The Saint's Great Dao is Profound, Scientific Thinking Suffers Its First Setback

Within Zixiao Palace, there was no resplendent hall, but rather a boundless expanse of chaotic void. Above, below, and in all directions, there was no boundary. Only in the center floated an ancient, simple cloud platform, upon which the figure of Dao Ancestor Hongjun sat. His face was indistinct, as if he had merged with the Great Dao, or perhaps transcended all things. Below, the mighty beings from all corners of the Primordial Era sat naturally scattered according to their cultivation, karma, and destiny. Though seemingly disordered, their arrangement secretly followed the trajectory of the Heavenly Dao.

Lin Xuan (Xuanyuanzi) was positioned towards the back of the Jie Sect's contingent. Within his sea of consciousness, the Dao Charm of the "Enlightenment Cushion" flowed coolly, filtering the vast and majestic torrent of Daoist sounds from the outside, making it "audible" and "comprehensible." He calmed his mind and adjusted his state to its peak, preparing to welcome this unparalleled Daoist encounter from a completely new perspective.

"The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name..."

Dao Ancestor spoke, his voice plain, yet each word struck like a great bell, resonating in the deepest core of every listener's soul. There were no wondrous visions, no golden lotuses springing from the earth, only the purest, most fundamental exposition of the "Dao."

Initially, Lin Xuan could still attempt to understand with the aid of the "Enlightenment Cushion" and his own powerful logical thinking.

"Dao is regularity, it is law. The 'Dao' that 'can be spoken' is the regularity we can perceive and articulate. 'Not the eternal Dao' indicates that the true, fundamental 'Dao' transcends our cognitive limits and is constantly changing and developing..." he rapidly analyzed in his mind, correlating the Dao Ancestor's words with philosophical and physical concepts he knew. "This is similar to the dialectical relationship between absolute truth and relative truth..."

He even subconsciously attempted to construct a model in his mind: "If we consider 'Dao' as an infinite-dimensional state space, the part that 'can be spoken' is the low-dimensional projection we can currently observe..."

However, as the Dao Ancestor's lecture deepened, the content gradually shifted from the general outline to the specific evolution of the Great Dao's laws, the profound mysteries of heaven and earth, and how Primordial Chaos Qi gave birth to all things... Lin Xuan gradually felt overwhelmed.

What the Dao Ancestor spoke was not a simple linear logical deduction, nor quantifiable formulas and theorems. His words contained infinite imagery, metaphors, and even direct transmissions of the Great Dao's divine charm. A passage describing the "mutual generation of Yin and Yang," to Lin Xuan, was not just about energy conservation and transformation, but also encompassed the creation of life, the entanglement of karma, the symmetry breaking of spacetime, and countless other profound meanings that his current knowledge system could not fully encompass. The enlightenment was three-dimensional, multi-dimensional, and even transcended the concept of dimensions.

He tried to use mathematical set theory to define the relationship between "Wuji" (limitless) and "Taiji" (the ultimate), only to find that the concept of "Wuji" itself seemed to reject any form of "definition." He tried to use the Big Bang theory to analogize the "opening of chaos," but discovered that the "chaos" the Dao Ancestor spoke of was not a singularity, but a "state" containing infinite possibilities. Its "opening" involved the simultaneous birth of consciousness, karma, and laws, far beyond what physical models could describe.

What frustrated him even more was the explanation of "karma" and "destiny." Science emphasizes repeatable experimental verification and clear causal chains. However, the heavenly secrets and karma spoken of by the Dao Ancestor were filled with non-linearity, superposition, and even observer effects (though far grander than quantum-level effects), as if countless rivers of destiny flowed in parallel, intertwining, branching, and collapsing... Faced with a system so extremely complex and infused with "subjective will" (the will of the Heavenly Dao), his logical thinking was as pale and powerless as using a ruler to measure the waves of a vast ocean.

"...Thus, the formless and the formed give birth to each other, the difficult and the easy complete each other, the long and the short shape each other, the high and the low incline each other, sound and voice harmonize each other, and the front and back follow each other..."

The sound of the Dao was ethereal, yet Lin Xuan's forehead was slightly beaded with sweat. He realized he had fallen into a vicious cycle: the more he tried to understand through rational, analytical, and deconstructive methods, the further he drifted from the "Dao realm" of unified wholeness and unobstructed flow. It was like a person trying to observe every pigment molecule of a landscape painting with a microscope; while they could understand its material composition, they could never appreciate the artistic conception and charm of the painting.

The effect of the "Enlightenment Cushion" was still present. It enhanced Lin Xuan's comprehension, allowing him to "hear" the Daoist sounds more clearly and "feel" the Dao Charm more acutely, but it could not directly "translate" this enlightenment into the scientific language and logical framework he was accustomed to. It was more like a pair of high-fidelity headphones, allowing you to hear the purest music, but whether you could understand the artistic conception of the music still depended on your own musical cultivation.

An unprecedented sense of frustration surged within him. Since his transmigration, relying on modern scientific knowledge and the System's assistance, his cultivation path had seemed smooth sailing, even to the point where he began to influence behemoths like the Jie Sect. This had subconsciously instilled a sense of superiority in him, making him believe that scientific thinking was a more advanced and universally applicable cognitive tool.

But at this moment, facing the most fundamental Great Dao of the Primordial Era world, he was horrified to discover that his proud "science" had a huge, even fundamental, blind spot when explaining these supreme laws involving consciousness, origin, and transcending the material level! Science excels at studying objective, repeatable, material-level laws, but its methodology appears inadequate when dealing with subjective, idealistic domains involving "spirituality" and "Dao Charm."

This did not mean science was useless, but rather that the science he had mastered so far, in terms of its scope and level, had not yet reached the point where it could fully analyze the "Primordial Great Dao"! Just as Newtonian mechanics could not explain relativity and quantum mechanics, his existing knowledge framework was naturally powerless when facing higher-dimensional Heavenly Dao laws.

"...Profound and yet more profound, the gateway to all wonders."

Dao Ancestor's final maxim fell, and a segment of the lecture temporarily concluded. Within Zixiao Palace, Dao Charm flowed. Many mighty beings either closed their eyes in deep thought, smiled, or frowned, each having gained something, yet also being perplexed.

Lin Xuan exhaled a long breath, his face somewhat pale. Although he did not experience the mental shock and near-fainting that some less cultivated individuals did, the mental exhaustion from this listening session was far more intense than a major battle. He felt like a water droplet trying to hold an infinite ocean in a finite container; not only could it not hold it, but the container itself was almost assimilated and disintegrated.

"Was I... wrong?" For the first time, he harbored a profound doubt about the path he had chosen. Could scientific cultivation truly not work? In the face of the supreme Heavenly Dao, was rational analysis ultimately futile?

However, at the nadir of this self-doubt, within his sea of consciousness, the [Pangu's Sky-Opening Imprint (a wisp)] he obtained from a sign-in on Kunlun Mountain stirred slightly. A surge of the wild, creative intent from the act of splitting the heavens and earth, breaking chaos, washed over him. Simultaneously, the cool Dao Charm of the "Enlightenment Cushion" flowed, soothing his agitated heart.

An enlightenment, like lightning flashing in the darkness, illuminated his confusion:

"It's not that science is useless, but that I haven't yet found the interface between science and metaphysics at a higher dimension!"

"Science is the method of exploring truth, while metaphysics (Dao) is the different manifested levels of truth itself! My previous mistake was trying to use low-dimensional tools to analyze high-dimensional existence, naturally leading to frustration. The true spirit of science is to acknowledge the limitations of cognition, maintain an open mind, learn, adapt, and explore unknown fields, rather than clinging to existing paradigms!"

"The Great Dao spoken by Dao Ancestor is far more profound than my current understanding, but this does not mean abandoning scientific thinking. Instead, it means needing to elevate the level of science, needing to incorporate variables like 'spirituality' and 'Dao Charm' into a new research framework! This is not failure, but rather it points the direction forward!"

With this realization, Lin Xuan's mind cleared, and the confusion in his eyes vanished, replaced by an even more resolute light. Frustration transformed into a strong desire for knowledge and a spirit of challenge.

The profound Dao of the Saint, the initial setback for Scientific Thinking – but this setback was not the end, but the beginning of truly embarking on the path of integration!