Chapter 1631: The Dao Inquiry of the Chaos Hall
“The Miro Dao Burial—that must be a combined attack technique they comprehended from the Dao patterns of the Miro Palace, or perhaps the Hongmeng runes, right?”
As Qin Mu walked into the chaos, his mind still replayed the combined strike of those sixty-seven ascended being projections.
That strike was clearly a terrifying technique specifically designed against him. He could tell that when facing the Miro Dao Burial, all his divine abilities and Dao techniques were utterly useless, as if completely suppressed, leaving him without any power to resist.
If it had been anywhere else, Qin Mu might not have died, but severe injury would have been unavoidable, likely taking hundreds or thousands of years to fully recover.
However, their strike had occurred within his divine treasury universe. There, they didn’t even qualify to wound him.
Of course, this was entirely due to his foresight in planting the Guixu lotus, allowing his cultivation method to achieve the grand unity of creation and destruction.
Otherwise, even within his divine treasury universe, Qin Mu would have suffered heavy damage if not death.
“Just how unwelcome am I in this prehistoric universe?”
Qin Mu frowned slightly. “In the Ancestral Court’s Jade Capital City, there are only these seventy-two halls, and yet all seventy-two hall masters hold a grudge against me, conspiring together to put me to death!”
He couldn’t help but shake his head.
The esteemed Mu Heavenly Venerate—wherever he went, wasn’t he beloved by all and adored by flowers?
Yet in the past universe, he was hunted and hated by everyone?
Just then, he arrived beneath that great Chaos Hall.
He looked up and saw a vast nothingness before him, a void like the Ultimate Void.
That Chaos Hall had no stone steps; it stood in the midst of the void, and he had no idea how to ascend it.
Qin Mu hesitated for a moment, then took a step forward. The moment his foot extended, a long stone staircase appeared beneath him.
The steps seemed forged from Chaos Stone, materializing out of thin air.
The instant Qin Mu’s foot landed on the first step, an unimaginable pressure descended, pressing against him from all directions!
This pressure was immense. Its source seemed to be the hall’s own power, yet also felt like Qin Mu’s own strength turning against him to suppress himself.
Even stranger, Dao speech echoed in his ears—like a Dao inquiry, a thunderous, soul-stirring interrogation of the heart!
This Dao speech came from within the Chaos Hall, as if someone was questioning him through the Great Dao!
What baffled Qin Mu was that this voice was unmistakably his own!
“What is inside that hall? Another me, or someone else?”
Qin Mu did not answer this Dao inquiry. Instead, he braced against the pressure, withdrew his other foot, and took another step forward.
But contrary to his expectations, the second stone step did not appear. The void remained before him.
The pressure instantly intensified!
“It must be because I didn’t answer the Dao inquiry from the hall that caused this change!”
Qin Mu withdrew his foot. The Dao inquiry came again, repeating the same question.
He focused his mind on contemplating this Dao inquiry. Dao inquiries are impossible to express in ordinary language. Whether divine speech or demonic speech, they can at most convey part of the Dao’s meaning, never fully describing it.
Dao inquiries use Dao speech—a language that can be called the most precise, leaving no room for misunderstanding, yet also the most universal.
Of course, this universality applies only to ascended beings and those who have reached extremely high realms in Dao techniques and divine abilities.
When they communicate using Dao speech, there are no barriers, no misunderstandings—this is also why Qin Mu could converse with prehistoric ascended beings.
At the same time, a Dao inquiry is also a divine ability, a deadly weapon. If the opponent’s cultivation is inferior and their Dao heart has flaws, a single Dao inquiry shout can plunge them into self-doubt and self-denial!
Heavenly Venerate Hao had once used this trick to harm Qin Mu.
However, the Dao inquiry from the Chaos Hall was not so simple. Besides striking directly at Qin Mu’s Dao heart, the question it posed was precisely a problem he had encountered in his own cultivation.
“Who is really asking me this?”
Qin Mu frowned, enduring the ever-increasing pressure while pondering the answer to this Dao inquiry.
In the past, when he was comprehending the Dao, he had tried to solve this problem, but with too many distractions at the time, he quickly set it aside to pursue other Dao techniques.
Someone had once called him a silly moose, and that description was quite fitting.
A silly moose is curious about everything, able to discover mysteries others miss, but it lacks the patience to get to the bottom of anything. Thus, Qin Mu had left behind many problems on his cultivation path that he could have solved but never did.
In truth, with his current insight and experience, going back to answer these questions was no longer as difficult as it had once been.
He racked his brain, trying to answer this Dao inquiry. Just then, the stone step beneath him emitted a cracking sound, and cracks appeared on its surface.
Suddenly, the step’s surface crumbled, chunks of Chaos Stone falling away.
The Chaos Stone plunged into the void below and dissolved instantly!
Qin Mu held his breath, closed his eyes, ignored all this, and continued to think deeply.
Just as he was about to lose his footing entirely, Qin Mu suddenly opened his eyes and spoke in Dao speech, answering the question!
The stone step beneath him immediately stopped collapsing.
By the time he finished answering the Dao inquiry, the step had unknowingly restored itself completely.
Qin Mu breathed a sigh of relief and reached up to wipe cold sweat from his brow, only then remembering that he was in his primordial spirit form—no cold sweat existed. If there were any, it would be his physical body sweating profusely.
He was completely absorbed in ascending the Chaos Hall, unaware that outside the Yongjiang Heavenly Palace, the cold sweat from his physical body had already flooded past his ankles, forming a small pond.
Having answered the first Dao inquiry, Qin Mu felt an immense lightness. The oppressive pressure that had been everywhere vanished without a trace.
Not only that, but he sensed his Dao heart had become a bit more transparent, and his Dao cultivation had subtly improved.
He took another step, and a second Chaos Stone step automatically materialized beneath him.
At the same time, the lofty Chaos Hall once again transmitted Qin Mu’s own voice, issuing a second Dao inquiry!
And this Dao inquiry was also a problem Qin Mu had encountered during his cultivation but had set aside without solving!
“How interesting!”
Qin Mu’s primordial spirit’s eyes gleamed. His curiosity about what lay inside the Chaos Hall grew even stronger. He thought to himself, “Could there be another me inside? Or is it my Dao heart asking the questions? I really want to go in and see…”
His current realm corresponded to the Lingxiao realm after the Yujing realm.
Lingxiao and Dizuo were two traditional realms, but Qin Mu’s understanding of them was not deep.
He had no Lingxiao Hall; instead, his own cultivation method had transformed into a Chaos Hall. What he would encounter when ascending this hall, and what lay within it, he had no idea.
He didn’t even know if what he was experiencing at this realm was something others faced when cultivating to the Lingxiao realm.
Did everyone who reached a similar realm undergo the same trials?
When they stood before the Lingxiao Hall, would Dao inquiries also come from within, asking about the questions they had abandoned on their path of seeking the Dao?
Would those Dao inquiries strike directly at their Dao hearts?
But he couldn’t dwell on this.
The Chaos Stone step beneath him had already begun to crack and collapse, and the pressure he bore was steadily increasing. He had to solve the problem he had once avoided before the step completely disintegrated!
He engaged his mind fully, striving to answer this second Dao inquiry.
Finally, just before the step fully collapsed, he solved the problem and answered in Dao speech.
A third stone step appeared, and from the Chaos Hall came Qin Mu’s voice—another Dao inquiry, another problem he had once set aside.
Qin Mu calmed his mind. He no longer rushed forward impatiently but quietly stayed on the steps before the Chaos Hall, resolving the various problems he had abandoned during his cultivation.
Some problems he had been too lazy to solve, some were beyond his ability at the time, and some he had simply forgotten.
Now, these problems blocked his path before the Chaos Hall, becoming the greatest obstacles to entering the hall and ascending the Dizuo throne!
The debts incurred from taking the easy way out would eventually have to be repaid!
Now was the time to repay, but it was also a process of filling in the gaps.
Making up for the flaws in his cultivation path.
Gradually, as Qin Mu answered more and more Dao inquiries, his Dao heart grew increasingly complete, and his Dao cultivation slowly improved. Though each gap-filling only increased his cultivation by a small amount, as he walked step by step, the accumulation became quite substantial.
He had already traversed over a hundred stone steps. The Chaos Hall was right before him, yet every time he took a step forward, new Chaos Stone steps appeared!
Moreover, the Dao inquiries from the Chaos Hall grew ever more profound and abstruse, making them increasingly difficult to answer!
“The Dao inquiries will eventually run out, and I will eventually ascend this hall!”
Qin Mu remained patient, neither arrogant nor impatient, steadily advancing. After an unknown amount of time, he still hadn’t reached the Chaos Hall.
He looked back and saw the Chaos Stone steps stretching over ten li, like a white thread extending into Jade Capital City. But when he looked up, the Chaos Hall was still neither near nor far, yet he couldn’t set foot upon it.
Qin Mu steadied himself. This realm corresponded to the Lingxiao realm, and now he understood why there were many Lingxiao realm experts but so few Dizuo realm ones.
Those Lingxiao realm experts likely faced various Dao heart inquiries at this stage. The inquiries and pressure they encountered might not be as extreme as Qin Mu’s, but they were enough to trap them before the Lingxiao Hall!
Just then, the Dao inquiry from the Chaos Hall posed a difficult question about the Dao of Taiji, concerning the principle of Taiji evolving into Yin and Yang.
Qin Mu frowned, pondered for a long time, until the stone step beneath him had crumbled to the point where only one foot could stand, yet he still couldn’t find the answer.
He sighed, took a step back, and landed on the step behind him.
“I can answer the Dao inquiry another time. Perhaps I can slowly ponder this problem. How long have I been here? I wonder what’s happening in the outside world.”
His physical body slowly awakened. He saw an old ox sitting in the shade of a tree not far ahead, chest bared, noisily puffing on a water pipe. Beside him sat several Kui dragons, staring at him eagerly.
The old ox handed the water pipe over, and the ox-headed Kui dragons hurriedly took it, took a couple of puffs, then passed it to other Kui dragons.
By the distant Heavenly River, a pure black tiger was using its tail to fish for red Kun in the river. Suddenly, with a crack, the black tiger quickly pulled its tail back from the river, only to find it shortened by a section—bitten clean off by a red Kun!
The black tiger pulled a long face, activated its Creation Mystic Art, and slowly grew its tail back.
From the deeper forests came a neighing sound, a voice as unpleasant as a donkey’s: “Let me take a bite, okay? I won’t eat you, just one bite—”
Qin Mu was puzzled and asked, “Senior Brother Sanduo, why are you all here?”
Seeing him awake, the old ox quickly stood up: “Heavenly Venerate, the Four Heavenly Masters have all arrived. Seeing you in cultivation, they didn’t disturb you. They’re waiting in the palace now!”
“All Four Heavenly Masters are here?”
Qin Mu was startled and immediately headed toward the palace. Village Chief and Medicine Master were drinking tea under a large tree at the palace gate, lounging in rocking chairs. They glanced lazily at Qin Mu, and Medicine Master smiled, “Mu’er, you’ve been cultivating for four months. You’re finally awake.”
“Four months already?”
Qin Mu was shocked. Defeating the seventy-two ascended being projections hadn’t taken long, but answering the Dao inquiries before the Chaos Hall had likely consumed nearly four months!
“Medicine Master, have you heard any news about the negotiations between the Heavenly Court and Yan Kang?” Qin Mu asked hurriedly.
“Yuchenzi came to see you once. Seeing you weren’t awake, he left in a hurry.”
Medicine Master thought for a moment and said, “He seemed to mention that the negotiations between the Heavenly Court and Yan Kang are about to break down.”