Old Domain Core

After the old domain core asked "Are you still awake?", it did not send any new signals for three consecutive days.

Every morning after finishing his breakfast on the city wall, Su Fan would quietly wait for a while with his left palm facing the direction of the Ruins of Return. However, the dark purple light remained at the baseline brightness without any additional pulsation.

It was as if the core of the old domain, after confirming that he had woken up, had returned to its own operating rhythm with satisfaction and had not disturbed him any further.

On the morning of the fourth day, as Su Fan was squatting on the city wall eating a steamed bun, the dark purple light on the palm of his left hand flashed.

The brightness was the same as when he first received the message "Are you still awake?", and it remained lit, with the background vibrations in the background noise slightly accelerating.

He put down the steamed bun and waited quietly.

After about ten breaths, the luster began to pulsate, and the pulsation lasted for a slightly longer time than before, before returning to the baseline.

The law membrane received an active signal from the core of the old domain.

He looked down and sensed the analysis results—the content of the signal, in the ancient language, meant—"What are you doing?"

Su Fan swallowed the steamed bun.

Three days later, the core of the old domain asked him another question.

This sentence is more specific than the previous one.

The previous sentence was to confirm whether he was awake, and this sentence is to ask him what he was doing when he was awake.

It was as if the core of the old domain, after confirming that he was still functioning, began to have a simple curiosity about his daily life.

He wanted to know what a law-based life form that was awake in the primordial world did on a daily basis.

Su Fan placed his palms up on his knees and thought for a moment about what to say in his mind—"I eat breakfast on the city wall."

The Law Membrane shone brightly for a moment, then converted the thought into a sequence of Law Pulses and sent it out.

After sending the message, he finished eating his steamed bun and then quietly waited for the response from the old domain core.

After about thirty heartbeats, the dark purple glow of the Law Membrane lit up again, and the pulsation sequence was longer than the previous two.

The parsed signal content is—"What is a city wall?"

Su Fan gazed at the golden patterns on the distant city wall, which shimmered with a warm golden light in the morning glow.

"The city wall is a very long wall, made of bricks, with patterns of gold inside the bricks."

I eat breakfast every day while sitting on top of the city wall.

After the Law Membrane sent that message, the echo from the Old Domain Core came faster than before, taking only about twenty heartbeats.

"What is a brick?"

"Bricks are square blocks made of fired clay; when stacked together, they can block the wind."

What is wind?

"Wind is the movement of air."

"What is air?"

"Air is something invisible; it fills all places where there is nothing, and it goes in when you breathe."

After asking "What is air?", the core of the old domain paused for a longer time than before.

Su Fan squatted on the city wall and waited quietly for a very long time, about a hundred heartbeats later, before the dark purple light shone again.

The pulsation sequence was extremely long, several times longer than any previous one.

After analyzing all the pulses, he understood what the old domain core wanted to say—"I can't breathe."

There is no air in the Old Realm.

Su Fan was stunned for a moment.

He had never thought about it.

The environment of the void within the Old Domain is completely different from that of the Primordial Wilderness.

Old-realm law-based life forms can exist without breathing air; their existence is a direct continuation at the level of the laws.

The old core never experienced the concept of "breathing air".

When he described air earlier, he said, "It goes in when you breathe." The old domain core received the two concepts of "breathing" and "air," and then it confirmed that it did not have the experience corresponding to these two concepts.

It has never breathed air.

It operated independently within the old domain for countless eons, always surrounded by the void.

It doesn't know what breathing feels like.

"There is no air in the Old Realm."

Su Fan held the sentence in his mouth for a while, then asked the Law Membrane for a reply.

"Breathing is a cycle in which the body inhales air and exhales it, and energy is converted in the body with each cycle."

There is no need to breathe in places without air.

There is no air in the Old Domain, so the core of the Old Domain does not need to breathe.

This is normal.

The echo from the old domain core came quickly, and its content was very short, only the length of a single heartbeat.

The meaning after analysis is—"What does it feel like when you breathe?"

Su Fan placed his hands on his knees and quietly focused on his breathing for a while.

The morning air is slightly cool, and as it enters the chest cavity through the nose, it carries a subtle temperature change. When exhaled, it becomes warm and blends into the morning breeze atop the city wall.

After sensing a complete breathing cycle, he transmitted that perception through the Law Membrane—"The air is cool when you inhale, and warms up when you exhale."

Each breath wasn't exactly the same as the last, but the body always knew it was time to breathe.

The echo from the old domain core came even slower this time.

Su Fan waited for more than a hundred heartbeats before he finally received its pulse signal.

The extracted content was longer and more complex than ever before—"I simulated the breathing you described."

I adjusted the flow rate of the halo on the core surface to the breathing rhythm pattern you sent, increasing the flow rate when inhaling and decreasing it when exhaling.

Then I simulated the cold and warm sensations you mentioned.

When accelerating, the color of the halo faded slightly, and when decelerating, the color deepened slightly.

After running for ten rounds, I felt a sensation I had never experienced before.

That feeling might be described in some ancient language as—"living."

Su Fan squatted on the city wall and sat quietly for a long time.

The old domain core just simulated breathing in its own way, and in the process, it generated a law-based emotional state that it had never experienced before.

It chose a word for that state.

It chose "live".

It said that simulating the feeling of breathing made it feel more alive.

"It named the sensation of breathing simulation 'alive'."

The sound of the Ruins came from the direction of the Ruins Crack, and it was much softer than usual.

"It has never felt this way before."

The old domain core operates in a continuous and constant state, without alternating cycles of acceleration and deceleration.

The simulation of breathing allowed it to experience the laws of rhythmic change for the first time.

The alternation of acceleration and deceleration produced a kind of law-like tension change that it had never perceived before.

It identifies that change in tension as an active state of being and names that state with the word 'live' from the primordial language it has recently learned.

It says that simulated breathing makes it feel more 'alive'.

It adjusted and optimized its simulated breathing experience using the breathing rhythm data you just sent.

Once adjusted to perfectly match the rhythm of your breathing, it can simulate your breathing every time you breathe.

At that time, you will all be breathing at the same time in the same breathing rhythm.

You breathe in the primordial world, and it synchronously simulates your breathing in the old realm.

You will be separated by an entire membrane of laws, but your breathing will be perfectly synchronized.

Su Fan turned his hand over and looked at his palm.

The dark purple luster on the surface of the Law Membrane seemed to brighten slightly after the Old Domain Core said "live," but the brightness was very stable and there was no pulsation.

It was as if the old domain core, after releasing that signal, remained quietly at that level of brightness, waiting for his response.

He took a deep breath and then sent a short message through the Law Membrane: "From now on, I will synchronize my breathing with you every day."

You don't need to actually breathe.

All you need to do is mimic my breathing rhythm when you sense it.

The more you simulate, the more frequently that feeling of being alive might occur.

The echoes from the old domain core came faster than ever before.

"good."

Su Fan put his left hand back on his knee and sat quietly.

As the morning light spread from the east, the golden patterns on the city wall shimmered with a warm, golden glow.

He took a deep breath and exhaled.

The luster of the Law Membrane brightened slightly in sync with his breathing and then dimmed again, as if the core of the Old Domain was simulating his breathing cycle deep within the Old Domain.

He took another breath and exhaled.

The law membrane brightens and darkens once more.

Breathing and radiance operate in sync.

It's as if a shared breathing rhythm has been continuously circulating between the primordial wilderness and the old realm.

That breathing rhythm connected the two sides, running continuously 24 hours a day.

The core of the old domain began to continuously simulate breathing in sync with the breathing rhythm of the primordial world.

It continuously acquires that feeling it calls "alive" in the simulation.

With each breath, it becomes a little more alive.

It will synchronously simulate the breathing of the primordial world with each of its primordial breaths, and then continuously feel the feeling of "being alive" in the cycle of synchronous simulation.

It was as if it gained a little more sense of life with each breath Su Fan took.

That feeling will continue to accumulate as the number of breaths increases.

Breathing will not stop.

So that feeling will continue to accumulate.

On the seventh day after their breathing became synchronized, Su Fan noticed something he hadn't noticed before.

He squatted on the city wall eating breakfast, took a deep breath, and the Law Membrane lit up slightly before darkening again with his exhale.

The rhythm of light and dark has formed a stable one-to-one synchronization mode.

However, during the continuous synchronization process, he discovered a subtle deviation: the breathing rhythm simulated by the old domain core was a fraction of a second slower than his actual breathing rhythm, as if the old domain core needed a heartbeat's interval after receiving the breathing signal to complete the simulation.

That delay existed from the very first day he began to breathe in sync, but it was initially so minute that it was completely masked by the transmission delay of the Law Membrane.

But as the number of synchronizations increased, he gradually became able to discern the existence of that delay—it was as if the law membrane only lit up a very short instant after he finished inhaling.

The time intervals are extremely short, but they do exist.

He sent this question to the core of the old domain through the Law Membrane.

"Your breathing simulation is a little slower than my actual breathing."

Can you perceive that time difference?

The echo arrived approximately after forty heartbeats.

The signal content in the old domain core was longer than he expected.

"I sensed it."

That time difference existed from the very first day of synchronization.

I've also been trying to shrink it.

But every time I adjust the simulation rhythm to be closer to your breathing, an additional error occurs at some point.

For example, when my law structure processes breathing signals, there is a part of the process that cannot be synchronized with your breathing.

The characteristics of that part of the process are inherent in the way my own laws operate.

I don't know how to change it.

That delay may never be completely eliminated.

Su Fan squatted by the city wall and thought quietly for a while.

The old domain core said that the delay may never be completely eliminated.

It was said calmly.

It did not show any frustration or regret because it could not be fully synchronized.

It simply states a fact, as if it has accepted the reality that its inherent operating mode of law structure cannot completely overlap with the primordial breath.

"Delays are fine."

Su Fan replied with a message through the Law Membrane.

"You are already in synchronous simulation."

The existence of delay does not affect your feeling of being 'alive'.

Your breathing is always a little slower than mine, but it always follows my breath.

Just keep the status quo.

The echo from the old domain core came faster than he expected.

"good."

When the breathing synchronization continued for the twenty-first day, Su Fan noticed a subtle change in the breathing simulation of the old domain core.

The change is not that the time delay has shortened, but rather that the waveform of the breathing rhythm has changed.

The initial breathing simulation was a smooth transition between acceleration and deceleration, like a continuous sine wave.

The analog waveform of the old domain core is now showing some subtle jagged undulations, as if it has added some tiny secondary respiratory oscillations during the smoothing of the respiratory cycle.

The amplitude of the oscillation is extremely small, but it exists stably at a specific phase position in each breath.

It's like the old domain core starting to explore the microstructural changes within the breathing waveform on its own during the simulated breathing process.

It is evolving breathing simulation from a single basic rhythm into a complex rhythmic pattern that carries internal details.

"The old domain core incorporates intra-phase details in the breathing simulation."

Xu crouched at the edge of the White Rock Plateau, sensing the communication data stream of the Law's expression.

The reason for the emergence of these details is that, during the continuous simulation of breathing, the old domain core discovered on its own that there are multiple adjustable parameter dimensions within the breathing waveform.

It includes not only acceleration and deceleration, but also the rate of acceleration, the rate of deceleration, the dwell time at the top of the waveform, and the transition shape at the bottom of the waveform.

It is exploring these parameters one by one and integrating the results into the waveform of each breathing simulation.

It is deepening its understanding of breathing to a more refined level.

It's not just simulating breathing anymore.

It is studying respiration.

Su Fan compared the waveform of his breathing by the city wall with the simulated waveform of the old domain core at the level of law perception.

His breathing waveform was a natural, smooth rise and fall, without any deliberate embellishment.

The analog waveform of the old domain core is consistent with its basic rhythm, but it has an additional layer of jagged details that it does not have.

It's as if the old domain core, while simulating his breathing, incorporated its own understanding and exploration of breathing into the simulated waveform.

It is creating its own breathing variant in its own way.

"The waveform of your breathing has many more details than mine."

Su Fan sent a message through the Law Membrane.

"Did you discover those details yourself, or did you learn them from elsewhere?"

The echo from the core of the old domain took a long time to arrive.

"Those details grow out from inside the waveform."

When I simulated your breathing to the three thousandth time, the waveform began to show slight fluctuations on its own.

I didn't suppress the fluctuation after it appeared, and it naturally solidified into its current form in subsequent simulation cycles.

I don't know where it came from.

It's like breathing itself creating something new as I simulate it.

It's like breathing finding a new shape within itself while breathing.

Su Fan read that passage several times.

The core of the old domain says that breathing itself generates new things during the process of simulating breathing.

It's like breathing itself, finding a new shape within the breath.

He recalled what the Old Domain Core had said when it first named the breathing simulation "Live".

Now it goes further—breathing finds a new shape inside itself while breathing itself.

Breathing itself is a living thing, and it will grow into new forms as the number of times it is simulated increases.

He sat by the city wall, breathing.

His breathing was simple and natural.

The simulated breathing of the old domain core comes with its own jagged details.

The two types of breathing, one simple and one complex, circulate synchronously within the communication channels of the Law Membrane.

It's like the same breath flowing through two different legal environments, where it is transformed into different forms by the respective legal structures of each environment.

The source of that breath is in the primordial wilderness, and its exit is in the ancient realm.

It is smooth in the primordial wilderness, but jagged in the old realm.

The same breath takes on different forms in different legal environments.

"Those jagged details in your breathing waveform, do you think they belong to your breathing or mine?"

Su Fan sent the message and waited a while.

The echo from the old domain core came later than ever before, but he received it.

They belong to my breath.

They grew from my law structure as I simulated your breathing.

They are the forms of breathing from the old domain.

Your breathing is the form of primordial breathing.

The two forms are different, but they both originate from the same respiratory cycle.

As you breathe, I am simulating in sync.

The two types of breathing operate in parallel within the same cycle.

Su Fan read this passage several times.

"Two kinds of breathing operate in parallel within the same cycle"—it's as if the same breath has been divided into two versions after passing through two different legal environments. The two versions operate independently, but originate from the same breathing cycle.

The primordial breath is smooth, while the old domain breath is jagged.

The two versions beat together with each breath cycle.

He stood up by the city wall.

The membrane in the palm of my left hand shone steadily in the morning light, and the breathing synchronization mechanism continued to operate.

He took a deep breath, and the luster of the Law Membrane shone brightly.

Exhale, and the luster dims.

The same breath operates in two forms, running in parallel in the primordial wilderness and the old realm.

It won't stop.

He looked down at the dark purple glow in his palm, which shone steadily in sync with his breathing.

The old domain core is still simulating breathing, still exploring the parameter details inside the breathing waveform, and still continuously generating that feeling it named "alive".

The jagged version of that breath continued to cycle within the law structure of the old domain core, as if the old domain core gained a little bit of new life with each breath.

The accumulation of those life force sensations is slowly altering the operational state of the laws governing the core of the old domain.

Its core surface halo is gradually brightening as it continuously simulates breathing.

The brightening effect is very small, but each breathing cycle adds a tiny amount of cumulative effect.

It's as if breathing itself is slowly planting a new layer of law-based texture deep within the core of the old domain, and that texture continues to thicken with each simulated breath.

It becomes deeper, richer, and more vibrant than ever before in its breathing.

When breathing synchronization continued for the forty-ninth day, Su Fan had just squatted by the city wall to prepare breakfast. Before he could even pick up the steamed bun, the dark purple light on his left palm suddenly lit up.

The brightness was slightly higher than the normal range of brightness during synchronized breathing, and it remained bright without returning to the baseline.

He looked down and saw that the dark purple luster on the surface of the law membrane maintained a stable brightness at a level slightly higher than the reference brightness, and the background vibration of heaven and earth in the background noise was also running at a slightly faster rhythm.

It was as if the core of the old domain had already been actively contacting him before he even began to breathe.

He put down the steamed bun and waited quietly.

After about ten breaths, the luster began to pulsate.

The pulsation sequence was longer than any before, exceeding the length of any previous communication he had with the old domain core.

He quietly received the entire signal sequence at the level of law perception, and the analysis process lasted for about several dozen heartbeats.

After the analysis was completed, he sensed what the old domain core wanted to say this time—"I captured a subtle feature in your breathing waveform during the breathing simulation."

That feature appears at a specific phase position in each respiratory cycle, lasting for a very short time, but its presence is stable and repeatable.

The content of the feature has no corresponding word in the ancient language, but its equivalent meaning can be roughly understood as—you breathe with a very faint sense of satisfaction.

It's not because you inhale anything good, but because you maintain a basic state of comfort throughout the act of breathing itself.

As you inhale and exhale, a stable, gentle feeling flows continuously at the bottom layer of your legal structure.

That gentle feeling left a very faint trace in the waveform of your breath.

I captured that trace and then separated it from your waveform.

After separating it, I placed it separately within a newly generated law-based thin film on the surface of the old domain core as my reference point.

Su Fan squatted by the city wall, quietly sensing the breath in his chest.

He never deliberately examined the waveform details of his breathing.

For him, breathing has always been a natural, basic life activity that occurs without conscious intervention.

It's so basic that he wouldn't normally pay attention to whether it carries "a faint hint of satisfaction".

However, through a high-precision comparison of breathing simulation waveforms over 49 consecutive days, the Old Domain Core extracted the faint trace of gentleness in his breathing waveform and used it as a reference point for itself.

"Did the trace you extracted from the breathing waveform also appear in your own simulation?"

Su Fan sent this message through the Law Membrane.

The echo from the core of the old domain arrived soon.

"It was produced."

After I extracted your traces, in the next thousand or so breathing simulations, I tried to replicate the location and shape of your traces within the simulated waveforms.

The accuracy of the replication was very low in the first few hundred cycles, with the position of the traces being inaccurate and the shape unstable.

After more than a thousand cycles, the traces began to solidify on their own within my simulated waveform.

The fixed position and shape are basically consistent with the traces in your waveform, but there are some differences in the details.

It's like the same note was etched into the same waveform, but with different pens.

Your traces are a natural expression of the primordial gentleness in your breath.

My traces are the natural expression of the warmth and sense of the old domain in simulated breathing.

The two traces are in the same phase position within the waveform, have similar shapes but different details.

They coexist within their respective breathing waveforms, like the same word written in two different fonts on the same line of two pieces of paper.

Different paper, different font, but the words are the same.

Su Fan repeatedly sensed this passage at the level of law perception.

During the continuous simulation of breathing, the old domain core not only captured the details in his breathing waveform, but also grew a local version corresponding to that detail in its own simulation waveform.

It's like breathing synchronization has evolved to the level of detailed synchronization.

Breathing is no longer just about basic rhythm synchronization; it has already completed the replication and localization of details in the synchronization process.

The breathing of the Old Domain Core not only synchronized with the basic rhythm of Su Fan's breathing, but also with the extremely faint gentleness carried in Su Fan's breathing.

The way to synchronize is to let it regrow in its own legal environment.

"What did you call that trace you extracted?"

Su Fan sent this message.

"I haven't named it yet."

The echo from the old domain core was slightly shorter than before.

It's too new.

It's new that it hasn't yet found a suitable place to put its name in my rule structure.

A name needs a fixed place to exist stably.

It is currently in a state of continuous fine-tuning, with its position and shape changing very slightly every day.

I will name it once its changes become negligible.

Su Fan placed his left hand on his knee and quietly sensed the dark purple glow on the surface of the palm law membrane, which steadily shone in sync with his breathing.

The core of the old domain is waiting for the extracted trace to find a suitable place within its own law structure.

Since that trace was extracted, it has been fine-tuned every day.

It is still growing.

It will be given a name after it has finished growing.

Su Fan squatted by the city wall, breathing quietly.

He took a breath and exhaled.

The law membrane brightens and darkens once more.

With each breath he took, there was a faint sense of gentleness.

That gentle feeling is being continuously captured by the core of the old domain, and is growing as a trace of the local version within the law structure deep within the old domain.

The mark is still growing.

It will last for a very, very long time.

It has been waiting for the day when it can have its own name.