The lines of veins that were cleanly engraved on the bodies of all creatures were the very spiritual veins that Xu Xiaoshou had been looking for to no avail.
‘Is Passive Skill related to the spirit-gathering array?’
Xu Xiaoshou could barely contain his excitement.
He recalled the days when he had almost lost his vision to study the spiritual-gathering array in depth.
Despite all of his efforts and the use of the Qingming Celestial Rock, he could not tattoo any spiritual veins on himself.
The efforts made him realize that to become a Spiritual Cultivator was equal parts hard work and natural talent.
Xu Xiaoshou had been unable to cross the threshold into the profession. However, the situation was different now.
‘It looks like hard work does pay off. Have I finally reached the state to learn the craft?’
Xu Xiaoshou opened his eyes as wide as possible.
It occurred to him that to reinterpret the marks on the bodies of creatures as spiritual veins was not a simple thing to achieve.
It looked as if Spiritual Cultivation Expertise ran through every being alive. The spiritual veins could be found on rocks and even individual leaves.
He inhaled deeply and held back his emotions.
Xu Xiaoshou wondered if it would be possible to engrave the veins on a human.
Human bodies were walking diagrams of the blood circulation chart. He wondered if he was supposed to dissect the veins according to it.
Xu Xiaoshou was dumbfounded.
‘Unless it’s Operation Expertise…’
There was no time for him to delve into his thoughts any longer. After all the creatures completed the metamorphosis process for the spiritual veins, their bodies seemed to have been annotated with a Vitality Diagram.
He stared intensely into the diagram of parallel and intersecting lines and tried to immerse himself in the new world he was in.
Xu Xiaoshou was lost in the scene before him. He was slowly falling into the rabbit hole.
However, once he had fallen in, he realized that the situation was rather amiss.
The Vitality Diagram on the creatures’ bodies seemed to be traceable to the existence of all creatures in this world.
He watched the tribe of giants who were aggressively tearing apart their enemies. Their every movement was mapped on their Vitality Diagram as if they were controlled like a marionette puppet.
Xu Xiaoshou studied the diagram and immediately gained all knowledge about the giant’s movements.
‘Oh my God!’
Xu Xiaoshou was quivering in his shoes.
If an ability like this existed, he was afraid of the power it contained.
He gingerly turned to the large border on the side.
The being was dead. No absolute signs of life could be found.
Its Vitality Diagram remained dormant after one year.
It remained the same even after two to three years.
However, as time dragged on for close to eternity, Xu Xiaoshou was surprised that the rock’s Vitality Diagram started to move slowly.
‘It’s breathing!’
As time progressed, it had been changing, transforming, and even breathing.
Eternity was simply a second for the rock.
His eyes lit up with realization. He seemed to have cracked the mystery of life. He felt that it had taken him a long time, but it was no more than the time of a single breath.
He was still within the world of the fantasy realm.
The blue skies and oceans of the new world remained eternal.
Xu Xiaoshou’s eyes lit up again as he lifted his eyebrow and refocused his line of sight away from the small beings of life to the void above him.
The physical landscape of the world around him was changing as well.
Under his watchful gaze, the Vitality Diagram of the world hidden within space and time had slowly revealed itself to him.
‘Path?’
The word appeared in his mind rather suddenly, but he was not confused this time.
He was taken aback.
Under the net of the law of the Great Path, creatures were categorized based on natural selection and the survival of the fittest.
After Xu Xiaoshou experienced his epiphany, the world began to shake around him like it was on the edge of shattering into pieces.
He was not convinced by this.
If the world around him had simply been a fantasy realm, he would have been convinced by the scene.
In fact, the fantasy realm presented to him was all built based on the foundations of the real world around him.
He had verified this point when he experienced the Sword Technique Expertise for the first time.
Even the Seven Swords of the Moving Heavens, which was the highest level of the White Cloud Sword Technique, was a technique that existed on the Shengshen Continent.