Great Xuan Kingdom, Xuanjing, the Grand Preceptor Manor.
Li Fan held his wine cup and looked upon the hall filled with civil and military officials who had come to celebrate his birthday. Even though he had reached his seventieth year, he could not help but feel a swell of quiet pride.
After all, eight or nine out of every ten high officials of the imperial court were present in the Grand Preceptor Manor today! What a grand spectacle!
When he first crossed over into this world, he had been nothing more than a destitute scholar.
Over the course of fifty-odd years, he had risen from absolute poverty to become the Grand Preceptor, wielding supreme authority across the realm. The twists and turns of that journey were enough to fill a novel of millions of words.
With a life like this, what more could a man ask for?
Li Fan stroked his beard and drained the fine wine in his cup.
"Long life to the Grand Preceptor!" the gathered officials shouted in unison.
Li Fan's satisfaction deepened.
Just then, a chorus of startled, discordant cries broke out from outside.
"Look! What is that?"
"Fire descending from the heavens—an auspicious omen! A divine sign! Quickly, inform the Grand Preceptor!"
"Wait, why does it look like it's flying straight toward our manor?!"
...
Hearing the commotion beyond the doors, Li Fan furrowed his brow.
The lively atmosphere in the grand hall instantly fell silent.
Li Fan rose and took the lead, stepping outside.
Yet before he could scold the servants and voice his displeasure, the sight in the heavens captured his gaze.
Far across the horizon, two streaks of silver light trailed one another, hurtling forward with the speed of falling meteors.
"What in the world...?" Li Fan froze.
In the blink of an eye, the two streaks of light arrived directly above Xuanjing, only to halt abruptly in midair.
At the same time, a voice thundered down from above, detonating in everyone's ears:
"Dao Xuanzi! Do not push me too far!"
...
The crowd on the ground was struck with utter terror. Several people even fell to their knees, crying out toward the sky, bowing before what they thought were immortal masters.
Meanwhile, a term buried deep within Li Fan's memories—one he had nearly forgotten—suddenly leapt into his mind.
"Im... Immortal cultivators!" Li Fan stood transfixed, muttering under his breath, "How is this possible...?"
The two cultivators in the sky naturally cared nothing for the thoughts of the mortals below.
Another voice rang out: "Kou Hong! Did you truly believe I would let you go just because you fled to this land severed from immortality? Hand over the cultivation method you obtained that day, or this will not end until one of us is dead!"
"What a joke! I was trapped at the Foundation Establishment stage for nearly a century precisely because I lacked a method to form a core! My lifespan was nearing its end, and I was about to turn into dry bones! Now that I finally have this Core Formation technique, how could I ever give it away?!" Kou Hong sneered, his voice dripping with disdain.
"Indeed!" Dao Xuanzi sighed deeply. "The Great Dao of the Golden Core has room for only one of us. Though there are many methods to form a core in this world, there are far more cultivators stranded at Foundation Establishment!"
Dao Xuanzi's tone turned savage in an instant: "Since that is the case, with the method of longevity right before my eyes, how could I possibly let you go? How could I not push you too far?!"
Kou Hong burst into laughter. "Then let us fight it out! How laughable that after a hundred years of brotherhood, we now draw our blades against each other for a single sliver of a chance at life!"
Dao Xuanzi sneered and said nothing.
Kou Hong suddenly added, "I know I am no match for you, and I doubt I will escape alive today. But there are so many mortals gathered here—I wonder, will you be able to withstand an immortal-mortal miasma of such concentration?!"
Dao Xuanzi's expression instantly warped. "Kou Hong! What are you doing?!"
Kou Hong laughed maniacally. "Only fighting for a sliver of a chance!"
Listening to the conversation between the two cultivators overhead, Li Fan felt a dreadful premonition. But before he could react, a burst of crimson flame detonated high above Xuanjing.
*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Deafening roar after roar exploded by Li Fan's ears. A sheet of bloody red swept across his vision, and moments later, he lost consciousness.
...
Li Fan did not know how much time had passed before he woke.
At first, his mind was blank. Only after a long while did he recall what had transpired.
He coughed, spitting out several mouthfuls of fresh blood, and shakily scrambled to his feet to look around.
Night still hung over the world, but the once-magnificent Grand Preceptor Manor had been reduced to rubble.
The surrounding air was thick with the foul stench of charred corpses.
The civil and military officials who had filled the hall just moments ago were all dead, their bodies torn apart.
Even Li Fan's wives, concubines, and five sons had not been spared.
Li Fan's aged face was completely devoid of expression. His eyes were blank and hollow.
After standing in place for a long time, he dragged his battered body out of the ruins of the manor.
Xuanjing, which had been so bustling and prosperous just moments before, was now a hellscape of blood and fire. Everywhere he looked, there were shattered corpses and collapsed buildings.
Of the common folk who had suffered this catastrophe, likely not one in a hundred had survived.
All of this had happened because of two 'immortal masters' who had suddenly descended—two immortal cultivators.
Depleted of strength, Li Fan slumped against a crumbling corner of a wall.
His hearing had been completely ruined during the terrifying explosion earlier. Yet that no longer mattered.
At this moment, all he wanted to do was laugh.
How could there be immortal cultivators in this world?
From the very moment he had entered officialdom, he had used his authority to search for any trace of the immortal path.
Once he became the Imperial Preceptor, standing above all others, he had turned the entire realm upside down in his search!
North to the Frozen Sea, south to the vast ocean, east to the Ruins Abyss, and west to Mount Lianshan.
Across the entirety of Great Xuan, there had not been the slightest trace of an immortal!
Yet today, now that he was old and decrepit, decades after he had completely given up hope, two cultivators had descended from the heavens right before him, tearing everything he possessed to shreds without a word of explanation.
Was this what an immortal was?
And where did immortals come from?
His chest full of fury and unwillingness ultimately dissolved into endless bewilderment.
The mockery of fate!
Yet at the same time, Li Fan felt an immense sense of fortune.
He was fortunate that before he died, he had finally confirmed the existence of immortals!
Otherwise, once he began his next life, would he not have wasted another fifty years in vain?!
Indeed! How could a mortal like Li Fan rise from a humble, powerless scholar to become the Imperial Preceptor of the world without something to rely upon?
That was also the very reason he had managed to survive by a hair's breadth beneath the immortals' power.
*True Reversion!*
Li Fan chanted the words in his heart. Immediately, his surroundings dimmed, as though viewed through a thick curtain of water—hazy and indistinct.
*When truth is taken for illusion, illusion becomes truth.*
Seven glowing characters lit up in the darkness, then abruptly dispersed into a screen of light.
*Recharge complete.*
*Virtualize current scene and return to initial anchor point?*
Two lines of small text appeared in succession.
At the same time, images surfaced one after another, rapidly filling the entire screen.
They were the fifty years of Li Fan's current life.
Li Fan stared at the various depictions of himself across the scenes, standing motionless for a long time.
*True Reversion.*
That was the name Li Fan had given to the wondrous treasure he carried with him.
It possessed only a single function: to turn truth into illusion, and reality into emptiness!
Turning reality into emptiness meant converting everything Li Fan had truly experienced into a simulated illusion, allowing him to return to his initial anchor point—the very moment he had first crossed over into this world.
In truth, this life was already Li Fan's second.
In his first life, though Li Fan had held lofty ambitions, he was nothing more than an ordinary person. He failed the imperial examinations repeatedly and finally abandoned the idea of pursuing scholarship and officialdom after turning thirty. He ran a modest business, lived as a comfortable merchant, married, had children, and passed an unremarkable life. It was only when he was old, frail, and on the verge of death from illness that True Reversion finally awakened.
Only then had the Li Fan of this second life been able to ride the wind, rising with unstoppable momentum.
Unfortunately, it seemed he had directed his efforts toward the wrong goal.
After pondering in silence for a moment, Li Fan chose not to end this life immediately. Before doing so, he still had a few matters to settle.
Closing the light screen and returning to reality, Li Fan forced himself to rally his spirits and manage the aftermath of Xuanjing's devastation.
After gathering several survivors, Li Fan used the immense prestige he had built over decades to gradually calm the people's panic.
Though his ears could hear nothing, he could still find brush and paper. Communicating was troublesome, but it did not prevent his orders from being carried out one after another.
First, Li Fan ordered the trusted imperial guards garrisoned outside the city to rush into Xuanjing and maintain post-disaster order. Then, he dispatched orders to surrounding cities, requisitioning grain, provisions, and administrative personnel.
With most of Xuanjing reduced to rubble, Li Fan simply took up residence within the military camp once the garrison assumed control, overseeing the relief efforts from there.
Under his directives, resources and capable men poured steadily into Xuanjing from the neighboring cities.
Only after a month did the ruined city of Xuanjing regain a faint trace of human warmth.
Once Great Xuan Kingdom had finally caught its breath after the immortals' strike, Li Fan began commanding every region to gather intelligence on the two immortals who had appeared that night.
His inquiries covered where the two had first come from, where they had gone afterward, whether they had spoken along their path, and more.
Regrettably, after several months of investigation, the only clue unearthed was that the two cultivators seemed to have appeared from the direction of the Ruins Abyss to the east. Beyond that, the search yielded nothing.
The mutual destruction Li Fan had hoped for had not occurred.
*I shouldn't have expected such a thing to begin with,* Li Fan sighed inwardly. *Since that is the case, I have nothing left to linger for in this life.*
Standing within the newly built Grand Preceptor Manor, Li Fan activated True Reversion once more.
*Virtualize current scene and return to initial anchor point?*
Without hesitation, Li Fan chose yes.
On the light screen, countless vivid scenes froze simultaneously. Then, the grand political maneuvers and splendid riches of this lifetime shattered like fleeting dream bubbles, turning into streaks of falling light that surged into Li Fan's mind.
Memory after memory flickered past his eyes like a revolving lantern, finally settling on the image of the two immortal cultivators confronting each other high above the Grand Preceptor Manor.
"Dao Xuanzi. Kou Hong," Li Fan murmured their names softly. "Fifty years from now, I will be waiting for you right here in Xuanjing."
"Wealth and glory are nothing but drifting clouds to me." Li Fan's consciousness gradually grew hazy, yet his resolve and purpose became firmer than ever before.
"In my next life, I shall hunt immortals!"
The brilliance in his mind slowly faded, and Li Fan sank into a deep slumber.