The moment Immortal Rock finished speaking, the thousand geniuses scattered, surging toward the stone steles at the edge of the square, each one bearing the mysteries of a Saintly Dao.
Li Wen took a single step, his figure appearing before the nearest stone stele.
He focused his spirit and gazed at it.
The entire stele glowed with a gentle, cyan luster.
The stele bore no text or diagrams of Cultivation Techniques. Instead, it was engraved with a picture that was both incredibly simple and endlessly profound:
A single leaf.
No, countless leaves.
From a newborn bud to an unfurled, verdant leaf, then to an autumn-tinged gold, and finally withering, falling, and turning to dust... The entire image was a condensed, frozen depiction of the cycle of life.
Upon closer inspection, the veins on each leaf seemed to flow subtly, containing the ultimate principles of flourishing and decay, of life and death.
