324: Chapter 322 The Complete Form of Coordinates

Shen Nian squatted at the end of the Gray Path for a very long time.

His palm pressed against the ground, and the Sixteen-Color Power extended into the region of density variation in extremely fine threads, maintaining a gentle contact as if cautiously touching an unhealed scar.

Those threads did not go deep, but stayed at the boundary, quietly perceiving that extremely faint vibration.

The frequency of the vibration was different from all the rhythms he had recorded before.

It was simpler and more repetitive, like some extremely ancient gesture of confirmation that stopped after completing once, refusing to do it even one more time.

He withdrew his power and did not rush to stand up.

His gaze fell upon the nearly invisible crack, which was extremely shallow—so shallow that if one did not know its position in advance, one would not notice its existence at all.

The Gray Path disappeared completely here, like a half-drawn line suddenly cut off, with no trailing ends, no folds, and only a clean severance.

He pressed the recording talisman against the ground, and the light filaments slowly spread along the edge of the crack, like countless tentacles probing an interface that had been closed for a long time.

The light filaments moved very slowly, and Shen Nian did not urge them, simply letting them extend in the directions they could reach.

After about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the light filaments began to retract, bringing back a very short segment of signal at their ends.

That signal was completely identical to the vibration perceived earlier.

It was extremely minimal and short, as if the information had been stripped away layer by layer during the long process of transmission, leaving only the most core part, like a stone tablet eroded by wind and rain for many years, leaving behind only an ungrindable incision.

He picked up the recording talisman and carefully examined the data at the end.

The waveform of the signal was homologous to the echo recorded at the hollow center, like ripples left by the same river at different positions.

Only the current here was slower, as if it had undergone a longer period of precipitation, having crossed countless sources and branch roads before reaching his hands.

Shen Nian put away the recording talisman, stood up, and took one last look along the direction of the Gray Path.

That trace completely disappeared at the crack, like a broken clue left there for too long, so long that its end had been covered by wind and sand.

He turned around and returned to the Heart of Tiangong along the way he had come.

The return trip was faster than the way there; as he walked, he compared the spirals on the surface of the fine crystal with the signal just captured in his mind.

The direction of the spirals was consistent with the course of the Gray Path, as if the same road had been recorded twice.

Once in the texture of the crystal, and once in the depression of the ground.

When he walked back into the silver-white passageway, the sky in Guixu remained unchanged, but in his heart it felt as though a long distance had been walked through.

When he passed through the passageway and returned to the core space, Lu Qing was marking new position points on the comparison map.

She looked up at him without asking much, simply putting aside the pen in her hand and gently turning the comparison map toward his side.

Shen Nian walked to her side, squatted down, and placed the recording talisman on the edge of the platform, allowing the data captured within it to automatically connect to the comparison map.

After a moment, her gaze fell upon the newly connected information, and her brows moved slightly: "This location... is homologous to the echo recorded at the hollow center, yet it looks like an even earlier version, like an initial draft older than the hollow center."

Shen Nian did not respond immediately, merely watching the newly marked node slowly stabilize on the comparison map.

After connection, the end of the Gray Path automatically extended a small arc, connecting to the depressed position at the edge of the dark zone.

That line was extremely delicate, as if the writer had been extremely light when putting down the pen—so light that it was almost written with a suspended wrist.

The distance between the two nodes was completely identical to the distance from the hollow center to the Heluo Arch.

Lu Qing was silent for a moment, then spoke in a low voice: "It is like a distance measured many times, finally finding a consistent value after repeated confirmation."

Shen Nian looked at the new arc, watching how it quietly embedded itself into the entire sequence, as if it had always been there, only no one had noticed its existence before.

He sat in front of the comparison map for a long time without speaking.

Those marker points—rings, nests, stairs, the Heluo Arch, wall arcs, the Gray Path, the hollow center—became more three-dimensional in the slow perspective, like the outlines a piece of paper would form after being folded.

Every line connected two points, and every point corresponded to a ruin.

And all these points were pointing to the same location.

He suddenly realized that those ruins were not just isolated remains.

Together, they formed an invisible net, with each place precisely placed in its proper position, as if someone had repeatedly measured their spacing with a ruler, confirming that they would not drift over the long years.

He reached out and slowly moved along the connecting lines on the comparison map: "The spacing of this path is almost completely equal, as if it has been carefully calculated."

Lu Qing's gaze fell on the direction his fingers were moving: "If it has been calculated, then it should possess some definite geometric foundation."

She picked up another rubbing and marked the positional relationship between the dodecagon and the hollow center with fine lines.

Those marker points were distributed roughly evenly on the circumference centered on the hollow center.

She put down her pen and turned the rubbing toward Shen Nian: "Disciple has compared the distance between each marker point and the hollow center."

Judging from the current data, the margin of error in distance is extremely small, as if repeatedly verified by the same method of measurement."

Shen Nian looked at the gradually complete outline map, and those marker points slowly aggregated in his consciousness, like countless fragments pieced together by the same hand.

He recalled the annular pattern unfurled by the fine crystal at the edge of the hollow center, and that breath of time when the light in the Creator's image lingered a bit longer at the hollow center.

Those images and the data in the recording talisman were slowly overlapping in his heart.

Circular, equidistant, precise geometric relations—it was like the Creator conversing simultaneously with the ground, light, and stone using the same language.

He spoke softly: "That hollow is not a naturally formed vacancy. It has been calculated."

Lu Qing did not reply, only lowering her head to add a few more strokes to her marked map, as if verifying whether the judgment spoken by Shen Nian completely coincided with the angle between the line segments.

After a moment, she put down her pen, her tone calm: "The error is extremely small.

If any place in this Land of Origin was formed by accident, it is only a very small minority."

Shen Nian's gaze fell upon the newly appeared arc.

It was like the last crossbeam placed in the entire map, connecting those scattered points one by one into a complete outline.

He suddenly remembered what The Artisan had said upon waking up— "They stopped not because they ran out of strength, but because the direction they wanted to go disappeared."

If those structures were distributed around a precise geometric center, their stopping was not due to exhaustion, but because the center itself had been removed.

Not knowing where they should point, they could only circulate slowly in place until they came to a complete halt.

And that center—the hollow center—still retained the precise outline from when it was taken away, like a mount from which a gemstone had been removed, awaiting a matching insert.

"Disciple is thinking," Shen Nian began, his gaze falling upon the complete arc, "the Creator leaving these marks might not be to let people find them. They might just want people to know—something once existed here."

He paused for a moment, as if confirming whether what he said was accurate enough.

"Those arcs and equidistant imprints are more like page numbers left behind after being repeatedly translated."

Lu Qing neatly packed away the rubbings and stood up: "The data of the recording talisman is still continuously connecting.

After all the data is aligned, Disciple will try to mark out the complete geometric relations.

If the hollow center really is the only center of this System, Disciple should be able to verify this through calculation."

Shen Nian nodded.

That fine crystal transmitted a continuous temperature through his clothing; that temperature had no fluctuations, no changes, and simply existed with extreme uniformity.

Feeling the heat of that crystal, the intermittent voice in his heart also began to slow down.

It was as if waiting for a longer blank space, allowing those fragments to each find their own places in the gaps of the pause.