In the western seas, at a Merchant Association hall, Li Ling sat in meditation inside a secluded chamber.
Before him stood a simple offering table bearing an ordinary bronze incense burner with three legs and beast motifs. Spirit-Communing Incense, Netherdream Incense, and evil-repelling incense burned within it, their delicate smoke rising with their fragrance, as though leading into a boundless, silent void.
He was using soul projection to sense the currents of the Heavenly Dao from afar and perform the Dreamscape Return to Heaven Art. In that half-dreaming, half-waking haze, reason and thought seemed to vanish. His entire Primordial Spirit emptied, leaving only the spirituality of his true self.
Vast streams of thought-signals surged from the void like electric currents. In a single instant, billions of years unfolded, revealing the movements and transformations of infinite matter across infinite space and time.
Mortal people could not come into contact with such thought-signals at all. Even cultivators who forced themselves to try might be struck senseless in an instant.
Only great cultivators of the Nascent Soul Realm or above could project their souls and resonate with them in a spirit soul form close to the Great Dao.
It was rather like a dream: the more lucid one was, the stronger one became.
Li Ling had possessed extraordinary gifts since his mortal days and had spent years studying the Dream Dao. By now, his attainments were considerable, so he traveled this familiar road with ease.
Beyond that, the clues gathered by the various North Sea divisions over the past fortnight or so were also essential, pointing him in the right direction as he traced the source.
With all these aids, his soul seemed to arrive at an uninhabited island covered by shallow water. From west to east, the land gradually emerged, exposing ground