Night quietly fell. The bustling Shrek Academy of the day shed its clamor and gradually sank into silence.
Cool moonlight filtered through the gaps in the window, casting mottled patches of light across the clean wooden floor of the single dorm room.
Inside, Xiao Yan sat cross-legged in the center of the hardwood bed.
He wore only a thin, pure-white undershirt. His eyes were half-closed, and his breathing was long and steady.
As the Art of the Fuxi Emperor circulated ever deeper through its cycles, his entire being seemed to merge completely with the night around him.
The three primordial forces of essence, energy, and spirit converged and fused within him, surging endlessly along specific meridian paths and forming an unfathomable, mysterious aura around his body.
The ambient spiritual energy drifting through the air no longer scattered aimlessly. Instead, centered on him, it was drawn by an invisible force and slowly revolved along the trajectories of taiji yin and yang, eventually transforming into pure energy that flowed into every part of his body.
Just as he immersed himself in this tranquil state where heaven and man converged and all things rested in peace, Xiao Yan's handsome brows suddenly furrowed.
He keenly sensed a dull impact coming from the edge of his vast and boundless Sea of Consciousness.
The sound carried neither hostility nor aggression. It was more like some heavy object had been uncontrollably flung backward and slammed hard into the boundary barrier of his consciousness sea, sending faint ripples through the entire spiritual space.
Xiao Yan stopped guiding his true qi and shook his head helplessly.
He did not even need to guess to know what had happened.
After calming the Soul Power within his body, his consciousness sank down and entered his Sea of Consciousness directly.
Xiao Yan's consciousness took shape within the spiritual space.
This was not the cramped, mist-shrouded spiritual world of an ordinary soul master. It was a boundless star map, vast and profound like the universe itself.
Beneath Xiao Yan's feet lay an enormous Fuxi Bagua Formation Map spanning the entire consciousness sea.
The trigram symbols of Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, and Dui were formed from countless brilliant starry lights. They slowly revolved according to the laws of heaven, endlessly renewing themselves as they formed the most unbreakable foundation of this spiritual realm.
At the very center of the Bagua Formation Map stood an incomparably majestic behemoth.
It was Xiao Yan's Second Martial Soul, the Eastern Emperor Bell.
Even though Xiao Yan had looked directly at it countless times within this consciousness sea, reverence for this supreme divine artifact still rose in his heart.
The enormous bell was entirely Mystic Yellow Gilded Gold, as though it had been cast from the purest gold at the dawn of creation. Chaotic golden light flowed across its surface.
It hovered quietly at the center of the formation map, slowly rotating.
It made no unnecessary movements, yet it radiated an ancient pressure capable of crushing the laws of heaven and earth, time and space alike. Its majesty could not be looked upon directly, as if it had stood here since the age before Primordial Chaos was divided.
Looking closer, one could see the incomparably intricate patterns engraved upon the bell's body, encompassing all things.
At its crown, the paths of the sun, moon, and stars moved on their own. At its base, the origins of earth, water, fire, and wind intertwined. Along its middle, the phantoms of mountains, rivers, and countless living beings rose and perished in cycles, while runes of ancient gods and demons flickered in and out of view.
Every line was ancient and vigorous, carrying the weight left behind by the river of time.
The Eastern Emperor Bell was also known as the Chaos Bell. It stood alongside the Fuxi Zither as one of the ten great divine artifacts of antiquity.
Yet within this Sea of Consciousness, the status of these two divine artifacts was especially clear.
The Fuxi Zither had obediently shrunk itself down, transforming into a streak of light. Like a loyal satellite, it followed a fixed orbit and slowly revolved around the Eastern Emperor Bell.
Before the Eastern Emperor Bell that suppressed all things, even the Fuxi Zither could only occupy a subordinate position, not daring to overstep in the slightest.
Xiao Yan did not linger on the Eastern Emperor Bell.
He turned his head and swept his gaze across the vast Bagua Formation Map, searching for the "culprit" who had disrupted his peaceful cultivation.
The areas of the Kan, Gen, and Zhen trigrams were all empty, their starlight calm.
At last, Xiao Yan's gaze settled on the edge of the Qian Trigram region that represented "heaven."
Someone was crouching there.
It was a gaunt old man.
He had no physical body, only a phantom condensed from an incomparably solid strand of divine consciousness.
The old man had white hair and a white beard, an aged face, and deep, sharply defined features distinctly different from the people of the Douluo Continent.
He wore a black robe beneath, covered in shimmering golden magical runes, with a pure-white cloak draped over it.
The ultimate black and ultimate white formed a striking visual contrast upon him, symbolizing the perfect fusion within his body of two utterly opposing powers: light and the undead.
This man was none other than Electrolux, once the Holy Necromancer and Calamity of the Undead who had shaken another plane.
Electrolux naturally possessed the majestic and compassionate bearing of one who stood above others, but the mysterious image of a lofty master was now thoroughly ruined by the abnormality on his forehead.
A fist-sized purple bruise had swollen up prominently above his temple.
He was baring his teeth as he rubbed the lump with one hand, muttering complaints under his breath. The sight was almost too funny to bear.
Sensing Xiao Yan's consciousness approaching, the old man's movements abruptly froze.
His reaction was incredibly swift. His gaunt fingers rapidly traced an arcane symbol of light magic in the air.
Golden light flashed, and the ridiculous lump on his forehead was instantly concealed by an illusion spell, leaving his skin smooth and unblemished again.
Having finished all this, Electrolux straightened up, clasped his hands behind his back, and deliberately put on a stern face, restoring his dignified expression of compassion for the world.
He leisurely stepped toward Xiao Yan, looking as natural as if the person crouching on the ground and rubbing his head moments ago had not been him at all.
"Little Yan, why did you suddenly come to the Sea of Consciousness?" Electrolux spoke first, his tone steady and gentle as he seized the initiative in the conversation.
Watching this old Archmage trying to cover things up, Xiao Yan felt the corner of his eye twitch.
He drew a deep breath, tucked both hands into his sleeves, and struggled to suppress the upward curve of his lips so that he would not laugh aloud.
"Isn't it because Elder Yi made such a huge commotion?"
Xiao Yan lifted his chin slightly, pointed at the enormous bell slowly rotating in the center of the great formation, then shifted his gaze back to Electrolux's illusion-covered forehead.
"Did you make the Eastern Emperor Bell angry again?"
With the truth exposed in a single sentence, Electrolux's dignified old face immediately became a little awkward.
He gave a soft snort and turned his face away, avoiding Xiao Yan's penetrating gaze.
"You already know, so why ask?"
The old man threw out the words stiffly, but the hand behind his back unconsciously came out and touched the concealed spot again. Clearly, the pain in his flesh had not disappeared just because of the illusion spell.
Looking at this somewhat stubborn old man, Xiao Yan felt no disrespect at all. Instead, he found him rather vivid and endearing.
The circumstances under which Elder Yi had settled in his Sea of Consciousness could only be described as dramatic.
Back when Xiao Yan had first awakened the Eastern Emperor Bell martial soul, the terrifying power unique to the Chaos divine artifact had accidentally torn open a tiny crack in the void.
By sheer coincidence, this fragment of Electrolux's soul, which had drifted through the turbulent currents of time and space and was on the verge of dissipating, was drawn over by that spatial disturbance and slipped directly into Xiao Yan's consciousness sea through the crack.
Xiao Yan still clearly remembered the scene.
The moment this old man, who called himself the Holy Necromancer, appeared, he erupted with awe-inspiring powers of light and the undead, intending to announce his arrival in the most shocking manner possible.
"With sun and moon in hand, I pluck the stars; in this world, none but I..."
This domineering chant, enough to intimidate all living things, had only just begun. He had not even had time to fully build up its momentum.
The Eastern Emperor Bell, which had been silently floating at the center of the Bagua Formation Map, suddenly trembled.
Just once.
There was no earth-shattering bell chime, nor any dazzling radiance. Only a ring of invisible chaotic ripples spread outward.
That imposing Calamity of the Undead did not even have time to utter the next syllable before that unreasonable, ancient pressure slammed him directly into the deepest depths of the consciousness sea.
Electrolux was suppressed so completely that he could not move, and the fragment of soul he had painstakingly condensed nearly got crushed into dust on the spot.
In the end, Xiao Yan had to push his spiritual power to the brink of exhaustion and forcibly sever a trace of the Eastern Emperor Bell's aura locked onto Electrolux before dragging the old Archmage out of that state of absolute suppression.
Still, it could be considered a blessing in disguise.
The Chaos power of the Eastern Emperor Bell, which carried the dual sealing properties of time and space, had suppressed him while also stabilizing his fragmentary soul that could have dissipated at any time.
Added to that, the Fuxi Bagua Formation Map within Xiao Yan's consciousness sea was constantly absorbing the creations of heaven and earth and nourishing him in return.
Within this exceptional "greenhouse," Electrolux's divine consciousness was now in an unprecedentedly good state.
Logically, after suffering such a great loss, the Holy Necromancer should have kept his distance from that enormous bell and fled as far away as possible.
But reality was the exact opposite.
Ever since understanding the environment here, Electrolux had completely locked horns with the Eastern Emperor Bell.
As an Archmage who had reached the pinnacle of magic and laws, once he sensed the ancient god-and-demon runes etched upon the Eastern Emperor Bell—runes depicting the sun, moon, stars, earth, water, fire, and wind—he fell into a state of obsession.
The Eastern Emperor Bell encompassed all things and contained the most fundamental laws of the primordial universe.
Electrolux discovered that merely gazing upon those profound patterns could grant him countless insights into light magic, undead magic, and even the transformations between life and death.
Every trace upon it surpassed magical notes he had studied for decades.
Thus, the Calamity of the Undead who had once shaken an entire region now spent each day crowding around the center of the formation map, extending his gaunt hand to touch and study the external divine patterns on the Eastern Emperor Bell's surface.
He was completely immersed in the fervor of deciphering these secrets of heaven and earth.
The problem was that the Eastern Emperor Bell possessed a spirit of its own.
Its tolerance for this old man who touched it all over every day like a fanatical believer was actually quite low.
Most of the time, it was simply too proud to bother with him. But once it grew tired of being touched, or Electrolux's divine consciousness came into contact with certain forbidden patterns, the bell would release a repulsive rebounding force.
To the Eastern Emperor Bell, this rebounding force was nothing more than an insignificant tremor. But to Electrolux, it was no different from a sledgehammer blow.
The impact Xiao Yan had sensed just now had clearly come from Electrolux once again "researching too far," only to be sent flying by the impatient Eastern Emperor Bell and slammed into the barrier of the Qian Trigram, leaving such a huge lump on his head.
"Elder Yi." Xiao Yan reined in his smile, his expression becoming serious as he looked at Electrolux, who was still rubbing his head.
"The laws on the Eastern Emperor Bell are too domineering. Though your divine consciousness is stable now, it cannot withstand its repeated backlash every few days. When studying the divine patterns, you should proceed step by step and not rush for results."
Electrolux lowered his hand and let out a long sigh.
His weathered eyes gleamed with fervor and reverence for the unknown laws.
"Little Yan, you do not cultivate magic, so you do not understand the pursuit of hearing the Dao in the morning and being content to die that evening."
Electrolux looked toward the distant Eastern Emperor Bell, his tone full of emotion.
"Every rune upon it points directly to the origin of the Great Dao. If this old man can comprehend even one percent of its mysteries, all the magical problems that have troubled me in the past will be resolved with ease. What does a little pain from backlash amount to?"