The concept of "God and Dao as One," much like "Taking Oneself as the Seed" in the Secret Realm Method, held an immensely important place as the core of the Chaotic Ancient Era New Method. It was the foundation of the entire system.
As the founding ancestor of the method, He Mu personally expounded on the concept of "God and Dao as One," dividing it into five stages: sensing the Dao, inscribing the Dao, approaching the Dao, interpreting the Dao, and attaining the Dao.
Sensing the Dao referred to the process during the Blood-Qi and grotto-heaven realms in which cultivators used the power of runes to gather the creative power of heaven and earth and temper themselves. It was the beginning of the Dao, the outset of the path.
Qi and blood condensed, and grotto-heavens opened and evolved, resembling both the illusory embryo of a world and a seed planted along the Immortal Dao. Once watered, it naturally harbored life, awaiting the day it would blossom.
Inscribing the Dao began with Spirit Transformation. Throughout the Spirit Transformation, Inscription, and Formation Arrangement realms, cultivators used the visualization diagrams He Mu had left behind to incorporate the principles of the Dao into themselves, forming a sprout.
In the Venerable Realm, the sprout gathered vitality. Through the accumulation of the Dao-inscribing stage, the laws and principles within the illusory embryonic world gradually became apparent, as though a god had constructed the earliest universe.
However, at this stage, the Dao of the illusory embryonic world did not belong to the cultivator, but came from all things in heaven and earth. Nor was the cultivator truly a deity; they were walking the road toward godhood, awaiting the day their sprout encountered spring and finally broke through the soil.
Once it broke free of the soil's