Shadow of the Great Way

Instead, it was a torrent of information that couldn't be perceived by sight, hearing, or touch, acting directly upon the deepest part of Lin Yuan's Divine Soul!

It wasn't an image, nor was it a sound.

It was the "Dao"!

It was the true, supreme "Great Way" that Lin Yuan had desperately sought for over a decade, yet could never find the entrance to!

It was the ultimate answer to "eternity"!

It was the only path to "freedom"!

"BOOM--!!!!!"

Lin Yuan's Dao Heart, as unshakeable as rock and as calm as a still pond, was shattered at this moment by the sudden, extreme reality, struck fiercely and mercilessly!

He thought he desired nothing.

He was wrong.

His desires were grander, greedier, and... purer than anyone else's in this world!

He wasn't pursuing mundane family affection or wealth.

He was pursuing the "Dao" itself!

And this mirror had actually... actually manifested his deepest, grandest abstract concept in a way that surpassed his comprehension!

It showed him the destination!

Lin Yuan's body trembled uncontrollably for the first time.

His breathing grew rapid.

In his usually calm eyes, a flame of "possession," bordering on madness, ignited for the first time!

He lunged forward, pressing his hands heavily onto the cold mirror surface.

"Tell me... tell me more..."

His voice was hoarse and dry, filled with a hint of begging he himself had never noticed before.

However, the mirror remained as cold as ever.

The vast "Shadow of the Great Way" had long since vanished.

In the mirror, only an eleven-year-old boy in a Hogwarts uniform, with black hair, black eyes, a pale face, and eyes filled with loss and madness, remained.

A colossal, abyss-like sense of loss instantly consumed him.

It was an extreme pain, like being glimpsed into heaven only to be kicked back to the mortal world.

Lin Yuan slowly and weakly leaned against the mirror frame, sliding to the ground.

He stared blankly at his hands, then at the cold mirror.

After a long, long time.

He let out a self-mocking bitter laugh.

"So... I'm the most pathetic mortal, bound by obsession."

He was wrong.

He was terribly wrong.

The Mirror of Erised was not useless to him at all.

On the contrary...

It was the most fatal, most irresistible poison in this world.

Ever since that night, after glimpsing the "Shadow of the Great Way" reflected in the Mirror of Erised, Lin Yuan's life, for the first time, lost its regularity, like the orbits of stars.

His Dao Heart, which he prided himself on, believing it had been forged into "pure glass, impervious to all methods," developed a deep crack.

No, it wasn't a crack.

It was a seed. A seed called "ultimate desire," watered by the illusion in the mirror that night, bursting forth from the depths of his heart lake with an unreasonable force, growing wildly.

During the day, he was still the Gryffindor student sitting in the corner of the library, his face calm, as if reading the "Standard Book of Spells, Level Two."

But only he knew that his vast sea of consciousness was no longer peaceful.

Countless deductions, countless analyses, revolved around that "Shadow of the Great Way." He tried to use everything he had learned—from cultivation theories to magical runes, to physics formulas—to replicate, to understand that fleeting, supreme "truth" in the mirror.

However, every attempt ended in failure.

It was like a primary school student who only understood addition and subtraction trying to manually calculate the entropy increase of the universe.

Helpless and laughable.

Thus, the nightly "pilgrimage" became his only solace.

It was an immersion mixed with pain and ecstasy that he had never experienced before.

He had become the most devout, and the most secretive, "addict."

Every time the midnight bell chimed, he would don a "shadow" woven from Soul Power, a shadow more perfect than any Invisibility Cloak, and silently arrive at the corridor on the seventh floor, the one with the tapestry depicting "Barnaby the Bold Training Trolls to Dance the Ballet."

He never entered immediately.

He would stand still, like a lifeless stone statue, blending into the shadows of the wall, and wait.

Waiting for another "pilgrim" to arrive.

Soon, Harry Potter's small figure would appear, sneaking around under his father's Invisibility Cloak.

Lin Yuan could clearly "see," beneath the legendary Deathly Hallows, Harry's face, etched with longing and sorrow.

He watched Harry walk past the tapestry three times, watched the carved wooden door materialize, and then watched Harry rush in without hesitation, like an infant throwing himself into his mother's embrace.

Lin Yuan's Divine Soul would envelop the entire room.

He could "hear" Harry's suppressed, faint sobs.

He could "sense" Harry's violently fluctuating emotional energy—a yearning for familial affection, an ultimate longing for the warmth of home.

In Lin Yuan's analytical model, Harry's behavior was defined as "periodic satisfaction of low-level emotional needs." It was a simple, pure, and extremely predictable behavioral pattern.

Harry had become an unconscious "timer" before he entered that sanctuary.

Usually, an hour later, Harry would leave, his face streaked with tears and exhaustion, utterly dejected.

When the door closed behind Harry and reverted to the cold stone wall once more.

Lin Yuan's "time" would truly begin.

He would repeat Harry's actions, silently reciting in his mind, "I need a place that can see my desires," and then, the door would open for him again.

The room behind the door was empty, save for the Mirror of Erised in the center, radiating a deadly allure.

Lin Yuan would walk step by step, like a devotee approaching an altar, to the mirror.

Then, he would raise his head.

"Boom—"

In that instant, the real world faded and vanished.

His entire Divine Soul was once again swallowed by the indescribable "Shadow of the Great Way."

He saw the "self" in the mirror, holding stars in his hand and treading on space-time.

The laws of the universe draped themselves over him like a docile garment.

It was a state of... "Merging with the Dao"!

The ultimate form that all seekers of the Dao pursued their entire lives!

Lin Yuan's Divine Soul would rush towards that phantom with all its might, like a drowning man grasping at a life-saving straw.

He frantically operated his "supercomputer," attempting to decipher even a minuscule fraction of the true information about the "Dao" from that phantom.

This was an extremely Soul Power-consuming process.

Each "pilgrimage" was like a "suicidal attack" on a spiritual level.

His Soul Power had been depleted by nearly thirty percent during these few days of indulgence.

This made his complexion even paler during the day, and a subtle, almost imperceptible daze appeared in his spirit.

But he didn't care.

Because, within this extreme consumption, he had also gained a minuscule reward.

His shattered Dao Heart was being re-tempered through this repeated "peeking at the Dao" and "loss."

It had become tougher and more refined than before.

He began to understand that his Dao could not rely solely on calm "analysis" and "deduction."

It also required a near-mad "obsession."

A resolve of "I would rather die than fail to achieve the Dao."

This mirror was his poison, but it was also... his "whetstone."