In the small shop.
Li Daoyi his hand and placed it on Shen Heng's abdomen.
His expression changed from slightly somber at first, to somewhat surprised and uncertain, and then to a furrowed brow, as if he had seen something incomprehensible.
A moment later, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Shen Heng.
"How did you come up with this Configuration, kid?"
"It's what I told you before, adding sound waves, and naturally it evolved into this!" Shen Heng replied.
After saying that, he looked at Li Daoyi, and asked,
"Has anything come to mind, Daoist priest?"
Li Daoyi frowned in thought, but did not reply.
He had seen many different Configuration.
He had seen Configuration that could move before, like the vortex-like Configuration he had mentioned to Shen Heng before.
But this was the first time he had ever seen something like the one inside Shen Heng's body, which was constantly changing and never in the same form.
Sound waves... changes...
While Li Daoyi was pondering, Le Gu Nan looked at Shen Heng with some concern.
Is there a problem with your Configuration?
With the resources provided by the Research Department, she also made a breakthrough to the Fourth Tier and completed the Configuration.
Therefore, she understood that even if the Configuration was poorly constructed, it could be disassembled and Reconstruction. She also understood that the problems raised by Shen Heng and Li Daoyi could not be solved by Reconstruction.
Shen Heng pondered for a moment and said, "Well, there was a bit of an accident. When my Configuration was completed, it used up 30% of my Origin Power. Because it used up too much Origin Power and was too dense, I couldn't disperse Reconstruction it."
Upon hearing this, Le Gu Nan's brows immediately furrowed.
Beside him, Li Daoyi the two of them, then removed his hand from Shen Heng's abdomen and sat down to continue thinking.
Le Gu Nan was taken aback upon seeing this, then looked at Shen Heng and hesitantly asked, "May I take a look?"
Shen Heng first looked down at the clothes that had no marks, then picked up a stool and sat down to the side.
"See?"
Le Gu Nan pressed his hand on it.
A moment later, he raised his hand, also frowning.
She thought for a moment and said, "One of the shapes in your Configuration reminds me a bit of... a Möbius strip."
"Möbius strip?"
Both of them turned their gazes toward him upon hearing this.
"Hmm," Le Gu Nan nodded slightly, gesturing in the air with his finger.
"It's a structure where one end of the paper strip is rotated 180 degrees and then connected to the other end."
"The characteristic of this structure is that it has no front or back; it only has one side."
"An ant can start from one point and crawl downwards to cover all sides of this paper."
Le Gu Nan paused here, recalling the image he had just perceived, and said:
"And the core of your Configuration, that constantly twisting, seemingly endless ring structure, gave me that feeling."
A paper strip with no front or back, flipped 180° from end to end and joined together?... Shen Heng imagined this kind of paper strip in his mind, and then compared it with the closed loop in his body.
Sometimes it resembles 0, sometimes ∞, and sometimes it seems like an eternally still Ө...
It is indeed somewhat similar, but it only resembles one form of ∞.
"This ring..." Shen Heng paused, unsure where to begin his question.
"Actually, my understanding of the Möbius strip is also very superficial, limited to its basic topological properties, etc. As for some cutting-edge related theories, all I know is that it represents infinity, cycles, and unity," Le Gu Nan said at the right time.
Infinity, cycles, and unity?... Shen Heng lowered his eyes in thought.
Just then, Li Daoyi was sitting to the side, spoke up.
"Your Configuration reminds me of a saying."
Shen Heng looked over and saw that Li Daoyi's expression was extremely serious.
He opened his mouth and asked, "What did you say?"
"The greatest sound is silent, the greatest form is formless." Li Daoyi said to Shen Heng, word by word.
The greatest sound is silent, the greatest form is formless?
Shen Heng was taken aback. He had heard this sentence before and roughly understood its meaning.
It probably refers to the fact that the grandest musical notes are often inaudible, and the most magnificent scenes are often without a fixed form.
If we apply this to my own Configuration...
Does "no fixed form" mean it's constantly changing?
That sound...
Did you add sound waves during the Configuration?
No, perhaps there's also the fluctuation emanating from this closed loop... Shen Heng sensed the constantly changing closed loop within his body, as well as the equally constantly changing Origin Power threads surrounding it.
Strictly speaking, those Origin Power threads are not part of the Configuration, but rather formed naturally under the fluctuation emanating from the closed loop.
Everything seemed to perfectly reflect what Li Daoyi had said.
only...
"What's the use of this?" Shen Heng asked Li Daoyi.
"Do you even know what that means?" Li Daoyi asked.
"It refers to the grandest..."
"I didn't ask you about its meaning; I asked what it's trying to describe," Li Daoyi interrupted Shen Heng.
Shen Heng paused upon hearing this, pondered for a moment, and then asked somewhat uncertainly, "The Way?"
"That's right, it's the 'Tao'!" Li Daoyi said with certainty. "Your Configuration may be an outward manifestation of some kind of Tao."
The Dao... Shen Heng frowned slightly. "Is the Dao so worthless? I'm only at the Fourth Tier and I've already come into contact with it?"
"What do you think 'the Way' is?" Li Daoyi looked at Shen Heng with annoyance.
"Well..."
This question stumped Shen Heng.
His first thought was of the kind of characters in fantasy dramas or novels he had watched before, whose combat power would skyrocket once they attained enlightenment.
But just as he himself imagined, it was something from fantasy dramas or novels.
Li Daoyi didn't wait for Shen Heng to think before saying:
"The Tao is the law, nature, and the reason why the world works the way it does."
"Sunrise and sunset are the Way, birth, aging, sickness, and death are the Way, and the morning bell and evening drum are also the Way."
"Even..."
Li Daoyi picked up a bowl from the table, then put it down again.
"I pick up this bowl, and the bowl is picked up because of my picking up, and put down because of my putting it down; this too is the Way."
Shen Heng silently watched the bowl fall, watching the ripples of soy milk within it.
"Does that mean my Configuration points directly to some fundamental principles or laws?"
"Yes, that's right."
"So this means... a higher level?"
"The greatest truths are the simplest. You can only say that what you're doing is closer to the level of the 'Tao,' but whether it's a higher level, I'm not sure right now. These days, a combination of both might be even more powerful."
Li Daoyi moment and asked:
"You've been using this Configuration for several months now, haven't you noticed anything special about it?"