At the same time, within the Great Yan Imperial City.
All around, twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty Buddha statues of the No-Life Buddha, the combined number of a full cycle, simultaneously bloomed with their magnificent Buddha's light.
The past Buddha's neck-mounted sundial pointed toward the morning, the present Buddha's sundial pointed to noon, and the future Buddha's sundial pointed toward evening.
A cycle encompasses twelve branches, each branch has thirty operations, each operation has twelve worlds, and each world thirty years, thus a full cycle is twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty years in total.
With the start of a new cycle, all things renew.
Cultivators believe that the world's history is such, starting and ending in a constant circle, ending and starting again.
It captures the essence of time's cyclical nature.