Chapter 1340: Ethereal Starry Sky Journey
"The footprints of our Xuan Shang Immortal Boat span the vastness of the Star Sea. If we truly want to find someone, they cannot escape, even if they flee to the most barbaric, remote corners of the cosmos." Jia Chu's calm tone was laced with an understated dominance and confidence.
Even Lu Yuzhi and the other elders of the Xuan Immortal Boat, listening from ten thousand years in the future, couldn't help but straighten their backs, a glint of pride in their eyes.
In the vision, the scruffy man from a millennium ago trembled slightly upon hearing those words and waved his hands hastily. "No, no, no. It's better to get all this troublesome business over with at once. I hate trouble more than anything!"
As he spoke, the scruffy man plucked a cucumber from thin air. He began munching on it with relish, his mind drifting back into memory.
"This thing... it was actually a gift from an injured man I kindly rescued back in the day. He gave it to me to show his gratitude for saving his life. Said it could act as a 'Warden of Calamity and Misfortune' or something like that."
"I didn't know what that meant, exactly. I just guessed it might be able to shield its owner from disaster in a moment of crisis, so I happily accepted it." The scruffy man paused, wiping the juice from the corner of his mouth.
"At least, that's what I thought. But a while back, those debt collectors nearly beat me to death, and this thing didn't do a damn thing..." the man added with a burp, a look of disgust on his face.
Jia Chu heard this and let out a soft chuckle. "So it's useless, and yet you're selling it to our Xuan Shang Immortal Boat?"
"It's not useless, it just doesn't save your life," the scruffy man corrected him.
But from Jia Chu's expression, it seemed he had never been particularly concerned with the profit or loss of this transaction; he had intended to purchase the effigy all along.
Lu Yuzhi sighed with emotion. "Jia Chu's way of doing things is the standard for an Immortal Boat merchant. For the Xuan Shang Immortal Boat that traversed the Star Sea in ancient times, spirit stones were nothing more than a string of numbers. Even a temporary profit or loss was hardly important..."
"What was truly important," Zhong Daogong's voice suddenly interjected from outside the small building, "was enriching the Immortal Boat's treasury. And, increasing our leverage against the True Immortals."
Before his voice had even faded, he had already appeared inside the room.
"Elder Zhong," the others greeted him with a bow.
Zhong Daogong nodded in return, but his gaze was fixed on the scene unfolding in the center of the room.
With Zhong's arrival, the recording temporarily paused.
"You actually have time to come over?" Li Fan asked with a smile.
As the First Elder of the Broken Immortal Tower, Zhong Daogong was in charge of all matters, large and small, aboard the Immortal Boat. He was certainly not as free as the other elders, who could drop by Li Fan's courtyard for a casual visit.
"While Yuzhi was looking through the records just now, I also discovered something interesting. Let's keep watching for now..."
The recording resumed.
At the conclusion of the deal, Jia Chu gave the scruffy man an additional five thousand spirit stones on top of the forty-five thousand they had agreed upon.
"Brother Jia, what's the meaning of this?" the man asked, though his hands moved without the slightest hesitation, quickly stashing the extra spirit stones away as if fearing the offer might be rescinded.
A placid smile graced Jia Chu's face. "I merely wish to inquire about the injured man you saved back then. If this effigy truly fetches a high price in the future, we might be interested in acquiring more. It's best to keep a channel open, to make things easier later."
With the spirit stones secured, the scruffy man became exceedingly agreeable. "Is that all? No problem!"
"Let me think, what was his name again? Right, Sun Piao Miao! He wasn't a native cultivator of our Xiaoyao Realm. He was from the Xuanhuang Realm, having crossed the starry void to get here. Just as he was about to arrive, he encountered a cosmic phenomenon, the 'Celestial Whale's Leap.' Though he narrowly escaped with his life, he was gravely injured and fell from the sky."
"If it weren't for my sudden act of kindness and taking good care of him, he absolutely wouldn't have survived in his condition," the scruffy man declared with a rather smug tone.
"Xuanhuang Realm... Sun Piao Miao..."
The vision flickered and ended abruptly with Jia Chu's soft whisper.
The name Sun Piao Miao, however, caused a stir among the Immortal Boat elders.
"That name... it sounds familiar. I feel like I've heard it somewhere before."
"Sun Piao Miao... Sun Piao Miao..."
In truth, the moment Li Fan heard the name, a jolt went through him as well.
Because Sun Piao Miao was the founding ancestor of the Xuanhuang Realm's Medicine King Sect.
Long ago, Sun Piao Miao had traveled through many realms, leaving behind a travelogue that recorded the coordinates of twelve other cultivation worlds. Among them were the Xiaoyao Realm and the Xuan Shang.
Li Fan turned to the newly arrived Zhong Daogong. "The interesting thing you mentioned... were you referring to this Sun Piao Miao?"
Zhong Daogong nodded and, with a gentle wave of his hand, conjured the phantoms of three items before them.
"According to the boat's surviving records, ten years after the effigy was traded, Sun Piao Miao paid a visit to the Xuan Shang Immortal Boat. He even joined the boat on its journey to pursue a cosmic phenomenon known as the 'Starfall Hailstorm'."
"The Starfall Hailstorm was one of the rarest phenomena in the Star Sea at the time. Countless enormous, ice-crystal meteors would roar forth from the depths of darkness like a tempest, smashing to pieces anything that stood in their way. The impacts would ignite dazzling sparks and icy mists, creating a terrifying storm of intertwined cold and heat that swept along its path. For a cultivation world, being grazed by even the edge of this storm would be a world-ending catastrophe," Zhong Daogong explained simply.
"Though the Starfall Hailstorm was exceedingly dangerous, a peculiar substance known as 'Abyssal Ice Dust' would often form at the core of the countless meteor clusters. It's said that a single speck of this dust could freeze an entire cultivation world of ordinary scale. And the shattering force unleashed when the ice exploded was said to have the power to split the heavens and earth."
"So, was the pursuit successful?" Li Fan, captivated, couldn't help but ask.
"There are no records of it on our Xuan Immortal Boat. However, I speculate that they did manage to find some Abyssal Ice Dust. Sun Piao Miao took a portion and left behind three items as collateral for the exchange. The rest... was likely taken by the Shang Immortal Boat later on." Zhong Daogong's tone was heavy with regret.
Li Fan wasn't surprised. After all, the Shang Immortal Boat had emerged as the de facto winner back then, taking almost all of the boat's near-immortal power with it. Based on Zhong Daogong's description, the explosive power of this Abyssal Ice Dust was not much weaker than that of a True Immortal; it was only natural that the Shang Immortal Boat would have chosen it.
The focus, then, was on the three items Sun Piao Miao had left behind.
"These items... I don't believe I saw them in the treasury of the Hundred Rumors Immortal Record before. Don't tell me they also went to the Shang Immortal Boat?" Li Fan asked with a frown.
Zhong Daogong chuckled. "Not at all. These three items are still in our Xuan Immortal Boat's collection. It's just that what you toured before was merely the surface layer of the treasury. These items should be on the second level."
Li Fan wasn't annoyed; instead, he teased, "It sounds like there's a third and fourth level too."
"The deepest is the third level. You know about the theft by an outsider back then. These are just necessary precautions," Zhong Daogong replied, his expression unchanging, showing no hint of embarrassment.
Li Fan didn't dwell on the matter and turned his attention to Sun Piao Miao's three relics.
Their style was remarkably similar to that of the hanging-armed effigy.
The first was a grey bird with a broken wing, but despite the injury, it still held its head high as if crying out.
The second was a three-forked tree. At the end of its branching limbs were not leaves, but countless miniature trees.
As for the third item, it was something Li Fan was very familiar with. It was a small cauldron, and in appearance, it was nearly identical to the Medicine King Cauldron of the Medicine King Sect!
"This Sun Piao Miao... he doesn't seem to be a supreme expert of any kind. Yet the items he gifted contain power that could contend with what lies beyond the High Wall..." Li Fan's tone was inscrutable.
Zhong Daogong said gravely, "The era in which Sun Piao Miao lived was one where the path to immortality was not yet severed. There are even records of True Immortals descending to the mortal world. Although the Immortal Boat's records of its travels with Sun Piao Miao suggest his strength was at the peak of Dao Integration, we cannot rule out the possibility that he was hiding his true power."
Li Fan nodded slightly.
But he did not voice his own suspicions.
That Sun Piao Miao could traverse the starry void alone and return safely was a testament to his formidable strength, there was no doubt about that.
But Li Fan was certain of one thing: he had not ascended to become an immortal.
Throughout the long, ancient history of the cultivation world, the records of everyone who had ascended from the Xuanhuang Realm had been inexplicably erased. No trace of them could be found.
This was the meaning behind the saying, "True Immortals have no name."
Perhaps only someone like Mo Rubin, a direct witness who lived through the transition between eras, could remember the story of Master Miao Fa, the ancestor of the Nine Refinements Temple, ascending and then falling, passing it down through word of mouth.
Firstly, the descendants of the Medicine King Sect never mentioned their ancestor Sun Piao Miao ascending to immortality. In fact, his ultimate fate was unclear. Did he die of old age, perish in an accident, or simply vanish without a trace? The records of Sun Piao Miao only continued until his return from his travels across the stars. After that, there was no more information.
Secondly, Sun Piao Miao didn't just exist in the records of the Medicine King Sect. Numerous texts in the Xuanhuang Realm mentioned this peerless expert who practiced medicine to help the world and founded the Medicine King lineage. The traces of his existence had not been erased.
"Back when Sun Piao Miao crossed the Star Sea, he intended to travel deeper, but he discovered something peculiar about the region of space where the Xuanhuang Realm is located and ultimately turned back..."
"Was it that he was unwilling, or unable?"
As Li Fan was lost in thought, Zhong Daogong spoke again. "These three items left by Sun Piao Miao are just like the hanging-armed effigy you selected before. Although the Immortal Boat has inspected them thoroughly and found nothing special, since they all came from this Sun Piao Miao, perhaps they too hide some secret..."
Li Fan didn't reply, but the other elders were growing restless.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go see them!"
Li Fan looked at Zhong Daogong calmly.
Zhong Daogong smiled faintly. "With your contributions over this period, I doubt any elder would object to you entering the second level of the Hundred Rumors Immortal Record's treasury."
Before long, Li Fan, accompanied by the elders, entered the second level of the Hundred Rumors Immortal Record.
Compared to the first level, this space was significantly smaller.
All the treasures were sealed within individual spheres of light. The spheres, in a myriad of colors, floated in the air.
The protective measures were not arrays, not restrictions, and not True Immortal script.
Li Fan squinted as he studied the countless treasure-filled spheres, sensing a faint trace of life emanating from them.
"These spheres of light... are alive?"
Zhong Daogong nodded in approval. "Your intuition is truly sharp!"
"That's right. Guarding the second level of the treasury is a marvelous lifeform: the Heavenly Star Light Lotus. Even back when the Star Sea was prosperous, this being was exceedingly rare. Its dreamlike radiance would cover most of a star domain, weaving itself into the shape of a fantastical lotus. When the flower bloomed, the star domain would be bathed in brilliant light; when it withered, the domain would plunge into desolate darkness."
"Whenever a world within the star domain faced destruction, a lotus seed would form within the blossom. This cycle has repeated for eons... and these spheres of light before us were formed in just that way."
Listening to Zhong Daogong's explanation, Li Fan could almost picture the magnificent, grand spectacle of the ancient Star Sea.
"The Shang Immortal Boat made off with quite a few treasures back then. This Heavenly Star Light Lotus is one of the most valuable items they left behind."
"The treasures are sealed within the lotus seeds and cannot be easily retrieved. If one were to try to take them by force..."
Zhong Daogong snorted coldly. "One would have to destroy the entire Heavenly Star Light Lotus! This spiritual being is parasitic to the Star Sea. It has survived countless calamities, its life still persisting. To destroy it would require nothing less than the power of an immortal!"
"Furthermore, we have tested it. Even with the power of True Immortal script, it cannot be broken through in a short amount of time." The elders of the Immortal Boat were clearly very confident in the protection afforded by the Heavenly Star Light Lotus.
A thought flashed through Li Fan's mind. "In my previous life, under the All Things Return to Void Array, this so-called Heavenly Star Light Lotus didn't seem to struggle for very long."
"Now, I don't even need to use an immortal array; my Nine Heavens Descending Dust Finger could shatter it. But destruction is easy. Retrieving the items preserved within the lotus seeds would indeed be somewhat difficult."
The Immortal Boat elders, oblivious to the dangerous thoughts running through Li Fan's mind, worked together to open the spheres of light that held Sun Piao Miao's three relics.
All eyes converged on the three treasures.
Li Fan's heart stirred. From the three-forked tree, he felt the same disturbance from [Truth] that he had from the hanging-armed effigy.
However, he kept this to himself and observed carefully alongside the elders.
The broken-winged grey bird and the second Medicine King Cauldron didn't seem to contain any special power.
"Warden of Calamity and Misfortune... it's akin to a projection of the Dao. Sun Piao Miao was truly remarkable."
"And he didn't pass this ability down to the Medicine King Sect."
Li Fan's eyes flickered as he suppressed the eager impulse from [Truth] to absorb the item.
"Everyone, have you discovered anything?" Zhong Daogong asked after a long period of observation.
"I can't see anything particularly unusual. But it's true, these things give me a very strange feeling." Lu Yuzhi's comment drew nods of agreement from the other elders.
If one were unaware of the three items' abnormality, a casual glance would reveal nothing amiss.
But observing them with prior knowledge, a sense of dissonance and incongruity began to well up.
If only one or two people felt this way, it could be dismissed as a trick of the mind.
But with over a dozen elders present all feeling the same thing...
It was certainly not something as simple as an illusion.
(End of Chapter)
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