High-level martial arts: Long spear with black flames to suppress demons.

A few minutes later, the cave finally revealed its original appearance.

Xu Mingjing stood in the center and took a few steps back until his back was against the other side of the rock wall, only then could he take in all the carvings in front of him.

Deep inside, all that remained were messy scratch marks.

The lines vary in length and depth, and in some places, they have been repeatedly scratched, causing the rocks to cave in. Looking at this area alone, it is impossible to discern any pattern, as if the person who left them was once extremely anxious and could only vent their frustration through these lines.

As you move outwards along the stone wall, the carvings begin to change.

Circles emerged from the jumbled lines. The first few were crooked and didn't connect at all, but they gradually became complete. Later, a curved line appeared in the circle, dividing the interior into two parts, leaving one side blank and filling the other side with dense engravings.

Xu Mingjing immediately understood the meaning behind it.

Yin and Yang.

However, these initial deductions were very crude, and even contradictory in many places. Before the two forces could form a cycle, they would collide with each other, eventually leading to collapse.

The corresponding pattern often has several deeper horizontal scratches. Some are completely erased, while others are half preserved. Then, a new pattern begins next to it, continuing along the previous line of thought.

Xu Mingjing walked out along the stone wall, his pace quickening.

The lines gradually turned into symbols, and words appeared next to the symbols. The initial handwriting was equally awkward, some with inverted structures, and some only half-carved. It looked as if they were copying some kind of impression, without figuring out where each stroke should fall.

Further out, the words finally connected to form a complete sentence.

This is the ancient script of Donghuang. This style of writing is now only preserved in some ancient books and inscriptions. He learned it when he was young, and the person who taught him to recognize these characters was his master.

Xu Mingjing paused slightly before continuing forward.

The light filtering through the cave entrance was growing brighter and brighter. He stopped in front of a wide rock wall, raised his hand to brush away the last layer of dust, and a complete pattern was finally revealed.

It was a Bagua diagram spanning a rock face tens of meters high.

Yin and Yang occupy the center, with the Eight Trigrams arranged around them. Further out are inscribed various deductions concerning the Five Elements, life and death, heaven and earth, and the spirit. Dense ancient characters fill the gaps, some used for explanation, others seemingly just questions jotted down by the deducer.

Xu Mingjing stood in front of the map and suddenly stopped moving.

His gaze fell on the center, following the direction of the Yin and Yang energies as he looked down little by little.

Yang energy sinks first, while Yin energy rises in reverse. Before the two can meet, they must undergo another reverse exchange. Several seemingly superfluous points in between actually stabilize the forces that are about to clash, allowing them to re-form a cycle in an extremely dangerous way.

He was very familiar with this system.

The core of the Yin-Yang reversal method I use is precisely this.

Not only were the general ideas the same, but even the order of the spiritual energy exchange, the points where it needed to be paused, and the turning points where a slight mistake would lead to a backlash were exactly the same as what his master had taught him back then.

Xu Mingjing slowly approached, his fingertip landing in the center of the pattern, moving along the weathered curve.

These marks have existed for a very long time, and their edges have been eroded along with the surrounding rocks, indicating that they were not left in recent years.

He turned to look into the depths of the cave.

From the messy scratch marks to the initial yin-yang diagram, and then to the gradually complete text and the technique before us, the changes along the way are so clear that they cannot be ignored.

It doesn't seem like someone carved a ready-made technique here; it's more like someone left their process of thinking, trying, failing, and correcting on the stone wall.

What he now possesses is the result of this long process.

He turned and went back into the depths of the cave, examining each and every one of the earliest carvings.

He would crouch down and clear away the rocks that were hidden in the lower areas. When he encountered overlapping rocks that were difficult to distinguish, he would use his spiritual power to see the depth of the rock layers and try to figure out the order in which they were left.

After looking at it again, he realized that the rock wall recorded far more than just the principles of Yin and Yang.

Near the top of the cave, there are a few broken lightning patterns. The patterns lack key connections. If someone were to directly circulate their spiritual power in the pattern without distinguishing right from wrong, their meridians would likely be damaged before the lightning technique could even take shape.

On the other side is the deduction of the transformation of the five elements.

The artist seems to have understood the mutual generation of the five elements very early on, but was not satisfied with that. Instead, he kept trying to force the mutually repelling forces together. Some of his attempts were only halfway through before he stopped, and some of his writing was very long, but was eventually all crossed out.

Nearby, there are several rock walls that have clearly been impacted by force. The stone surface melted and then solidified, presenting an uneven black luster that swallowed most of the original patterns, leaving only scattered words on the edges.

Standing there, Xu Mingjing could almost picture the scene from back then.

Some people try repeatedly here, and after failing, they note down the problems and try again in another place. As for the mistakes left over from the past, they are not completely erased, but are allowed to mix with the new deductions.

Further out, there are also contents involving the soul.

These traces were even more scattered. Xu Mingjing spent a long time trying to decipher them, but he could only understand a few words related to the soul and the physical body, and could not connect them into a complete meaning.

One of the paintings depicts several simple human figures, each with a circle on its chest. The limbs and torso are connected by thin lines. The figures next to it vary in size, and some lines extend from different outlines, eventually merging into the same human figure.

Xu Mingjing frowned.

Is this deducing the reconstruction of the physical body, or is it studying the connection between the soul and the body? And what do those lines point to?

He couldn't understand it.

Unlike the Yin-Yang reversal method that has already taken shape at the cave entrance, most of the content here is left unfinished. Some seem to be just a passing fancy, with a few strokes carved and then shelved without any follow-up.

The entire cave seems to be a place where those who leave traces casually record their thoughts. What can be used, what cannot be used, and even what has not yet been figured out are all engraved here, accumulating slowly over time.

Xu Mingjing noted down the parts he could make out, then returned to the vicinity of the cave entrance and carefully examined the Bagua diagram once more.

Only after every line was imprinted in his mind did he withdraw his gaze and turn to walk outside.

The entrance to the cave was narrower than I had imagined. Thick vines hung down from above, and the overlapping leaves almost completely blocked the exit. Sunlight pierced through the gaps and slanted into the cave, leaving several bright spots of light on the stone floor.

Xu Mingjing raised his hand to push aside the vines, and the light that hit him made him squint. After a moment, the scene outside gradually became clear.

Before us lies a hillside facing the sea.

Down the slope, the azure seawater crashes against the rocks, breaking into large patches of white foam. Further away, the sea and sky meet, and several islands of varying sizes are scattered on the water, shrouded in a thin mist, their undulating outlines barely visible.

The wind was damp and warm, carrying a strong smell of the sea. Behind me, the trees were lush, with vines hanging from the high branches and leaves shining in the sunlight.

Xu Mingjing stood at the cave entrance, slowly scanning his surroundings. The scenery alone was not enough to determine his location.

He raised his right hand, and the black and white energies intertwined in his palm, condensing into a slowly rotating Bagua diagram. His divine sense then swept across the hillsides and coastline, across the nearby islands, and further into the distance.

He meticulously compared the sun's position, the magnetic field of heaven and earth, and the perceived spatial location. After a moment, the divination diagram in his palm stopped, and a hint of surprise finally appeared in Xu Mingjing's eyes.

"This is... Bermuda..."