The Pathway Has Its Limits, and the Dao's Resonance Guides One Back to the Original Heart

Half a year after the Mind-Speech Pathway was established, the Hongmeng Great Land welcomed an unprecedented era of peace. Sentient beings of different races communicated without hindrance, disputes had almost vanished, and resource sharing and mutual support had become the norm. Yet when Shen Hao sensed the state of the land's living beings through the Mind-Speech Pathway, he discovered a faint underlying concern—some beings had become overly dependent on its convenience, gradually losing their own ability to communicate and the original heart of independent thought.

In Qinghe Town of the Eastern Territory, neighbors had once lived in harmony and discussed matters face-to-face whenever something arose. Now, even when seated at the same table, the townsfolk were accustomed to sending their thoughts through the Mind-Speech Pathway and rarely spoke aloud. Children no longer learned to express themselves through language, relying on thought communication all day long until even their basic spoken speech became rusty. The spiritual herbs of the Southern Territory no longer conveyed information through the trembling of their leaves or fluctuations in spiritual energy. They depended blindly on the Mind-Speech Pathway, causing their own symbiotic sensing abilities to gradually deteriorate. Some young exotic beasts in Cloud Dream Marsh, whenever they encountered confusion, immediately sought help from their elders through the Pathway, unwilling to think of solutions themselves. Their spiritual intelligence grew increasingly slowly.

"Brother Hao, this cannot go on." Zi Xuan had noticed the abnormality as well. While teaching at the Teaching Pavilion, she found that many young disciples, during debates, only knew how to quickly obtain others' opinions through the Pathway, yet lacked views of their own. "The Mind-Speech Pathway was meant to eliminate barriers, but now it has made some beings lazy and dependent. Instead, it goes against our original intention in building the Pathway."

Shen Hao