Taiqing Laozi sat atop the withered lotus at the highest point of the heavens, with the Heaven and Earth Mysterious Yellow Exquisite Pagoda suspended above his head. The last crack in the pagoda slowly healed in the gray-white halo. He had been refining the last trace of "balance" in the fragment of the Heavenly Dao Origin with his eyes closed when he suddenly sensed something and opened his eyes.
What I see is the Human Race.
It wasn't a single city, field, or street in the Southern Continent of Jambu, but the entire Human Race —hundreds of millions scattered across the four continents of the Primordial Wilderness, from the shores of the Eastern Sea to the western deserts, from the snowy plains of the North to the dense forests of the South. Countless wisps of smoke rose simultaneously, countless footsteps were taken at the same time, and countless thoughts arose and vanished simultaneously. These thoughts, like fine threads, like dust, like countless raindrops in spring rain, should have been chaotic and disordered, but at this moment, in Taiqing's eyes, they wove into a net. That net wasn't maintained by magic, wasn't constrained by formations, and wasn't forcibly bound by any man-made rules; it simply grew naturally—every Human Race's interactions with others in life: trade, conversation, teaching, cooperation, disputes, reconciliation, marriage, childbirth, funerals, sacrifices—thousands upon thousands of interactions interwoven like warp and weft, accumulating over millions of years to form a Giant Net covering the four continents of the Primordial Wilderness and penetrating the daily lives of all living beings.
Taiqing named it: Human Dao Heavenly Net.
He first truly "saw" this network before the Thirty Eon. At that time, Cangjie had only invented writing a few thousand years ago, Human Race had just learned to use writing to communicate. Taiqing remembered that he hadn't paid much attention to it then, considering it just one of the many skills Human Race possessed. But now, looking at this network again, each node on it represented a city, a village, a household, or a person. Between the nodes, gray-white rays of light connected them, flowing with words, numbers, images, sounds, and something even more complex—experience. A Southern Continent of Jambu experimented with a new crop rotation method on the red soil. He inscribed this method on bamboo slips, which circulated through the Human Dao Heavenly Net to the Eastern Victory Divine Continent. Farmers in the Eastern Victory Divine Continent used this method to improve their wheat fields, doubling their wheat yields, and then passed on their improved experience back. This round trip took only a few days, whereas in the past, the same dissemination, relying on word of mouth and traveling merchants, would have taken decades.
Taiqing rose from the Lotus Platform and descended amidst a gray-white halo. He concealed his form, like a drop of water falling into the sea, silently entering the inner workings of the Human Dao Heavenly Net.
The Skynet isn't like a net at all. It's more like an infinitely vast city, without walls or gates, but with countless crisscrossing "paths." Each path is paved with countless tiny streams of information. Paths can intersect, separate, or change course at any time, entirely up to the person walking on them. Taiqing saw an old farmer squatting on the edge of a field, his fingers tracing characters in the soil, just learned. The character then transformed into a point of light, flying into the Skynet and landing in the "farmer's path." The farmer's path had accumulated countless points of light over millions of years, each... Each dot of light represents a piece of farming experience, from slash-and-burn agriculture to iron plows and ox-drawn plows, from relying on the weather to observing stars and predicting rainfall, from monoculture to rice-wheat rotation, mulberry-hemp intercropping, and bean-millet intercropping. The dot of light drawn by the old farmer is just a drop in the ocean, but the SkyNet automatically archives, compares, verifies, and recommends it—if there is another field with similar soil 300 miles away, the SkyNet will push the old farmer's experience there for the farmers there to refer to. There are no orders from the government, no divine intervention, just a network that has naturally learned to "help people find people, find methods, and find fields" through the use of countless people.
Taiqing continued its descent.
Beneath the Human Dao Heavenly Net lies something even older and more profound. The Taiqing calls it the Human Dao River.
The Long River is neither in the heavens nor on the earth, but within the memories and heritage of all people. At the moment of birth, the Long River leaves a faint mark on the soul of each Human Race; the first word learned, the first character written, the first seed planted, the first object crafted, the first principle understood—all stir up a drop of water in the Long River. When a person dies, the drop of water does not perish, but merges into the main vein of the Long River, becoming one with the drops of water left by countless predecessors. When later generations cultivate themselves, study, work, trade, fight, or heal, if by chance, they can sense a "drop of water" from a predecessor in the Long River. That drop of water contains no complete Soul, no obsession, no resentment, but only a pure experience, a pure method, a pure principle, laid out cleanly, waiting for someone who needs it to pick it up.
Taiqing saw a young blacksmith repeatedly hammering a piece of stubborn iron in front of the furnace. He hammered for three days and three nights, but the iron block still wouldn't crack. The young man sat down on the ground in frustration, when suddenly he felt a heat between his brows, and a splash of water rose from the Long River —it was the experience left by an old blacksmith before the 30,000 Eon: Iron should not be hammered heavily if impurities are not removed; it must be slowly nurtured with a gentle fire until the impurities escape on their own before heavy hammering. The young man did as instructed, and the iron block indeed took shape. He didn't know the old blacksmith's name, nor did he need to. The Long River is unsigned, only transmitting its methods.
Further down from Taiqing, you reach the point where the Human Dao Heavenly Net and the Human Dao River meet. There stands a city there.
The city is named "Human Dao Library".
Taiqing stood before the city gate and saw that there were no plaques, couplets, or any decorations on it, only a gray-white light screen. When anyone walked to the gate, the light screen would automatically project the type of book they were most looking for. When a farmer walked to the gate, the light screen displayed words such as "water conservancy," "soil," and "solar terms"; when a doctor walked to the gate, the light screen displayed words such as "herbs," "meridians," and "prescriptions"; when a craftsman walked to the gate, the light screen displayed words such as "forging," "mortise and tenon joints," and "kiln firing." There were no guards at the city gate, no identity checks, and no questions asked about the purpose of entry; Human Race could enter.
Taiqing entered the city and found no bookshelves, no desks, no libraries, only winding stone paths. Countless doors lined both sides of these paths, each leading to a "study." These studies were empty of books; the walls were covered by a greyish-white light screen displaying all the written records of Human Race history: the characters created by Cangjie, the medicines recorded by Shennong, the formations passed down by Xuanyuan, the map of the Nine Provinces drawn by Yu the Great, the register of grains recorded by Hou Ji, the five Five Punishments and Five Teachings carved by Gao Yao, and countless notes, manuscripts, diagrams, calculations, medical records, legal documents, account books, family letters, local chronicles, travelogues, plays, and storybooks left by countless nameless individuals Eon the 30,000-year cycle. Taiqing casually pushed open a door; behind it was a study about "water." On the illuminated screen, from the ancient legend of Yu the Great controlling the floods, to the terraced irrigation diagram left by a waterworker from Southern Continent of Jambu before the 30,000 Eon, to the ship hull preservation method written by a shipwright from the Eastern Victory Divine Continent Shenzhou thousands of years ago, to the well-drilling formula for avoiding sand layers recorded by a well-drilling craftsman from the Western Ox Continent hundreds of years ago, and then to the ice surface load-bearing experience casually drawn by a hunter from the Northern Julu Continent decades ago, layer upon layer, densely packed, yet categorized and orderly. Taiqing reached out and touched the wall, and a line of small characters appeared on the screen. "Seeking all records about 'wells' in this room." The screen instantly reassembled, from the earliest to the latest, from simple to complex, hundreds of records about well-drilling were laid out in sequence, each marked with its source, date, applicable terrain, and verification results.
Taiqing spent three days wandering the library, exploring everything from agriculture to medicine, from industry to commerce, from military affairs to etiquette, from mathematics to music, from heaven to earth, from life to death. He saw an old woman in the "Childcare" section, perusing countless mothers' childcare experiences from the past Eon, covering everything from breastfeeding to weaning, from learning to walk to early education, from literacy to understanding principles—no detail was too small, and there were methods to follow. He saw a young carpenter in the "Mortise and Tenon" section, comparing three hundred different mortise and tenon structures to select the most suitable one for building a bridge. He saw a storyteller in the "Storybook" section, examining the story structures left by his contemporaries, from "introduction, development, climax, and conclusion" to "foreshadowing," from "tragedy and joy" to "happy ending"—every writing style had been tried, recorded, and commented on by predecessors. Taiqing suddenly... It is clear: this library was neither built nor managed by anyone; it is a "crystallization" naturally formed from the convergence of the Human Dao Heavenly Net and the Long River. When written words accumulate to a certain extent, the Network will naturally group similar words together; when experience accumulates to a certain extent, the Long River will naturally settle similar experiences. When this gathering and settling reaches its extreme, it becomes this city. Within the city, no one writes, no one catalogs, no one proofreads; everything grows, revises, and is eliminated on its own through the use of countless people. Wrong methods will be corrected by later practice, biased experiences will be supplemented by broader verification, old libraries will shrink, and new libraries will grow. It is like a tree, its roots planted in the Human Dao River, its branches extending into the Human Dao Heavenly Net, and its trunk itself is every ordinary person who has ever written, drawn, spoken, or transmitted the law since the beginning of the Eon Human Race.
When Taiqing emerged from the library, it was already dark. After the Primordial Wilderness Era ascended, there was no distinction between Day and Night, but the Human Dao Heavenly Net had its own system of "time"—when the sun shines on the area with the largest population, the Heavenly Net is bright; when most people are resting, the Heavenly Net is dark. Standing above the darkened Heavenly Net, Taiqing looked down upon the four continents of Human Race and suddenly felt something extremely wide and solid beneath his feet, stretching from the ancient past to his present moment, and then extending from his present moment into the unknowable future.
That is the Technology Great Dao.
Taiqing remembered that before the Thirty Thousand Yuan Meeting, the human race could not even make a good hoe. Now he lowered his head and took a closer look, and there were clearly countless "creations" running on the avenue of science and technology: The farmers of Nanshan Shenzhou used a plowshare made of gray and white iron. When plowing, the plow tip would sense the softness of the soil. Hard, hard ground automatically reduces the force, soft ground automatically deepens, one oxen can pull a plow as much as ten oxen in the past. The shipwrights of Dongsheng Shenzhou built a gray-white wooden boat. The bottom of the boat is engraved with the characters "floating" and "steady" made by Cangjie. When the boat is sailing on the water, a layer will be formed between the bottom of the boat and the water surface. The extremely thin gray-white light film has reduced the resistance by more than half. The three-day voyage in the past can now be reached in one day. Doctors in Xiniu Hezhou use a gray-white medicine to grind it. When grinding the medicine, the grinding wheel will adjust the priority according to the different medicinal materials. If the texture is hard, increase the pressure, and if the texture is soft, press gently. After grinding, the powder produced by grinding the same medicinal materials is several times finer than in the past. The hunters in Luzhou, Beiku, use a gray-white crossbow with the word "quasi" engraved on the crossbow arm. When the crossbow is pulled, the crossbow arrows will correct the deviation caused by the wind direction. Crossing the Yangtze River with a hundred steps is no longer the patent of a sharpshooter.
None of these things are fairy magic weapons, none of them require magic power, and none of them must be refined by monks. They are all made by ordinary human craftsmen, and the materials are taken from ordinary ores and vegetation in the prehistoric times. The production methods are all recorded in the library, and the production techniques are in the Humanity Skynet. Free circulation in the world. Any human race can make the same thing as long as they are willing to learn and do it. Taiqing saw a 12-13-year-old boy assembling a "bicycle" in his yard using gray-white iron sheets and a few wooden bars. The wheels had no spokes and a wheel with the word "turn" engraved on it was embedded in the axle. When the car hit the ground, it rolled forward on its own. When it encountered rocks, it rolled forward. When it encountered rocks, it rolled slowly. When it encountered slopes, it slowed down. When it encountered flat surfaces, it moved quickly. The young man clapped his hands and laughed. His mother poked her head out of the house and called him to eat. The young man ran into the house with the car in his arms. Taiqing knew that every part, every process, and every step on the car was Every ingenuity has a more sophisticated version in the library, and there are countless improvement records left by predecessors. The boy made the roughest and simplest version, but he did it, and he didn't need anyone to teach him. The avenue of science and technology is there, and whoever walks up it can pick up something.
Taiqing continued looking down.
Human Race cities are no longer what they used to be. In the heart of the Southern Continent of Jambu lies a colossal city called "City of Ten Thousand Crafts," with three million inhabitants. It has no walls, no moat, and no barracks. At its center stands a nine-story "Craft Tower," each floor corresponding to a specific craft: the first floor for metalworking, the second for woodworking, the third for stoneworking, the fourth for pottery, the fifth for weaving, the sixth for medicine, the seventh for food processing, the eighth for crafting, and the ninth for a combination of all. Day and night, the tower is filled with people—learning, teaching, experimenting, and refining. Countless streets extend from the tower, each lined with workshops, shops, experimental fields, and exhibition halls. Taiqing saw an old potter firing a kiln in his experimental field. A new glaze was being made, and a dozen or so young people were watching. The old potter would report the formula each time he mixed the glaze, and several of the young people would quickly jot it down on bamboo slips and then transmit it to the Skynet. Taiqing saw a weaver testing a new weaving technique in his shop. The cloth produced was smooth on one side and rough on the other. The smooth side was rainproof, and the rough side was warm. Onlookers were all taking out their money to place orders. Taiqing saw a pharmacist displaying a row of newly made pills and powders in the exhibition hall. Next to each medicine was a wooden plaque that clearly stated the ingredients, indications, contraindications, trial effects, and directions for improvement. Some people shook their heads and walked away, while others pointed out on the spot that the dosage of a certain medicine was inappropriate. The pharmacist was not annoyed, but instead invited the person to sit down and talk in detail.
City of Ten Thousand Crafts is just one of many cities in the Human Race. Eastern Victory Divine Continent has "Sea-Engineering City," specializing in shipbuilding, salt production, fishing, and salt production; Western Ox Continent has "Medicine-Engineering City," specializing in planting, harvesting, processing, and combining medicinal herbs; Northern Julu Continent has "Cold-Engineering City," specializing in cold-weather clothing, ice walking, and snowfield housing. Between the four continents, the Human Dao Heavenly Net circulates "industry news" from each city day and night: Sea-Engineering City creates a new method for preventing the rot of ship hulls, and the news spreads throughout the shipyards of the four continents in three days; Medicine-Engineering City discovers a new method for processing a certain medicine, and the news spreads throughout the pharmacies of the four continents in five days; Cold-Engineering City invents a disassembled and reassembled igloo, and within seven days all the hunters in the Northern Julu Continent have learned how to build it.
Taiqing stood above City of Ten Thousand Crafts for a long time, watching the people come and go, the flickering of the furnaces, the apprentices graduating, the old craftsmen taking on new apprentices, the opening of new shops, and the changing of the old. He suddenly recalled a distant past event: when Nuwa Creates Humans, he assisted her. Nuwa used the Three Lights Divine Water and the Nine Heavens Breathing Soil as a base, and Taiqing added the Five Elements, Yin Yang, time, space, Qiankun, and Creation attributes. After adding them, he didn't think much of it, considering it merely fulfilling his duty as a fellow Daoist. Later, as Human Race struggled to survive on the Primordial Wilderness land, squeezed by the witches and demons, despised by the immortals, and having their Destiny/Luck secretly harvested by the Heavenly Dao, he only occasionally looked after them, never truly taking it to heart. Later still, when the Heavenly Dao collapsed, Human Race finally had a chance to rise again, but he was busy in seclusion refining fragments of laws, still not paying close attention. Standing above City of Ten Thousand Crafts, at the intersection of the Human Dao Heavenly Net and the Technology Great Dao, he suddenly realized that the divine elements he had added to the foundation of Human Race had been fermenting, growing, and reorganizing on their own since the beginning of the Eon Society. The Five Elements gave Human Race the ability to classify and categorize; Yin Yang and Yang gave Human Race the ability to weigh and choose; Time gave Human Race the ability to accumulate and iterate; Space gave Human Race the ability to communicate and interact; Qiankun gave Human Race the ability to explore and settle; and Creation gave Human Race the ability to create artifacts. None of these divine elements directly bestowed any supernatural power upon Human Race; they merely Human Race to "learn," "modify," "pass on," and "accumulate" over the long years. Accumulated to this day, they have created the Human Dao Heavenly Net, the Human Dao Library, the Human Dao River, and the Technology Great Dao.
Taiqing suddenly felt a faint sense of shame. His Taiqing emphasized "following the Dao Follows Nature," and he had always prided himself on this. But today he understood: true "nature" is neither abandoning responsibility nor overstepping one's bounds, but rather adding enough "possibilities" at the beginning of creation, then stepping back to let that thing grow from "possibility" into "reality" over time. The few divine ingredients he added back then were "possibilities." The labor, thought, trial and error, and improvement of countless generations of Human Race since the 30,000 Eon were "growth." Everything he saw today was what Human Race had grown on its own—grown exceptionally well.
Taiqing stood above City of Ten Thousand Crafts all night. At dawn, he saw farmers in the fields outside the city setting up a newly made windmill. The windmill didn't grind grain or pump water; it did only one thing: record the number of rotations and transmit it through the Human Dao Heavenly Net to the Craft Tower in the city. In the Craft Tower, specialists collected the rotation speeds of countless windmills across the four continents, calculated the changing patterns of wind direction and force in various places, and then transmitted these patterns back to the Sky Network. Farmers used these patterns to decide when to winnow, when to graze their livestock, and when to go out to sea. Taiqing watched the windmill slowly turning and suddenly smiled.
He recalled how, in the Former Heavenly Dao ruled, Human Race had also prayed for favorable weather. Back then, they prayed to Heaven, to the gods, and to the clay and wooden statues in temples. Now, Human Race no longer prays. They have built windmills, recorded wind speeds, and calculated patterns, turning the wind into something measurable, calculable, and usable. The wind is still the same wind, but Human Race no longer kneels and begs for it.
Taiqing rose from the Lotus Platform and took a step towards Kunlun Mountain. He had originally planned to return to Tianqiong to continue his seclusion, but now he changed his mind. He wanted to see Xuandu, to see Yin Xi, and to visit all the Daoist Arena of the Taiqing lineage. He wanted to tell his disciples: stop adhering to the old constraints of being a "Heavenly Dao Immortal," go and see the Human Race library, go and see the Craft Towers of City of Ten Thousand Crafts, go and see the self-growing celestial networks and Long Rivers across the four continents. The "nature" of the Taiqing lineage is not found on the meditation Cushions in the deep mountains and forests, but in the windmills of City of Ten Thousand Crafts, in the study rooms of the library, and in every point of light that flows day and night on the celestial network.
He took a few steps, then stopped and looked back at City of Ten Thousand Crafts. A wooden sign had been hung on the city wall sometime during the day, with a few words scrawled on it—clearly the handwriting of a child from the city. "Today, Human Sect kiln-firing workshop on the third floor of the Craft Tower. It's free; bring your own clay."
Taiqing read those words twice, then reached out and swept his hand through the air. The gray-white halo above City of Ten Thousand Crafts rippled slightly, and another wooden plaque appeared on the city wall. On the plaque was a line of words he had personally written, "Disciples of the Taiqing lineage, whoever wishes to comprehend the Dao of 'Nature' may enter this city."
After writing it, he thought for a moment and added a small line below, "With mud."
The Golden Age the Primordial Wilderness era reached its peak ten years after the collapse of the Heavenly Dao, but the peak was not the end. Nourished by the Human Race Human Dao Heavenly Net, the Human Dao Library, the Human Dao River, and the Technology Great Dao, the human population exploded from millions before the collapse of the Heavenly Dao to hundreds of millions, and then multiplied to Eon over tens of thousands of years. In the Southern Continent of Jambu, Human Race settlements stretched for thousands of miles, with smoke rising like clouds and the sounds of chickens and dogs echoing through the air. Along the coast of the Eastern Victory Divine Continent, the Human Race used the sea as their fields and boats as their homes, with dozens of floating cities, each with its own Craft Tower. In the Western Ox Continent, Human Race, Demon Race, and Buddhist Sect disciples live together. The city's streets and alleys are divided by language and customs, yet they share a common network, a library, and a Technology Great Dao. Those who don't speak each other's languages communicate through gestures, and those whose customs differ interact with each other through goodwill. In the Northern Julu Continent, Human Race and Witch Race live together. Human Race build houses, cultivate fields, and weave clothes, while Witch Race hunt, guard borders, and perform ancestral worship. The two races share a well, guard an ice wall, and worship a mountain god.
Under the protection of the Human Dao Array Network, the Three Ancestors of the Human Race had long since entered the Primordial Daluo Golden Immortal. Tens of Eon advanced further, ranking alongside the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the Hunyuan Limitless. In the Fireseed Daoist Arena of Suiren, the transmission of fire is no longer limited to the seed itself, but also includes "fire craftsmanship"—how to build furnaces, how to control temperature, how to use fire to refine weapons, and how to use fire to make medicine. The City of All Spirits of Youchao has expanded from ninety-nine main streets to nine hundred and ninety-nine. The city's inhabitants come from various races of the Primordial Wilderness Myriad Spirits, and the street names are derived from the "nests" of each race: the Human Race has "Wawu Street," the Demon Race has... The "Tree Nest Street" is a common name for the Witch Race, while the "Stone Fortress Street" is a common name for the Immortal Clan, and the "Cloud House Street" is a common name for the Buddhist Sect. At the end of each street is a public "fire pit" that burns day and night, where anyone can come to warm themselves, cook, boil water, and smelt iron. The Law Fiber Clothing of the Ziyi has long been popular among the Human Race. Now, she has even set up a "Clothing Workshop" in City of Ten Thousand Crafts, which specializes in researching how to blend the Law Fiber with ordinary hemp and cotton, so that ordinary people can also wear clothing with attributes such as "warmth," "toughness," and "purity" without consuming magic power.
Cangjie set up a "Character Room" in the Human Dao Library. Any new characters, words, or usages that appeared were first tested in this Character Room. The Character Room had no windows or doors, but its walls were all light screens displaying new characters and words from all four continents in real time: hunters in the Northern Julu Continent called a newly discovered snow beast "Frost Badger"; farmers in Southern Continent of Jambu called a new crop rotation method "Rice-Bean Rotation"; and shipwrights in the Eastern Victory Divine Continent called a new ship bottom coating "Gray Film." No one in the Character Room reviewed the new words; they appeared immediately upon entering the room. The more people used them, the whiter the word turned from gray. When fewer people are present, the characters change color from white to dark, eventually disappearing on their own. Cangjie author, oversees the Character Room, occasionally retrieving words on the verge of disappearing from the darkness and reintroducing them to the Heavenly Net for testing. He retrieves the most words from various races' languages— the Demon Race has "moon comb," referring to the Shichen fox demons comb their tails under the moon; the Witch Race has "blood oath," referring to the blood oath between Witch Race warriors; the Spirit Race has "stone chant," referring to the low murmurs made by stone Spirit Race in the still of the night. Cangjie collects these words into the Character Room, and as Human Race use them, they become their own vocabulary.
After Dayu controlled the floods, he settled on Jiuzhou, and each of the nine states had its own tripod. Since tens of thousands of yuan, Jiuding has been connected to the human sky network. The word "ding" in the tripod absorbs the information of the four continents day and night. Which state's ground veins have abnormal movements? The word "ding" in the tripod will flash; if there is siltation in the hidden river in the state, the word "ding" in the tripod will be dark. Dayu had already attained Hunyuan, but he still stayed at the side of Jiuding. Whenever there was any movement in the tripod, he would send a message from the Skynet to the leader of the Earth Mother. The Witch Clan's Disha class. The Witch Clan's bloodline repairs the earth veins, and the human race's sky net monitors the earth veins. The two races cooperate seamlessly. The Earth Mother once said to the human craftsmen, "Your sky net is three days faster than the induction of our wizard priests." The human craftsmen replied, "Our sky net relies on your witch blood trees to stabilize the earth veins, and the roots of the trees are our foundation." The Earth Mother laughed, and buried three more earth laws in the witch blood forest that night.
Hou Ji's Hundred Grains Daoist Arena now encompasses more than just a hundred grains. For tens of Eon continuously domesticated new crops, selecting edible ones from the wildly growing vegetation after his ascension, and hybridizing them with the existing grains to cultivate new varieties such as "Grey Wheat," "Earth Rice," "Blood Millet," and "Jade Potato." When each new crop matures, Hou Ji publishes a "Seed Register" on the Human Dao Heavenly Net, detailing the crop's suitability for soil, water, timing, fertilizer, and disease. Farmers from all four continents can download and try it. After trying it, farmers will then... Local conditions were transmitted back to the Heavenly Network, Hou Ji then revised the genealogy based on this transmission. Over tens of Eon, the Hundred Grains became Ten Thousand Grains, and these Ten Thousand Grains further differentiated into countless subspecies based on the soil and water of the four continents. The "Red Rice" of Southern Continent of Jambu could not grow in the Eastern Victory Divine Continent, so the farmers of the Eastern Victory Divine Continent retrieved three hundred records of rice cultivation improvement from the library and hybridized them with local wild rice to breed "Eastern Victory Red Rice". The "Snow Wheat" of the Northern Julu Continent could not grow in Southern Continent of Jambu, so the farmers of Southern Continent of Jambu followed the same method to breed "Southern Continent of Jambu Snow Wheat".
Gao Yao's Five Punishments Five Teachings had undergone countless revisions since the Eon. Gao Yao himself was not rigid in adhering to the old laws. He presided over the Punishment and Education Hall in City of Ten Thousand Crafts, reviewing daily cases of disputes from various races transmitted through the Heavenly Net: Human Race merchants shortchanging customers, Demon Race in human form frightening children, Witch Race warriors causing trouble while drunk, Immortal Dao Cultivators accidentally injuring mortals in magical duels. Whenever a new case arose, Gao Yao would discuss it with the elders of each race, creating "precedents" that were then inscribed into the Heavenly Net. When tens of thousands of precedents accumulated, Gao Yao categorized them into nine types, each with three levels: "Original judgment," "reference judgment," and "counter-example judgment." Human Race children learning the Punishment and Teachings did not need to memorize the articles; they only needed to retrieve similar precedents from the Heavenly Net to see how predecessors judged, why they judged, and how the judgments were enforced. A young man asked Gao Yao, "What if I can't remember so many precedents?" Gao Yao replied, "You don't need to memorize them. You only need to remember one thing: precedents are for people to use, not for people to memorize. When you need them, look them up; once you can judge a case after looking them up, you have learned them."
As Gao Yao spoke, it was raining outside the City of Ten Thousand Crafts Punishment and Education Hall. The rain fell on the wooden plaque with the inscription by Taiqing on the city wall. Next to it, someone had hung a new plaque with crooked writing. "Today, someone on the third floor of the library is giving a lecture on 'How to Solve Trivial Cases,' free of charge, bring your own tea."
Among the disciples of the Taiqing lineage, Yin Xi was the first to respond to Laozi's wooden plaque. Yin Xi moved the old Hangu Pass Daoist Arena to the vicinity of City of Ten Thousand Crafts, opening all ten thousand passes within the Daoist Arena to the Human Race: the first pass, "Character Recognition Pass," grants the ability to read books on the lowest level of the library; the tenth pass, "Arithmetic Pass," grants the ability to understand blueprints in the Craft Tower; the hundredth pass, "Creation Pass," grants the ability to design simple objects; the thousandth pass, "Transmission Pass," grants the ability to inscribe one's experience into the Heavenly Net for others to use; and the tenth pass, "Naturalness Pass," grants the ability to create a new Dao Vein based on one's own understanding of "Dao." Human Race disciples entering the pass do not formally become apprentices, pay fees, or swear oaths; they only complete exercises. These exercises do not need to be done in the Daoist Arena; they can be done within the Heavenly Net. Some do them on the ridges of fields, some on the bows of boats, and some by the hearth. Yin Xi reviews the pass records in the Heavenly Net daily. If someone breaks through ten passes in a single day, he leaves a comment in the Heavenly Net: "Not bad." If someone is stuck on a pass for three months, he leaves a comment. "Take a break before trying again." Over the tens of Eon since the beginning of the Yuanhui, countless Human Race disciples have emerged from Yin Xi Pass Daoist Arena, dozens of whom have attained the Primordial Daluo Golden Immortal. None of them call Yin Xi "Master," but rather "Pass Master."
Grand Master Xuandu's Taichu Daoist Arena has now been renamed the "Possibility Daoist Arena." The gray-white void within the Daoist Arena has expanded to a radius of ten thousand miles, with countless Human Race disciples entering daily to "see possibilities." Some see themselves building a bridge across the sea, some see themselves concocting a cure for the Plague, some see themselves writing a timeless classic, and some see themselves teaching a hundred disciples capable of independent creation. Xuandu no longer personally lectures; he simply sits on the gray-white Lotus Platform in the center of the Daoist Arena, watching thousands enter and exit the void. Someone asked him, "Can the possibilities seen in Daoist Arena Daoist Arena be realized outside of it?" Xuandu replied, "What you see in the Daoist Arena is 'possibility.' What you must do Daoist Arena is 'turn possibility into feasibility.' Feasible methods are not in the Daoist Arena, but in the library, in the Craft Tower, and in the Heavenly Network."
The current glory of Human Race cannot be sustained by any single Saint, Daoist Tradition, or classic text. It grows in every glimmer of light in the Human Dao Heavenly Net, in every drop of water in the Human Dao River, in every study in the Human Dao Library, and in every creation on the Technology Great Dao. Taiqing sat atop the City of Ten Thousand Crafts, watching the windmills turn, the furnaces glow, children chasing each other with wooden swords, old women selling Grey Wheat on the street, boys learning kiln firing on the third floor of the Craft Tower, young girls flipping through parenting books in the library, and the agricultural, industrial, pharmaceutical, commercial, academic, and political news circulating day and night on the celestial network. He suddenly felt that the divine ingredients he had added when Nuwa Creates Humans had now grown into what they were meant to be.
The Five Elements became classifications, Yin Yang became balances, time became accumulation, space became communication, Qiankun became exploration, and Creation became creation. None of these "divine materials" were enshrined in temples by the Human Race; they were all used by the Human Race in their daily lives.
Taiqing took out a jade slip from his sleeve. It was a fragment of the * Morality * that he had transcribed during his seclusion, containing his revisions of the word "nature" over tens of Eon. He had originally intended to take it back to Kunlun Mountain to pass on to his disciples, but now he pressed the jade slip onto the Tianwang node in City of Ten Thousand Crafts. The jade slip transformed into a gray-white stream of light and disappeared into the Tianwang, instantly spreading to every study room in the Four Continents Library. On the light screens of all the study rooms displaying the "Morality Ching" plaque, a new line of text simultaneously appeared:
"Nature is not inaction, but rather leaving room for possibility during creation and then letting go of it after it is complete."
Next to it was a line of smaller characters. "Inscribed by Taiqing at the top of City of Ten Thousand Crafts, with mud on it."
Several apprentices kneading clay in the Craft Tower of City of Ten Thousand Crafts exchanged bewildered glances upon seeing the message popped up by the Skynet. One of the bolder apprentices wiped the clay off his hands and replied on the screen, "Master Taiqing, I brought too much clay. Could you give me some more water?"
After a moment of silence, another line of text appeared on the screen. "The well is at the street corner; go and dig it yourself."
The apprentices laughed and ran to the street corner to fetch water, carrying their clay basins. Taiqing withdrew his gaze from the city wall, a smile still playing on his lips. He turned and walked towards the sky, but after a few steps, he looked back at the two wooden plaques on the City of Ten Thousand Crafts wall—one written by a child, the other by himself. He reached out and added a line to the empty space on the third plaque, "Today's lecture is on 'Clay and Divine Materials,' free of charge, bring your own clay."
After writing it, he thought for a moment, crossed out the word "free," and changed it to "with pancakes."
The windmills atop City of Ten Thousand Crafts were still turning, round and round, turning the wind into numbers, numbers into messages, and messages into the work in the hands of everyone in City of Ten Thousand Crafts. When Taiqing returned to the lotus Lotus Platform at the highest point of the sky, he did not immediately close his eyes. He sat on the Lotus Platform and read the words on the wooden plaque at the top of City of Ten Thousand Crafts again, finding them more fluent than any sentence in the five thousand words of the Morality Ching.
He closed his eyes, and a gray-white halo slowly swirled around him. On the Human Dao Heavenly Net, 173,406 new light spots were added today, one of which came from the third floor of the Craft Tower in City of Ten Thousand Crafts. The content was a new method of kiln firing, signed "Apprentice with Clay".