Laws, Concepts, Truths, and Energy, the four parts of reality.

Daoism from Earth directly explained Laws and Energy, and indirectly explained Concepts and Truths, by stating that, "The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things."

Aaron had yet to understand the Dao. It was just too mystical. Everything was the Dao, and the Dao was everything. Fully understanding the Dao was understanding all there was, all there had ever been, all there would be. It was to transcend everything. To become something else altogether.

Most cultivators believed the Dao to be the journey, a never-ending path. Aaron felt the Dao was both the journey and the destination. As an Absolute Immortal, he had been close enough to the Dao to barely determine that it did exist as a destination.

So close indeed that he was also confident of having identified the One produced by the Dao. The One in Daoism was Taiji, also called the Supreme Ultimate. Aaron believed it to be the Source where the universe originated from and where everything returned to. If he was right, it was located at the Universal Core. It would also explain how the Core could modify reality without the need to use any energy at all, something the Cage made use of.

Then came the Two, and Daoism was spot on in naming them Yin and Yang. They were opposites, yet also complimentary. They explained many of the dualities of the universe that were first understood as opposites, then as two sides of the same coin: energy and matter, light and darkness, heat and cold, spacetime and void. You could always find a seemingly opposite that was actually complimentary.

Yin and Yang then birthed Absolute Energy, turning into Three. From the Three came all things. Even the void, the opposite of spacetime, despite its name, contained Yin, Yang, and Absolute Energy.

The Three then birthed all things. They first produced the Five Primordials: Prime Energy and the Prime Laws of Space, Time, Life, and Death.

There were dualities in there too. Space and Time complemented each other, and so did Life and Death. To become a Prime Immortal, one had to understand either Spacetime or Samsara. So, Prime Immortals were further identified as Spacetime Immortals or Samsara Immortals.

Aaron had once been taught that there were two extra Prime Laws, Creation and Destruction. However, he had learned later that creation and destruction were but illusions of the mind, and thus, mere Truths. Everything kept existing in the Dao, nothing was created or destroyed, they merely changed their forms in the unending cycle of existence. Even mortals from Earth had discovered that before he understood it fully.

Laws were not abstract concepts like creation but concrete states of existence, the unfathomable bricks of reality. If something existed, it was in a state defined by a Law — usually by multiple Laws, depending on the tier something existed as.

As an Absolute Immortal, Aaron had existed as a being of Yin, Yang, Space, and Time. In theory, he should've completely surpassed Spacetime, mere Prime Laws, but things were more complicated than that. His individuality, his id, his ego, his mind, they required spacetime to exist. Without the Laws of Space, his mind wouldn't be metaphysically separated from everything else, and thus, he would lose himself. Without the Laws of Time, he wouldn't be able to think linearly, and thus, he would lose his sense of reality.

He had theoretically overcome Life and Death, and couldn't be killed no matter what one did to his body or soul. However, because his mind was kept in a weaker state of existence, his mind and heart could still be destroyed, thus destroying his self.

That's how he had killed the instigator of the Everwar, another Absolute Immortal like him. Aaron and he had "destroyed" each other many times, yet they couldn't destroy the Yin and Yang they were one with. However, as soon as Aaron managed to destroy his enemy's mind and heart, the instigator had turned into pure Yin and Yang, perfectly merging with the universe, his individuality forever gone.

Absolute Immortals were but minds occupying a being in an absolute state of existence. That even explained how Aaron's willpower could be so strong, for if it wasn't, he would have dissipated into Yin and Yang long ago.

The Prime Laws then produced a new trinity: Truths, Divine Energy, and the Divine Laws. The Divine Laws were Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, and Mind. Altogether, they were also called the Divine Eight.

Finally, the Divine Laws produced a new duality, Spiritual Energy, and the Derived Laws, which were too many to enumerate. The most famous ones were Lightning, Wind, Light, Darkness, Ice, Gravity, and Blood.

Strictly speaking, the Truths were a mere byproduct of the Mind Laws, which came from the Laws of Life and Death. However, some Truths were believed by so many living beings that their power rivaled the Divine Laws. In fact, becoming a Prime Immortal required one to overcome the Truth of Karma, the strongest Truth of all, in a process called Karma Severing, and even that process followed the rules set by the Truth of Karma.

The Truth of Karma was that powerful because it dealt with a Concept from the Laws of Yin Yang. If Laws were the bricks reality was made of, Concepts were small parts of those Laws, the atoms of the bricks. The Concept of Speed, for instance, was part of the Laws of Space and Time, though most cultivators first got a hint of it from the Laws of Lightning, Wind, or Light.

The Concept from Yin Yang that the Truth of Karma dealt with was the Concept of Balance. Yin and Yang themselves didn't differentiate between favors owed, good and evil, or anything like that. Those were inventions of the Mind. A piece of rock didn't care if one betrayed their friend, nor did Yin and Yang. The universe simply was, it didn't judge, except maybe during tribulations. The balance Yin and Yang revealed was not a balance of deeds, but a balance of existence itself.

However, enough sapient minds believed that balance was also applied to themselves. That could be easily noticed because a higher form of justice was present in most religions. Thus, the Truth of Karma had come to be, and because it was connected to the Laws of Yin Yang, and believed by so many, it was the strongest Truth.

Repetition also created Truths. The Truth of the Jungle, commonly called law of the jungle, was such a thing. To live was to struggle, and in most cases, to eat or be eaten. Enough living beings lived like that, so it had become a Truth.

Truths were also self-feeding. After they came to be, they influenced living beings. As more beings believed or lived by them, the Truths were strengthened. The stronger they became, the more they influenced living beings.

Cultivators sought power, and cultivating made them more attuned to the Dao and all it birthed. That allowed them to meditate upon, understand, and use Concepts and Laws. It also made them more attuned to the Truths, and thus, paradoxically, more beholden to them. That was one of the reasons cultivator society was usually so brutal — some Truths demanded it. That was also the reason they were so hypocritical, arguing for massacre with a smile on the face and sweet words of justice — other Truths demanded it. And it was also why the stronger the cultivator, the less hypocritical they were, for their heart became less and less influenced by Truths, and more true to themselves; another paradox of cultivation.

Aaron had once surpassed all that, but he was once more a weak cultivator. His strong heart protected him from the weaker Truths, but not the strongest ones. Karma wasn't the only Truth birthed by the Concept of Balance from Yin and Yang though. The Truth of the Heavens also affected his life.

There were two key conceptions in the Truth of the Heavens. First, that the Heavens always left a way out. No matter how terrible a situation, one could get out of it. Most times, it was through a ridiculously hard manner, but it was better than nothing. Second, nothing a hundred percent good or bad could exist. There was always some kind of balance, some disadvantage to an advantage and vice versa.

Therefore, using medicine to aid one's cultivation left toxins behind. Only Prime or Absolute treasures could ignore the Truth of the Heavens. That was also the reason the sprout that Aaron had consumed was both a blessing and a curse.

The sprout had allowed him to cultivate faster by removing all his limits below the Champion level. However, it had also created the bottleneck that made him dependent on more sprouts to cultivate to the Champion level.

Aaron had planned on cultivating only after the Crusade left, but now he knew how dangerous his enemy was.

He quickly met the king and requested three big chunks of the city for his future plans, then left in stealth at the beginning of the night. He headed to the closest forest to cultivate there.

Cultivation methods were about moving in ways that resonated with the Laws of the universe. Such movement could be either internal, by moving energy inside oneself in mystical ways, or external, by moving one's body. The better one understood how the movements resonated with the Laws of the universe, the more they would get out of the cultivation method, up to its utmost limit.

Limits existed because cultivation methods were created by cultivators and were thus limited to their creators' insights. They only allowed one to go so far. The best methods Aaron had seen only allowed one to reach the Prime Immortal level. Even he himself, a former Absolute Immortal, could not create a proper method that allowed one to reach the Absolute Immortal level. He had leveled up by paving his own way through fire and blood.

Thing is, cultivation methods had to be all-encompassing. They had to allow people with different insights and personal experiences to reach the same level.

Ten Samsara Immortals would each have greater mastery over certain aspects of Life or Death, for they were influenced by the journey they had taken. A proper Samsara cultivation method had to allow anyone with a certain threshold of understanding over the Laws of Life and Death — whatever aspects they might be — to become a Prime Immortal. Any method that didn't do that was flawed and potentially lethal, for if a cultivator took a single step different from the trodden path, he might die. Such methods should only be used for reference; cultivating using them was sheer stupidity and considered a form of suicide.

Cultivation methods pushed one forward. They allowed one to accumulate momentum in their current level and then explode in glory towards the next level. Aaron had already mastered Yin and Yang, therefore, the insights he could gain while cultivating were either on the Dao itself or the One. The Rise to the Heavens' method gave him exactly that.

How was that possible? If methods were created by cultivators, who had created that one? How had he found it on Earth of all places, considering cultivation was so hard there, to the point he had had to leave to keep cultivating? Was that mysterious creator the same that suppressed Aaron's power when he entered the Solar System, prevented anyone not born on Earth from entering, and had enveloped the system in a temporal deceleration cocoon? Why had they never shown themselves to him?

He didn't know, but he knew he couldn't be blamed for never valuing that cultivation method too much. Though it allowed him to cultivate on Earth, it was a very slow method compared to some which the original Ironblood clan had given him. After he ditched it so long ago, right after leaving Earth, how could he ever imagine it would be useful even at his peak?

That was also the reason he had never expected sprouts to appear where he cultivated. It hadn't happened on Earth, and he had never used that method outside the planet. Who knows what would've happened if he had? His life could've been completely different.

Now, he first used Arcane Energy to build a small ball of Yang Fire above him. It would substitute for sunlight so he could cultivate at night, for the method required nature and balance.

Then he cultivated.