Although the tablet was only half, its content was unexpected to Ding Yan.
There were a total of nine images depicted on the tablet.
In the first image, a young man stood in the center of the cosmos, facing the sky with roaring thunder above him. Evidently, he was undergoing a tribulation.
The second image showed the young man meditating outside a Taoist temple, with manifestations of yin and yang behind him.
The third image depicted the young man sitting under a tree, playing chess with a monk clad in a kasaya.
The fourth image was starkly different. It was filled with corpses, flowing blood, and raging spirits. Above the sky, thunder roared...
The fifth image depicted a grand gate with two huge skulls carved on either side, and above them, a plaque with unfamiliar writing.
The sixth image showed a middle-aged man standing in an illusory void.
The seventh image depicted a monkey.
The eighth image showed a plant.
And the ninth image depicted a stone statue, though due to its blurred depiction, Ding Yan could not discern who the statue represented.
Behind the nine images, there was a line of text.
Cultivator's tribulation, worldly tribulation, heavenly tribulation, layers upon layers of tribulation!
Mortals suffer, cultivators suffer, immortals suffer, all living beings suffer!
What is the purpose of a lifetime of cultivation?
At the end, is it the other shore?
Nine lifetimes of enlightenment…
The writing stops here, the remaining characters should be on the lower half of the broken tablet.
"This should be what someone left behind when they attained enlightenment, it's a pity there are no remaining parts…" Ding Yan's finger traced over the inscription on the stone tablet, and one could still faintly sense the strong Daoist thoughts remaining within.
From this, it can be seen how profound the cultivator's attainment was.
Just as Ding Yan withdrew his finger, the mysterious skull suddenly flew out from his sleeve. The left eye socket began to flicker without Ding Yan's support, and a faint flame flickered in each of the eye sockets, then a beam of light shot out and imprinted on the stone tablet.
It was a giant character for 'Dao'.
"This is… the method of conveying knowledge through fragments!" Ding Yan exclaimed.
The method of conveying knowledge through fragments is an extremely profound method of transmission. After the fall of some strong cultivators, they often used this method to prevent their techniques from being lost.
The requirements for initiating the method of conveying knowledge through fragments are very simple, you just need to have the relics of those predecessors. After the relics reach a specific location, the consciousness remaining within the relics will automatically activate and then transform the remaining thoughts into Daoist techniques, passing them into the mind of the holder.
Looking at the 'Dao' character on the stone tablet, Ding Yan had a sudden enlightenment.
Unconsciously, Ding Yan sat down cross-legged. He cast a low-grade Daoist technique from his memories of his past life.
"No wonder I couldn't perform it, it turns out I was using the power incorrectly…"
"No, if I used a different method, the power of this technique would probably be close to a mid-grade Daoist technique."
"So, Daoist techniques can be performed like this!"
One Daoist technique after another continuously emanated from Ding Yan's hands.
As time passed, the incantations in Ding Yan's hands became more and more complex, and the time it took to cast them grew slower. In the end, Ding Yan even cast the incomplete imprint he had comprehended from the Illusory Nine Heavens…