Silent Crown

Although a catastrophe could not be developed, one-third of the core had allowed Ye Qingxuan to take a peek into the deeper levels of the Ultimate. There were countless music theories that were constantly changing. It was just like looking at the dust in the ocean through a prism. Under such a terrifying scale that was so immense it was borderline impossible, Ye Qingxuan truly felt miniscule.

To any musician, this was a rare opportunity. A catastrophe had completely revealed its core music theory for him to observe and refer to, and this was more effective than being taught by any of the best mentors. Especially with Jiu Xiao Huan Pei in his hands, the level of sensitivity of Ye Qingxuan’s perception was so astounding that it allowed for the recurrence of any detail in the entire process.

Ye Qingxuan managed to gain plenty of knowledge within a short period of four days but it was not without its limits. With regard to the knowledge he could gain on the Distortion level, he was already at the peak. If he still did not become a Master, he would have missed a great opportunity. His situation was just like a mouse that could not possibly finish consuming all the grain in a granary. This was as far as Ye Qingxuan could go, in terms of his level of observation and abilities. It was painful to know that it was so near, yet so far. At the end of the day, the problem still lied with the Symphony of Predestination…

“I refuse to believe that I’m unable to write a simple Symphony of Predestination!” Ye Qingxuan was furious and placed the shard of the stone plate to one side. He picked up paper and pen and began to write furiously. After ten minutes, he finally stopped and took a look at what was in his hands. A flame started and he threw the movement into the fire without any emotion. In the end, he sighed helplessly.

Alright, he really failed to write anything. If only there was a template or a correct answer to be found, but of all things, he was most clueless about creations like this that could not be bound. Everything he wrote could just as easily be either right or wrong. How to start, how to end, what would the rhythm be…

Everything was shrouded in a mist of confusion. No one could tell Ye Qingxuan what he should do. This was not a test so there were no structure or rules. He sank into deep thoughts. This time around, the amount of time he took to think was far more than the combined amount of time he took the past few days. Ye Qingxuan sat on the broken steps as if he was in a daze, and would not react even when he was spoken to.

Ye Qingxuan remained unmoved even when dinner time came. Too many things had happened to him, so all the Masters were already used to it. It wasn’t until late at night that Ye Qingxuan finally raised his head again. His neck was so painful that it felt like it had been broken in two. He has stayed in the same posture for too long so his entire body was rather numb now. He sighed before asking for clean water to wash his face. He had regained his spirits.

Mable took a look at him and was no longer worried. “Have you made some headway?”

“Yes.” Ye Qingxuan was devouring his dinner. The food might have been cold and hard and even caused slight pain being digested in his stomach, but he felt a wholesomeness of life. Finally, he made up his mind.

“Since the orthodox way doesn’t work for me, I will just have to continue down the unorthodox path.” He had finally thought things through.

Creating had never been his strength as all of his talents lied in the areas of operation and integration. Expecting him to play the role of a trailblazer was probably a bit too much. He finally acknowledged this and decided to give up completely. His weaknesses were not something that could be covered up with simply more effort. Rather than trying so hard to cover up his weaknesses, he might as well focus on improving his strengths.

Just like how he had been doing.

From the very beginning, he has always been that scribe. As long as there was a correct answer to be found, he would be able to fill it in with no problems. But writing poems had always been something that he struggled with. Therefore, he decided to return to this old path and continue copying, even for the Symphony of Predestination. If he could not create a Symphony of Predestination, then so be it. If he did not have his own, then he would copy others and turn them into his own.

He already understood how the music theory of the Ultimate would determine ‘external forces.’ Anything that he would not be able to implement his will and consciousness or fuse with himself would be considered external forces. In that case, the Ultimate actually provided him with an opportunity.

It had given Ye Qingxuan a reminder. All this while, he always thought that he had been utilizing these abilities to perfection. He never considered the possibility that there were other issues that he had not discovered all along. Therefore, he decided that he might as well make full use of this opportunity to solve them. Just as Ye Qingxuan was still pondering, he suddenly realized something unexpected.

If the trinity Symphony of Predestination did not belong to him, then so be it. After all, the three parts came from the three people that made a huge impact on him. But what surprised him was that all the music theories that he has left behind had all come from the ‘way of deciphering.’ In other words, the Ultimate was treating the way of deciphering as a part of Ye Qingxuan.

Actually, it did make some sense. Although the way of deciphering was passed down from Abraham, he was unable to pass down the real way of abstinence to Ye Qingxuan due to the former being restrained by both the military and the covenant with the Sacred City. As a result, he had no choice but to dismantle and break down all his knowledge into bits and pieces before guiding Ye Qingxuan into discovering them for himself. Finally, the way of deciphering would be the key to piece everything back together again. It was just like what Hyakume did to Ludovic. In the process of Ludovic becoming the former dark pope, who knew when he being ‘Ludovic’?

Ye Qingxuan never imagined that there would come a day where he would have to apply Hyakume’s method to solve his own problem. In other words, even the solution was copied from someone else. Interesting. The reason why Ye Qingxuan deemed the way of deciphering to be of the utmost importance was also because it was something that he was most familiar with.

Abraham was a genius because of one reason—he was the first person in history to operate a music theory by removing ‘I’ from it. As a result, it would no longer be limited by one’s will. Instead, it would carry on all the way until the very end. It would not involve any emotion or perception that could affect the observation and usage of aether and music theory. It would not require humans to use aether. Instead, the aether would develop, transform, conclude, and discipline itself all on its own.

Ye Qingxuan truly thought that this was the true path of the School of Abstinence. Now that the solution had been found, time had suddenly become tight.

Ye Qingxuan did not intend to dive straight into copying. There were techniques to copying too. Since he had plenty of templates, he decided to prepare sufficiently first before beginning.

“Master Auden,” he raised his head and waved to Auden, “give me paper. Give me plenty of paper.”

There was a pained expression on Auden’s face. “Don’t treat my music theory pages as some draft papers…” He unwillingly took out the last roll. These were special alchemy papers that he had bought for his music theory. One piece of paper alone cost as much as black-gold of the same weight, and the scariest thing was that the supply of these papers was very low. Creating a sheet of paper would require one month of a craftsman’s time.

“Good resources must be used for important reasons!” Ye Qingxuan casually took the papers and began to start writing on them. Auden rolled his eyes and turned around as he could not bear to look. Ye Qingxuan never stopped writing and was almost like a machine, as he spent only a few minutes on each page. Within a short half an hour, he had already used up more than half of them.

The pages were flimsy when they were first handed to him but the moment they left his hands, they seemed as if they weighed a ton. When they were placed separately on the ground, each piece would create a rectangular-shaped depression on the ground. When the surrounding Masters saw this, they became extremely interested and began to whisper to each other about what they thought Ye Qingxuan was doing.

This was what made music theory pages so precious. They could demonstrate the nature of music theory in a very direct manner, recreating the attraction of the music theory to perfection. As a result, quite a number of musicians and alchemists would draft on these papers when they were deducing movements or creating alchemy equipment respectively. If the papers could not even present the music theory, then there was no point testing it out.

But now, almost no one had ever seen something like this before. A brick made of black rock that had never cracked for centuries, yet now it was cracked because of a piece of paper! No one had any idea what music theory Ye Qingxuan had written on it.

“No clue at all.” A Master took a glance at Ye Qingxuan. Although this was what he said, his eyes were completely averted from what Ye Qingxuan was writing. How could anyone just take a look at something like a core music theory? The consequences would be much more severe than being caught staring at the posterior of a lady. One might still be forgiven for being caught staring at the posterior of a lady, but if it was a core music theory that has been seen… apologies, only death awaits.

Even Ye Qingxuan, who was being bounded by the strict clauses of the contract, had to make use of the duplicates of the Religious Court of Inquiry’s secret music theories to exchange with various Masters for the incomplete music theories from various Schools for research purposes. When the Master said that he had no clue, he meant that he had no idea what Ye Qingxuan was thinking, and not necessarily that he had no idea what Ye Qingxuan was writing.

The Masters were already used to this and someone even shrugged. “Who knows, what’s the difference between a lunatic and a genius?”

“It’s the 27th piece!” A Master, who had been keeping track all this while, muttered. Exactly how many heavyweight music theories did Ye Qingxuan have in his possession?

At this moment, some of the Masters who had been unwilling to hand over their music theories were finally convinced. If one only had a basket of eggs that had been passed down from one’s ancestors, one would defend it fiercely with his life if someone was trying to take it away. But if they were to realize that that person did not really care about their basket of eggs, except to take a look at it out of curiosity, they would start to have mixed feelings. Compared to Ye Qingxuan, everyone else on the scene had to be considered poor.

Now, in front of this Chief Inquisitor, who else would still dare to claim that their own Schools possessed a deep heritage and a long history? If they were to take out the core music theories of their Schools, they might not even be half as heavy as any piece of paper that Ye Qingxuan had written on.

By now, Ye Qingxuan was past the point of caring about the feelings of the Masters. He was fully engrossed in this excitement that had been a long time coming.

Keep pushing! Keep pushing!

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