Like a child who had just received a shiny new toy, Li Fan browsed the wealth of information within the Heavenly Profound Mirror to his heart's content.
His only regret was that the Dao Transformation Stone in his sea of consciousness was not of a high enough grade to record and preserve everything he saw and heard.
This was information that every cultivator guarded as the utmost secret, yet now it was laid completely bare before Li Fan's eyes.
And that was not all.
It also included the complete transaction history of every single resource that had circulated through the Alliance's market since records began.
A dazzling, boundless array that left him dizzy with wonder.
Even more valuable were the cultivation data records of all cultivators who trained with the aid of Spirit Enlightenment.
The cultivation efficiency of every single cultivator was laid completely bare before him.
...
The Heavenly Profound Mirror was like a boundless sea brimming with treasures, and Li Fan lost himself in its depths.
It was only a pity that the data contained within the Heavenly Profound Mirror was simply too vast. It was even expanding every single moment.
Mastering all of it was an impossible task.
All he could do was prioritize the most important records first.
Li Fan knew that the information he was currently browsing was certainly under the supervision of the Heavenly Profound Mirror as well.
Yet that did not matter. The vast majority of this information would not be used in this lifetime at all.
Instead, it would serve its purpose in every subsequent reincarnation across the Xuanhuang Realm!
The Heavenly Profound Mirror was like an endless sea, while Li Fan was like someone digging a canal along the shore, steadily drawing the seawater into himself.
Though progress was somewhat slow, it advanced steadily.
Li Fan kept the Lesser Heavenly Profound Mirror tucked against his chest, maintaining the steady retrieval of information.
Then, he quietly departed the Bamboo Sea cave estate and returned to the Spirit Wood Realm.
Only when the browsed information reached a certain threshold—nearly bursting the medium-grade Dao Transformation Stone within his sea of consciousness—did he slightly slow the recording process.
Afterward, he browsed the records regarding all Dao Transformation Stones currently held within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
"One Mother Stone fragment."
"Three supreme-grade, sixteen high-grade."
"Medium-grade... hmm?"
"There are no medium-grade ones?"
...
At first, Li Fan thought he had recorded the data incorrectly.
Yet after verifying it repeatedly, he found no mistake.
Reflecting for a moment, Li Fan instantly understood the reason behind this phenomenon.
Dao Transformation Stones all originally broke off from the Dao Transformation Mother Stone, and could merge with one another to advance to higher grades.
"Cultivators in the Alliance who command secret techniques involving the Dao Transformation Stone must have long since swept clean all Dao Transformation Stones in circulation."
"The moment a new one appears, they likely use every means at their disposal to seize it."
"Damn it, no wonder I couldn't buy one even with contribution points."
Li Fan's eyes flickered with thought as he inspected the roster of cultivators who possessed these Dao Transformation Stones.
At first glance, an overwhelming sense of absurdity surged within him.
"The bearer of the Mother Stone fragment is actually just an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator..."
As for the supreme-grade and high-grade Dao Transformation Stones, the identities of their holders recorded in the Heavenly Profound Mirror were also without exception Foundation Establishment and Golden Core cultivators.
Anyone with discerning eyes would immediately recognize that these identities were entirely fabricated.
"A commoner incurs guilt by harboring jade. Such supreme treasures are not something Foundation Establishment or Golden Core cultivators can possess."
"Such disguised identities might deter investigations by ordinary cultivators with ill intent."
"Yet as long as something exists, connections inevitably remain. Every trace and clue that ever occurred is faithfully recorded by the Heavenly Profound Mirror."
"How could they possibly escape my pursuit..."
At this point, Li Fan stopped bothering to put on an act before the Heavenly Profound Mirror. He pulled up the complete, detailed dossiers of all twenty of these shell cultivators.
From the moment they first accessed the Heavenly Profound Mirror to the present day, every transmission, every trading partner, and even their introducers were laid bare.
He then pulled the data on these secondary suspects.
Like a vast, layered web, it continually wove and extended outward.
By the time the relationship tier reached the fifth degree, over a hundred thousand cultivators were caught in the net.
"Among these, some can be directly ruled out."
Li Fan pressed his throbbing, overloaded temples, resting for a short while.
Then he resumed sifting through the targets.
Through repeated cross-referencing and elimination, he ultimately narrowed the list down to fewer than a hundred people.
Their cultivation ranged from Nascent Soul all the way to Dao Integration.
"Investigating them entirely on my own is still a bit troublesome."
"I'll focus on monitoring their recent movements in the Heavenly Profound Mirror first, then have Mo Rubin look into them secretly."
After a moment's contemplation, Li Fan had settled on a plan.
Nearly all hundred of these individuals held official posts in the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Attempting to investigate them as a lone cultivator was virtually impossible.
Without special connections, he might never even meet them face to face in his lifetime.
However, a top-down investigation backed by a Dharma Transmitter would naturally be far easier.
"Dao Transformation Stones are simply too useful. If the Taiyan Sect's Mother Stone hadn't already been digitized into pure information, I'd almost have been tempted to march right in and rob them in broad daylight."
Yet remembering that wisp of escaping white light during the apocalypse of his 115th lifetime, Li Fan cooled down and faced reality.
Someone capable of successfully escaping a True Immortal's world-cleansing catastrophe was clearly far beyond what the current Li Fan could handle.
...
Over the days that followed, Li Fan lived a remarkably full life.
The Terminal Dissociation Disc operated at peak efficiency, absorbing the core principles of the Array of Myriad Spirits Returning to Numerical Order and continuously deducing new formation possibilities.
The Dao Transformation Stone categorized and integrated the information gleaned from the Heavenly Profound Mirror, selecting the most valuable portions.
Li Fan himself wandered freely throughout the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
Like an invisible phantom, no one could see him, yet he could peer into the lives of everyone.
Their conversations, their cultivation, their transactions.
Cloaked beneath the veil of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, cultivators acted far more freely and uninhibitedly than in the physical world.
As a result, Li Fan witnessed a far truer portrait of sentient beings.
For instance, friends who called each other brothers one moment would immediately curse each other the instant they parted ways.
For instance, countless cultivators dreamed of striking it rich overnight, just like He Zhenghao had in the beginning. They scrambled for every conceivable avenue of "investment," only to end up losing everything down to their last cent. They swore solemn vows on the spot never to be so foolish again, yet the moment they saved up another sum of wealth, they could not resist temptation and threw themselves right back in, ultimately meeting the exact same fate.
And for instance, a considerable number of cultivators, having tested their hands at cultivation, concluded that their meager talent and crawling progress meant they would never accomplish anything great in this lifetime.
So they abandoned all grand ambitions, taking on only the simplest and safest tasks.
Once they earned enough to sustain their existence within the Heavenly Profound Mirror, they took up permanent residence inside and never ventured out. After all, the space within the Heavenly Profound Mirror was untouched by natural disasters, free of sickness and sorrow.
Stripped of burning desires, their lives were actually carefree and at ease.
...
Watching the vastly different lives of these varied cultivators, Li Fan felt his own state of mind quietly shift once more.
Chapter 1007