The youth lifted his tea bowl, gently raised the lid with his left hand, brushed aside the tea leaves floating in the brew, and took a careful sip. Through the gap between the lid and the bowl, he watched the tea leaves rise and sink within the lid, lost in thought. "Tch, 'deriving artistic enjoyment by observing the random motion of tea leaves in hot water... lunatic.' Ha, are these really the only thoughts left in my head now?"
Everything he said was strange, leaving others at a loss. Yet no one around him paid him any notice. It was as if an invisible film shrouded him; whoever saw him would instinctively overlook him—not ignoring his existence altogether, but naturally classifying him as an "unimportant passerby" and ceasing to pay attention.
"What is it? Using plants to make beverages is nothing unusual in this world. Is it really worth such a fuss?" A ring on his hand trembled and spoke. "The mantra-bearing Womb Treasury Dharma-Expounding Mandala just fluctuated. You should have..."
"Ah, that? We haven't been discovered anyway, have we?" The youth sounded utterly unconcerned. "Their Divine Dao is all sorts of bizarre. It's only natural that the Womb Treasury Mandala doesn't match up..."
"This art was created by the two of us together! Your wisdom, my accumulation, and this world's foundation—there should not be any Divine Dao art here beyond the scope of its concepts!"
Mandala was a Buddhist term, meaning "altar ground" or "altar city," with the fundamental meaning of completeness in a circle, or "gathering." It referred to the gathering place of all sages and all merits, a powerful divine ability of the Dharma Realm. But now, it had clearly been Divine Dao-ified and connected to the Divine Dao system of Divine Capital City. When the Divine