[Inside Tranquil Heart Hall.]
[Lord Purple Mountain slowly opened his eyes. He had not awakened from meditation; a gathering mass of clear light in the hall had startled him.]
[The light was crystalline, flowing like glass, pure and flawless.]
[He focused on Zhou Jing within it, his heart jolting. This was the fifth realm described in the Heavenly Emperor's Heart Sutra: "The heart's light shines upon itself; glass reflects the spirit."]
[According to the scripture, anyone with firm resolve and a mature disposition could still reach its first three mental realms by following the prescribed methods.]
[But from the fourth onward, cultivation was like climbing the Heaven-Ascending Ladder: each step was another heaven.]
[Legend held that even the Heavenly Emperor of Ancient Antiquity had stopped at the eighth realm after thousands of years of arduous cultivation.]
[Yet this human had reached the fifth heaven in just three days.]
[Even with the foundation from his former life, Lord Purple Mountain had cultivated for so long only to barely break through to the sixth realm.]
[Could this human's talent truly be so formidable? It surpassed everything he had imagined.]
[Just as Lord Purple Mountain prepared to return to meditation, the glass-clear light around Zhou Jing began to shift again. Within it appeared the shadow of a Bodhi Tree, its branches and leaves spreading, rich with the Dao's meaning.]
["A heart like bodhi..."]
[Lord Purple Mountain's mind shook. He stood utterly stunned. He was certain this human could never have encountered the Heavenly Emperor's Heart Sutra before, much less cultivated the Dao Heart Divine Treasury. So how could he progress so quickly?]
[The power of the heart was utterly unlike ordinary spiritual power. It arose from the heart itself, intangible and elusive. Cultivating it systematically was difficult enough; even countless dazzling talents of