Deep within the Purple Cloud Hall, the seated listeners seemed oblivious to Zheng Fa and his group of newcomers, turning their heads without looking back, their gazes fixed intently on the figure seated on the high platform.
Daoist Hongjun sat cross-legged on the platform, glancing at Zheng Fa and the others. His gaze startled Zheng Fa —it seemed as if his gaze had pierced through time and landed on him.
Is this really just a memory of the Fusang Wood...?
Zheng Fa couldn't help but feel a little doubtful, but then he saw that Daoist Hongjun had already turned his head and opened his mouth, as if he was about to start preaching.
He immediately perked up his ears. Not to mention that this opportunity to hear the Dao concerned the supreme treasure, the Primordial Purple Qi, hearing the Dao at the Purple Cloud Palace was a great fortuitous opportunity in itself. How could he not be looking forward to it?
But when Daoist Hongjun spoke, Zheng Fa felt as if he had been hit on the head with a heavy hammer, his mind reeling and completely stunned.
Can't understand!
What came out of Daoist Hongjun's mouth was the supreme Dao.
When Zheng Fa heard it, he only thought it was a bunch of gibberish and incoherent nonsense.
Language barrier!
Now, Zheng Fa truly felt that the memories of his dead were attacking him—he had encountered a similar predicament when he first transmigrated to the modern world.
Fortunately, the difference between the Xuanwei Realm and modern language is not that great; now it seems that they may be of the same origin.
He was at the bottom of his class for many years in junior high, a disgrace to compulsory education. It was only because he was hardworking and had a decent memory that he gradually improved his grades.
... Now look what's happened. After wandering for half my life, I've returned still illiterate.
He was puzzled. He could understand what Hongjun had just said, and it was in the current Xuanwei language.
But upon glancing at the futon beneath his legs, he suddenly realized that the words he had just spoken had probably been translated by the Fusang Wood.
But preaching is different; any translation will lose the True Intention of the preaching.
Fusang Wood meant well, but Zheng Fa fourteen men were truly bewildered:
They were like international students who had never learned a foreign language, sitting in a classroom full of foreigners, with only one heartfelt question: Can you speak human language?
Dharma Body, the Lu Clan's Grand Elder's mouth opened and closed in sync with Daoist Hongjun's, his mind blank.
When he came to his senses, he became even more anxious.
Among the fourteen people who have entered the Nine Luminaries Heaven, the Lu Clan is actually the weakest. Although they don't want to admit it, Shi Nandang fought against more than ten Nascent Spirit Transformation that day. If they really fought, it's not certain who would win.
The Lu Clan's reliance lies in two things: their cooperation with the Gu God and their control over the Nine Luminaries Heaven Gate.
But if they want the Primordial Purple Qi, this reliance is of little use.
He stared intently at Daoist Hongjun, but had to admit that he couldn't understand a word the other was saying.
Just as he was feeling extremely anxious, a few golden lights suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye.
The Lu Clan's Grand Elder was stunned for a moment, then suddenly looked up.
Endless golden flowers drifted down from the dome of the Purple Cloud Palace, accompanying the sermons of Daoist Hongjun.
Upon closer inspection, the Grand Elder of the Lu Clan discovered that the petals of these golden flowers were covered with runes-like characters, which changed with the changes in the preaching.
Runes?
The Lu Clan's Grand Elder's spirits lifted, and he suddenly realized where the fortuitous opportunity lay.
He tried hard to decipher the patterns on the golden flowers around him, when suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him, and he connected them with a talisman he had previously mastered. In an instant, the golden flowers seemed to have eyes, turned a corner, and fell down on his head.
The Lu Clan's Grand Elder felt a sudden surge of spiritual energy within his body, along with a small fragment of mysterious scripture flashing in his sea of consciousness.
His clansmen all looked at him.
The Grand Elder of the Lu Clan did not hide anything, and whispered, "Ignore the sermon, just focus on comprehending the runes on this golden flower. Use the Dao of Talisman Dao to decipher its True Intention, which is very similar to how we used to perform Talisman Arts."
The others suddenly realized what was happening and focused their attention on the golden flower. A moment later, someone exclaimed, "This flower is truly magical! My cultivation has increased!"
The Grand Elder of the Lu Clan quickly transmitted his voice, "Keep your voice down!"
"Yes, yes, yes."
The Lu Clan's Grand Elder looked ahead nervously, praying that Zheng Fa and the others wouldn't discover the secret.
But upon closer inspection, he was greatly disappointed—almost everyone had noticed it:
The Creation Daoist's eyes gleamed with a strange light as he looked up at the golden flowers around him.
The White Lotus in Thunderclap Temple had its eyes closed and its lips moving, but there was a golden Buddha eye between its brows, which shone astonishingly brightly.
Golden-Winged Great Peng and the others were also desperately trying to comprehend the runes on the golden flower.
These people are all True Immortal, and their mastery of Talisman Dao arts far surpasses that of the Lu Clan.
For every golden flower that the Lu Clan identify and absorb, the Creation Daoist must absorb at least dozens or even hundreds of them.
The Grand Elder of the Lu Clan was anxious but helpless. The other party was simply stronger; they themselves were not even at the Dao Fruit, how could they compare?
He tilted his head and couldn't help but squint – Shi Nandang, this scoundrel, was covered in flowers, practically a little golden man. The number of golden flowers he had absorbed was even twice as much as that of the Creation Daoist and the others!
That golden light was both blinding and piercing!
Even the Creation Daoist seemed to be startled by Shi Nandang, and turned his head to take a few more glances.
Zheng Fa was being watched by the Creation Daoist and others, but his mind was not on them.
In terms of the Talisman Dao, the Nine Mountains Sect can almost be said to be unparalleled in the profound Xuanwei.
Some of the patterns on the golden flower are closely related to Talisman Diagram, while others are not so similar. However, Zheng Fa can recognize almost any pattern that is related to Talisman Diagram at a glance.
The sharp eyesight he honed from playing the Talisman Match-Up back then is finally coming in handy.
Zheng Fa felt that the spiritual energy within his body was becoming increasingly abundant—this was crucial for him.
He has only recently advanced to the Mahayana stage; others who wish to achieve the Dao Fruit must accumulate spiritual power for many years.
But Zheng Fa simply didn't have that much time. Now, this golden flower was causing his spiritual power to advance by leaps and bounds, relieving his immediate crisis.
But Zheng Fa was not entirely satisfied.
Identifying the Talisman Diagram on the golden flower grants spiritual power, which in turn improves one's ranking within the Purple Cloud Palace.
But there was nothing new to learn.
The Talisman Diagram on the golden flower were fragmented and discontinuous; he couldn't even fully recognize them.
On the other hand, he couldn't understand the teachings of Daoist Hongjun.
If things continue like this, he will only gain a slight increase in spiritual power, and nothing more.
Zheng Fa pondered for a moment, then turned his gaze to Daoist Hongjun and listened attentively.
The preaching went on for countless years, and no one knew how much time had passed. Dharma Body, the Lu Clan's Grand Elder was both trying his best to comprehend the Talisman Diagram on the golden flower and secretly observing the other competitors.
The light in the eyes of the Creation Daoist grew brighter and brighter, and the speed at which he absorbed the golden flower increased even further.
But even he couldn't compare to that White Lotus Monk!
A blue seed floated between the White Lotus's brows, resembling the pupil of the golden Buddha's eye.
He devoured all the gold flowers around him.
The Grand Elder of the Lu Clan stared intently, almost exclaiming, " Bodhi Seed?"
His mind trembled violently. The Bodhi Seed was the supreme secret medicine of Thunderclap Temple, which could best enhance a cultivator's comprehension and was extremely precious.
This White Lotus just casually took one out?
The Grand Elder of the Lu Clan felt somewhat defeated and looked at the others.
The Golden-Winged Great Peng was deep in thought, its expression serious, showing no sign of ferocity.
Both the Gu God and the White Bone Devil Ancestor were extremely serious.
Of the fourteen people who came, almost none dared to slack off; each of them used their skills to try their best to decipher the Talisman Diagram on the golden flower.
wrong!
He suddenly realized that he had overlooked Shi Nandang!
The Lu Clan's Grand Elder turned his head and realized that it wasn't that he had overlooked the other party, but rather that Shi Nandang had lost his golden light and become inconspicuous.
The Lu Clan's Grand Elder narrowed his eyes, carefully examining Shi Nandang's profile. He saw that the man had his eyes closed, his head bowed, and his expression serene.
How Shi Nandang?!
"Is the corpus sufficient this time?"
In the modern Nursing Home, Zheng Fa projected a light screen, on which was an image of Daoist Hongjun preaching.
Besides the voice of Daoist Hongjun, the scene also included golden flowers, and the Talisman Diagram on them were clearly visible.
Zheng Fa had been listening to the Dao in the Nine Luminaries Heaven for more than half a year. At first, he was still studying the runes, but later he completely focused his attention on recording the teachings of Daoist Hongjun.
He looked at Liu and the others with expectant eyes.
He had fallen asleep in Purple Cloud Classroom several times, and each time he brought back a bunch of lecture videos for Liu and others to study.
Liu, leading a group of newly recruited linguists from the Nursing Home, exchanged glances, their faces etched with worry, and began to explain:
"Writing is nothing more than form, sound, and meaning. We already have a very clear understanding of form and sound based on the sound of this sermon and the patterns on the golden flower, but the meaning..."
At this point, Liu's expression became even more embarrassed. "We can still only analyze a small portion."
Zheng Fa nodded slightly, not too disappointed—he had heard this answer many times before.
Seeing his silence, Liu said in a low voice, "Dean, we have some ideas that might be of some use."
Zheng Fa, however, held little hope. His initial progress in deciphering the High Antiquity language was quite rapid, but he remained stuck there without any breakthrough.
" Zheng Fa, Lingwu has made progress!"
The Old Man Bai flew in the sky and shouted at Zheng Fa.
Zheng Fa perked up upon hearing this, and waved to Liu, signaling them to follow him to the back of the mountain.
"Dean, this is..."
"Now that the corpus is complete, let's try using Heluo."
The most advanced supercomputer at Heluo Nursing Home boasts computing power that is absolutely Wu Shuang in the Modern World.
When Tang Lingwu first started studying High Antiquity languages, she proposed using artificial intelligence to analyze them. They tried it, but due to the incompleteness of the data, they came up with very few conclusions, and even many errors.
During this time, Zheng Fa listened to the Dao at the Purple Cloud Palace and collected a large amount of phonetic and written data of High Antiquity languages.
These raw data, after being studied and processed by Liu and others, can be considered a very high-quality corpus.
Tang Lingwu has recently been using artificial intelligence to process these corpora, and today it seems that she has finally achieved some results.
When the group arrived at the back of the mountain, Tang Lingwu was already waiting there, holding a tablet in her hand, and a huge screen on the wall in front of her.
On the screen was the figure of Daoist Hongjun, speaking:
"I am deeply saddened by the ignorance of all living beings and the profound mystery of the Great Dao..."
It's actually in modern language.
Tang Lingwu and her team not only used the Heluo script to decipher High Antiquity characters, but they also translated them!
Zheng Fa looked at Daoist Hongjun on the screen and thought to himself, "This is great! Not only do I have a translation, but I also have video courseware. I can listen to it as many times as I want."
But Tang Lingwu's surprise for him wasn't just that.
" Heluo also provided an explanation for those texts and sounds whose meanings Liu could not determine."
"What?"
"Charm."
Upon hearing this, Zheng Fa immediately understood. " Incantatory Speech?"
"Those runes are closely related to the talismans we know, you could even say they originated from the same source, yet we never knew that runes could be read."
That's absolutely true.
From the moment he entered the Dao, the Talisman Dao of the Xuanwei Realm were all drawn, without any sound.
"That's why we can't completely decipher it. If we treat it as Incantatory Speech, separating everyday language from the Incantatory Speech..."
Liu, standing nearby, slapped his right fist against his left palm, suddenly realizing, "That's right! We always thought he was interacting with the audience during his sermons, but that might not be the case!"
"That's right. According to Heluo's analysis, only 30% of it is what we call everyday language, that is, language used for communication with people," Tang Lingwu nodded. "The remaining 70% is not actually language; we can consider it a kind of chanting."
"Or rather, these chants are his way of speaking to the endless Dao of Heavenly Dao, which doesn't even conform to any grammatical rules and cannot be understood by modern linguistics."
Zheng Fa listened and nodded slightly. In this way, he could understand why modern scholars had spent so much time trying to decipher High Antiquity languages.
Essentially, this is not a language.
Mixing Incantatory Speech with everyday language doubled the difficulty of the research for Liu and his team.
" Heluo has initially compiled two sets of dictionaries."
Tang Lingwu tapped on the tablet, and two files appeared on the screen in front of them.
"This is Ancient Common-Use Character Dictionary, containing over two thousand frequently used characters by the Daoist Hongjun. It can be supplemented later."
"This is Incantation Dictionary, containing the pronunciations of over six thousand Talisman Diagram."
Zheng Fa looked at the two documents, but his gaze was fixed on the Incantation Dictionary. He took the tablet from Tang Lingwu, opened the Incantation Dictionary, and his spirits lifted.
There are many talismans on it, which are extremely similar to the Talisman Diagram on the Cosmos Cauldron and the altar!
Within the Nine Mountains Realm.
Senior Sister Zhang looked at the two dictionaries copied from the Heavenly Emperor Body, then looked at the Cosmos Cauldron.
"You mean, you think the Cosmos Cauldron is... a ritual object?"
According to these two dictionaries, the runes on the Cosmos Cauldron represent a ritualistic ceremony.
"Only after offering sacrifices to the Heavenly Dao can Law Treasure transform from the Postcelestial Realm to the Precelestial Realm." The Heavenly Emperor Body pondered for a moment, then added, "The most important function of talismans lies precisely in this—praying to the Heavenly Dao, or rather, communicating directly with the Heavenly Dao."
To put it simply, once he understood the existence of talismans, he realized their purpose—talismans weren't for magical battles; their greatest function was actually for performing various rituals.
The altar of the Original Devil Ancestor was like this, and so is the Cosmos Cauldron. Even looking back now, the Oracle Bone Script left in the sacrificial rites of the Shang Dynasty are probably similar.
(End of this chapter)