The True Body of Immortal Heaven!

A painting failed to capture Li Qi's spirit, but it did depict indifferent eyes amidst chaos.

This is... Li Qi in Ling Xiao's eyes.

She simply couldn't grasp Li Qi's essence and didn't know how to draw his face and figure.

However, after observing for so long, Li Qi's gaze had the most profound impact on her.

A gaze as vast as the Azure Heaven.

The real Li Qi looked at the painting and smiled, saying, "Although it doesn't depict a face, it's still quite well painted."

After speaking, he glanced at the painting.

The eyes of the illusory figure in the painting, lost in chaos, suddenly became bright and piercing—

It was as if Li Qi had opened his eyes on his own.

Then Li Qi reached out and handed the scroll to Ling Xiao: "You painted my portrait, so consider this your reward. You're a little different from others... I guess it's because you really love painting."

When you truly like something, it will give rise to genuine passion.

It wasn't forced by survival, nor urged by the environment, nor pressured by others; rather, it was a complete passion, a pursuit that came from the heart.

Her motivation comes not from the outside world, but from within herself.

Many people, whether they are practicing spirituality or studying, think, "If I study well, I can make money," "My parents think it's good for me to study this," or "It's easy to find a job now that I've studied this."

There's nothing wrong with this mindset, after all, survival is the top priority, but this kind of learning is a kind of pressure for oneself.

All the foolish arguments that "pressure is the driving force" are essentially just forcibly pushing people forward. Pressure is indeed a driving force, but its essence is still pressure. As long as there is pressure, the driving force for progress comes from the outside.

Once the external environment changes, such as when there is no longer the pressure to survive, will there still be the motivation to hone one's skills? Or will one simply continue to coast along with their current achievements?

You can't go far by relying on external motivation, unless someone deliberately keeps the pressure going. Some strict teachers and outstanding students are good at constantly putting pressure on people without making them break down.

Therefore, if you want to go far, your motivation cannot come from the outside; it must come from your own heart.

The Ling Xiao in front of me, born into a privileged background, has no pressure to survive. Because she truly loves painting, she has continuously refined her skills and, without realizing it, has already completed this process of "motivation coming from within."

Therefore, Li Qi chose to leave the painting here.

He had already realized that this painting could potentially become Ling Xiao's foundation for his Dao, so he decided to leave it here.

"Senior... are you leaving?" Ling Xiao couldn't help but ask when she saw Li Qi's appearance.

Now that she has observed Li Qi so carefully, she can vaguely sense some of the thoughts of this mysterious Heaven-Piercing Realm.

"Yes, I've seen enough. I'm going to check out other places now. And... I also have some guesses about my destination. I guess I've gained quite a bit." Li Qi just smiled.

Ling Xiao remained silent, not responding, but quietly stepped aside to carefully observe Li Qi's every expression, as if she were to paint another portrait of Li Qi.

Li Qi seemed not to see it, or perhaps he didn't care, and just waited in the same spot.

Two days later, of the three thousand people at the banquet, less than one hundred remained; the rest had perished in the fierce fighting.

They had clearly agreed that each person could take a small amount and remain safe, but they insisted on fighting desperately.

It's pointless; it's competing for the sake of competing.

Meanwhile, at the banquets outside, an unexpected mechanism has been established. They have set rules and implemented 'sharing' to prevent other violent incidents from occurring.

Both of these events occurred in the celestial realm.

From this, Li Qi could glimpse a little of the intentions from the upper levels of the Immortal Realm.

He already had a guess in his mind, but he needed a little more clue to confirm it.

When the banquet ended, Li Qi waved his hand, releasing the remaining living people from his inner world.

They were carrying loads of money, and their entire bodies were imbued with the pure essence of Li Qi Qinian.

However, for Li Qi, this was just a drop in the ocean. They hadn't obtained a single truly valuable fifth-grade Dao essence, which clearly showed that they lacked the ability to extract Dao essence.

After they came out, covered in blood, they wanted to pay their respects to Li Qi.

Li Qi didn't say a word more, just shook his head, and then left.

He vanished into thin air, without a trace of regret, just as he had appeared out of nowhere in the first place.

However, not long after he left, the lower-level people, having eaten their fill, resumed their fighting, and that's when they realized... no one was really in charge.

Ling Xiao watched Li Qi leave, then looked at the painting in her hand, smiled with relief, and tore the painting to shreds.

She didn't know what 'Tao Foundation' was, but she felt there was no need to keep it anymore.

The objects in the painting are not in the painting itself, but in the heart; keeping them is of no use.

Some people are so confident that they can paint bamboo without even looking at it, and she is the same now.

As for Li Qi, he went to other cities.

So slowly, so quietly, he had been wandering in the True World for over a hundred years.

Over the course of more than a hundred years, he observed more than two hundred cities, a thousand settlements, and all sorts of wondrous celestial phenomena.

He visited other Heaven-Piercing Realm and partially manipulated local social development.

He has been in the Immortal Realm for almost a thousand years. In this thousand years, the various events he has experienced, the various speculations, the clues he has collected, and the cultivation Cultivation Method that True Knowledge Dao Charm has explored have finally brought Li Qi closer to the answer.

This was no simple matter. Li Qi had collected a lot of information and explored many locations. He had been to the limits of the Tianhai Sea and dug deep underground, reaching depths of hundreds of millions of miles. Even he himself was overwhelmed by the Earth's Magnetic Force before he came up.

He even went through the Heavenly Gate to return to the mortal realm, and then teleported back and forth.

He was like a ghost, an experimenter, using the celestial True World and the mortal world as his laboratory, constantly testing the answers he sought.

Li Qi left behind many legends, and many people admire him. He even extinguished the divine fire within himself more than once. His existence led to the faith of many people, and many sects were established that specifically worship him, even though these believers did not actually know what Li Qi was and thought he was part of God.

Through his long journey and long life, Li Qi gradually uncovered the hidden truth of this First Rank World.

For example... he had never seen a fourth-grade Dao Integration Realm.

For example, all those at the Heaven-Piercing Realm are desperately trying to achieve Dao.

Li Qi was still searching everywhere for the Heaven-Piercing Realm who were about to achieve Dao Integration, but unfortunately he couldn't do it because there were simply too few people who had achieved Dao Integration.

Time just slowly passed by.

Ultimately, through these actions, Li Qi felt as if he had found his answer.

That is: the truth of the Celestial Realm.

Another decade has passed. Li Qi sat quietly in place, deducing what was needed for the sacrificial ceremony.

He wanted to create an original ritual to verify his conjecture and directly communicate with the upper levels of the celestial realm.

This was difficult, so he found a secluded place to gradually conceive and deduce the ideas.

With its supercomputing power, he spent ten years finally preparing.

With the answers and tools in hand, it's time to put all our conjectures into practice.

Li Qi was conducting a classic sacrificial ceremony to Heaven.

Li Qi was Shaman of the Earthly Deity lineage, and his specialty was worshipping the Earthly Deity. However, the highest point of the Immortal Heaven could not be considered Earthly Deity, so he could only use the method of worshipping Heaven.

The jade disc is round, resembling the sky; there is nothing on the ground, only half of the sky is visible.

Li Qi prepared sacrificial offerings and placed jade in each offering, the color of which was as blue as the sky.

The altar itself is similar. The sky is dark, so a blue calf is used. But although the sky is dark, it is blue when viewed from afar. The blue color is chosen because it is a distant color.

The vessels used for sacrificial rites to Heaven were pottery gourds. Pottery, earthenware, was used to offer pickled vegetables and other delicacies. The "Shengmin" chapter describes Hou Ji's suburban sacrifice to Heaven, saying "on the altar and on the platform," which refers to the offering of such items.

Then, wine was offered in a gourd-shaped vessel. Since the offering to Heaven emphasized simplicity, the gourd was used as the most honored vessel.

The sacrificial vessels used in ancestral temples for worshipping Heaven are those used in pottery gourds, as described above, according to Li Qi Qijin's case.

The place where they offered sacrifices to Heaven was at the Circular Mound Altar.

Their sacrificial music to Heaven was all accompanied by thunder drums.

The supreme deity is beyond description; his body is but one. He prepares Five Offerings and three kinds of wine, and there is burning and roasting. Afterwards, there is a formal sacrifice, and all of them have sacrificial animals.

Li Qi presided over the ceremony alone, pouring Yu Zhang wine over the deceased.

Then walk out in a straight line, which is called "the road".

The main road is the chariot used for sacrificial rites to Heaven, hence the name "main road". The main road is decorated with many ribbons, because it values sincerity and smallness, hence the saying that less is more.

After crossing the main road, Li Qi offered sacrifices to Heaven.

Through the main road, coupled with sacrifices and offerings, the power of communication inherent in the ritual itself was formed...

This power reaches straight to the heavens.

Li Qi's body began to sway involuntarily.

In other words, this is what others would call 'shamanistic ritual'.

But this is actually a manifestation of Li Qi's consciousness leaving his body and his inability to control his physical form.

The Shaman's consciousness left his body and drifted towards a completely new and unknown realm.

There, there is pure light.

He succeeded! He communicated with the Celestials, and the Celestials responded to him!

The success of the sacrificial ceremony to heaven caused a magnificent white rainbow to appear before Li Qi's eyes.

Light, pure light.

Here, everything seems to melt away; the power is so intense.

The light it emitted pulsed with a special rhythm, which, Human Path the words of Confucianism, could be described as 'supreme goodness'.

The highest good is not kindness, but rather everything reaching perfection.

This light had nothing in it, yet it seemed to have everything.

Here, everything exudes an atmosphere of 'all-encompassing,' as if even the light itself can intersect to form perfect geometric shapes.

Li Qi seemed to hear the roar of the endless river of time flowing through it, and he could also see the void that spanned between worlds!

He could feel that after arriving here, he was like a gear in the world, every movement perfectly matching the rest of the world, his every action meshing and rotating with everything.

All the gears are so perfectly coordinated that the absence of any one of them would render the machine inoperable.

He had worshipped many things and communicated with countless gods, but this was the first time he had ever felt such oppression.

However, Li Qi smiled with relief.

Sure enough, my guess was right.

He had tried countless times and tested the waters for a long time. Whether in the mortal realm or the True World, everything he did—spreading the teachings, observing, stirring up disputes, or doing anything else—had only one purpose: to show the true 'celestial realm' what he was doing.

After reading it, Li Qi can use his feedback to deduce the true situation of the Immortal Heaven. Through this back-and-forth exchange, Li Qi might be able to discover something useful.

Learning useful information can help the Shaman Path and the immortals establish a friendly relationship, and even gain this ally.

Now, through nearly a thousand years of effort, Li Qi has learned what the highest level of the Immortal Heaven is like.

"Oh? What's the status?" At this moment, a voice came to Li Qi's ear.

Li Qi knew this in his heart.

This is... the voice of the immortals.

This is the answer from the Celestial Realm.

"Of course... there are no creatures above the fourth rank. The fifth rank, the Heaven-Piercing Realm, is already the pinnacle of the Immortal Heaven."

"Further up, after reaching the Dao, there is only one unique First Rank, and that is you... the Heavenly Dao of the Immortal Heaven."

Li Qi spoke eloquently, presenting the answers he had observed to that great being.

"This is also the reason why the Immortal Heaven has been able to exist for so long. For hundreds of billions of years, with endless mining, it has been able to maintain the prosperity of the Heaven and Earth Great Source. The fundamental reason is that there are no cultivators above the fourth rank. For First Rank World, the consumption of a fifth-rank cultivator is just a drop in the ocean."

Yes, this is the answer Li Qi guessed, and it is also the reason why Li Qi dared to conduct the sacrificial ceremony to Heaven eighty years later.

"The life forms nurtured throughout the entire Immortal Heaven are merely 'food.' The true 'cultivators' of the Immortal Heaven are actually you... the Heavenly Dao." Li Qi gazed at the magnificent light and sighed in awe...

It's truly... the Way of Evolution.

All cultivators in the Immortal Heaven are merely food; in the entire Immortal Heaven, only the First-Rank Heavenly Dao who has awakened his will is free.

Therefore, the Way of Evolution is implemented to its fullest extent here.

The essence of being in harmony with the Dao is being devoured by him!

The brutal battles and selections at the lower levels are all for the sake of 'different flavors' of food.

Yes, the Celestial Realm isn't always this cruel. It's just that over the past few hundred million years, the 'Dao-harmonizing food' he's sought has been specifically designed for combat, allowing him to focus solely on fighting.

The Celestial Realm is the cruelest realm.

There is no way for life to survive in this First Rank World! From the very beginning, they could never transcend it. All advancement and competition are essentially about cultivating their physical bodies in the direction that the 'Heavenly Dao' prefers!

At the same time, this Heavenly Dao's goal is also the pursuit of the Daoist sect. He wants ultimate freedom, perhaps even freedom that transcends his own world and origins.

As the awakening of the Heavenly Dao in a pure First Rank World, he had long since departed from the essence of the divine path, into an extremely selfish and vicious world!

"Your goal in joining forces with the Shaman Path... is probably to find out the method by which the Shaman Path strengthens the Heaven and Earth Great Source, right? After all, this may be considered your cultivation method, so... the reason why Yao Ji disappeared is also because of you, is that right?" Li Qi said respectfully while maintaining the sacrificial ceremony.