Chapter 829: Seeing Senior Sister Zhao Again
"The Medicine King Valley from my past life was nothing compared to this," Li Fan mused.
"This wood-attribute grotto-heaven alone could fuel the rise of a major power."
"And that's not even mentioning the other four elemental grotto-heavens."
Li Fan felt a surge of satisfaction, having arrived in the Xuanhuang Realm early and snatched this discovery right from under the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance's nose.
After a brief tour, he visited the other four grotto-heavens in turn: fire, earth, metal, and water.
Li Fan had spent a considerable amount of time in the water-attribute grotto-heaven before.
But he now realized that what he'd seen back then was a pale shadow of its true self, practically stripped bare.
Unlike the present, where beneath a vibrant, teeming sea, countless species of fish thrived and multiplied.
The entire expanse of the ocean was saturated with inexhaustible water-attribute spirit herbs and ores.
The metal-attribute grotto-heaven was a vast, boundless subterranean world, crisscrossed with veins of rare minerals and inhabited by metallic life forms.
The fire-attribute grotto-heaven was much like the fire world behind the Great Li, though its nature was not quite as savage.
The earth-attribute world, meanwhile, was a panorama of endless, rolling mountain ranges.
...
As Li Fan completed his cursory tour, a sense of satisfaction mingled with a new, pressing question.
The Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven was simply too vast.
If he hoped to devour it with his Golden Core cultivation to break through to the Nascent Soul realm, it would be a monumental task.
It would likely take three to five years, at the very least.
And that was assuming no one else discovered it, he remained undisturbed, and the grotto-heaven itself didn't fight back.
In truth, once a place reached the scale of the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven, even if it wasn't technically a "small world," it was practically indistinguishable from one.
Li Fan vividly recalled how, in the past, when they had attempted to redeploy the Heavenly Profound Spirit Locking Array to envelop the entire grotto-heaven...
...they had suffered fierce resistance from the grotto-heaven's consciousness.
It had generated countless bizarre, unkillable monsters and launched a ferocious assault.
Even with Lin Ling at his side, he doubted they could withstand such an onslaught.
"Biting off more than I can chew, it seems," Li Fan mused, his brow furrowing slightly.
Difficult as it might be, there was no way Li Fan would abandon the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven.
His own cultivation progress wasn't the main concern.
The priority was preventing the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance from getting their hands on it.
Doing so would introduce an unwelcome variable into the current conflict.
"I'll have to come up with a plan before I reach the peak of the Golden Core realm. If all else fails, I'll just have to chip away at it slowly and patiently."
He lingered in the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven for a few more days. Only when his meeting with the Five Elders Council drew near did Li Fan finally depart.
"With the help of two Dao Integration cultivators, I might be able to move the entrance to the grotto-heaven. But the commotion would be immense, and I'd risk being discovered by the Alliance," Li Fan considered as he re-concealed the entrance before leaving.
Once again relying on Lin Ling, they journeyed through the earth's veins. The trio soon returned to Jiushan Province in complete silence.
As they left the earth veins, Li Fan sensed a rare wave of reluctance emanating from Tianyang.
"Tianyang's puppet body was forged using the Ground Fire Return to Origin Array. It seems the power of the earth's veins holds a special benefit for him."
"I'll have Lin Ling take him around more often. The power of the Xuanhuang Realm's earth veins is so immense; I'm sure the ancient earth vein tree won't mind him borrowing a little."
With this in mind, Li Fan gave Lin Ling the instruction. Lin Ling was quite fond of Tianyang and readily agreed.
Upon reaching a different location, Li Fan crushed another jade talisman, sending out a ripple of energy.
Before long, Yu Dayi hurried over. This time, he didn't arrive with a large entourage; only one other person accompanied him.
The moment Li Fan laid eyes on this person, alarm bells screamed in his mind.
Though he was certain they had never met, Li Fan felt an intensely familiar aura coming from the stranger.
The answer was on the tip of his tongue: this person was one of the many incarnations of Senior Sister Zhao!
This time, however, Senior Sister Zhao had not appeared in female form, but as an exceptionally handsome young man of about fifteen or sixteen.
"This must be our friend from the Federation of All Worlds, I presume?" the youth asked, looking at Li Fan with a smile.
His eyes swept over Li Fan, as if trying to peer through every layer of secrecy.
A shiver went down Li Fan's spine, but he remained outwardly calm despite his shock.
Senior Sister Zhao had countless bodies, and this one was merely at the Soul Transformation stage. Besides, not even a Celestial Venerable could be truly omniscient.
So Li Fan wasn't worried about having all his secrets laid bare with a single glance.
He collected his thoughts, and after a moment's consideration, Li Fan narrowed his eyes and decided to go on the offensive.
"Heheheh, to think a Celestial Venerable would grace me with her presence. What an honor!" he cackled, a strange smile spreading across his face as he stared at the youth.
The smile on the young man's face froze instantly.
Only then did he truly give Li Fan a serious look.
Yu Dayi, who stood beside them, apparently had no idea of his companion's true identity. He froze, a look of confusion on his face, when he heard Li Fan's words.
But he was a native cultivator of the Five Elders Council, and it only took him a moment to put the pieces together.
He whipped his head around to look at the youth. Seeing the playful smile now gracing the boy's lips, his expression turned to stone.
An uncontrollable tremor ran through his body.
"Oh my, you saw right through me."
"How fascinating. It seems your little Federation of All Worlds has some real substance to it."
"I wonder... would you welcome a humble girl like me into your ranks?"
The young man chuckled, but his tone was that of a coquettish woman, laced with seduction.
It should have been a chilling sound, but Li Fan felt no discomfort whatsoever.
"Heh, funny you should mention it. I was just thinking I'd like to join your Great Dao Sect," Li Fan retorted without missing a beat.
Far from being annoyed, Senior Sister Zhao just giggled. "If we were to... merge... I suppose that wouldn't be out of the question..."
Listening from the side, Yu Dayi broke out in a cold sweat, his legs threatening to give out from under him.
He cursed himself for not being deaf, forced to listen to a Celestial Venerable's utterly unfiltered words.
In his mind, he immediately reclassified the Federation of All Worlds and Li Fan to the highest possible tier: "absolutely not to be trifled with."
Li Fan gave an awkward laugh, choosing not to respond to the proposition.
He quickly changed the subject back to business. "Do you have what we need?"
Senior Sister Zhao tossed over a piece of Origin Magnetic Mother Stone.
Li Fan expertly caught it and, after a quick inspection, confirmed it matched the list he had provided down to the last detail.
He stowed it away.
"Aren't you worried I might have done something to it?" Senior Sister Zhao's voice suddenly turned hauntingly soft.
"You've always been forthright, Senior Sister. You're not one for such petty tricks," Li Fan replied.
At that, the expression on the youth's face changed completely.
"Since you came in person, Senior Sister, I'll give you another piece of top-secret information, free of charge."
"Samantabhadra True Leaves can be used to craft divine boats. They can travel through the white mist, nullifying its life-draining effects," Li Fan added via voice transmission.
Then, without waiting for a response, he was enveloped in a green light and vanished on the spot.
Yu Dayi didn't dare to move a muscle.
"A girl's heart is a difficult thing to guess, you know."
Only Senior Sister Zhao's soft chuckle remained, echoing in the silence a moment later.
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