More than a month after the Stele of the Homeward Journey was erected, the roots of Light Language in the Southern Sea valley had spread into a forest of silver leaves. Its roots were like veins, its flowing light like rivers, carrying gentle light energy to the Nine Provinces day and night without cease. Each day, the apprentices of the Guardian Lamp Shop used Heart-Flame Resonance to sense the earth veins and record the circulation of Light Glyphs. Gradually, they discovered that the underground light veins were not a tangled disorder, but followed an ancient, precise order.
"These light veins... look like a star chart." Beneath the lamp, A Ya unfurled a long parchment scroll and lightly touched it with her fingertips. Silver light flowed in their wake, tracing the full layout of the Nine Provinces lamp arrays. Seven apprentices gathered around to look. The array nodes were scattered like stars, and the light veins wound like the Milky Way, aligning astonishingly well with the stellar paths across the heavens.
Xiaoman gazed at it for a long time, then suddenly understood. "The lamp arrays weren't built by human hands... this is star chart descending to earth. The first Lamp Guarders used the heavens as their chart and the earth as their array, engraving the paths of the stars into the land and connecting heaven and earth through light veins."
Everyone was shaken. If the lamp arrays were a star chart, then the Nine Provinces lamp arrays were truly a living cosmic atlas, bearing the Ancient Civilization's understanding of light and the universe.
"But beyond the star chart... there are more stars." Xiaoman pointed to the edge of the parchment, where a light vein extended to sea level and stopped abruptly, yet left a faint lingering trace, like a brushstroke not