But in this case, losing oneself wasn’t a bad thing. When people were uncertain of which path they wanted to traverse in their life, they could lose themselves in the drawing and choose a mind to complete their purpose. For people who were still establishing their own identity, finding a mind within the drawing that they could claim as their own could help them in the future.
Han Sen was different. He already had a path to walk, and if he allowed himself to be influenced by the mind of the drawing, the core of who he was would be destroyed.
Han Sen forced himself to close his eyes and escape the grasp of that mind, but all sorts of minds rose against him, trying to keep his vision fixed on the drawing.
Fortunately, Han Sen had a very stable will. He was able to tear his gaze away from the wall. He slowly soothed his mind.
“Having the ability to turn away from the Ancient Wall with a single try proves that your mind isn’t bad,” said a voice beside Han Sen.
Han Sen opened his eyes and turned to the speaker. There, he saw a middle-aged man sitting on a stone. The man was looking in Han Sen’s direction.
This middle-aged man’s appearance and clothing were fairly unremarkable, but there was something about his presence that captured Han Sen’s attention. It made him a difficult person to ignore.
“Are you talking to me?” Han Sen was confused, not knowing who the man was. Han Sen had been so engrossed in the drawing that he had walked quite a distance. Exquisite and Li Keer were still a ways behind him, so there was no one else around that the man could have been addressing.
Exquisite and Li Keer had been drawn into the mind on the Ancient Wall. They were too absorbed to pay attention to anything else, so they hadn’t noticed when the man addressed Han Sen. They were totally drowned in the mind of the Ancient Wall.
The middle-aged man laughed and said, “Aside from you, I don’t think anyone else has made it all the way here on their first try.”
“Right. After all, geniuses like me are difficult to come by,” Han Sen said, quirking a smile as he touched his nose.
The middle-aged man looked surprised, but then his grin widened. He stepped down from the stone he had been sitting on. He stood next to Han Sen, facing the Ancient Wall. “The Very High can feel everything. Even though this universe can be incredibly complex and intricate in nature, we can feel the core of every object. However, the Ancient Wall has been here for billions of years, and no one has been able to understand its secretive nature. Do you know why?”
“I don’t know why,” Han Sen answered quickly. If he didn’t know, there was no point in pretending that he did.
The middle-aged man’s question had been rhetorical. He nodded when he heard Han Sen’s answer, and he looked at the Ancient Wall. He pointed to one spot in particular and said, “The reason no one can understand its secrets is because of this.”
Han Sen looked at where the middle-aged man was pointing, following the man’s finger to a single symbol hidden among the rest. There was a horizontal eye in the center of the symbol, but the pupil of the eye looked like the Yin Yang Tai Chi Fish.
“Is this the Very High eye?” Han Sen asked with shock.
The middle-aged man nodded and said, “This entire painting is so weird. No one can tell what it is trying to depict. This spot is the only place where the painting is clear. And what does it show? The Very High’s Very High eye. Everyone can understand this aspect, but no one can tell why there is a Very High drawn here. And no one knows what its connection is with the rest of the drawing. You can use this as the beginning, but no one understands what it truly means.”
Han Sen looked at the Very High eye and the rest of the painting around it. He did think the drawing was very weird, and he couldn’t imagine what it was supposed to be. But no one could tell what the connection between the Very High eye and the rest of the drawing was, anyway.
The middle-aged glanced away from the Ancient Wall and let his gaze fall on Han Sen. “Although no one can understand the secrets behind this drawing, that doesn’t mean you cannot learn anything. The Very High eye in this painting is very unique. Its meaning is completely different from the other marks. If you look closely, you might learn a thing or two about it.”
“What do you mean when you say that it is different?” Han Sen didn’t understand what the middle-aged man meant, because the mind of the painting kept shifting. Every line and curve in this entire, enormous drawing was unique. How could you look at any one particular part of the painting and claim that it was special?
The middle-aged man fell silent, then said, “This elder was a genius who stood just below the leader. He practiced the Very High Sense to the max. He could sense everything in this world within his own chest. That was how he could draw a painting that included everything. Although the mind inside this painting seems capable of endless variation, it was produced using the Very High Sense. This mind came from the talents known as Very High Forget Love, Big Love, and Loveless. This mind is powerful and nuanced, but it doesn’t include the elder’s own emotions. Only this Very High eye drawing is different. It was made using emotions that came directly from the elder.”
“What kind of feeling does it possess?” Han Sen asked with curiosity.
If he had developed the Very High Sense to a true god level, the Very High elder must have almost reached Sky and Men Combined Together. He must have come close to uniting with the universe.
Even Exquisite was nearly emotionless, and this man had practiced the Very High Sense that was far beyond Exquisite’s abilities. It was hard for Han Sen to imagine what kind of emotions such a man would have been capable of feeling. He might have been completely emotionless.
If the man had somehow retained the ability to feel, that would shock Han Sen a lot.
“I cannot tell you. If you wish to know, you should look into it yourself,” the middle-aged man said with a laugh.
Han Sen’s curiosity was piqued. He wanted to examine the mind of this Very High mark.
Suddenly, Han Sen thought of something. He turned around and asked the middle-aged man, “I wonder what your name is.”
Han Sen assumed that this man hadn’t practiced the Very High Sense, but even if that were true, the Very High had many elites like that. After all, the Very High could practice any geno art to a higher level of skill than the other races of the universe. They would approach each new geno art with no less aptitude than they applied to the Very High Sense.
“Li Zi,” the middle-aged man answered casually. The question didn’t seem to bother him.
“Thank you for the tip.” Han Sen bowed and returned his attention to the Very High Eye.
Now that he looked at it, Han Sen could feel the strong pull of the mark’s mind. Just like Li Zi had said, the mind in this little part of the drawing was different from the minds that could be found elsewhere in the drawing. Once Han Sen was looking at it, he wondered how he had failed to notice it before. There was a stark contrast between the meaning of the eye and that of every other part of the drawing.
Han Sen stared at the Very High mark, his body completely unmoving. He was so still that he looked like a piece of the landscape. He didn’t even blink.
Not long later, tears suddenly began to leak from Han Sen’s eyes. He didn’t so much as twitch, however. He kept staring at the eye as tears rolled down his cheeks. The tears kept coming, soaking his face and wetting his clothes. He just stood where he was, observing the Very High eye on the wall without blinking.
And then, the wells of Han Sen’s eyes seemed to go dry. Next, his eyes started to bleed. The crimson tears fell, tracing two tracks of red across his cheeks.
