acquired color, growing out petal by petal.
Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple.
Seven colors, seven petals.
Each petal corresponds to a different emotion.
Anger, sorrow, joy, fear, love, hatred, and infatuation.
He pushed every emotion to its extreme, condensing it into a petal, which was then combined to form a complete seven-colored flower.
Seven emotions, seven rules.
Each law is at least at the lower level, grade two.
In other words, he comprehended seven lower-level, second-tier emotional laws in one go.
This number, if placed out in the public eye, would be enough to leave any Ninth Tier prodigy speechless.
Others might only be able to comprehend one Lower Second-Level Law, but he comprehended seven from the same inscription.
But he was not satisfied, because he knew that these forty-odd figures did not represent a fundamental leap in terms of comprehension.
Each subsequent picture requires a slightly higher level of comprehension than the previous one, with the difficulty slowly increasing but never fundamentally changing.
It's like climbing a seemingly gentle mountain; you walk a long way, but the altitude only increases a little.
Although the seven emotional laws are all of the lower level, in his eyes they are still scattered petals, not a complete flower.
What he needs is something that completely integrates them into one.
His gaze fell on the crimson petal, which represented the law of anger, his most familiar and powerful trump card.
From Achieving the Dao Through Anger the Celestial Master Realm, to burning away the Great Yan's fortune with a single sword in the Heavenly Human Realm, and then sweeping across Extraterrestrial Races on Blue Star, all his outbursts, all his breakthroughs, and all the moments of turning the tide in desperate situations were driven by rage.
At this moment, this crimson petal was more solid and brighter than the other six.
It already shows signs of gaining dominance over the other six petals.
Chen Du closed his eyes and focused all his attention on that red petal.
He no longer pursued understanding more images, nor did he care about his ranking on the leaderboard.
He only needs one breakthrough.
A key to allowing seven emotions to coalesce from scattered petals into a complete flower.
And he has already grasped this key.
Deep within that crimson petal, there was an extremely fine line, resembling a primordial form of some kind of rule.
It is incomplete and fragmented, like a seed hidden deep within a petal after being deliberately broken.
Chen Du probed the pattern with his Spiritual Power, feeling its pulse and the faint line between it and the other six petals.
He slightly curled the corners of his mouth; only one last step remained.
For others, deciphering the inscription is simply a matter of comprehension, solving one problem after another.
It's like someone gives you a computer and tells you which key to press to turn it on and which icon to click to open software. You just follow the instructions and it works.
The vast majority of participants here take this path.
They peeled away fragments of rules from the surface of the inscriptions, found the existing patterns left by their predecessors, and deduced them by imitation, forming a graphic, which was considered passing the test.
Fast, efficient, and effective.
That's how Bai Wuchen's 198 pictures came about.
He had been immersed in the Heavenly Wind Formless Stele since childhood, and knew its network of veins by heart. Every step he took was effortless.
But Chen Du did something else entirely.
Instead of rushing to use the existing framework in the inscription, he disassembled each framework, peeled back the underlying structure of each fragment of law, and saw clearly why it operated in this way, what its fundamental principle was, and how its connection with other fragments was formed.
Just like other people turn on their computers and use them immediately, the first thing he does when he gets a computer is to take apart the case, disassemble the motherboard, chips, circuits, and memory sticks, figure out the function of each part, and understand how the current flows and how the data is transmitted.
He wasn't even satisfied with just understanding it; he wanted to rebuild the computer.
He reconstructed a complete system of rules that belonged to him, using his own methods, the seven laws of emotions he had mastered, and all the knowledge he had accumulated along the way.
This road is slow, of course.
While others might only need the time it takes to burn an incense stick to deduce a single diagram, he might need a whole day.
While others can decipher over a hundred diagrams in a month, he can only decipher over forty.
In the early stages, he was far behind.
But those who seem to be moving fast are walking on paths paved by others.
No matter how well a road is paved, it will eventually come to an end.
He forged his own path; it was slow, but every step was his own.
Once he truly understands that fundamental principle and masters the skill of "building computers," his path will have no end.
He can use the same principles to deconstruct the next monument, and the one after that, or even without a monument at all.
Accumulated knowledge and experience will eventually lead to success.
What he lacks is simply a breakthrough.
The key to unlocking this secret lies within that crimson petal.
He closed his eyes and poured all his Spiritual Power into it. The incomplete pattern, like a seed buried in a stone, waited quietly for him.
He felt its pulsation, felt the faint line connecting it to the other six petals.
He suddenly remembered that when he was in the Celestial Master Realm, he had used Divine Revelation Reading and deduce hundreds of martial arts techniques, and finally forged Martial Canon.
Back then, he relied on dismantling, reassembling, and integrating. Now, he's doing the exact same thing.
However, the object of dismantling has changed from martial arts to laws, and from internal energy to emotions.
He slowly disassembled the seven petals one by one, allowing them to transform back into fragments of the most primordial laws.
Then, using that broken pattern as the core, he pieced the fragments back together, one by one.
Crimson anger is at the very center, surrounded by orange sorrow, yellow joy, green fear, cyan love, blue hatred, and purple infatuation.
Between the fragments, lines begin to emerge, and patterns begin to take shape.
A new flower slowly bloomed in his mind's eye.
This time, instead of seven separate petals, it is a complete flower.
The seven colors of light intertwine and flow, mutually supporting and inspiring each other, cycling endlessly and renewing themselves.
He opened his eyes, and the more than forty figures on the monument lit up simultaneously, their seven-colored light surging. A phantom of a seven-colored flower emerged from the depths of the monument and hovered in front of him.
The petals slowly rotate, and with each rotation, new patterns emerge from the stamen.
Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three... the numbers keep jumping up.
His name rose from 1,300th on the list.
Up to one thousand,
Up to 500
It went from 300th to 200th.
Still going up!