Chapter 1433: The Primal Possibility
Chapter 1433: The Primal Possibility
"Time flows ever onward. The Xuanyuan Village of old is long gone."
"I couldn't even find any clues about the 'Manifest' technique from the Dharma Spreader..."
"Perhaps the best way to track down the Xuantian King is to start with his childhood sweetheart."
Suddenly, myriad points of light flickered within Li Fan's sea of consciousness.
Within each speck of light, countless phantoms flickered past. This star-like expanse of countless lights played out simulations of different possible futures.
Yet, this immense scale of deduction didn't hinder the flow of Li Fan's thoughts in the slightest.
Such were the benefits of the upgraded Dao Transformation Stone within his sea of consciousness.
His computational power felt infinite. Even when he directed it to deduce the trajectory of all his past learnings toward immortal arts, simulate the future of his current life, and simultaneously sync with, analyze, and summarize every event occurring in the Land of Carefree Joy...
Li Fan even began to feel the stifling frustration of possessing immense power with no outlet to unleash it.
He had once tested himself with the Taiyan Sect's "Reverse Calamity"—a little game of restoring chaos to order, turning the random into the structured.
The number of elements was ten thousand times greater than the forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine sheets of paper Yi Yin had left in his tomb.
The difference in difficulty was astronomical.
Yet, after a mere moment, Li Fan solved it without the slightest difficulty.
With the computational power of the Dao Transformation Stone Mother, such problems of permutation and combination, regardless of their foundational complexity, could no longer pose a challenge to him.
...
As he mulled over these matters, Li Fan turned to Chen Tianhai and said, "Hasn't the Taiyan Sect always wished to see what lies beyond the High Wall? For those who are willing, I can create independent bodies to allow them to explore the world outside."
Chen Tianhai's interest was clearly piqued by the offer.
"Contact with the greater variables beyond the High Wall will also help stimulate the latent power of the Dao Transformation Stone Mother," Li Fan added. "It might even awaken the consciousness deep within it." This addition swiftly convinced Chen Tianhai.
Initially, the entire Taiyan Sect had been unaware of the consciousness hidden within the Dao Transformation Stone Mother. Only after Li Fan had pointed it out were they, having fused with the stone, able to "perceive" the concealed presence.
Through their strange connection with the Stone Mother, the members of the Taiyan Sect had come to believe this consciousness was benign. It had simply fallen into a slumber for some unknown reason. If they could find a way to communicate with it, they might uncover the mystery of the Stone Mother's origins and perhaps even trigger its further evolution.
Li Fan's proposal was an offer the Taiyan Sect simply could not refuse.
Chen Tianhai gazed at the scenes from the Land of Carefree Joy, images of the world beyond the High Wall.
To obtain the most accurate information possible about the world beyond the High Wall, Li Fan had altered the way dreams were generated there. Now, they were based entirely on the real environment, stripped of all fabricated and illusory elements.
After dozens of iterations, the Land of Carefree Joy was no longer the creation of Wuyou, or even Li Fan. It had become a collective entity, born from the consciousness of the countless beings within the dream.
Now, this behemoth had crossed the High Wall and was slowly exploring the world beyond.
The Darkest Star Sea within the High Wall was merely a small fraction of the Annihilation Zone.
In the vast remainder of that zone, however, the Dao Annihilation Calamity had scoured away the very concept of "existence." The dream's tendrils extended outward, following a narrow corridor just beyond the High Wall.
Everywhere they passed was utter desolation.
Yet, looking back toward the location of the Darkest Star Sea, they found nothing. A part of the tendril was still connected to the world within the wall, but it was impossible to sense it from the outside.
The eerie sensation was like a part of one's own body having inexplicably vanished.
Li Fan directed a portion of the dream's tendrils to continue exploring the periphery of the Annihilation Zone, while the rest attempted to cross back over the High Wall and return to the Darkest Star Sea.
Unable to perceive the High Wall from the outside, they could only follow the thread of their own existence, tracing their way back to its vicinity.
Yet no other point of contact could penetrate or even find the wall. The only way back was through the original breach the dream had created—the single point that still linked the inside and the out.
"The hidden, profound nature of the High Wall's outer face far surpasses what can be seen from within."
Li Fan had no intention of abandoning his exploration of the High Wall.
Endless dream tendrils began to spread outward, following the path of the initial breach.
Like creeping ivy, they densely covered the area where the High Wall stood.
Though they couldn't yet fully pinpoint the High Wall's existence, Li Fan was confident. With countless beings in the Land of Carefree Joy working to comprehend it, aided by the research capabilities of the Dao Transformation Stone Mother, he believed that, step by step, they would ultimately unravel its secrets.
Leveraging the Land of Carefree Joy, Li Fan sent a thread of his own divine sense out beyond the High Wall.
Uncertain of what he might encounter, he proceeded with extreme caution.
Fortunately, the process went smoothly. His half-immortal divine sense gazed upon the High Wall, perceiving something different from what the myriad beings of the dream could see.
In the space where the dream's tendrils saw only emptiness, Li Fan faintly perceived a sharp, gray protrusion.
It resembled a long, narrow cone, or perhaps simply a line segment.
It stretched silently across his vision, piercing through space itself.
It seemed to be holding something up, yet at the same time, connecting something.
"Was this the High Wall?"
As Li Fan observed it in silence, an indescribable feeling welled up within him.
He scanned his surroundings. This small area near the High Wall was all that had survived the Dao Annihilation Calamity.
Beyond this pocket of survival, existence itself had ceased to be.
Li Fan could almost see it—the terrifying scene from ages past, the calamity descending, the Great Dao itself being crushed.
Vast swathes of light in the boundless sea of stars winked out, one after another, without warning.
Darkness consumed the cosmos.
The end of an age had come.
Only the High Wall had served as a bulwark, allowing this small region to struggle and survive the Dao Annihilation Calamity.
And now, ten thousand years later, the High Wall still stood firm, maintaining the very concept of "existence" in its vicinity.
"If the High Wall were to collapse..."
According to Li Fan's deductions, even if the Dao Annihilation Calamity never returned, the "possibility" of this region would slowly dissipate, and it would eventually suffer the same fate as its surroundings, fading into nothingness.
Observing the ruins left in the wake of the Dao Annihilation Calamity, Li Fan gained a clearer understanding of the terrifying cataclysm that could obliterate the Immortal Realm and even the mortal worlds with all their inherent possibilities.
"It didn't descend all at once."
"Instead, it came in waves, intermittently."
"The Immortal Realm, being of a higher order, was the first to be struck when the Dao Annihilation Calamity arrived."
"In the beginning, the Immortal Realm might have been able to withstand the initial outbreak. But in the end, a final, ferocious wave caught it completely off guard, utterly engulfing it."
"With the fall of the Immortal Realm, the calamity began to spread to the lower worlds."
"After that great wave, the calamity seemed to enter a low tide to gather its strength. As a result, the star seas of the lower realms, far weaker than the Immortal Realm, were only partially destroyed, and much life still survived."
...
With his ample computational power, Li Fan's ability for deductive reconstruction had been qualitatively enhanced. Synthesizing all the clues he possessed, he could extrapolate various possible truths from nothing more than the ruins in the Annihilation Zone.
Li Fan began to perceive a pattern to the Dao Annihilation Calamity.
If his hypothesis was close to the truth, then the complete destruction of the "possibility" he currently inhabited was not far off.
"To the Dao Annihilation Calamity, ten thousand years is by no means a long time, but it certainly isn't short, either."
"Perhaps the black miasma, triggered by the fall from a high state of being, is a sign of the calamity's approach."
"It's like ripples on the surface of water—they only appear after something has fallen in."
"The manifestation of this black miasma means the tide is beginning to rise. The waters are spreading."
As Li Fan pondered this, a sudden tremor of apprehension struck his heart.
The formless pressure seemed so immense that even [Truth] was unavoidably affected.
Forget the true Dao Annihilation Calamity; right now, Li Fan couldn't even survive within the black miasma it produced.
"Perhaps the power of the Heavenly Spirit, Ink Death, could offer some leeway."
Li Fan didn't know what had happened to this Xuanhuang Realm experimental site. It was as if, overnight, all personnel involved had either vanished or died.
Leaving behind only ruins.
"The High Wall might have been an emergency protective measure, created as a contingency when this testing ground was first designed."
"But as time passed, and the Dao Annihilation Calamity truly descended, the measure was activated... yet the personnel in charge were nowhere to be found."
"Leaving only us test subjects behind, filled with alarm and suspicion."
Li Fan cast another deep look at the High Wall before, an instant later, recalling his divine sense to his body.
With Li Fan's guidance providing a trail to follow, the dream's tendrils began to spread with abandon, growing along the surface of the High Wall.
Even though he had now seen the High Wall and deduced its likely origin, Li Fan still understood very little about its underlying principles or how to overcome it.
He could only continue to analyze it, piece by piece, in the time to come.
"An Immortal Realm testing ground."
"An Immortal Domain chess piece."
Images he had once seen within an Immortal Domain chess piece surfaced in Li Fan's mind.
On the board, black and white pieces stood in formation.
The victors remained; the vanquished left the board.
The piece left behind by Sun Piao Miao was merely one of the dismal failures.
Yet even so, it had contained a treasure like the Southern Heaven Immortal Pillar.
It was difficult to imagine what sort of power and resources the pieces that ultimately remained on the board must have possessed.
"More importantly..."
"Why would the Immortal Realm have only one testing ground like the Xuanhuang Realm?" The question suddenly surfaced in his thoughts.
From the stunning, fleeting glimpse he'd once had, the Immortal Realm was boundless.
It truly deserved the description "infinite."
The so-called Immortal Domains were countless.
Even an unorthodox power like Sun Piao Miao had prepared numerous backup pieces. It was hard to believe that the vast Immortal Realm, if it were to plot something significant, would rely on only a single plan.
"My perspective has been too narrow."
"Even after advancing to a half-immortal, I possess the realm and status but lack the substance. Without the baptism of immortal spiritual energy, my thought processes inevitably fall short of a True Immortal's."
"But with the Dao Transformation Stone Mother to fill that gap, it was like a sudden enlightenment, allowing my thoughts to expand and diverge."
"There is no reason to believe there's only one testing ground in the star seas of the lower realms."
"Viewed this way, the abandonment of the Xuanhuang Realm made perfect sense."
The Dao Annihilation Calamity had ravaged the cosmos, annihilating most realms. Only a few scattered ruins remained, propping up pockets of survival within the Annihilation Zone.
They were like scattered sandbars in a vast river.
"Even that vibrant place beyond the High Wall is likely nothing more than a slightly larger island."
"The cosmos is vast, but obscured by countless Annihilation Zones, its true face hidden. It's only natural for those in isolation to believe their home is all that exists."
"But I, with the Dao Transformation Stone Mother, can glimpse the whole from a single corner..."
Within Li Fan's mind, a panoramic map of the possibility he inhabited was slowly being completed.
The vista it depicted was truly boundless. The vast Darkest Star Sea was but a negligible speck upon it.
Most of the map, however, remained in a state of constant, flickering flux. There was simply too little data to confirm whether these regions truly existed.
Only one point remained constant and bright, immune to the shifting phantoms: the Darkest Star Sea within the High Wall, where Li Fan himself resided.
"The cosmos of all possibilities shines only because of my existence."
"I'll call this possibility I inhabit the 'Primal Possibility.'"
The thought crossed his mind with a quiet finality.
Sooner or later, his power would allow him to leap to other possibilities.
There was no harm in defining his own position now.
However, the most pressing task was to make contact with the civilizations of the Annihilation Zone.
Even with the beings of the Xuanhuang Realm as a foundation, Li Fan found the expansion of the dream's tendrils too slow for his liking.
Ten years ago, he had already enacted laws to encourage population growth.
But a decade had yielded only limited results.
"I can't rely on that in the short term. It seems I'll have to find another way."
Feeling the vast, idle computational power in his sea of consciousness, an idea began to form.
An idea had come to him long ago, while visiting the [Era] device in the Museum of Divine Treasures.
The countless worlds simulated by the Dao Transformation Stone were so illusory they seemed real.
If the stone itself were continuously strengthened, these simulated worlds would one day become indistinguishable from reality.
"Perhaps this thought arises precisely because the Stone Mother is the manifestation of all the Great Daos within a single possibility."
"Theoretically, every world that has ever appeared within the Stone Mother is completely logical and real."
"It is like a pre-made mold; one need only pour the material to produce a physical object."
"If my understanding of the True False Transformation reaches a higher level, I won't need to fabricate worlds from scratch. I could simply take the possibilities once simulated by the Stone Mother and make them real, saving considerable effort."
Li Fan's eyes gleamed. "But all I need are consumables to help build the Land of Carefree Joy. It doesn't matter if they exist in the real world or not."
As the thought took shape, new Xuanhuang Realms began to form within the Dao Transformation Stone in his sea of consciousness.
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