Chapter 390: Wisdom Dao
In a place unknown, a pill container and a man were playing chess; they were Luther and Rachel. After reaching rank 14, Rachel was freed from the bounds of the pill container body, but she decided to keep it. She had lived as a pill container for countless years and was comfortable with it.
Recently, she had become very interested in the game of chess, and the reason was simple.
There are different levels of mastery. Starting from the lowest to the highest, they are:
Blank: Newborn pure mortal babies with no memories and no knowledge are at this level. As long as someone has at least some knowledge of a subject, they would be considered quasi-common mastery. Those with blank mastery know absolutely nothing about the subject.
Common Mastery: Talented pure mortals can reach this level through years of study and training. For example, a pure mortal carpenter can reach this level only after years of practice if they are incredibly talented. Ordinary pure mortals cannot reach this level even if they dedicate their entire life to it; the lifespan of a pure mortal is not long enough; of course, there are worlds where they allow their pure mortals to live for thousands of years; in those worlds, even untalented pure mortals can reach this level.
Quasi-Master: Usually, only practitioners of the 5th rank and higher have a chance of reaching this level. There may be rare cases where pure mortals with extreme talent reach this level, but those are exceptions.
Master: Masters are very rare. Typically, only talented rank 9 mortals and rank 10 immortals can reach this level.
Quasi-Grandmaster: Some very talented rank 9 mortals and older rank 10 immortals can reach quasi-grandmaster level, but most people at this mastery are rank 11. Quasi-grandmaster mastery involves the secrets and utilization of complete laws. Rank 9 mortals who reach this level are considered geniuses rarely seen in millions of years. For rank 10 immortals, the only limiting factor is time, as most take billions of years to reach this level, often achieving rank 11 before reaching quasi-grandmaster mastery.
Grandmaster: Grandmasters are almost always rank 12. At this level, one can start to comprehend the secrets of universal laws. For instance, a grandmaster in the Dao of Fire can begin to understand and apply universal laws. However, this mastery alone is not enough to develop rank 12 spells; the development of spells is extremely complicated and beyond the reach of grandmasters.
Quasi-Great Grandmaster: Old rank 12s will eventually reach this level. It is not a question of if but when. With quasi-great grandmaster mastery, one can start designing simpler rank 12 spells.
Great Grandmaster: Very ancient rank 12s can achieve this level. At this stage, one can easily design rank 12 spells, and one's understanding of universal laws soars. Many mysteries become clear.
Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster: Most rank 13s, and some extremely ancient rank 12s, can reach this level. Here, one can not only design rank 12 spells but even attempt to design rank 13 spells. Rank 12 spells involve one universal law, while rank 13 spells involve multiple universal laws. A quasi-supreme grandmaster can use their understanding of one Dao to mimic another. For example, a Qausi-supreme grandmaster of the Dao of Water can mimic fire. This mastery signifies a deep understanding of a tiny piece of the creation.
Supreme Grandmaster: Ancient rank 13s can reach this level. With supreme grandmaster mastery, one can easily create rank 12 spells and even complex rank 13 spells. Those with this mastery level have an all-encompassing understanding of their subject, able to dismantle spells, formations, and worlds related to their Dao with one glance.
Quasi-Omniscient: Only some extremely rare rank 13s and rank 14s reach this level. One's understanding at this stage nears the apex, and designing spells, formations, etc., becomes effortless. A quasi-omniscient can mimic other Daos to a very high degree. This mastery involves the creation itself, allowing for the design of rank 14 spells.
Omniscient: The creation itself holds this mastery in all Daos. At this level, one would know everything about the subject, past, and future, across all charges of realities. For example, an omniscient in the Dao of Fire knows all its secrets, with no loopholes remaining.
After reaching rank 14, Rachel reclassified the levels of mastery in this universe; if one looks into some ancient books, one will notice slight differences.
When Rachel first reached rank 14, she had no quasi-omniscient mastery, so she was unable to create any good rank 14 spells. At that time, her only resource was to increase her number of supreme grandmaster masteries and try to supplement her lack of quasi-omniscient mastery with numerous quasi-supreme grandmaster masteries.
But recently, during a moment of enlightenment, she suddenly broke through and achieved wisdom Dao quasi-omniscient mastery!
The wisdom Dao is a highly supportive mastery, enhancing all areas of practice—fighting technique, spell design, and more. It was an incredible fortune for her to reach this level.
After obtaining quasi-omniscient mastery in the wisdom Dao, Rachel abandoned her previous projects regarding the dream worlds. Those projects were meant to gather dream dew, which helped her achieve supreme grandmaster mastery. However, dream dew can only aid in reaching supreme grandmaster, not quasi-omniscient.
With wisdom Dao quasi-omniscient mastery, Rachel no longer needed many supreme grandmasters. Instead, she shifted her focus.
The game of chess—an ancient game from her previous world—had always intrigued her, though she had never given it much attention. But after reaching quasi-omniscient wisdom mastery, she realized her approach had been wrong.
She had been trying to gather numerous masteries to compensate for her lack of quasi-omniscient mastery, but that strategy was flawed. It would have been far more efficient to focus on just one Dao.
Chess had long been used as a way to train strategic thinking and wisdom, and since gaining Quasi-Omnicent mastery, Rachel had been playing it with Luther for years to improve her wisdom Dao to omniscient level.
Although reaching omniscient mastery was long considered impossible, after attaining quasi-omniscient wisdom, Rachel began to have new insights. She now believed that achieving omniscient mastery was possible, though it would take an extremely long time and be incredibly difficult, even for rank 14s.
That’s why she continued playing chess—to train herself and slowly reach omniscient mastery. Of course, her game with Luther was not simple 8x8 chess. Their game existed in five dimensions, with over 10^90 different pieces, each with unique abilities. The game was so complex that even the most advanced supercomputers would crash if faced with it.
Despite its complexity, it was still chess. Each piece had specific moves, and the board was a fixed playground. Like traditional chess, there was no element of chance.
Both Luther and Rachel were rank 14, which is why they had the mental capacity to play such a game. It was challenging enough to push even a rank 14’s brainpower, making it ideal for training the wisdom Dao.
Rachel had been sharing her quasi-omniscient wisdom Dao mastery with Luther; otherwise, beating him would have been easy.
To run the game, Rachel had to create a massive rank 13 world with over a million universal laws. The world’s sole purpose was to compute the game, and nothing else. Each game typically lasted about a billion years, with Rachel and Luther making an average of one trillion moves every second.
Rachel’s sole focus was to improve her wisdom Dao to omniscient mastery. She didn't care about any other Dao. Only with specialization could one truly progress.
The wisdom Dao was vast, and reaching omniscient mastery wouldn’t be easy. However, the rewards would be tremendous.
Some Dao masteries were easier to attain, while others were more difficult. For example, wisdom Dao was hard, but compared to the Dao of Reality, it was much easier.
In general, the broader the Dao, the harder it was to master.
This rule was the opposite for universal laws. When mastering universal laws, the broader they were, the easier they were to decode. Mastering a specialized universal law, for example, the universal law of 'cold water on top of a mountain,' was far more difficult than a general universal law, like 'Water,' because one would struggle to find complete laws that could aid in the decoding process.
For example, to decode the universal law of cold water on top of a mountain, one would need a complete law related to mountains, cold, and water. A complete law of 'water droplets falling from the sky' on top of a mountain would be useful, as it contains the necessary elements. However, a complete law of 'a tall mountain' or 'cold water from a well' would not help at all.
Decoding specific universal laws was more difficult, but they were also more powerful. A specific universal law could overrule a general one. For instance, the universal law of oceans could overrule the universal law of water when dealing with large masses of water. However, the broader universal law of water was more versatile, applicable to many formations, spells, and worlds. But in battle, the universal law of oceans was undoubtedly stronger.