Follow the path of Dao from infancy Chapter 1857 - 494: Creation Carving Destiny (2)

To Li Hao, the Life Sea appeared as a tiny pool where tadpole-shaped creatures kept popping out, each taking on varied forms that looked like bizarre tiny bugs.

These tiny bugs possessed their own minds too, and Li Hao managed to sense them. A handful boasting more potent energy showed the liveliest thoughts. He picked up on their urge to venture out and their wonder toward the world beyond, yet they remained trapped, unable to scale the peaks he had fashioned for their enclosure.

"Their growth is too slow. If it were another Immortal King Realm, they would be able to cultivate the life in their realms, using them as pawns to deduce their own Cultivation Technique and Tao... but I cannot wait for them."

Li Hao gazed upon these beings emerging from the Life Sea and let out a silent sigh.

To evolve into effective fighting forces, these beings must keep practicing cultivation and multiplying over time. Right now, they lingered in the primitive Barbaric Wilds era.

Li Hao pulled his focus away from these small existences and dove back into grasping his Carving Arts.

"The essence of Carving..."

"Everything can be carved..."

"He was originally a piece of wood, and I carved him into a man or a beast."

"The years etch wrinkles on the face of life, which is also carving, granting..."

"Granting... life?"

Deeply absorbed in the practice, Li Hao's eyes sparkled nonstop, oblivious to all disturbances from the outer realm.

Time flew by in an instant, marking thirty years gone.

Within the domain, a youth positioned himself in a cross-legged stance, clutching a wooden sculpture in his grasp.

The sculpture depicted a Little White Fox, endearingly innocent, featuring elongated and captivating fox eyes that held an innate charm.

Just like that boy from long ago, beneath the starry sky and moonlight, sharing his solitude only with the Little White Fox.

"Using time to grant wrinkles, granting strength, are all capabilities of carving."

"But fundamentally... it’s about altering its Creation!"

The youth whispered softly to himself.

That Little White Fox had crossed paths with him, evolving from an injured wild cub to entering the famed Divine General Mansion, where it enjoyed opulent days ever since.

Endless transformations arise in life across the vast span of years.

Time's shifts prove impossible to master, yet those induced by carving... bestow Creation!

"Life Carving Blade, Creation Realm!"

Li Hao's eyes snapped open, as though myriad starlights converged and danced within them, radiating the profound Tao glow of an epiphany in his state of mind, his Divine Soul utterly lucid right then, as if brushing against the fundamental source of heaven and earth.

[You have comprehended the thirteen-stage Carving State of Mind, Creation Life Carving!]

With the panel's alert came a torrent of realizations surging into Li Hao's consciousness.

In that instant, visions of endless carving methods unfolded before him, weaving through eras, amidst countless lives, wielded by the mysterious Time Blade to etch all existence, shape every soul, form flora and foliage, mold avian and animal kinds.

All receives the mark of carving, all gains endowment, forging a Creation!

"So that’s how it is..."

Li Hao muttered, with dawning insight and profound realization lighting up his gaze; this captured the true core of carving.

Bestowing upon all things what they lack, to the recipient, it manifests as Creation!

"One cut, one world; one carve, one being; carving marks as law, everything becomes a figurine!"

Right then, Li Hao at last grasped the profound root of carving.

Yet shortly after, a notion surfaced in his thoughts: having pierced the origin via the thirteen-stage carving, what form might the fourteen-stage Carving Arts take?

Surpassing the bestowal of Creation, delving even further... into Carving Arts?

Confusion clouded Li Hao's eyes, like diving into a boundless vortex of depth, vast and inconceivably remote, evoking dread to approach or even conceive.

After some indeterminate while, Li Hao snapped back to awareness, sensing chill sweat drenching his robes.

Having only just advanced to the thirteenth-stage state of mind, delving into the fourteenth stage's trail felt akin to plummeting into abyssal depths.

Li Hao figured the fourteenth stage aligned with the Immortal Emperor Realm.

Did it perhaps lead to an Emperor Road?

"Now, the Physical Body Dao, Control Dao, Sword Dao, have all been inlaid, only the Body Path and Fist Skill remain."

"First, improve the Body Path!"

For Li Hao, boosting the Fist Skill held little weight, since it pertained to offensive techniques that mirrored Sword Dao.

Yet elevating the Body Path brought immense advantages, enabling swift mastery of countless supreme Immortal King techniques.

"Once inlaid, there’s no turning back; I must repeatedly enter the Heaven Tower until stabilizing all four Realm Hearts, to catch a breath."

Solemnity deepened in Li Hao's gaze.

He had poured exhaustive labor into the prior three Realm Hearts, and now ideas for harmonizing four Realm Hearts eluded him entirely.

Applying the stabilization approach for three Realm Hearts to form the four into a stable square—might that hold firm?

Li Hao mulled it over, sinking into contemplation.

As he delved deep into his musings, abruptly, a gentle voice drifted into his hearing:

"Those who can hear my voice may stop what they’re doing, I shall preach the Tao Collection for three years, and you shall comprehend as much as you can, which is also nurturing for you."

Li Hao identified it as the Star Empress's voice, and upon lifting his eyes to survey, he noted surrounding domains fading away, exposing figures within, each turning toward the Heaven Tower's location with expressions of astonishment and delight.

"Tao Collection?"

Li Hao recalled one of the elite resources he had bartered for earlier, the Tao Collection.

As a pivotal asset of the Dao Clan, though incomplete, its mastery permitted profound insight and practice of the infinite Tao across All Heavens up to Ten Layers of Perfection!

The value of such an item was beyond measure.

"An Immortal Emperor preaching? It’s actually the Tao Collection!"

"This is the Holy Scripture of the Dao Clan, even the Star Empress knows?"

"That’s without saying, an Immortal Emperor knows everything, but perhaps the most core part remains unknown, or even if known, some agreements might prevent arbitrary dissemination."