108: An unprecedented tenth-order divine sense

At the entrance of the test, an elder dressed in dark red dharma robes blocked the way like an iron gate, his voice calm and unruffled: "Bone age?"

"Sixteen." Trace-less's voice was calm.

"Realm?" Another white-bearded elder responsible for recording didn't even raise his head, the tip of his brush hovering over a Jade Slip.

"Spirit Refining Realm."

Plop!

The brush tip paused heavily, dotting the Jade Slip and blooming a small ink stain. The white-bearded elder looked up abruptly, his murky eyes shooting out sharp light like a hawk, scanning Trace-less up and down: "Little brat, do you know that the primal divine stele test is no child's play? The punishment for failing to meet the score requirements..."

His withered finger pointed far away to a scorched, charcoal-like patch of ground near the primal divine stele that exuded an aura of destruction, "The last fellow who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth is already part of that tribulation ash."

Trace-less's expression remained unchanged. With a flip of his fingertip, a token flowing with mercury luster and inlaid with a Time-Space crystal lay quietly in his palm.

"Time-Space Divine Temple!" The red-robed elder gasped, his arrogance instantly turning into extreme respect. He handed over a translucent star jade plate with both hands, almost as if presenting an offering: "My lord, please! Hold this jade plate and touch the stele body to start the assessment!"

He lowered his head and stepped back half a step, unable to help but mutter: "Another monster... from the Time-Space Divine Temple..."

[Detected Martial Artist in Spirit Refining Realm]

[Initial combat power assessment... Assessment passed!]

[Opening exclusive assessment channel for Spirit Refining Realm!]

As soon as the cold mechanical voice finished, the billions of starlight points flowing on the surface of the primal divine stele suddenly boiled!

They seemed to be manipulated by an invisible giant hand, rapidly reorganizing and condensing, actually carving out a brilliant silver vortex portal in the center of the towering stele that could only allow one person to pass!

"Whoa!"

The onlookers instantly exploded! An exclusive channel? Just for a mere Spirit Refining Realm? This was an unheard-of spectacle in the hundreds of epochs of history of the East Heaven Gate!

"Exclusive channel?" A fierce-looking man in the Feather Transformation Realm carrying a bronze giant axe sneered, his voice like a booming bell, "I'm afraid he'll just go in for a spin and come out with his tail between his legs... Uh?!"

His words were abruptly choked off by a terrifying pressure that suddenly descended and froze the Soul!

The moment Trace-less stepped into the silver vortex—

Boom!

The entire Heaven Gate City seemed to have been pressed with a mute button! The clamor stopped abruptly!

Every Cultivator, regardless of their cultivation level, felt as if a primordial divine mountain had been pressed onto their hearts, and an irresistible tremor came from the depths of their Divine Soul!

It was as if a supreme will that transcended all worlds was piercing through endless time and space, casting its gaze here!

Roar!

The primal divine stele shook violently! The eighteen bronze Dragons coiled upon it came to life! The Dragon roar split the sky!

They transformed into eighteen Law Dragon shadows that traversed heaven and earth, carrying vast power of space and time, roaring as they soared into the sky!

The Dragon shadows crazily intertwined and circled above the firmament, instantly weaving a brilliant light net that covered the entire Heaven Gate City. Runes flowed upon it, tightly blocking and isolating that terrifying prying from an unknown dimension!

Trace-less only felt the scene before his eyes suddenly shatter and reorganize. Under his feet was no longer solid ground, but a magnificent, rotating, and collapsing nebula! Around him was a vast and boundless cold galaxy, and in the distance, a black hole greedily devoured the radiance of stars.

A cold mechanical voice echoed in the boundless starry sky: [Assessment begins, Stage One: Law Affinity Test]

[Please persist in the Time torrent for thirty breaths!]

The warning sound was still in his ears when the starry sky around Trace-less had completely distorted and collapsed! Endless fragments of time, like billions of blades of time tempered over eternal ages, came sweeping in from all directions with a shrill sound that tore everything apart!

He felt as if he had been roughly thrown into a rushing and roaring river of origin of time!

The cries of an infant, the lonely shadow of Lin Yuan's true body swinging a sword in Chaos, the countless branches of the future where he either ascended to the pinnacle or turned into withered bones... The images of the past, present, and future flashed and struck crazily like a destructive storm!

Every fragment contained the terrifying power of time capable of annihilating the Divine Soul of a Feather Transformation Realm! Trace-less's skin began to crack inch by inch, and the seeping silver blood was evaporated into nothingness by the power of time before it could even drip!

Just at this critical moment—

Hum!

In the Sea of Consciousness, that translucent divine sense tree of time suddenly erupted with pure, extreme silver radiance!

Its slender branches stretched, and a layer of translucent light film, thin as a cicada's wing and flowing with the rhythm of the River of Time, instantly covered Trace-less's entire body!

Those violent time fragments, enough to wear away everything, collided with the light film, but acted like gentle streams, easily guided and slid away, or even... nourished!

At the edge of his vision, the numbers on the data panel jumped crazily like wild horses: [Time Origin Law comprehension: 11% → 12% → 13%...]

This torrent of time not only failed to harm him in the slightest, but instead, due to his own terrifying affinity for the Time Origin, it became supreme nourishment for his comprehension of the Law!

Twenty breaths!

The river suddenly turned violent! A sky-covering giant wave condensed from the purest Time Origin, carrying the terrifying momentum to crush all worlds, crashed down!

Trace-less even heard the dense cracking sound of his own bones unable to bear the burden! Under the impact of the giant wave, his consciousness was like a candle in the wind, about to completely dissipate and sink!

At the line of life and death, inspiration struck!

Trace-less raised his right hand, fingers spread, and following the most original fluctuation rhythm of the River of Time, he gently slashed at the world-destroying giant wave—

"Whoosh!"

An incredible scene occurred! That world-destroying giant wave of Origin, the moment it touched his fingertips, actually acted like a tamed beast, obediently splitting to both sides!

The giant wave turned into countless crystalline time light points, like all rivers returning to the sea, rushing into his body in a scramble!

In an instant, Trace-less felt as if he had broken free from shackles, swimming against the current, and stepped directly into the source of the River of Time! Before his eyes were no longer fragments, but a complete picture of thousands of worlds being born, dying, and evolving within the River of Time!

The numbers on the data panel soared! The comprehension and affinity for the Time Origin Law climbed at an astonishing speed! Trace-less's Soul seemed to melt completely, merging into one with that endless Time Origin!

The complete Time Origin Law dao patterns, which should only be condensed at the Dharma Aspect Realm or even higher levels, actually manifested in advance at this moment!

Hum! Hum!

Two complete silver dao patterns containing endless mysteries of time emerged on their own like living things, deeply branded onto the branches of the divine sense tree of time!

Immediately after—

Boom!

The Sea of Consciousness shook violently! Those time runes wrapped around the branches simultaneously erupted with blinding light!

The light gathered at the top of the tree crown, actually condensing in the Void Realm into a huge, ancient, vicissitudinous phantom of a sundial that seemed to measure the epochs of all worlds!

"Divine Thought... qualitative change?!"

Trace-less's heart shook violently! He clearly felt that his Divine Thought perception was undergoing a terrifying leap that subverted cognition!

The ninth-order Divine Thought, which originally covered a radius of a thousand miles, was now like breaking free from the shackles of heaven and earth, expanding and penetrating crazily at an incredible speed!

Wherever the Divine Thought reached, every speck of dust floating in the air seemed to be frozen in a certain moment of the River of Time—he could not only "see" their stillness at this moment but also simultaneously trace back every movement trajectory of them within the past ten breaths!

Crack-crack!

Deep in the Sea of Consciousness came a crisp sound like shattering glazed glass! The slender yet tough silver roots of the divine sense tree of time fiercely pierced through the boundary barrier of the Sea of Consciousness!

Countless roots, like greedy tentacles, plunged deep into the Void Realm of Chaos, beginning to crazily absorb the free, most primitive power of Time Origin within!

The tree body bathed in this majestic energy, growing taller and stronger at a speed visible to the naked eye! On every newly born leaf, more complex and profound time dao patterns rapidly appeared!

"Argh!"

Trace-less let out a muffled groan, his head splitting with pain! The torrent of information brought by the tenth-order Divine Thought touching the River of Time was too terrifying; it was as if the information of the birth and death of thousands of worlds, the fate fragments of endless living beings, were crazily and uncontrollably pouring into his mind!

"Condense!"

Trace-less's eyes split, he formed hand Seals and roared! Above the tree crown, that huge sundial phantom suddenly rotated in reverse!

Hum!

All the overflowing, violent Divine Thought power, as if gathered by an invisible giant net, instantly rolled back!

The vast torrent of Divine Thought was extremely compressed and refined at the top of the divine sense tree of time! Finally, it condensed into a thumb-sized, crystalline, translucent—Time Crystal—which seemed to Seal a miniature River of Time inside!

Just at the moment the crystal formed—

Boom!!!

A pure silver light, indescribable and impossible to look at directly, erupted from Trace-less's body like a volcano that had been suppressed for eternal ages!

The silver light soared into the sky, ignoring the obstruction of the primal divine stele space, piercing through the clouds! Above the entire Heaven Gate City, the thick clouds were instantly dispersed and washed away, replaced by a slowly flowing, dazzling silver galaxy!

The vast power of time permeated heaven and earth, and all Cultivators in the city felt that their own time flow rate seemed to have experienced a momentary disorder!

[Redefining Divine Thought rank...]

[Tenth-Order Divine Thought (Unprecedented in antiquity)]

The cold mechanical voice was replaced by an ancient Dao sound that transcended understanding and seemed to originate from the beginning of the Universe. Trace-less's perception dimension underwent an essential leap!

With a slight movement of his mind, the posture of a falling leaf ten thousand miles away was clear, and at the same time, the complete trajectory of the wind, frost, rain, dew, growth, and withering that the leaf had experienced in the past three days was presented before his "eyes" like an unfolded scroll!

This was no longer simple "seeing," but insight into the timeline of its existence!

He tried to cast his Divine Thought toward a lake further away. Under his perception, the calm lake surface actually simultaneously revealed seventy-two distinct ripple forms—those were all the disturbances and possibilities that might occur in the future!

When his Divine Thought swept over a few Cultivators who were closing their eyes and cultivating hard, the subtle stagnation of their True Qi, the hidden injuries in their Meridians, the root nodes of their Heart Demon, and even the type and intensity of the Heavenly Tribulation they would face when breaking through their Realm in the future... all were as if placed under the most precise time microscope, clearly visible, with nowhere to hide!

And this was just the beginning! In the Void Realm of Chaos, the endless power of Time Origin was continuously pouring in through the roots of the divine sense tree, becoming excellent nourishment for this unprecedented tenth-order Divine Thought, causing its strength to continue to rise!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Just at this moment, another change occurred! The body of the primal divine stele, which bore endless years, actually exploded with countless fine cracks on its surface!

Those starlight points that originally flowed eternally on the surface of the stele body, as if receiving some supreme summons, crazily and resolutely detached from the stele body, turning into streaks of brilliant galaxy light bands, ignoring spatial distance, and instantly poured into Trace-less's Sea of Consciousness!

The majestic torrent of energy, under the greedy absorption of the divine sense tree of time, actually forcibly branded a third complete Time Origin Law dao pattern, exuding an aura of immortality, onto its main trunk!

At this moment, Trace-less was completely immersed in the endless mysteries brought about by the dual transformation of Divine Thought and Law.

He "saw" that the tip of every strand of his hair was entwined with subtle threads of time, and every breath he took induced subtle ripples and distortions in the space within three zhang around him.

When this tenth-order Divine Thought, which transcended the rules, produced a deeper resonance with the continuously growing power of Time Origin within his body—Hum...

It was as if he had touched some taboo existence sleeping in the deepest part of Chaos, beyond the concept of dimensions. A gaze that was indescribable, irresistible, and contained the mysteries of all time Origins and endings, seemed to pierce through the obstruction of endless Chaos, spanning unimaginable dimensions, carrying a trace of... scrutiny and exploration, quietly falling upon him...