Under one person: I, Zhang Zhiwei, the arrogant Zhang.

Has the day passed?

Zhang Zhiwei was somewhat taken aback.

Although one is so engrossed in enlightenment that one becomes unaware of the changes in time around them, one will still feel something to some extent.

Just now, he truly had no idea that he had jumped directly from dawn to dusk.

"That situation just now..."

Zhang Zhiwei recalled the previous scene, his eyes flashing with golden light, his perception fully activated, but no matter what he did, he could not enter the previous state, nor could he see the extra axis.

After several unsuccessful attempts, Zhang Zhiwei gave up. Sudden enlightenment is something that can only be encountered by chance and cannot be forced.

He then turned to think about the previous situation. Was that a communication that transcended time and space?

What would happen if the ancestral master of alchemy really saw him?

Or perhaps the Celestial Master simply didn't notice him, and he just happened to turn around at that moment?

Or perhaps I was merely seeing a shadow of the past? The question of communication across time and space simply doesn't exist.

After thinking for a while, Zhang Zhiwei shook his head and stopped thinking.

"A fool has troubled himself!"

He looked around. Although it was already evening, there were still many worshippers at Tiantong Temple. Many clever people came to offer incense when there were fewer people at night.

The result is that there are too many clever people like this, so the number of people at night is no less than that during the day.

Zhang Zhiwei just smiled at this; in this situation, only Xiao Tian would have to suffer.

For Tian Jinzhong, becoming the abbot of the popular Tiantong Temple was not without its benefits; it was a valuable experience.

Ever since Zhang Huaiyi started imitating Zhang Zhiwei's practice of making deity masks, Tian Jinzhong has also started doing so.

However, unlike Zhang Huaiyi, who half played himself and half played his senior brother, he wholeheartedly played himself.

This step was effortless for Zhang Zhiwei, but it was not easy for others to cultivate. If they made a slight mistake, they would fall into a contradictory state of inconsistency.

Therefore, Tian Jinzhong adjusts himself every day in front of the statue of himself behind him.

Although this method also involves portraying oneself, it is actually quite different from Zhang Zhiwei's portrayal of himself.

Zhang Zhiwei is simply playing himself, or rather, being himself. It's his pure self. Even when the power of faith gathers around him, it is he who is deified, not a non-existent person imagined by his followers.

In this process, a massive amount of faith power was bestowed upon him, inevitably and subtly changing him, gradually transforming him into the image that believers worship.

However, Zhang Zhiwei was one with his body and mind, and his subjective thinking was high above his spiritual realm. These powers of faith did not change him, but instead honed his subjective thinking, making him more and more resilient.

Zhang Huaiyi couldn't do this, and neither could Tian Jinzhong.

Tian Jinzhong's portrayal of himself is more about playing the deified version of himself, which is actually no different from other actors' portrayals of gods.

But playing yourself as a god is always different from playing other gods.

No matter how well you play someone else, it will never be the same. But when you play yourself, as long as you align the granularity, there is a great chance to enter the third stage.

Moreover, even if they can't align, Tian Jinzhong can ask Wang Ai to patch it up for him, so that his deified self can align with him.

In general, as long as Tian Jinzhong proceeds steadily and surely, entering the third stage of the Divine Mask and fully accepting the abilities of the Heavenly Tong Sect Master's Guardian General is a certainty.

However, in doing so, he will inevitably be affected by the power of faith. Even if he creates an object similar to Xia Liuqing's glove to contain the power of faith, he will still be troubled by it.

Therefore, Zhang Zhiwei had already been encouraging him to hone his subjective thinking skills.

The method for training is very simple: don't sleep.

By maintaining his reversal of life for decades, Master Zuo has honed his terrifying cultivation.

Tian Jinzhong's decades-long habit of not sleeping has naturally honed his strong subjective thinking.

This is also why, in the story, even after Tian Jinzhong's hands and feet were cut off and his meridians were destroyed, Zhang Jingqing still encouraged him to cultivate diligently; what he cultivated was purely subjective.

Judging from the plot, Tian Jinzhong's cultivation is quite good, so Zhang Zhiwei also lets Tian Jinzhong replace sleeping with meditation.

As a devoted follower of his senior brother, Tian Jinzhong listened to his senior brother's words the most and immediately continued to cultivate in this way.

In recent years, apart from the last three-corpse incident, which gave him a short break, he has spent the rest of his time honing his skills.

Such solid skills meant that he experienced less interference and could withstand more pressure when portraying gods.

With a thought, a cloud suddenly surged from beneath Zhang Zhiwei, carrying him to the sky above the Celestial Master's Mansion.

He circled in the air, observing the scene. Based on the imagery from his previous enlightenment, after circling around for a long time, he found the place where the Celestial Master had refined elixirs. It wasn't in the Celestial Master's Mansion, but in the Zhengyi Temple.

Evenings at Zhengyi Temple are bustling with worshippers, with thick incense sticks and candles burning, and a cloud of mist swirling overhead.

Zhang Zhiwei descended from the sky and landed inside the Celestial Master's Mansion. The entire place was silent. He was not here to reminisce, so he did not disturb his fellow disciples at the Zhengyi Temple.

Although he couldn't enter that incredibly profound state, he still gained something from the sudden enlightenment. Zhang Zhiwei's observation skills improved significantly, and he wanted to try his observation skills at the place where the Celestial Master used to refine elixirs.

As he walked through the Zhengyi Temple, he reached out and touched the walls. Occasionally, he could feel extremely fine dents, which were not traces of natural weathering, but rather runes that were very old.

Zhengyi Temple has undergone many renovations, and many generations of Celestial Masters have incorporated their own ideas into it. No one can say for sure who left these patterns.

Zhang Zhiwei stared intently at the patterns, beginning to appreciate their historical significance and searching for traces left by the Celestial Master.

Zhang Zhiwei was highly focused, gazing at the patterns, appreciating the historical charm, and tracing the traces of the past. Just like an archaeologist who sees an antique, he does not look at its intrinsic value, but rather uses the antique to understand the era in which it existed, restoring the most authentic face of history.

In a daze, a fog seemed to appear before Zhang Zhiwei's eyes.

He had a feeling that as long as he could penetrate the fog, he could see that axis and see through time and space, but something was blocking him, preventing him from penetrating it.

His pupils suddenly shrank to pinhole size, and the light within them contracted into a thin needle before piercing the mist ahead.

Zhang Zhiwei seemed to hear a "plop" sound. His gaze, sharpened to the point of a needle, seemed to pierce through the barriers of time and space, breaking through some kind of limitation. He saw some more images, but he didn't see the axis he had seen before. The images were initially blurry fragments, but gradually they began to become clearer.

He saw the flickering flames in the alchemy furnace when the Celestial Master was refining elixirs. He saw the black tiger's claws beneath the Xuan Tan Marshal, who was protecting him, and the gravel crushed beneath those claws.

He also smelled a faint aroma of cinnabar mixed with pine wood, and even caught a fleeting glimpse of the Celestial Master's eyes, which shone with golden light.

The next second, the scene changed, and he saw a boy of twelve or thirteen years old wearing the robes of a Celestial Master, performing a ritual at the Zhengyi Temple, with a row of white-haired old Taoist priests standing respectfully in front of him.

Upon seeing this scene, Zhang Zhiwei's first thought was... a young man in a Celestial Master's robe... the 30th Celestial Master, Master Xu Jing, Zhang Jixian...

Just as he looked at the young celestial master, the young celestial master seemed to sense something and suddenly looked back!

The moment their eyes met, the image suddenly blurred.

When his vision cleared, he saw several young Taoist priests sneaking out of the Zhengyi Temple, sneaking into the back mountain to hunt, making roasted chicken to eat, and then running to the stream to catch fish. Their innocent faces were reflected in the splashing water.

Unlike the unfamiliarity he felt before, he recognized those faces; they were clearly his fellow disciples, including Tian Jinzhong.

This is a scene from when they were kids, sneaking off to roast chicken and fish.

"I actually saw myself!" Zhang Zhiwei thought to himself. The next second, he felt as if he had been pricked by a needle between his brows and pulled out of that state.

Zhang Zhiwei rubbed his temples and reached out to touch the runes on the wall again, trying to probe them with his own Qi. The runes were slightly warm, as if responding.

A faint golden light flowed from his fingertips, seeping into the cracks in the stone like water.

He didn't carve any words or draw any talismans; he simply let his own Qi flow along the ancient traces in the stone wall.

He traced the marks left a thousand years ago, the imprints left hundreds of years ago, and even the tiny handprints he and Tian Jinzhong left when they were children more than a decade ago.

As his Qi flowed through, an extremely faint, extremely weak golden light appeared in those patterns, merging with his Qi, but it vanished in an instant.

Zhang Zhiwei frowned. His composure was such that he could remain unmoved even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, but at this moment, he was taken aback.

Because the golden light that merged with his Qi just now was transformed from his own Qi.

This Qi was extremely weak; if his level of observation hadn't just improved, he wouldn't have been able to detect it.

But most importantly, this wisp of Qi is very ancient; it wasn't left over from the last ten years or so, but from hundreds of years ago.

“Hundreds of years ago, my Qi still exists? Or rather…” he murmured, “it is my Qi that remained hundreds of years ago? Perhaps it shouldn’t be called Qi, but rather… a spiritual imprint.”

The scene from just now suddenly flashed into Zhang Zhiwei's mind. His gaze, like a needle tip, pierced through the distance of time and space, revealing a scene from ancient times.

"Could it be that it wasn't simply seeing past events, but that my spirit actually traveled back in time, saw past scenes, and thus left a very subtle spiritual imprint in the past?"

"When my mind, or rather my subjectivity, is observing, some people with strong subjective skills can also observe me. This is why the Ancestral Celestial Master and the Young Celestial Master suddenly looked at me."

Thinking of this, the words "Daluo Cave Observatory" suddenly flashed through Zhang Zhiwei's mind.

If what just happened was an application of the method after reaching a high level of contemplation, does that mean that the Great Luo Cave Contemplation also has a similar effect, or that its effect is even more powerful?

In the plot, Gu Jiting suddenly disappeared when he was surrounded and attacked by Master Hutu and the masters of the Shuzi Sect. Then Master Hutu went mad. He speculated:
"So, did Gu Qiting drive Hu Tu insane in a similar way to what I just did?"

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Zhiwei shook his head and stopped thinking about things that had nothing to do with him.

In his mind, he recalled the gaze of the Celestial Master.

That gaze seemed familiar.

Back then, Uncle Zhang Shoucheng had asked the Celestial Master to descend with divine power to help him in the land of the dragon vein.

At that time, he watched from the side.

When a Taoist priest commands a deity to help him, the deity usually doesn't possess any spiritual power and simply acts according to the command. But that time, he felt that the Celestial Master had glanced at him.

That look in his eyes was almost exactly the same as the look he had given me just now.

"That look in his eyes, could it really be related to what just happened?"

Zhang Zhiwei thought to himself, but he didn't delve into something that was unlikely to yield any results. With a thought, he rode the cloud of energy to leave Zhengyi Temple and returned to the crooked-necked tree on Tianmen Peak.

His previous attempts had taken a toll on his mental and physical well-being, so he needed to meditate and cultivate himself for a while.

In the days that followed, Zhang Zhiwei would frequently appear in various parts of Longhu Mountain, using his observational techniques to view past scenes.

However, apart from that initial encounter, he did not see the Ancestral Celestial Master and the Young Celestial Master again.

I saw quite a few other celestial masters, and even some scenes of my master when he was young.

None of them looked over like the Celestial Master and the Young Celestial Master.

However, he also discovered something: when he focused his gaze on someone, that person would vaguely sense it, and then he would withdraw from that fragmented image.

He guessed that this was some kind of inviolable rule of heaven and earth. Even if one could see people and events from the past through the method of observation, one could not interfere, just like the chaotic metal clapper of Feng Hou Qi Men.

Of course, this is not absolute. Just as the chaotic gold can be interfered with by the turtle-fly body, there should also be something that can interfere in the previous state, but the price to pay may be higher than that of the turtle-fly body.

Zhang Zhiwei stopped before an ancient site, his breathing steady, his mind focused, his gaze piercing through any barrier. The ancient and desolate historical atmosphere surged through his mind and heart like a tide.

In that instant, it was as if he had lived through hundreds of years, from being an ancient person to living to this day.

The unique imprint and charm of each era are difficult to appreciate without firsthand experience. It is a special kind of spiritual practice. These days, Zhang Zhiwei has been reflecting on the past and present.

During this period, he experimented with his method of contemplation in many places.

He discovered that he could only meet special people in certain famous places, and even then, it depended on luck, as he had no say in the matter.

If you just randomly choose a place to meditate, you'll probably only see traces of ordinary people passing by, and the images will be very blurry because they leave very few marks on this world.

However, even so, delving into that period and adopting the perspective of ordinary people offers a unique and insightful perspective. (End of Chapter)