Chapter 870: The Grand Path to Dao Integration
Chapter 870: The Grand Path to Dao Integration
To escape the Xuanhuang Realm, this sinking ship, the necessary technological expertise was, of course, essential.
Li Fan alone clearly could not achieve this.
Only by leveraging the existing achievements of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council, and then innovating upon that foundation, was there any hope of breaking the deadlock.
"I wonder how that Immortal Elects project is progressing."
"Even if the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance had ill intentions from the start, until the truth is revealed, they are still the highly anticipated Immortal Elects, the rising stars and hope of the Alliance."
"They should be able to serve as inside agents, at the very least."
With this in mind, Li Fan sent a reply to the Five Elders Council.
He didn't reveal the existence of the ancient stone slate, merely claiming that he had received an urgent notice: the rendezvous was at risk of exposure and had to be canceled.
Li Fan even urged the other party to investigate thoroughly, insisting they had undoubtedly been infiltrated by spies from the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance.
Though he had fabricated it on the spot, Li Fan wasn't concerned.
Spies, after all, were something one was bound to find if one looked hard enough.
Setting aside the matter of the Five Elders Council for the time being, Li Fan settled his mind, focusing his consciousness on the Five Elements Primordial Grotto-Heaven within his body.
He had previously believed this Five Elements Grotto-Heaven was a natural evolution of the Xuanhuang Realm and thus had nothing to fear from it.
But now, having learned from the ancient stone slate that it was the handiwork of the One Beginning Sect from thousands of years ago...
...with Li Fan's cautious and meticulous nature, he was compelled to inspect it again with extreme care.
Fortunately, his fears proved to be unfounded.
After a thorough examination, he found no lingering marks from the One Beginning Sect within the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven.
This brought Li Fan a measure of relief.
After all, the Xuanhuang Realm was a treacherous place; even the slightest potential threat had to be treated with caution.
"Now that the Nascent Soul is formed, the next step is to look toward Soul Transformation."
"The World Birthing Change..."
In a flash, Li Fan's mind recalled the scenes from his 115th life, when Mr. Bai had wandered the Xuanhuang Realm, merging its transformations into his own grotto-heaven.
Thanks to Mr. Bai, Li Fan knew by heart the vast majority of the usable World Birthing Changes that would occur in the Xuanhuang Realm over the next century.
"With the Sitting Immortal Technique and the continuous feedback of cultivation from the members of the Federation of All Worlds, I hardly need to worry about the accumulation process."
"The only real concerns are the existence of the Heavenly Disaster, and how to harmoniously accommodate several different World Birthing Changes."
After achieving the Nascent Soul stage through the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven, ordinary methods of reaching Soul Transformation no longer held any appeal for Li Fan.
He even had little interest in common Spirits of Heaven and Earth.
Too weak!
It wasn't that Li Fan's ego had inflated.
It was simply a matter of fact.
Although he had yet to unleash his full power, the boundless energy originating from the Five Elements Grotto-Heaven within him had already propelled Li Fan far beyond the scope of an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator.
Back in his Foundation Establishment days, he could rely on various stratagems to fight a Nascent Soul cultivator to mutual destruction.
Now, his strength had multiplied countless times over; crushing a common Nascent Soul would be no more difficult than crushing an ant.
Moreover, he possessed the Five Elements Annihilation Sword, the Seven-Colored Jade Void Gilded Light, and even the "Chaos" character technique.
Spirits of Heaven and Earth like Red Flame and Black Swamp would be no match for him.
Only an entity on the level of Ink Killer would make Li Fan feel even slightly troubled.
But even then, escaping unscathed shouldn't be much of a problem.
If this was his power at the Nascent Soul stage, how could Li Fan possibly content himself with a conventional path to Soul Transformation and Dao Integration?
He would be like Mr. Bai, absorbing every World Birthing Change into himself.
He would transform the Nascent Soul grotto-heaven into an inner world.
Then, he would usurp control over a multitude of the world's spirits, plundering the very source of the Xuanhuang Realm's power.
This was the most ideal method for exponentially increasing his strength.
Setting aside whether this would make him a match for the Dharma Spreader...
...Li Fan was confident that if he could truly reach that stage, he would, at the very least, never be at a disadvantage against an ordinary Longevity Immortal.
"Besides," he mused, "if I can really find a way out of the Xuanhuang Realm, my cultivation would absolutely stand peerless among those of the same realm in other cultivation worlds."
The cultivators of the Xuanhuang Realm, who devoured heaven and earth, were already a cut above those who followed conventional cultivation methods.
And Li Fan's path was several times more potent than that of an ordinary New Method cultivator.
The comparison would be an absolute rout.
However, the ideal was wonderful, yet a problem stood before Li Fan, demanding a solution.
Mr. Bai was, in essence, an incarnation of the Heavenly Dao's will. Taking the World Birthing Changes and the Spirits of Heaven and Earth was like using his own property.
Naturally, he encountered no resistance.
But who was he, Li Fan?
On what grounds would the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao permit him to do such a thing?
Ordinary cultivators practicing the New Method already incurred the heavens' jealousy and hatred.
If Li Fan truly proceeded as he envisioned, it would be tantamount to skinning the world alive, scraping its bones, and sucking its marrow.
He would become the sworn enemy of the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
With heaven and earth as his enemies, how could he possibly absorb their changes and spirits for his own use?
Even if he could forcibly absorb one or two, a violent backlash would be inevitable.
"Unless..."
A glint appeared in Li Fan's eyes.
For the well-versed Grand Preceptor Li, this was not an unsolvable puzzle. He conceived of a countermeasure almost instantly.
The reason the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao was so hostile toward cultivators...
...was simply that in order to cultivate, they had to plunder resources from the Xuanhuang Realm.
As long as this fact remained unchanged, there was no possibility of reconciliation between the two sides.
But now, the Xuanhuang Realm was at a definitive disadvantage in the struggle.
This presented Li Fan with a sliver of an opportunity.
And that was to switch allegiances—to choose to stand with the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
Li Fan vaguely recalled the time he brought Qian Hong's remains back from the Great Xuan Kingdom to the Xuanhuang Realm.
The death phenomenon, which should have appeared only once at the moment of his demise...
...had inexplicably occurred a second time.
And after he had done this, Li Fan felt as if some special change had taken place within him.
At the time, he couldn't quite grasp its significance.
But after so many years of poring over the secret scriptures of the cultivation world, Li Fan now understood the reason.
In the Xuanhuang Realm, such events, though rare, had happened before.
There were cultivators who, despite being forced by the changing principles of the world to practice the New Method, had led lives that were, on the whole, beneficial to heaven and earth.
For instance...
...helping to slaughter other New Method cultivators, thus accelerating the process of Returning Dao to Heaven.
Although in the eyes of other cultivators, such a person was an out-and-out demonic cultivator—a target for severe crackdowns by both the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council...
...in the eyes of heaven and earth, this was undeniably a very good person.
A good cultivator who stood on the side of the world!
Of course, this was just an extreme example. Besides slaughtering cultivators, mending the world's deficiencies or helping the Spirits of Heaven and Earth fulfill their duties...
...all of these could increase the world's favor.
Once that favor reached a certain level, when the cultivator perished, the world would still send down a phenomenon.
But it would not be one of schadenfreude.
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