Jiang Chen was deeply frustrated. He had already broken through to the Divine Path, so why was he still unable to unravel the mystery of this chain seal? What kind of secret did this chain seal actually contain?
He was genuinely desperate to figure it out, but the chain seal seemed to push him away at arm's length. It actually repelled his divine consciousness, showing him absolutely no courtesy whatsoever.
Jiang Chen felt a twinge of annoyance.
Still, he refused to give up. He probed once more with his divine consciousness, this time deciding to try a different approach—to find a breakthrough point.
Perhaps each of those points of light was a critical link in the chain seal. To find a breakthrough, he had to locate one specific link.
Perhaps that link was the crucial one—the entry point.
It had to be said that Jiang Chen's thinking was quite sharp, but the result left him greatly disappointed. Every point of light on the chain seal seemed incredibly stubborn, granting him absolutely no opportunity to make contact.
Jiang Chen was thoroughly disappointed, yet he still refused to concede. He continued searching for clues with dogged persistence. He had a feeling that although these chain seals wouldn't communicate with him—even brushing aside his divine consciousness from time to time—they didn't seem to reject him either. There was even a faint sense that they were accepting his consciousness.
That was precisely why Jiang Chen had kept going.
Round and round he went, for a full half day, and just when he had almost convinced himself there was no hope, the chain seal suddenly underwent a strange transformation.
The space surrounding the entire chain seal had been as vast and deep as a boundless starry sky. In a sudden flash, one of the points of light dropped away from the chain seal like a fruit ripening and falling from the vine.
Immediately after, the chain seal rapidly rearranged itself. With one link gone, the remaining eight points of light completed a seamless connection in the blink of an eye.
As for the point of light that had fallen, it spun at tremendous speed and shot out of Jiang Chen's Niwan Palace in a flash, landing before him like a streak of meteor light.
The point of light was roughly no larger than a grain of rice, shrouded in a deep, luminous halo, yet it seemed to contain incredibly vast and extraordinary power.
Jiang Chen was stunned. He had never imagined that the chain seal would suddenly release a point of light, and that the remaining points would seamlessly rejoin without it.
What on earth was going on?
Even Jiang Chen had never witnessed anything so bizarre.
Watching the point of light circle before him, curiosity churned in his heart, but he also knew that this light must have appeared for a reason—it had to be a new clue.
He fixed his gaze on the point of light, unblinking.
The light spun around before him repeatedly, then suddenly blazed with radiance. The orb shattered apart, and from within it, an object drifted out, coming to rest before Jiang Chen's eyes.
Jiang Chen looked closely, and his expression changed dramatically.
The object was a ruler. Its surface carried a golden hue, and its design appeared both antiquated and noble.
Beyond that, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it.
Yet the moment Jiang Chen laid eyes on it, his eyes reddened, heat surged through them, and scalding tears threatened to spill forth.
"Father!"
The word nearly leaped from his lips. He had never imagined that in his lifetime, he would ever see this ruler again.
Yes—the dimensions, the shape, even the patterns etched upon its surface, Jiang Chen remembered them all with crystalline clarity. When he was a child, unable to cultivate, he had done nothing but study in the vast Celestial Emperor's Library, absorbing enormous quantities of knowledge and pursuing the scholarship of that time, which he may not have particularly enjoyed back then.