Chapter 1362 - 1362: Other Way Around
Long Chen stepped closer to the stone tablet that was floating in the sky and reached out his hand to touch it.
As soon as his fingers touched the stone tablet, the stone tablet split into hundreds of pieces, and all the pieces turned into sparkles of light.
Thousands of such specks of light spread all around Long Chen, some close to him and some far.
Each speck of light formed a word of its own.
"Words... I can read them. They must be the scriptures of this skill. But there are so many. And there seems to be no order. They're everywhere. Where to start and where to end?"
He turned around, observing all the words that had formed a sphere around the floating island. It was unclear what was the first word of the scriptures.
"Two days to arrange the words and comprehend the scriptures? This certainly isn't possible. It was hard even if it was written in a scroll in proper order, let alone now."
Long Chen was already feeling like he had lost this bet. Doing this in two days was impossible. He wondered if he had actually made a mistake by selecting this skill blindly.
"I should've chosen the easy skill instead of overthinking," he muttered, shaking his head.
He landed on the floating island, wondering if he should give up.
He scratched the back of his head as he started walking back and forth.
"It would be better to give up. But it's not an opportunity that comes every day. If I give up, I'll have to go forward with the old plan of escaping, which is dangerous. But if I succeed here, I can have an easy way out!"
"Argh! This is such a mess. This skill had to be so chaotic... Wait a minute... Chaotic? Spatial Chaos? Could it be...?"
Long Chen raised his hand, trying something.
"So that's right. In this place, I can use my spatial law. If what I'm thinking is right, then I might have a way to arrange the words properly. Because it's not just the name of the skill, it's also the way it's supposed to be grasped, in the midst of Spatial Chaos!"
His eyes lit brightly as he came up with a conclusion, hoping he wasn't wrong.
"Looks like he passed the first step of grasping the skill: the way to read it. But that's just the first part. Let's see if he can actually comprehend the skill itself."
The old man muttered, rubbing his chin.
Spatial Chaos was a skill that was mastered by Lord Genso himself. It played a really important role in his life and in his craft.
Long Chen's eyes turned misty as he started seeing through the space instead of using his ordinary vision.
"Just as I expected, there are many layers of space in my surroundings. And each of these layers contains one word. So to find the proper order, I just need to go layer by layer."
He made a sword made of Qi appear in his hand, which he used to carve a word in the ground. "First word shall be Eternal."
After carving the first word on the ground, he once again observed the space around him. "The second layer, there it is...x
He carved the second word on the ground.
He went layer by layer and started carving each word on the ground as if he was writing the scriptures on the island.
Even though it took Long Chen an hour, he did finish carving each of the words on the ground.
The Spatial Chaos scripture wasn't very long. It only had a few thousand words, compared to many of the skills that he read, having over a hundred thousand words.
After finishing writing, he sat on the ground. His Qi Sword disappeared.
"Now we can get to the main part... Actual comprehension."
He brought a bottle of water out of his storage ring and started drinking while observing the island in the middle of his sips.
The floating island was one of the many in this place, but it was floating the highest. There appeared to be a sea under the island that went as far as the eyes could see.
The sea didn't have actual water though. It appeared to be filled with pitch-black liquid at the moment as if someone had dropped their black paint, enough to fill the entire sea with it.
Other than the odd sea and the floating island, everything seemed ordinary. The trees and the grass in the distance were the same as it was on earth. The entire island was completely empty though.
"I wonder how many challengers actually came here before me," Long Chen muttered, rubbing his chin.
After he finished his short rest, he flew high in the sky from where he could have a clear view of the Island and what he had written there.
He finally had the entire scripture before his eyes in form which he could read without having to guess the next word.
He went through the entire scripture, not understanding anything on the first try. He went through it again, but this time slowly.
Even the second time, he didn't understand anything. At this point, he started wondering if he had written wrong.
"These words don't make any sense. Was I wrong? These weren't to be read with respect to their Spatial layer?" he muttered, frowning.
"Wait. What if I wasn't wrong about the layers, but where to start? Instead of first to last, what if it's last to first? That would mean I was reading it upside down."
He changed his perspective and started reading from the bottom.
"This is much better. Finally, it's starting to make some sense."
As soon as he finished reading the line, he realized he was right. That's how the scriptures were supposed to be read.
He read the entire Scripture before closing his eyes to comprehend them. At the same time, he started the movements of Qi inside his body as written in the scriptures.
Immersed in his comprehension, Long Chen even forgot about the time and what he was trying to do. Instead, he was fully engrossed in what he was doing.
Just like that, a day passed away.
"Only one day left. But I have a feeling he might be able to pull through." The old man kept observing Long Chen.
He was keeping an eye on the time, but there was another person who was keeping an eye on the time.
"It's been over a day! You still couldn't find him?!" The Heavenly General scolded the guards of the prison who were tasked with finding Long Chen.