In the Pavilion of Silent Observation, Lin Ye's consciousness seemed to sink into a bottomless abyss.
From the perspective of the Cosmic Mindscape, all external turmoil became the sound of tides on a distant shore. Only the endless Flow of Intentionality remained clear as veins and pathways. Yet in this introspection, he reached something deeper beneath those pathways—
It was not flowing "intentionality," but the "womb" that gave birth to all intentionality.
A nearly silent, boundless background field of consciousness.
He called it the Thought Sea.
The Thought Sea had neither sound nor form, yet it carried the "primordial inclinations" of every possibility in the Multiverse. It was not a creator, but "primordial existence itself, capable of being shaped." The rise of every civilization, the will of every individual, and every collective choice were like stones cast into the Thought Sea, stirring ripples that intertwined and resonated, solidifying certain "inclinations" into the laws of reality.
In past eras, the Thought Sea had been calm and unruffled. Even the will of one as powerful as the Order Sovereign had merely forced up towering muddy waves—distortion rather than resonance. Now, the network connected all beings, free will flourished, and countless faint yet sincere "ripples of thought" continued spreading outward—
The Thought Sea had begun to surge, actively and from the bottom up.
Lin Ye "saw":
Glow Domain's focus on the Inward-Seeking Foundation projected a brilliant vortex of light spiraling inward within the Thought Sea; the Vortex of Flourishing Life sought balance amid constraints, stirring surging rhythmic ripples that gradually became ordered; the civilizations within those Deep Pools of Meaning formed stretches of tranquil, lifeless "shallows of consciousness."
Every civilizational state possessed its own unique Imagery Topology within the Thought Sea.
More crucially, these mind-images permeated and influenced one another at the level