Seeking the Dao

This day.

Zhang Shuai slowly opened his eyes. When his gaze shifted, the piercing brilliance was gone, replaced by unfathomable calm, as though they contained endless starry skies and chaos.

Faintly, he sensed something profound and indescribable: the chasm between him and the Hunyuan Saint Realm had become closer than ever before!

That barrier remained solid, yet it no longer felt as distant and intangible as before. It was as though... it lay within reach!

It seemed it was time to pierce this barrier and attain the Hunyuan Dao!

Thus, after emerging from seclusion, he concealed his cultivation and began wandering throughout the Immortal Realm. He observed the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, comprehending the laws of space and time; he went to the Immortal-Nurturing Pool to experience the mysteries of life and death's alternation; he even visited the major Cultivation Stars, observing the myriad states of living beings amid the mortal world and savoring the entanglements of karma and fate. He traveled to the Desolate Sea, sensing the atmosphere of the world's beginning and pursuing that faint thread of Dao opportunity hidden in the unseen.

Zhang Shuai emptied his mind, attempting to resonate with heaven and earth and seize the opportunity that would allow his body, mind, and Dao to become truly one. He hoped to condense a Hunyuan Dao Fruit through the most common path of Dao attainment by laws—the path most aligned with the origin of heaven and earth.

Yet whenever he gained some insight into a certain aspect, whenever his mind immersed itself in the profundity of some law and he seemed on the verge of grasping that fleeting spark of enlightenment, the Calamity-Defying Return-to-Ruins Immortal Seed in his Life Gate acupoint would tremble slightly without warning!

The three thousand six hundred runes on