Chu Ming extended his divine sense outward, passing through the side hall's walls, through the corridors and great halls of the Order Heavenly Palace, and probing deep into the Turbid Source Land. Starting from Return to Source, his divine sense expanded layer by layer in concentric circles.
Within a hundred li, the concentration of source matter was proportional to Return to Source's absorbing strength; beyond a hundred li, the distribution density of source matter plummeted; beyond two hundred li, his divine sense could no longer detect any trace of source matter.
That boundary was as clear as a line cut by a blade. On one side lay the region containing source matter; on the other, a region without it. He drew his divine sense back within a hundred li and carefully scanned every location where source matter appeared.
Source matter appeared only in the space a certain distance from the Five-Bone Skeleton. No source matter existed in places far from the skeleton.
Chu Ming confirmed that causal chain: it was the skeleton's own "sense of existence" that forced source matter out of the void.
The skeleton occupied a position within the "nothingness" of the Turbid Source Land. That act of occupation was like a stone dropped into still water—the place occupied by the stone welled up with the water it had displaced.
That water was source matter.
He decided to remove the Five-Bone Skeleton from the Dao Lord Seed and observe its independent state of existence within the side hall's pure "nothingness" environment.
When the pentagram Star Ring rose from the seed's surface, the connecting threads between the five bones and Return to Source drew five faint streaks of light through the air. The light traces lasted for half a breath before snapping apart, and the skeleton completely separated from