Before the Thatched Cottage.
Old Wang sat in his reclining chair, rocking gently, his eyes fixed on Li Hao as though he meant to see through everything about the youth.
With his cultivation, the youth beneath his gaze should have been like someone standing naked in the snow, with nowhere to hide anything. Yet now, he felt unable to see through him.
"Your Chess Dao and Painting Dao have both entered the Dao, reaching heights rarely seen in this world. To delve so deeply into either art is no simple matter, yet you have pursued cultivation alongside them-have you been using Chess Dao and Painting Dao to comprehend the laws of the Great Dao?"
His gaze was calm, yet it seemed to pierce through the youth's body and see the shadow behind him.
Li Hao was somewhat surprised, but since Old Wang could discern traces of the Origin Great Dao in his Painting Dao, such a conjecture was hardly strange.
"Yes."
Li Hao nodded and chuckled. "All things in this world can enter the Dao. Ordinary people divide pursuits into civil and martial, but the Sacred Dao encompasses every manifestation. There is the Literary Saint's Dao, which slays enemies with poetry and literature; there is the Spear Dao, which pierces heaven and earth with a long spear; there is the Path of Lies, which conceals heaven's secrets beneath a sky-spanning lie-as long as one has the heart, anything can enter the Dao. All are Dao!"
Understanding appeared in Old Wang's eyes. Put that way, it made sense.
Still, such insight required at least the state of mind of a Sage.
But once someone reached the Saint Realm, studying Painting Dao and Chess Dao would be less worthwhile than continuing along their original path-unless they had touched a Sage's state of