Chapter 1354: All Beings Comprehend the Immortal Truth
Mo Rubin gazed back at the boundary of the High Wall, a flicker of reluctance on his face.
But he was, after all, an unrivaled prodigy of the ancient cultivation world. It didn't take long for his composure to return.
Letting out a heavy breath, Mo Rubin spoke slowly. "Once, I was but a single step away from ascending to immortality."
"Brother Xuanyuan, despite being a half-immortal, rarely revealed his true strength to us. We mostly interacted as companions," he continued.
"It gave me the illusion that the chasm between mortals and immortals wasn't so vast."
"At least for me, it never seemed like an insurmountable abyss. But now... Hah..."
Mo Rubin's voice was steeped in melancholy.
“You never know how high a mountain is until you climb it, or how deep an abyss is until you stand at its edge. Even having been near the Immortal Ruins and felt the power of a True Immortal firsthand, how could that compare to truly reaching out and touching it ourselves? To be honest, the might of a True Immortal is far beyond what I ever imagined,” Li Fan lamented in agreement.
Mo Rubin hesitated for a moment, his eyes once again drawn to the distant boundary. "I can't bring myself to leave just like this. I think... I'll stay a while longer."
"I'll give it thirty days. If I've made no progress in that time, I will turn and leave immediately, and never again face this High Wall in my life," Mo Rubin declared, his tone a mix of determination and uncertainty.
Li Fan completely understood Mo Rubin's current state of mind.
To die after hearing the Dao in the morning. With the secrets of a True Immortal so close, even if they were invisible and intangible, who could simply glance at them and walk away? Especially when the mysteries of the High Wall held the key to escaping the Darkest Star Sea.
Li Fan's voice grew solemn. "In that case, I shall leave a phantom of my wooden sword to aid you!"
As he spoke, Li Fan dispatched a small sword shadow that enveloped Mo Rubin in its protective light.
"You're choosing to leave? You're not going to study it further?" Mo Rubin was taken aback.
"Heh, I am different from you, fellow Daoist. In your time, you were a figure on the verge of ascension." Li Fan offered a subtle compliment before sighing softly. "But I know my own limits. Even if I stared at it for a million years, nothing would change. I simply cannot fathom the secrets of the High Wall."
Mo Rubin was rendered speechless. He looked at the wooden sword phantom swirling around him, about to speak again.
But then he heard Li Fan's tone shift, suddenly becoming impassioned. "However, my temporary departure does not mean I am giving up!"
"If I, a man of humble ability, cannot do this, then why not let the entire world have a try!"
"Hmm?" Mo Rubin's eyes widened, thinking he had misheard.
"You intend to bring everyone in the world here to comprehend the Dao at the foot of the High Wall?" The idea struck him as absurd.
"Even with our strength, we struggle to survive this close. What chance would those with lower cultivation have? They would be crushed by the wall's power before they could even begin to comprehend anything."
Li Fan laughed, a carefree sound. "My eyes shall be the eyes of the world; my hands, the hands of the world. Where I stand, the world stands with me..."
"Through my body, I invite all living beings to comprehend the truth of this High Wall."
As his words echoed like a chanted scripture, another phantom emerged from Li Fan's body.
It shared ninety percent of the wooden sword phantom's aura, but it faintly resembled Li Fan himself.
Li Fan had separated a wisp of his divine soul and merged it with the phantom of his escape technique. He then used formations to amplify its sensations a thousandfold.
"I will leave this phantom here to comprehend the Dao with you. Meanwhile, I will return to the Xuanhuang Realm and share its perceptions with the world," Li Fan said with a smile.
Mo Rubin opened his mouth to object, but Li Fan continued, "Don't worry, I won't just announce the existence of the High Wall to the world, nor will I explain that what they are sensing is its flaw."
"I will simply synchronize my comprehension phantom's perceptions with theirs."
"A million people, a million minds. Each will offer a different answer. And even if none of them are correct, it will surely give us some inspiration," Li Fan said, his expression one of complete confidence.
"...That... is indeed a method," Mo Rubin conceded after a long silence.
"I'm off!" Before his voice had even faded, Li Fan's figure followed the wooden sword as it pierced through the Star Sea, vanishing from Mo Rubin's sight.
Mo Rubin shook his head slightly, putting Li Fan out of his mind for the moment. He focused, rested briefly, then once more directed the wooden sword phantom to approach the flaw in the High Wall and continue his exploration.
At that same moment, even before Li Fan's physical return to the Xuanhuang Realm, a dramatic change was already underway.
On the Lecture Stages standing in every small world within the Xuanhuang Realm, the transformation was sudden and profound.
The phantoms of the Sage Teacher, who had been lecturing day and night without pause, suddenly fell silent.
They gazed up at the heavens, a thoughtful expression on their faces.
Then, a tremendous roar erupted from the Lecture Stages.
The myriad beings of the small worlds, unsure of what was happening, began to buzz with confusion and unease.
Suddenly, beams of black light descended from beyond the sky. They streaked down the firmament, corrupting and staining it. In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the once-azure sky was dyed a deep, inky black.
The world was plunged into darkness. No matter how brilliantly the sun in the high heavens blazed, its light could not penetrate the suffocating gloom.
The small worlds became like the Darkest Star Sea, shrouded in an oppressive night.
Only the comprehension phantoms, standing eternally on the Lecture Stages, emitted a faint light.
They were the only source of brightness left in the world.
The mortals of these small worlds had never witnessed such a terrifying sight—light itself being devoured. They were convinced the end of days was upon them, and in an instant, they were consumed by terror and despair.
If not for the gentle glow emanating from the lecture phantoms, which saved the worlds from complete blackness, many souls might have taken their own lives out of sheer hopelessness in those first few moments.
And so, the lecture phantoms, radiating a world-saving light, became their only lifeline.
Before, only mortals aspiring to cultivate would journey to the Lecture Stages to listen. But now, driven by the primal instinct for survival, nearly every living being, like moths to a flame, swarmed toward the Lecture Stages at the center of their worlds.
The number of beings gathered beneath the stages grew and grew.
And the Lecture Stages expanded in response.
They swelled to a million times their original size, nearly encompassing the entirety of the small worlds themselves.
The people fell to their knees, begging the Sage Teacher phantoms above to save them.
The Sage Teacher phantoms remained motionless, silent.
The people pleaded, their voices raw with desperation, but as long as the Sage Teacher gave no response, they did not dare to rise.
Finally, a sigh filled with sorrow and compassion for all living things echoed across heaven and earth.
And with that sigh, the inky sky began to change.
The Sage Teacher phantoms flew toward the heavens.
An incomparably brilliant light burst from their bodies, momentarily illuminating the darkened world.
The figures of the Sage Teachers transformed into a great rainbow that filled the firmament.
It stretched across the entire sky, forming a barrier that faintly held back the encroaching blackness.
It was as if a luminous cloth had been draped over the world, making it a little brighter.
This gave the world's inhabitants a sliver of hope to live on.
They erupted in cheers, loudly praising the great name of the Sage Teacher.
But their celebration was short-lived.
It seemed that a new wave of roiling darkness was coming from beyond the heavens. Like a towering wall, it pressed down upon the sky.
The already faint light brought by the Sage Teacher was diminished by more than half.
The people were once again thrown into a panic, and the sound of desperate weeping echoed through mountains and plains.
On the luminous cloth of light, the resolute face of the Sage Teacher appeared.
He seemed to gather his final ounce of strength and charged toward the wall of darkness beyond the world.
He sought to shatter the darkness that threatened to destroy them all.
The collision between the Sage Teacher and the darkness was utterly silent.
In the end, the Sage Teacher vanished completely. As for the roiling wall of darkness beyond the world...
It seemed to have changed somehow.
The people stared intently at the point where the Sage Teacher's face had made its final impact against the wall of darkness.
In their minds, they seemed to hear the final message the Sage Teacher wanted to convey.
"The path to salvation lies within."
The people wept bitterly.
Faced with a world-ending crisis, some gave in to despair, abandoning all hope of survival.
But the vast majority did everything in their power to ponder the Sage Teacher's final words.
It was clear: the way to break the wall of darkness and save the world lay within that invisible yet tangible point created by the Sage Teacher's desperate strike.
Just as the beings on the ground tried to sense the specific nature of that point, something incredible happened.
The Lecture Stages left behind by the Sage Teacher emitted a faint glow, which drifted down and settled upon them. In an instant, they felt as if they had crossed the distance between earth and sky, arriving personally at the firmament.
As if they were truly there, they could feel the existence of that tiny point.
And so the people understood. This was the final method the Sage Teacher had left for them to save their world, and to save themselves.
For the sake of their own survival, the beings of the worlds unleashed astonishing potential. One by one, they quickly established a connection with the Lecture Stages, using their mortal bodies to comprehend the infinitesimal point within the wall of darkness.
...
A similar scene unfolded in every small world where a Lecture Stage stood.
The one responsible for it all, naturally, was Li Fan.
By now, Li Fan's true self had returned to the Xuanhuang Realm.
After using the power of formations to manifest an infinite darkness and seal the skies of the numerous small worlds, he felt the resisting force from their respective Heavenly Daos.
Although the power of a single world was negligible to the current Li Fan, dealing with the combined resistance of many worlds proved to be somewhat taxing.
However...
It was merely taxing, nothing more.
After some effort, Li Fan suppressed them all. In his plan, these small worlds were destined to be reabsorbed into the Xuanhuang Realm anyway, serving as nourishment for its evolution into a Super Xuanhuang Realm. The consciousness of these small-world Heavenly Daos would be devoured in the end.
Using formations, he connected these "nourishment" small worlds.
Li Fan observed the situation within them.
"From my experience, people only unleash their greatest potential when they themselves face a mortal crisis. If I merely asked them to help me comprehend it, without this sense of imminent danger, the efficiency would be much lower."
"This... this is very good."
Feeling the countless streams of comprehension from all living beings being synchronized through the Lecture Stages, Li Fan nodded with deep satisfaction.
The gap between a mortal and a cultivator was already like a celestial abyss, let alone the gap between a mortal and a True Immortal.
But it was precisely because True Immortals were so far above everything else.
In the eyes of a True Immortal, there was actually no real difference between a mortal and an ordinary cultivator.
Therefore, when it came to comprehending that flaw in the High Wall, there was no real difference between a cultivator and a mortal either.
"The advantage lies in the sheer number of mortals. The sample size is sufficiently large."
"Besides, during this time, under the subtle influence of the Lecture Stages, these small worlds have already begun to evolve toward becoming cultivation worlds. A good number of cultivators have emerged from among these people."
Li Fan analyzed the influx of comprehensions for a while and found that nearly all of it was useless. But he wasn't discouraged; this was only the beginning.
He created a fabricated personality through a formation, specifically to categorize and process these thoughts of comprehension from all living beings.
It would filter out the vast majority of useless information, preserving and transmitting only what was worthy of Li Fan's personal attention.
"This is just one part of the plan."
"I'm not truly expecting to unveil the secrets of the High Wall by relying on the vast sea of mortals."
"Ultimately, I will likely have to rely on myself."
Li Fan sensed the synchronized perceptions from his comprehension phantom at the remote edge of the Star Sea.
"The High Wall, a creation of a True Immortal. Studying it alone is proving to be quite difficult."
"Besides all living beings, I could also have those immortal artifacts help out."
"It's a pity I already fed the Immeasurable Mirror to the Xuanhuang Realm. If I gain nothing this life, I can consider trying that next time."
In truth, Mo Rubin's discovery of the flaw in the High Wall was a pleasant surprise.
Li Fan's primary goal at present was still to achieve Dao Integration with the Heaven and Earth Immortal Souls.
As for crossing the High Wall, there was no rush.
"Even if I do manage to decipher the secret of the High Wall, I will absolutely not risk my own life!"
"What lies beyond that wall is far too dangerous!"
The scene from his last life, of the Cat Treasure devouring immortals and the High Wall crumbling, flashed before his eyes again.
There was no fear left in his heart, only a cold snort as he suppressed these distracting thoughts.
With a single step, he arrived in the main Xuanhuang Realm.
He looked up, gazing at the sky.
Having received the Star Sea's promise, Li Fan could now connect with the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao with almost effortless ease.
Furthermore, the Heavenly Dao was no longer as indifferent as before.
There was a clear hint of ingratiation in its attitude.
"This Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao..."
Li Fan snorted, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Setting that aside for the moment, Li Fan began to use his connection with the world to gain a more detailed and specific understanding of the various changes occurring within the Xuanhuang Realm.
It was like a seriously ill patient undergoing a detailed examination before a major surgery.
Although Li Fan could investigate on his own, it was far more convenient and accurate to ask the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao consciousness directly.
While they communicated, Li Fan also continuously imparted some of the insights he had gained this life from the Star Sea's source true intent and at the foot of the High Wall to the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
He gave freely, with no intention of asking for anything in return.
This step was to increase his intimacy and bond with the Xuanhuang Realm.
Just as it is easiest to cultivate goodwill during childhood, Li Fan wanted to strengthen their connection before the Xuanhuang Realm completed its ascension.
This would make it easier to devour the Heaven and Earth Immortal Souls in the future.
(End of Chapter)
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