"Between the Star Cores," Origin Observatory.
Lin Ye's consciousness was drifting through an "ocean" beyond description. There was no up or down, left or right, no time or space-only endless streams of "light" and "information" embodying the universe's fundamental laws, surging, colliding, annihilating, and being born anew.
He "saw" how the smallest particles of matter joined together and fell apart; how planets were born from nebulae, only to fall into the silence of white dwarfs or black holes billions of years later; how the first single-celled life stirred in a primordial ocean and eventually evolved into brilliant, intelligent civilizations, only to turn to dust amid war or beneath the overwhelming forces of nature.
He "experienced" countless lives. Sometimes he was an ordinary farmer who lost everything to war. Sometimes he was a powerful ninja protecting the village he cherished. Sometimes he was a scientist exploring the sea of stars, witnessing the universe's grandeur and cruelty. Sometimes he even briefly "became" an Otsutsuki, feeling the cold pleasure of plundering life-bearing planets to evolve himself... and a trace of imprisoned numbness deep within his soul.
Each "experience" interrogated his heart: what did he live for? What did he fight for? What was the meaning of power? What was the value of protecting others? If everything would ultimately return to nothingness, what meaning did his efforts hold now?
Mixed into the torrent of information was even more obscure, more fundamental "knowledge" from the "origin star-mark projection" itself. It concerned slight shifts in the "cosmological constant," tremors in the "dimensional membrane," elusive traces of something beyond all known physical laws, existing like the "backend of a program"... and scattered truths about the "Watcher" and that "God Tree."
The "Watcher"... the first Otsutsuki, or rather, the first individual to be "chosen." Bound by the source