Crossing the Primordial Era, Wanhua Awakens

Chaos.

Not an emptiness, but a primordial mixture where color, form, concept, and even time itself lost all meaning.

Light and darkness intertwined and annihilated here, while earth, water, fire, and wind raged and collided in their most violent forms. Occasionally, fragments of shattered laws streaked by like meteors.

They brought a brief, bizarre order, only to be swallowed by deeper chaos.

This was the state before heaven and earth were formed, the source from which all things return to ruin.

A faint spark of consciousness drifted and sank within this boundless chaos.

"I am... Wanhua?"

A thought coalesced with difficulty, like a bubble rising from a thick mire.

Following it came a torrent of countless broken images and information, assaulting this fragile existence.

Bustling cities, flickering computer screens, a dazzling array of books on shelves—from the profound Tao Te Ching to the fantastical Perfect World, Saint King, Eternal Life...

The noise of colleagues discussing projects, the whistling wind of passing subways, and... in his last memory, the blinding headlights of a truck that lost control and veered onto the sidewalk!

The intense "pain" wasn't physical but a distorted sensation of his consciousness being forcibly torn apart and then crammed into some "container."

"I'm dead? And then... where is this?"

Wanhua's consciousness tried to "open its eyes," only to find it had no eyes. He tried to "reach out," but had no arms.

He was like a prisoner stripped of all senses, trapped in an absolute, internal darkness and silence. No, not absolute silence.

Gradually, he "heard" sounds—not through ears, but directly impacting the core of his consciousness.

It was the profound resonance of the Great Dao, low and majestic, endlessly chanting the ultimate principles of heaven and earth.

It was the whisper of laws, subtle and intricate, weaving an invisible net that covered all existence.

Simultaneously, vast amounts of information, like smoke, poured uncontrollably into his "mind."

"Innate Supreme Treasure... Myriad Dao Celestial Tome... It carries the Great Dao, evolves all methods, and records the trajectory of all laws in the Primordial Era..."

The information told him that he was a treasure born from the Great Dao at the beginning of the Primordial Era's formation, the only one, one that had never appeared before—the Myriad Dao Celestial Tome.

His "body" was a scroll, neither gold nor jade, neither stone nor wood, flowing with a chaotic hue.

On its cover, infinite Dao patterns emerged and vanished, as if encompassing all the secrets before the creation of heaven and earth.

Supreme, supreme, containing infinite possibilities.

However...

"I can't move... Why can't I move?"

Wanhua tried to activate this "body," attempting to sense and operate according to the profound methods in the inherited information.

But all his efforts vanished without a trace. This shell, hailed as an "Innate Supreme Treasure," remained unresponsive to his consciousness's commands.

He was like an infant strapped into the cockpit of a space shuttle.

Before him lay a complex control panel filled with buttons and screens, possessing world-destroying power, yet he couldn't even move a finger.

The inherited information continued to flow, telling him that the Myriad Dao Celestial Tome could deduce all things and record all methods.

It could analyze the origin of all divine abilities... but it itself seemed born to "record" and "deduce," not to "act" or "intervene."

It was the ultimate auxiliary tool, a treasure trove of knowledge, but by no means a self-aware weapon or magical artifact.

Empty! Hollow!

A sense of frustration and despair unlike anything he had ever known began to erode Wanhua's consciousness.

He had transmigrated, not to become a world-shaking innate god or demon, not to become a primordial creature with deep roots, not even to become the most ordinary post-natal being... he had become an object!

An object that couldn't even control itself, only passively record external information!

The Primordial Era, through the Tome's vague, frosted-glass-like passive perception, he could dimly sense the vastness and barbarity of the outside world.

The roars of gods and demons shook the void, the battles of giant beasts disrupted spiritual energy, the law of the jungle prevailed, laws manifested, and power was supreme.

It was an incredibly magnificent, and incredibly dangerous world.

And he, Wanhua, the Myriad Dao Celestial Tome, could only be like a ghost, an observer, trapped in the folds of time and space, recording all of this, for eternity?

Or, until one day, he was discovered by some powerful being and refined into a curious artifact, collected.

Perhaps even shattered to pieces in some future world-ending catastrophe?

"No! Never!"

A strong will to survive and the unwillingness of a modern soul caused his consciousness to fluctuate violently, triggering a slight tremor in the Myriad Dao Celestial Tome itself.

The speed at which the profound Dao patterns on the book's pages flowed seemed to increase slightly.

And at this very moment, all the knowledge he had consumed in his past life, the fantasies, the crystallized wisdom from another universe.

Like a lit fuse, they exploded, initiating a frantic, unprecedented collision with the Primordial Dao inheritance recorded in the Tome!

The "The Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao" from the Tao Te Ching resonated with the hidden rules of the Primordial Heavenly Dao.

The wild imagination from Shrouding the Heavens of cultivating oneself as a seed to create a human universe challenged the Primordial Era's tradition of absorbing spiritual energy.

The overbearing nature of the "Saint King" where "my words are law, my actions are rules," is completely different from the path of gods and demons who suppress others with strength.

The three thousand great Dao divine abilities of "Eternal Life," the intent to "Shrouding the Heavens" from "Grave of the Gods"...

Countless thoughts, countless systems, countless possibilities churned, intertwined, and were tested within this wondrous "crucible."

The characteristics of the Myriad Dao Celestial Tome provided a foundation in reality for this deduction.

It instinctively analyzed and simulated the feasibility of these "laws from other worlds" operating within the Primordial Era.

The chaotic thoughts gradually subsided somewhat.

Wanhua's consciousness core, after experiencing the initial panic, despair, and the baptism of a mental storm, settled into a faint, yet exceptionally tenacious, realization.

"Knowledge... I possess the knowledge of two worlds... The Myriad Dao Celestial Tome can record and deduce..."

"The methods of the Primordial Era borrow external forces and merge with the Heavenly Dao, ultimately being constrained by it..."

"But I... perhaps I can... forge a different path?"

This thought was like the first lightning flash in the darkness. Though faint, it instantly illuminated his lost path ahead.

He was no longer merely a soul from another world trapped desperately within the shell of a supreme treasure. He was Wanhua, the sole existence possessing an infinite treasure trove of knowledge and the ultimate deduction tool.

Where the path lay? It was yet unknown.

But his own existence might be the starting point of the answer.

His consciousness began to adopt a completely new perspective, filled with a desire for exploration.

He re-examined himself, this chaos, and the vast, boundless Primordial Era where crisis and opportunity coexisted.