The descent into the roots of the Holy Sanctuary felt like a journey backward through the history of the world. As the silver-robed guards carried Xuan Ye deeper, the humid, jasmine-scented air of the upper petals was replaced by a sterile, ancient cold. The walls here were not coral, but slabs of prehistoric stone etched with shifting white light the fundamental script of the White Lotus religion.
Xuan Ye remained limp, his eyes half-closed. Internally, the Book of Fate was vibrating with a violent, rhythmic intensity.
[Ink-Wash Heart: 24% Progress]
[Resonance: High Level]
They reached a set of massive jade doors that pulsed with the rhythm of a beating heart. The guards knelt, and the doors swung open without a sound. Beyond lay the Font of Beginnings.
It was a circular chamber carved into the very bedrock of the continent-sized lotus. In the center, a pool of thick, milk-white liquid bubbled softly. This wasn't Qi. It was Liquid Origin, the substance used by the High Priestess to mend the souls of the elite and cleanse the most potent demonic corruptions.
"Place him in the waters," a priestess commanded.
Xuan Ye felt his body being lowered into the pool. The moment the white liquid touched his skin, his Transcendent Mortal Physique roared in defiance. To a normal cultivator, this water was a blessing; to an anomaly like Xuan Ye, it was a corrosive solvent designed to wash away errors.
"Ugh..." Xuan Ye let out a genuine groan, his mask of a frightened boy slipping as he felt the Origin water trying to peel back the layers of his soul.
"Be still, child," the priestess murmured from the edge of the pool. "The light is merely searching for the darkness the Ghost-Wail left behind."
Xuan Ye gritted his teeth. The light isn't searching for the darkness, he thought through the pain. It's trying to delete the person who is holding the pen.
He felt the Ink-Wash Heart begin to churn. The 24% of his heart that was pure Unwritten Ink began to fight back. Instead of letting the Font purify him, Xuan Ye did something that would have horrified the High Priestess.
He opened his pores. He stopped resisting and started consuming.
[Absorbing Liquid Origin...]
[Warning: Logic Conflict Detected]
[The Book of Fate is initiating 'Infinite Evolution'...]
The Book of Fate was not a tool of the cultivation world. It didn't care about the realms of this world or the laws of the Sovereigns. As the Liquid Origin flooded his system, the Book began to unwrite the holy properties of the water, turning the sacred liquid into raw, nameless power.
The white pool began to lose its luster, turning from a brilliant milk-white to a dull, translucent grey.
"What is happening?" one of the guards whispered, stepping closer to the edge. "The Font... it's draining."
Xuan Ye didn't answer. He couldn't. His vision was filled with cascading black ink and blinding white light. He saw the Atoms of the pool miniature universes of information being shredded and stored within the Unwritten Library
In the Finite World, an Atom is not just a building block of matter it is a pressurized sphere containing multiple universes. Within these atoms lies the something deeper a metaphysical sea where all thoughts, archetypes, and Pataphysical layers of fiction and non-fiction reside.
[Ink-Wash Heart: 26%... 28%... 30%...]
As the percentage climbed, his Ink-Wash Vision evolved. He could now see through the floor of the chamber, down past the bedrock, into the very Root he had sensed earlier. There, encased in a cage of Void Refinement seals, was a fragment of a different story.
It was a shard of the Book of Ancient Genesis.
They aren't just using the Font to heal, Xuan Ye realized, his mind sharpening with the intake of Origin power. The White Lotus is using this shard to fuel the Sanctuary. They are parasites on an Anomaly Book.
The irony was intoxicating. The Righteous Holy Sects were built upon the very thing they claimed to fear.
"The boy! Pull him out!" the priestess screamed, finally noticing the grey, dead quality of the water.
Two guards lunged into the pool to grab him, but the moment their hands touched Xuan Ye's skin, they were thrown back by a shockwave of cold, black energy.
Xuan Ye stood up in the shallowing pool. His blue page's robes were tattered, and his skin was glowing with a faint, obsidian luster. He didn't look like a 12 year old boy anymore. For a fleeting second, his eyes were twin voids that reflected the end of all things.
[Ink-Wash Heart: 35% Progress]
[Acquired:Origin-Step (Fragment)]
He quickly suppressed the aura, slumping back into the grey water and letting out a weak, coughing sound. By the time the priestess reached him, he was once again the pathetic survivor, shivering and pale.
"The Font... it's been exhausted," the priestess whispered, her face pale with terror. "The demonic stain on this boy was... it was a bottomless pit."
She looked at Xuan Ye with a mixture of pity and a new, burgeoning fear. She didn't realize that the bottomless pit wasn't the Ghost-Wail energy. It was him.
Xuan Ye looked up, his eyes innocent.
"Did it work?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Is the demonic qi gone?"
The priestess didn't answer immediately. She signaled the guards to take him back to his guest quarters. "The darkness is gone, child. But the cost... the High Priestess must be informed of this."
Xuan Ye was led out of the chamber. As the jade doors closed behind him, he felt the Book of Fate settle into a new state of being. He had eaten the "Beginning," and now he was ready to seek the "Root."
He looked at his hands, hidden in his oversized sleeves. The ink was calm, but it was denser now. He had bypassed the equivalent of the late Qi Gathering strength in a single hour.
The White Lotus thinks they purified me, Xuan Ye thought as he walked through the silver corridors. But I just learned their most expensive secret.
The mystery of the Holy Sanctuary was starting to bleed. And Xuan Ye was the only one holding the knife.
[Current Objective: Locate the Shard of Genesis]
The script of the central world was being rewritten by me.