Knowing more about the Cultivation Realms after the Soul Transformation Realm helped Mira to realize that one's Dao isn't as simple as she thought it was. It seems like the two were more intertwined than she previously thought.
Throughout most of her cultivation journey so far, Mira hasn't spent that much ti focusing on her Dao, the Absolute Ice Dao. For one, she just didn't fully understand the importance and intricacies of her Dao.
,m She knew that if she used her Absolute Ice Dao properly, it could be a very powerful weapon, but just based on her previous experiences, the amount of power she got in exchange for using it was negligible. She felt like her ti was better spent elsewhere.
However, now it seems her thoughts have been incorrect. Her Dao is essentially for breaking through so of the later Realms. Who knows, she might need to reach a certain point in her Dao to ascend to the Immortal Realm!
That leads to the next book Mira started reading after the [Mortal Cultivation Realms] book she had just finished. This book is called [Dao for Dummies].
Mira ignored the na and began reading. It took her several hours to read and comprehend everything contained within the book, but by the end of it, she had a much clearer understanding of what a 'Dao' really is. Of course, most of it is up to interpretation, and different people will have different views, but this is how Mira understood it.
Essentially, one's 'Dao', at its core, is what you want to do. So people love fighting, while others love sewing, or maybe you like making weapons. At its core, one's Dao is one's way of life.
However, things aren't so simple here in the Cultivation World. In other worlds where there's no concept of a 'Dao'. People's 'way of life' can differ and change throughout their lives. You can be a blacksmith, guard, King, and farr all in the sa life.
Although you can also do that in the Cultivation World, one's Dao, or in other words, their way of life, is, quite frankly, their life.
It's the core of their existence. To not follow the path that you yourself set is the sa thing as denying your existence. That's why one's Dao is extrely important! Worst of all, you can only have one Dao.
When Mira read this, she thought: What the fuck? Is this a scam?
But it wasn't without reason.
Life is unpredictable, and a single thought or encounter can change your outlook on life forever. If you're unable to be a bit flexible, aren't you just a slave to your own Dao?
However, it seems that things aren't as bad as she thought. For example, Mira's Dao is the Absolute Ice Dao.
Her 'way of life' is for her ice to beco 'absolute'. This doesn't an she can't use her scythe or fight with her fists. It just ans that she wants to use her ice to rule over everything. She's still free to have a family, create a Sect, and live a peaceful life, among other things, should she want to.
However, when her innate desire to have her ice beco absolute changes, she'll find it quite difficult to progress any further. Not only that, but all the progress she put into increasing her comprehension of her Dao will be removed, and depending on how far she's gone, she'll probably face a backlash.
This is simply because her desire to get stronger, her reason for cultivating, her path forward, the reason for her existence thus far, has just been denied by none other than herself.
Of course, things aren't so simple. For one, changing a cultivator's innate desire is not easy. This is the reason they are cultivating, for crying out loud! How could their thoughts change so easily?!
Upon reaching this point, although Mira understood what the book was trying to say, she also didn't understand it at all.
Like, what if soone's Dao is 'revenge'? Would that an that once they get their revenge, they've reached the end of their Dao? That makes no sense!
However, according to the book, that's not the case. One's Dao cannot and will not be sothing as flimsy and unreliable as 'revenge'. This is the innate desire of a cultivator, not sothing, and it's based on fragile things like emotions.
This is the path that you, as a cultivator, want to take! Not you as a person!
Take Mira as a pri example. Her entire life, for as long as she can rember, has been a life where nothing other than revenge has been on her mind. By now, it should be sothing that has been engraved in her mind, body, and soul. Yet, her Dao has nothing to do with revenge.
It's a culmination of Mira's extre affinity for ice, her innate desire to stand on top, and even her desire to rule. No, it's not necessarily a desire to rule over people or over a kingdom or sothing like that. It's just that, as soone who wants to stand at the pinnacle, how can she have competitors? Only she can be the best; nobody else can! If soone tries competing with her, then she just has to force them into submission.
The ones she's forcing into submission here are the various other Elents that make up the world.
At least, that's how Mira understood things. Whether or not she was actually right remains to be seen, but she felt like she probably wasn't far off from the truth.
Knowing this stuff is all well and good, but Mira wanted more! She wanted to know if there were various Realms or how a Dao differs from one's affinity. Things of that nature.
Luckily, the book had all this stuff in there.
According to it, in the Mortal Realm, there aren't any specific Realms for one's Dao. This is because, unlike cultivation, it's hard to quantify one's way of life or goal. Well, Mira could probably do it, but her Dao is a bit peculiar.
The book just said that once you've 'hit a wall', that's when you know you've reached the limit of what you can achieve with your Dao in the Mortal Realm. There wasn't anything other than that and Mira was lucky to even get that information!
How many people in the Mortal Realm have actually reached the limit of their Dao before ascending? Mira didn't know, but she's sure that the number is probably staggeringly low.
As for how a Dao differentiates from one's affinity, that should be quite obvious. One is simply how in tune one is with the elents, and the other is one's path. At least for most people, that's the case, but Mira's situation is a bit unique. Her path and her affinities are one and the sa.
Her Dao is solely based on the ice elent, and since her affinity and Dao essentially co from the sa source, i.e. her existence, they can be counted as one. So, whenever Mira increases her comprehension of ice in relation to her Dao, she's also increasing her affinity at the sa ti. This goes for the other elents as well.
However, this is just what Mira was able to conclude based on her understanding of what the book was trying to say. Even then, she was still a bit confused about so parts.
For one, she didn't quite understand what the book ant when it said, "you can enforce your Dao upon the world with enough willpower!"
Such vague sentences were quite common in the book, but Mira took these words to heart as she figured she might eventually understand their aning in the future.
By the end of it all, she pretty much got everything she needed to know out of the book, and just from this amount of knowledge, Mira understood the things she needed to improve upon.
There are still plenty of mysteries surrounding her Dao and how to increase her comprehension in it, but those mysteries will eventually reveal themselves in due ti, so she wasn't too worried.
However, Mira understood that she should probably start ditating more often to learn more about her path and what it ans to be 'absolute'. Besides that, she needs to learn how to control her Dao!
The segnt, "...enforce your Dao upon the world…," really struck Mira, and she was eager to learn how to properly enforce her Dao upon the world. She knew that her Dao wasn't so simple and that she should be utilizing it more in battle as it could prove vital, especially against those with the sa affinity as her, but again, she just hadn't felt much of a need to use it in battle.
At least, not until now. After almost suffering at the hands of that young man yesterday, she knew she needed to improve in every way possible, or else she'll really die the next ti the F.LD.I.L sends soone to kill her.
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