On the morning of the sixty-third day, Xu Wuyi did not get up after completing his inner inspection in the Cultivation Room.
He sat cross-legged, keeping his consciousness at the center of the Fruit's inner ring. On the surface of the warm-golden Crystal, the tree-shaped pattern shone steadily amid the light flowing continuously between two points of light.
He tried sinking his consciousness fully into the Crystal. He had never attempted that in his countless previous inner inspections-he had always regarded the Crystal as part of the Fruit and had never thought he could enter it.
But now, the instant his consciousness touched the Crystal's surface, that surface did not block him. Instead, it admitted him directly.
It was as though the Crystal had been waiting for this moment all along.
His consciousness unfolded inside the Crystal. It was a complete space, far larger than he had expected. The space took the form of a tree, its roots plunging deep into the void, its trunk running through the entire space, and its canopy extending into every corner.
He stood at the center of the canopy, sensing every detail of this space. Faith Power from the territory network flowed through the roots, streams of signals from the T-09 Star Realm circulated through the trunk, and sensory information from countless nodes flickered in the canopy.
He stood at the center of this tree for a long time and confirmed one thing. This tree was him, and he was this tree. He did not need to "enter" this tree, because he had been within it all along.
He sat down at the point of light in the center of the canopy. That position corresponded precisely to the central canopy node on the surface of the Crystal inside the Fruit.
After he sat down,