183 Dangerous Experimentation 2 (1/2)

Towards the center of the circle were a series of intricate and nonsensical inscriptions.

Regardless of how An Fei attempted to piece them together, the results continued to cause the young girl to scratch her head in frustration.

The inscriptions… did not seem to resemble any order of Chinese calligraphy.

Shapes, lines, and curves of all appearances and distortions littered the interior of the diagram following the secondary circumference of characters.

Furthermore, the closer they were to the epicenter, the inscriptions diminished in size, though the sheer quantity rose by exponential increments.

”I can piece together symbols and randomized strokes, but not this,” the young girl growled, the brush threatening to erase the intricate diagram drawn on the white sheet of paper.

”What am I supposed to do with a bundle of squiggles and shapes – read them?”

Heaving a heavy sigh, An Fei massaged the muscles in her neck before reaching for a clean sheet of paper.

Rolling the brush between her fingers to warm them up, the young girl relaxed her body before performing the tedious and diligent task of copying over the seemingly mundane inscriptions within the diagram.

A distorted dodecahedron, followed by an elongated series of warped lines, then three enneagons with a tetrahedron inscribed within, to be supplemented with a pair of obscure cylindrical depictions…

As she copied the inscriptions onto the fresh sheet of paper, An Fei attempted her best to arrange the inscriptions by any pattern she could glean from a glance, consuming far more sheets of paper in the process.

In the end, the young girl sat before a large fan of paper – drawings that categorized the inscriptions she noticed by the number of sides if it were geometric, or by the type of curve.

A rather simple method of archiving information, but it was the best An Fei could think of.

”There's so many that don't even fit in as a regular shape…” the young girl groaned in her heart.

”Maybe only a math textbook would dare toss such nonsensical diagrams and attempt to explain them by logical reason…”

The young girl pouted when she glanced at the fan of paper, before abruptly yanking the from its peaceful position on the crystalline floor, her eyes scathing the pages for any useful source of information.

The young girl fanned the pages with a listless expression, skimming over many passages in hopes of encountering a lucky discovery.

”The processes… of the natural world… can be described as a series of sequential events, as though every iota of existence is to be adhered to in a similar form… as though an automaton.”

”Each action triggers a consequence, and whilst some merit rewards and acclaim, others incur punish… punishments. Such is the case regarding the circulation and distribution of fate and calamity – the callousness of the earth cannot be denied of such phenomenon.”

”If the earth we stand is not incorporeal but instead sentient, then it must not possess a soul; the transgressions committed by the ground in which we trod and the world we breath its essence far exceed that of the most vile and acrimonious cultivator in existence, which must trigger an according tribulation…”

”Why does cultivation trigger a calamity?” the young girl read with a nonplussed expression.

”If it were not an act of superseding its authority, the world in which we stand would not dispatch a systematic downfall of calamity. Why is it that people are not harmed upon declaring themselves the Supreme Emperor, but the world shakes in anger upon the ascension of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator? If it were not to diminish the additional loss of its authority, why would many fall on the path to Mortal Tribulation…?”

An Fei's voice unconsciously trailed into silence as she read, her mind buzzing with vigilance as she stared at the slightly worn and overused pages of the .

The young girl's consciousness flickered to her encounter with the Three Lotus Sect's mysterious elder, upon which she had received this book.

The statements within the were rather astonishing and discreetly hidden within the latter portions of the book, but An Fei… had read about those words quite a few times that alarm bells rang in her mind upon their encounter.

Authority…

Was it not a term used explicitly by those of the Realm?