The Founding Patriarch's command token gradually shed its ancient traces, becoming fresh and crystal clear—like it had just been forged.
Quinn Shepherd studied the characters and runes, his expression odd. These were indeed Dragon-Han Era script—almost identical to the ones on Old Ox’s Jinwu General command token, with only a few minor differences.
Quinn had returned to the early Dragon-Han period and had encountered this script before. Though it differed from later writing, he could still recognize most of it.
The characters on the command token were a form of divine script—seal script, specifically bird-and-insect seal.
Within these characters lay mysteries of the Dao of Heaven and Earth. Some sects today that cultivate the Dao of talismans still use bird-and-insect seal, but compared to true divine script, there’s still a gap.
After all, the divine script from the early Dragon-Han Era is far too ancient—much of it has already been lost.
The two command tokens weren’t the same. The Jinwu General was a Heavenly Court officer guarding Jade Capital, and his token bore the raised characters for Jinwu.
This command token, however, used incised script and bore the words Feather-Guard.
"Heavenly Court Feather-Guard?"
Quinn blinked. "Which Heavenly Court’s Feather-Guard?"
There were three Heavenly Courts in the Dragon-Han Era—each likely had its own Feather-Guard. From the Founding Patriarch’s command token alone, it was hard to tell which court it belonged to.
The runes within the command token were a kind of command-law, used to order the gods.
Command-law was a branch of formation arts, extremely profound. Nowadays, very few people truly master it.
During the Everpeace Reform, even the Imperial Preceptor of the Everpeace Empire lacked knowledge of command-law. Luckily, Grandpa Blind—an expert in formations—came out of seclusion and compiled a full set of command-laws for Everpeace’s army.
"Why did First Senior Brother leave this command token behind? And where did he get it? He must have had a deeper reason! Maybe this token is actually from the Outer Heavenly Court! If I can figure out which court it belongs to, I’ll know the true identity of the Outer Heavenly Court!"
A sudden thought struck Quinn: "Could First Senior Brother have traveled back to the Dragon-Han Era too?"
He quickly shook his head. The command token was ancient—if First Senior Brother had traveled to the Dragon-Han Era and brought back this Feather-Guard token, it should look as new as Old Ox’s.
Its freshness now was only because Old Ox’s token had activated the runes and command-law inside, washing away the marks of time. But originally, it had grown old over countless years.
"Unless he traveled to the Dragon-Han Era and never came back."
Quinn felt a strange unease, but dismissed the idea—it was too absurd. If the Founding Patriarch never returned, wouldn’t that mean he was stuck in endless day or night?