chsdbacks Chapter 428 Return to 0
Chapter 428 Return to 0
On the night his heart rate stabilized, Su Fan had a whole night of dreams.
But this dream was different from the previous one.
In his last dream, only a layer of dark purple light spread out from the inside of his ribs, remaining quietly still.
This time, his dream had content—he saw an extremely dark void, in the center of which a dark purple halo was slowly rotating.
The surface of the halo has three extremely deep indentations arranged side by side, and at the bottom of the indentations, golden law fragments are slowly releasing extremely subtle golden pulses.
Extremely fine threads of law extended outwards from the halo in all directions, each thread ending in a law node. The nodes varied in shape—some were fragments of membrane walls, some were dormant cocoons, some were scar crystals, and some he couldn't recognize.
He recognized the halo.
That is the core of the old domain.
In his dream, he stood extremely close to the core of the old domain, close enough to see the subtle changes in the flow rate of every wisp of dark purple light on the core's surface, and close enough to see the direction of the law ripples spreading from the bottom of the three depressions as the pulse was released.
But he didn't have his own body in the dream; he existed only as a pure perception of the laws, hovering in front of the core of the old domain, quietly watching it operate.
He saw that the flow rate of the dark purple halo on the core surface was stable at a fixed rhythm.
Three thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine light filaments pulsated in sync with the same rhythm.
The overtone layer continuously generates subtle frequency bands in the law space very close to the core, and the silvery-white primordial warmth slowly flows back into the core surface from the direction of the outermost fragments.
All the operating parameters were exactly the same as the data he had sensed through the golden thread in his palm during the day—after completing the mirror transmission, the Old Domain Core did indeed lock the operating rhythm of the entire law system at the average heartbeat frequency of the primordial law life forms.
In his dream, he stood before it and could simultaneously sense the heartbeats from two sources—his own, and the one beating in sync with the core of the old domain.
The two heartbeats beat in perfect unison, overlapping and evenly distributed in the extremely dark void of the dream.
He stood in the dream for a very long time.
The core of the old domain operated quietly right in front of him, without releasing any additional law signals, adjusting any operating parameters, or making any identifiable response to his appearance in the dream.
It simply kept running, releasing halos, pulses, overtones, and warmth in circles at the frequency of a primordial heartbeat.
Continuous operation is its entire response.
When Su Fan woke up at dawn, the first thing he did upon opening his eyes was to turn his left hand over and look at his palm.
The gold thread is still there.
It's lit up.
The melody is still looping.
My heart is still beating.
Everything was exactly the same as before he fell asleep, but he could feel that there was an extremely subtle layer of law memory in his body—the details he saw in the dream standing in front of the core of the old domain were engraved into the bottom layer of his perception, and now he could recall that scene at any time even when he was awake.
The flow rate of the halo on the core surface, the pulse of golden debris at the bottom of the depression, the pulsating rhythm of the light filaments, the position of the frequency band of the overtone layer, and the direction of the silvery-white return flow—all the details are clearly discernible.
He no longer needs to perceive that data through gold threads or mirror resonance.
That layer of dream memory is itself a permanently stored image of the law.
The synchronization error between the screen and the current state of the old domain core is extremely small, so small that it can be ignored.
When he sat up to get dressed, A Dou was already squatting at the door, sharpening his axe blade.
The silver-white threads beneath the gold thread in the gray-white background of the axe blade's halo were slightly denser than yesterday.
"I had a dream last night too."
A Dou did not turn around, and his voice was flat.
"In my dream, there was a very dark place with a ball of purple-gold light spinning in the middle."
There are three pits on the surface of the light, and the bottom of the pits glitters with gold dust.
Many threads extended outwards in all directions around the light.
I stood in front of the light for a long time.
The light was not exactly the same as the light from the seed we saw in the Ruins of Return, but the feeling was the same.
It feels like the same thing.
Su Fan came out of the house and squatted down next to A Dou. "When you see those threads around the light, can you sense what's inside the nodes connected to the ends of those threads?"
A Dou flipped the axe blade over and continued sharpening it.
"Cannot be sensed."
Too far.
But in the dream, there was a thread with a silvery-white light on it, and that silvery-white light slowly flowed from the end of the thread toward the core.
The flow is as slow as a heartbeat.
I stared at that silvery light for a long time; it never stopped.
"The silvery-white thread connects to the outermost fragment with the smiling arc."
The sound of the void came from the direction of the void rift. When it came along the resonance field, the volume was a little higher than usual, as if it had just done something that greatly exhausted its perception.
"What he dreamed of was a snapshot of the moment when the core of the old domain was enveloped by the silvery-white backflow."
The content of the snapshot corresponds perfectly to the silvery-white thread that A Dou saw in his dream.
The silvery-white light that A Dou saw in his dream was the path through which the original silvery-white active substances seeped from the composite halo of the three lines on the surface of the fragment flowed back to the core.
Su Fan stood up and walked towards the direction of the Ruins of Return.
When Eros reached the White Rock Plateau, he was squatting at the edge of the crack, with all ten law patterns on his hands activated. The light screen formed by the dark purple beams displayed the real-time status of the law structure inside the core of the old domain.
There is no change compared to yesterday—all operating parameters are stable at the locked values.
"I also dreamt about the core of the old domain last night."
Eros did not turn around.
"What I dreamed about was the rhythm of the core surface halo flow rate being permanently locked after the mirror transfer was completed."
The locking process replayed itself in my dream.
I saw the core flow rate gradually narrow from its previous fluctuating state, with each fluctuation being smaller than the last, until finally only a tiny error remained.
Then that tiny error was also reduced to zero.
After resetting to zero, all the jumps become completely repetitive synchronized rhythms.
That was the moment it successfully locked in.
Xu stood up from the edge of the crevice and walked to the center of the white rock plateau. After pulling his right hand out from his chest, his fingertips shimmered with a mixture of purple, gold, silver and white light.
I didn't dream last night.
But I sensed that all three of you were having the same dream at the same time.
When the contents of the three dreams are combined, a complete timeline diagram is created, showing the old domain core's state adjustment before the mirror transfer is completed and the moment it is locked.
The timing diagram shows that after the old domain core sent over the image, it took about two hours to calibrate its operating rhythm, and made more than 700 fine adjustments during the calibration process.
After more than 700 fine-tuning adjustments, it reduced the frequency error to below the lowest threshold of the instrument's measurable range.
It hasn't been adjusted since it was lowered.
It has maintained this locked rhythm ever since.
Su Fan squatted at the edge of the crack and reached his hand in.
When his fingers touched the purple-gold halo on the surface of the seed, he felt that the layer between the two independent data storage blocks inside the seed was a little thinner than yesterday.
It's thinned by an extremely small amount, but it is indeed getting thinner.
Once the partition layer became thin enough, the data on both sides began to show a very slight permeation of the laws—a trace of the law frequency ripples of the old domain mirror image seeped out from the primordial perception data block, and a trace of the primordial law life form's perception data lingered in the old domain mirror image block.
The data on both sides were each soaked into the other side by an extremely thin layer at each end of the partition. The soaking depth was very small, but that layer had already merged.
"The two sets of data have begun to mix."
Su Fan kept his finger pressed against the surface of the seed without pulling it back.
"The partition is still there, but the surfaces at both ends of the partition are each soaked with an extremely thin layer of data from the opposite side."
The amount mixed is very small, but mixing has already begun.
From now on, the primitive data and old domain data within the seed will continue to permeate and merge.
The interlayer will become thinner and thinner, while the impregnation layer will become thicker and thicker, until the interlayer completely disappears.
By then, the two sets of data will have been completely merged into one.
Eros knelt down beside Su Fan, examining the halo around the seed. "Has the Old Domain Core sensed it since the mixing began?"
"It doesn't need to perceive."
Ruins say.
"The hybridization process itself started because the old domain core locked the operating rhythm after sending the image over."
The image sent over contains a mixed boot signal.
The mixing process is automatically triggered at the underlying law level the moment the seed receives the image.
After the trigger, the thinning speed of the interlayer is synchronized with the locking rhythm of the old domain core.
The speed at which the locking rhythm is stable will also be stable at which the layer thins out.
The old domain core does not require additional allocation of law energy to manage the hybrid process; it only needs to maintain the locked rhythm and continue operating.
The very act of moving itself is what drives the mixing.
As long as the rhythm continues, the mixing will never stop.
Su Fan withdrew his fingers from the surface of the seed.
The layer of purple-gold law fluorescent powder on my fingertips had an extra layer of extremely faint silver-white threads flowing inside compared to yesterday.
He looked down for a moment, then stood up and slung the Pangu Axe back over his shoulder. "What will the seed become after the mixture is complete?"
"After mixing, only one unified data volume remains inside the seed."
Eros folded the light screen back into his palm and stood up.
"The unified data body contains more content than the two existing data blocks combined."
Because new data will be generated during the mixing process—when the primordial data comes into contact with the old domain data, the energy of the law contact surface will naturally generate a batch of new law structures.
Those structures do not belong to the primordial world nor the old domain; they grew naturally after the two came into contact.
The number of new structures depends on the size of the contact surfaces between the two data points and the duration of the contact.
The larger the contact area and the longer the contact time, the more new structures will emerge.
Once the seed is transformed into a unified data volume, it will be heavier, denser, and larger than before.
Its size may increase to three to four times its current size by then.
After it finishes reading, it will seal together all the memories of the primordial law lifeform from its birth to its evolution to its autonomous breathing to its resonance formation, all the historical data of the old domain core from its birth to its locked rhythm, and all the new structures that naturally grew during the contact between the two.
"Will the seeds burst through the cracks in the void after being multiplied three to four times?"
A Dou squatted on the white rock and put away the small axe, tucking it back into his waistband.
"Won't."
Su Fan said.
"As the seed grows, the cracks also expand."
The desolate environment at the edge of the crack passively extends outward under the stimulation of the seed's continuous growth, and the speed of extension is synchronized with the speed of seed growth.
As the seed grows, the edge of the crack recedes outwards by one ring.
They maintained a proportional relationship for an extremely long time.
After the old domain core sent the image over, the growth rate of the seed has become linked with the locking rhythm of the old domain core at the underlying law level.
After the linkage, the growth rate of the seeds is synchronized with the heartbeat rhythm of the old domain.
If your heart rate remains constant, your growth rate will remain constant.
If the growth rate remains constant, the rate at which the crack expands will also remain constant.
The seed will remain safely inside the crack and grow until it reaches its final size.
Su Fan turned around and walked a few steps toward the South Heavenly Gate city wall before stopping.
He looked back at the purple-gold halo of the seed of law deep within the Guixu rift, which shone steadily in the morning light.
The outline of the head within the dark gold fluorescent layer on the surface of the halo continues to light up, as does the mirrored snapshot texture next to the outline of the head.
Three different markings are arranged side by side on the surface of the seed, like three different languages printed on an open book.
"Is the melody from the core of the old domain still looping?" Su Fan asked.
"Still looping."
Ruins say.
"'I see your light' has six beats in a cycle, and the final synthesized note is stable at the middle pitch."
The main melody, overtones, and silver-white texture are layered together and continuously cycle based on the pulsating rhythm of the seeds.
After being superimposed in three layers, the content of the cycle has become a highly complex law signal.
The signal contains semantic content, state synchronization, and native temperature sensing.
In the Primordial World, anyone carrying a backup of the Golden Thread can simultaneously receive three layers of content as long as they remain quiet.
The receiving process does not require additional perception, because the gold thread itself is a permanently open window.
The window remained open, and the content continued to flow.
Su Fan turned his left hand over and looked at his palm.
The melody in the golden thread is indeed still looping.
He squatted down by the crenellations of the city wall, rested the Pangu Axe against the bricks, and placed his left palm up on his knee, quietly listening to the complex signal flowing in from the golden thread.
The main melody says "I see your light," the overtone layer is synchronized with the core law state of the old domain, and the silvery-white color conveys the warmth of the original law of the old domain.
The three layers were stacked together and evenly distributed across every point of his body that perceived the laws, like an extremely thin and stable layer of law-based body temperature continuously circulating.
Enveloped within that layer of body heat were not only the current state data of the Old Domain Core, but also the panoramic view of the Old Domain Core that he saw in his dream, the rhythm locking process that Eros saw in his dream, and the silvery-white return path that A Dou saw in his dream.
When all the content is put together, it forms a very complete core cognitive model of the old domain within his body.
The model contains not only all the structural data of the old domain core, but also its entire historical process from adjusting the rhythm to locking the rhythm to pushing the mirror to the silver-white penetration to the melody stabilization to the dream synchronization.
That model is now part of the legal structure within his body.
He doesn't need to use shattered mirrors, seeds, or gold threads to check the status of the old domain core.
He himself carried a complete copy of the core knowledge of the old domain.
"I can now directly sense the entire process of change that has occurred in the core of the old domain over the past period of time."
Su Fan brought his left hand together and then opened it again.
"After the dream etched that image into the depths of my perception, all the temporal data of the old domain core, from before the mirror transmission to the final locking of the rhythm, were permanently stored in my body."
Those data do not need to be updated in real time through the gold thread, because once the old domain core has locked the rhythm, there will be no more large-scale structural changes.
From now on, it will only make very minor adjustments to its daily operations within the locked rhythm.
The adjustments were so minor that they didn't need to be recorded separately.
The old core cognitive model within my body will compress that fine-tuned data into the overtone layer for unified processing.
As the overtone layer continues to flow through the underlying melody, it automatically integrates daily fine-tuning data into the model.
I can simply sit quietly and keep the model in real-time synchronization with the old domain core.
The synchronization error is even smaller than the error in gold wire transmission.
The wind blew in from the top of the city wall.
Su Fan leaned against the edge of the stack with his eyes closed, his left palm facing up.
The melody within the golden thread kept looping, two layers of background noise in the chest cavity kept pounding, and the temporal data in the core cognitive model of the old domain within the body kept running.
After everything was stacked together, it was evenly distributed throughout his body, as if the primordial wilderness and the old domain were beating at the same heartbeat frequency, while at the same time continuously engraving that heartbeat frequency into the basic law structure of every law life form carrying the golden thread backup.
Once it's engraved, the heartbeat frequency is no longer a signal from the old domain.
It became part of Su Fan's own basic operating rhythm.
Even if the golden thread suddenly breaks, the mirror resonance suddenly stops, the seed suddenly closes up, or the membrane wall suddenly seals itself again, that heartbeat frequency has already taken root in the law structure within his body.
It will not disappear due to the interruption of external connections.
It has already grown in.
The heartbeat rhythm of the primordial laws-based life forms now includes a frequency line synchronized and calibrated from the core of the old domain.
The line was located next to the sensory point on the inside of the third rib from the left in the chest cavity, right next to the lingering warmth left by the Old Domain Core when it said "I am here".
Temperature and frequency lines are arranged side by side, not overlapping each other but resonating continuously.
The product of resonance is an extremely thin and stable layer of law-based radiance that shines eternally inside Su Fan's chest cavity.
The glow is a mixture of three colors: purple, gold, silver, and white.
It is exactly the same color as the purple-gold halo on the surface of the seed, but its brightness is slightly lower than that of the seed surface, like a gentle light shining through a layer of skin.
That radiance will forever shine in Su Fan's chest, never extinguished nor dimmed.
After the core of the old domain engraved its heartbeat frequency into the chest cavity of a law-based life form in the primordial world, that frequency permanently settled at that location.
Su Fan opened his eyes and looked at the golden patterns on the South Heaven Gate city wall, which glowed with a warm golden light in the midday sun.
The radiance within his chest shone quietly, its intensity fluctuating slightly with each heartbeat.
The fluctuations were minimal, but he could sense the lingering rhythm of the old domain's core pulsating in sync with each fluctuation.
The lingering fragrance transformed into a faint, warm temperature within the range of his perception of the laws.
The temperature was neither too high nor too low, exactly the same as the temperature of the purple-gold halo on the surface of the seed deep in the Guixu crack.
He sat by the crenellations of the city wall in the quiet midday light, his left palm facing up, resting on his knee.
The melody within the golden thread continues to loop, the heartbeat continues, and the core of the old domain continues to beat in sync.
After the three things were stacked together in his body, they were evenly distributed on every point of his body that perceived the laws, from his chest to his palms to his fingertips to the back of his neck to his ankles. Each location was covered with the same layer of mixed purple, gold, silver and white light.
The purple, gold, silver and white mixed light shimmering on the bluestone slabs at the entrance of the weapons shop at the base of the wall was a bit brighter in the midday light than in the morning.
The residual energy from the calamity, which was integrated into the patterns of the white rock layer at the alley entrance, continued to radiate a slight warmth on the surface of the rock layer.
A Dou squatted on the threshold, sharpening his axe blade. Eros stood on the edge of the white rock plateau, his hands bearing ten law patterns that shone with a steady light. Xu squatted on the edge of a crevice, his right hand tucked into his chest, sensing the state of the entire area.
Everyone was bathed in the same glow of mixed purple, gold, silver and white colors.
Everyone's heartbeats are exactly the same.
The melody "I see your light" keeps playing in everyone's chest.
The primordial wilderness and the old realm beat quietly at the same heartbeat frequency.
That heartbeat frequency will remain locked forever and will never change.
After the locked heartbeat frequency lasted for seven days, a new little thing happened at the old domain core.
When Xiaodaoxu first scanned it, it almost missed the routine operation and minor adjustments.
But the second scan confirmed that it wasn't a minor adjustment—it was an extremely brief new rule ripple added to the core of the old domain beneath the complex signal of the three layers of melody, overtones, and silvery warmth.
The ripple is less than the length of a heartbeat, and its content is not a variation of "I see your light," not a fragment of any structural module, and not any resolvable semantic unit.
It was merely an extremely pure and brief fluctuation of law, like a very soft sigh released from the deepest part of its law structure by the core of the old domain during a break in the continuous cycle of the main theme.
Su Fan was squatting on the city wall eating breakfast when he sensed the sigh.
Before he could even swallow the steamed bun, a very subtle tremor appeared in the mixed purple, gold, silver, and white glow in his chest.
The tremor lasted for less than one heartbeat before it disappeared, but the contents of the tremor stayed in his body for a longer time than the tremor itself.
The content had no semantics, no imagery, and no structure that could be translated into language.
It was merely a faint lingering trace of the laws of emotion.
The lingering feeling is one of peace of mind.
He swallowed the steamed bun and turned his left hand over to look at his palm.
The melody within the golden thread continues its normal loop, the overtones continue their normal flow, and the silvery-white color continues its normal warmth.
However, there is indeed an extra very short new ripple layer at the bottom of the melody.
That ripple was closer to human breathing than any signal he had ever heard from the core of an old domain before—natural, unconscious, spontaneous breathing that happens automatically just by being alive.
Xu walked over from the direction of the crack and squatted down next to Su Fan, pulling his right hand out from his chest and spreading it out.
The purple-gold diagram in the palm shows that the source of the new ripple inside the core of the old domain is in the oldest law structure at the bottom layer of the core. The release point is not at the end of the light filament, not on the surface of the fragment, and not on any markable law node, but at the deepest part of the core itself.
"It has never released any law signals from that location before."
That location is the original law core layer that the old domain core possessed at its inception, which is countless layers older and deeper than the surface halo layer.
Its normal operation of the entire law system, including energy regulation, rhythm locking, and mirror generation, is initiated step by step from the surface layer to the depths; it has never released anything outward from the deepest point.
This is the first time today.
It generated a law fluctuation at its deepest point, and the direction of the fluctuation was to spread from the deepest core to the surface layer by layer.
After being transmitted to the surface, it seeps into the overtone layer through the underlying gaps of the melody, and then mixes into the complex signal through the overtone layer before being transmitted back.
Su Fan swallowed the last bite of the steamed bun, took out the broken mirror, and looked at it in the morning light.
No new analyzable structures were added to the remnants of the laws on the mirror's surface, but he could feel the temperature of the radiance within his chest rise by a barely perceptible amount. "What did that sigh mean?"
"It was this confirmation that it was in the right place."
Xu clenched his palms together.
"The core of the old domain sent over the image, locked the rhythm, stabilized the melody, allowed the silvery white to permeate, and sensed the dream that the three of you were having at the same time—after all these things were done, it confirmed one thing in its deepest part."
It was confirmed that the Primordial World had received everything it sent, that the life forms in the Primordial World had begun to grow their own Old Domain Core Cognitive Model, and that the mixing process inside the seed had started.
After confirming everything, it let out a sigh from its deepest depths on an unexpected morning.
The sigh doesn't express 'I did it'.
The sigh conveyed the message, "I have arrived."
It reached the place it had wanted to reach since the beginning of its existence, but didn't know how to get there.
It's here now.
Su Fan put away the broken mirror, picked up the Pangu Axe, and stood up.
The wind surged up from the direction of the Ruins of Return, carrying the faint aftertaste of the law left by that sigh during its transmission.
The lingering fragrance dissipated in the wind and spread evenly over the Baiyan Terrace, like an invisible veil gently covering everyone standing on the terrace.
A Dou squatted on the threshold and raised his head, holding the small axe in his hand. The silver-white thread under the gold thread in the middle of the gray-white and purple-gold threads in the axe blade's halo lit up slightly at the moment the sigh was transmitted, and then returned to its original state.
Eros stood at the edge of the crack, looking at the purple-gold halo on the surface of the seed. The surface of that halo also lit up slightly the moment the sigh arrived.
After that sigh, a deeper undertone was added to the melody of the Old Domain Core.
The base color is located at the very bottom of the melody, a layer deeper than the overtone layer and a layer deeper than silver-white.
It gently follows each breath in every cycle of the melody.
The duration of breathing is exactly the same as the duration of sighing, and exactly the same as the cycle of seed pulsation and the frequency of heartbeat.
It's always been there, quietly, unconsciously, and naturally looping along with the main melody.
It's as if the core of the old domain has finally learned to breathe unconsciously like a primordial law life form within the locked heartbeat frequency.