Primordial Dao System

White clouds drifted across the azure sky. The boundless sea stretched on, vast and hazy, its surface heaving with waves several feet high even in the absence of wind.

Amidst the churning waves, a black reef, roughly the size of a small hall, could be faintly discerned. No matter how the raging winds and towering waves battered it, the rock remained utterly unmoved.

Though it appeared to be an ordinary reef in the ocean, within it a world was concealed—a great island realm. The island was lush with verdant growth, filled with rare and wondrous flora; deer galloped freely, cranes soared through the air, the ground was paved with jade, and lakes shimmered with nectar. It was truly an immortal’s island, a paradise untouched by the world.

At the island’s center, within a lake shimmering with five-colored light, mists of the same hues rose and curled. Dimly visible amidst the swirling aura was an immortal root tree, brilliant and suffused with spiritual energy. Upon its branches hung fruits the size of dragon’s eyes, each glowing in five colors. If one were to count them, there were precisely three hundred sixty-five, corresponding to the full cycle of the heavens. Each fruit seemed to slowly draw in the ascending five-colored mist from the lake below.

The immortal tree did not grow directly from the waters, but upon a small island in the lake’s center. Though diminutive, this isle was formed entirely of innate spiritual earth, providing the nutrients and energy the tree required to thrive.

It was well known that innate primeval earth was the mos