Dyon’s fingers raced across the keys, his passion growing as his emotionless eyes seemed to flicker with inexplicable feelings at seemingly random times.
Anticipation, happiness, sorrow, rage… They coursed through his mind as though they were his own thoughts…
The dao heart was a complex aspect of the martial world. The techniques for cultivating them were so important that they stood in a category of their own even compared to the other core teachings a sect might have. And, even then, only the top-most sects and clans would even have the worst of dao heart cultivation techniques.
There were nine dao hearts that reigned supreme over all others, while all remaining dao hearts were lesser evolved forms of these nine.
This structure was a saving grace for many transcendents who might not have been lucky enough to come from clans with these hidden techniques. It gave them the opportunity to evolve their own.
When Dyon’s father toyed with nine half-step transcendents at once, they could hardly believe the drastic difference in power between them.
Any half-step transcendent, no matter who you were, had to reach the peak of dao formation to perfection. Just imagining the small percentage of individuals who could become Peak First Grade dao formation experts required a fortified mind.
So, in a class that was already so exclusive, how could there such large differences between them? What made it so that Dyon’s father within his second trial could toy with so many half-step transcendents at once?
The answer fell into three distinct categories.
The first was the level of perfection one cast away their mortal chains with.
There were three paths to becoming a half-step transcendent. The energy path, the soul path and the body path. In order to become a transcendent, you only needed to strengthen two paths sufficiently before pushing a third to the half-step stage.
However, those greater geniuses would strengthen a third path sufficiently while pushing two paths to the half-step stage.
And, even still, ultimate geniuses would push all three paths to that lauded level!
The first important distinction was that Dyon’s father had surmounted the half-step stage in two paths! In addition, while he and his wife restricted their cultivation due to Dyon’s birth, he pushed forward his third, giving him a pseudo-perfect immortal foundation!
The second category relied on comprehension.
More than any other cultivation level, transcendents relied heavily on comprehension and the reason for this tied heavily into the third category: Their Dao Heart!
This so-called Immortal Foundation was built upon the dao heart. Transcendence was the point in cultivation where one’s life span no longer relied on their life force, but rather, their dao heart. All of these things intertwined into a complex tree of comprehension that couldn’t exist without the other.
One’s cultivation helped to build the immortal foundation, while one’s dao heart was the proxy by which this foundation was built, while comprehension was the foundation of one’s dao heart itself! It was a beautiful cycle that perfectly embodied the deeper truths of cultivation.
This was all to say that to a transcendent, the dao heart was of ridiculous importance. So, the ability to one day form one of the mighty nine that ruled over them all was the dream of any cultivator!
The problem was that these techniques were heavily guarded. Although Dyon’s Grand Teacher’s Cycle Reincarnation led down the path of the Samsara Heart, how many people could possibly know this?
The entity had given Dyon this information so nonchalantly as though it meant nothing, but if others knew, it’s likely that even those outer fringe clans who left their tower quadrants alone wouldn’t sit idly by.
However, this was the hidden danger of dao hearts. Didn’t Dyon’s grand teacher warn him never to take the Cycle of Reincarnation trials?
If he tried to force Dyon to not enter, then why did he allow the trials to exist at all?
The answer was simple… He trusted Dyon to find the deeper meanings of the trial… Something he didn’t believe anyone else could do…
The Samsara Heart had cost Dyon’s grand teacher many things, the least of which was his eyesight. While it was the reason he had lived trillions of years, it was also the reason he was slowly dying.
The world of dao hearts was without a doubt complex. There were even specific bloodlines that could awaken devolved versions of the nine supreme hearts, like the Demon Qilin Clan’s Demon Heart that was a branch heart of the Chaotic Heart!
However, at this moment, as Dyon’s dao heart continuously trembled, it wasn’t thinking about the Samsara Heart… Nor was it thinking about the Chaotic Heart…
Wills called out to it, one by one. The feeling of millions reaching outward, infusing their hopes and dreams into a melody that drifted across the skies… It filled Dyon was a mightiness… A confidence that even his own arrogant disposition had never felt before.
The remnants of his dao heart swirled, before falling down… Only to pick back up again.
A chaotic storm raged through Dyon’s soul as his dao heart cobbled together like a toddler learning to walk for the first time.
The baby within Dyon’s Mind’s Eye gurgled, its little chest beating even as it glowed a fiercer red-gold than the rest of its small body.
The raging storm condensed and collapsed, only to condense again, fighting fiercely not only with the universe itself, but Dyon’s uncertainty.