John was too stunned to listen to the golem as he instead continued to stare at the scenery before him. He had expected to arrive in a somewhat familiar looking location, a field, a building, an underground cavern.
Instead, he found himself floating within a void. Not standing, but floating. He wasn't using his Qi to fly, was not standing on anything physical, nor was he falling down through this void. It was as if gravity didn't exist here, filling him with a bizarre feeling he had never felt before.
The void all around him swirled with a millions streams of colors, its radiance so beautiful that he was nearly brought to tears. All the colors of the universe seemed to exist within this place, this void, and the streams of colors flew outwards in all directions, some brushing past him swiftly, yet gently.
He stretched his hand out to feel one of the streams of colors, and felt a soft energy brush against his hand. The stream was a dark blue color, and it felt icy to the touch. A bright red stream flew past him, and he touched that one, which was hot to the touch.
He almost seemed to recognize these streams. They reminded him of the Dao's of Ice and Fire. And he seemed to recognize other streams as well, which reminded him of the thousands of Dao's he had seen throughout his cultivation journey.
But there were millions of different streams. Tens of millions of streams. Countless streams.
If the streams were somehow representations of the Dao's, then just how many Dao's were there. And how was something able to create so many Dao's in one place. John felt his mind go numb with the thought.
Millions of streams of colors spread outwards, many John had never seen before, or never imagined could exist. He turned around within the void, to look where the streams of colorful light were going.
He saw the streams of light spread out for a while longer, before stretching upwards, downwards, or to the side. The streams then looped back and returned to the center of the void, the source as far as John could tell.
The change in directions seemed to form a cocoon several thousand yards wide, made of the myriad of colors he could see. The cocoon doubled back towards the center of the void, where the cocoon stretched down towards the very center, which was glowing brightly, as if it contained the energy of the stars themselves. The shape of the cocoon reminded John of a donut, but one that was more spherical than flat.
In fact, other than the ridges at the top and bottom of the cocoon that were formed by the energy returning to the source at the center, the cocoon he was in was truly almost a perfect sphere.
John took in the sight with wondrous awe, and he stared firmly at the center of the world he was in. The center was too bright to make out, blindingly bright in fact, which made him squint to avoid the pain he felt in his eyes and soul.
His divine sense spread out towards the bright center, but it was instantly rebuffed, unable to move forward at all. The streaming lights of energy pushed back against his divine sense, gently, but firmly, making him unable to observe what was at the very center of this beautiful yet bizarre world.
"What is this place?" John asked, finally remembering the artifact spirit golem was next to him.
"The core of the world," the golem said.
John recalled the golem saying that while he had been stunned, and so he asked a different question.
"Then what is that at the center?" he asked, pointing to the bright core of the world. He could tell that whatever it was, it was the source of this realm. It was most likely the treasure that had been mentioned time and time again by the Divine Source Monastery and the golem, but he still had no idea what it was.
"That is this world's seed," the golem replied evenly, "the World Dimension Seed."
The name was incredibly lofty, but it felt right to John for some reason.
"What is a World Dimension Seed?" John asked, digging for answers. "And what is this place? It's the core of the world, but what does that mean? Are we really at the very center of the world?"
"Yes. And no," the golem replied. "If you were to try and find the physical location of this place, it would be found in the very center of the world. But you would not be able to access this place from there. The only method to access this place is through the transportation formation at the base of the World Tree. The World Tree formation is the only way to reach this dimension, which exists physically at the center of the world, but is its own dimension, the world dimension," the golem explained to John.
He had not been expecting such a thorough explanation from the artifact spirit. Whenever he asked an expert for information regarding something profound, they always replied vaguely. This was a breath of fresh air for John, as he realized that his reaching this place most likely allowed the golem to explain all these things to him.
"And the World Dimension Seed?" John asked, repeating the other half of his question.
"The source of the world," the golem replied. John tilted his head to the side questioningly, wanting more concrete answers.
The golem continued as if noting his confusion.
"The bright center you see before you is the World Dimension Seed. It is the core of the world, the lifeblood of the world. The origin of the world," it started explaining. "Every world that has ever existed or will exist starts with a seed; the World Dimension Seed. This seed occurs naturally, formed by the heavens itself, and from the seed sprouts the world around it. It is the source of every single thing you see in this world, from the start of its past, to the end of its future."
John opened his mouth, stunned to his core. He had never expected such a thing existed, or that the object before him was the very source of the world he lived on.
"How can such a thing exist?" John mumbled in disbelief, squinting at the bright World Dimension Seed in the distance. His eyes went wide with realization. He had already assumed the bright source to be the reward of the trial, but after hearing what it really was, he couldn't possibly believe that to be true.
"The reward of this realm…is it…?" John's voice trailed off.
"Should you be deemed worthy, and should you be capable of obtaining it, then this realm's reward, the World Dimension Seed, shall be yours."
