"To spend two hundred thousand contribution points just to buy her statue, it seems this Jia Yiyuan was also rescued by this 'Savior Fairy.'
"He has decent cultivation too, and plenty of confidence in himself—unafraid of any tricks concealed in the statue...
"A pity for him, he crossed paths with me."
Li Fan sensed that the traces he had placed on the statue were gradually being purged, causing the sensory feed to blur.
Yet those measures had only been a surface layer.
His true connection to the statue lay in the quintessence of the Faceless True Immortal's source power.
That power stood far above the mortal realm; Li Fan had no fear that anyone could dispel it.
Though the vision was slightly blurred, Li Fan could still faintly make out the scene around the statue.
Jia Yiyuan arrived at a cave dwelling in Jiushan Province and sat cross-legged in a secret chamber.
With a solemn look, he muttered incantations under his breath.
Soon, an invisible ripple arose out of thin air, tearing open a spatial rift, and Jia Yiyuan strode boldly inside.
The connection immediately grew even fainter.
Only hazy silhouettes could be seen, accompanied by intermittent voices drifting through:
"Senior Zhou's identity was somehow exposed. Go investigate it."
"That shop seemed rather suspicious."
"Senior Zhou brought in several dozen more people recently. Who would have thought that after all these years, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals still hasn't given up hunting us down."
"An undeserved calamity? What's the point of dwelling on that now? No matter what, our feud with the Alliance is to the death!"
The speaker's voice dripped with bone-deep hatred, drawing a chorus of agreement.
"To treat the lives of fellow cultivators with such utter contempt, slaughtering them like weeds at will, without even caring about the truth... Those people are completely unworthy of the title 'Dharma Transmitter'!"
"That's right! Only someone like Senior Zhou is a true Dharma Transmitter!"
...
*Dharma Transmitter Zhou?* The information conveyed from the statue surprised Li Fan somewhat.
Among the Dharma Transmitters holding power in the Alliance mentioned in the intelligence Mo Rubin had provided, there had never been any such figure.
"No wonder Senior Zhou couldn't bear their atrocities back then and chose to part ways with them."
"Sigh, if she hadn't left the Alliance back then, perhaps she could have stood her ground and changed the Alliance's extermination order."
Multiple voices debated in succession, and through his eavesdropping, Li Fan pieced together the whole story.
As it turned out, five hundred years ago, this Dharma Transmitter Zhou had voluntarily left the Council of Dharma Transmitters due to irreconcilable differences in philosophy with Dharma Transmitter Jiang and the other leaders of the Alliance.
Though she had stepped down from the pinnacle of the Alliance's power, she remained a Dharma Transmitter after all, still wielding resources beyond ordinary imagination.
The refuge where these survivors were hiding was Dharma Transmitter Zhou's private pocket world.
*No wonder the Alliance hunted so relentlessly, scouring nearly every inch of land, yet still failed to find any trace of these survivors.*
*A Dharma Transmitter's private world is beyond their reach even if they wanted to search it.*
Li Fan pondered for a moment, deciding against startling the snake just yet.
Though he had uncovered a lead on the survivors, the involvement of a figure at the level of a Dharma Transmitter made him cautious.
Having suffered at the hands of Mo Rubin, Li Fan understood deeply that no one who could survive for thousands of years in the Xuanhuang Realm was to be taken lightly.
Let alone a being standing at the apex of the Alliance's power like a Dharma Transmitter.
"Still, if she truly is as she appears..."
"Then our positions might align. It could be worth attempting contact in private."
Based on the results of his investigations over the past five years, Li Fan was almost certain that Mo Rubin had fled that day with the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
This was not only because of the Alliance's bloody retribution afterward, but also because over these five years, the Heavenly Profound Mirror had suffered numerous malfunctions.
In the beginning, the trading module suffered an unexplained failure, causing anomalies in transaction amounts for millions of cultivators.
When cultivators sought an explanation to no avail, the Alliance simply announced the shutdown of the trading module.
Lately, another rumor had spread among the populace: that the cultivator residential spaces within the Heavenly Profound Mirror were going to be abolished as well.
This threw the cultivators of the Alliance into panic, sparking a desperate rush to snap up unoccupied cave dwellings across every province.
The price of cave dwellings in ordinary provinces practically doubled within three months, and even in a remote corner like the Congyun Sea, the same held true.
The Central Four Provinces were in an even greater frenzy.
Although the Alliance officials swiftly stepped forward to refute the rumor, they had issued similar public notices before the trading function was shut down.
Consequently, their denial only seemed to substantiate the rumors.
The prices of cave dwellings soared by the day, showing no end in sight.
*The clone of the Heavenly Profound Mirror once said that after escaping, he would leave behind a sub-body capable of handling most tasks in place of the main body.*
*Now it seems that, after all, it cannot compare to a true immortal artifact. Over time, all kinds of issues inevitably crop up,* Li Fan mused to himself.
*Or could it be that something happened to the true body of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, which in turn affected this replica?*
Li Fan soon dismissed this hypothesis.
The Terminal Dissociation Disc in his sea of consciousness remained completely unaffected.
*Over these five years, Mo Rubin and the Heavenly Profound Mirror have vanished from the Xuanhuang Realm as if into thin air, leaving not a trace behind.*
*Not just me—the Alliance has also been hunting for their whereabouts.*
*Yet neither has shown the slightest footprint.*
A seed of doubt sprouted in Li Fan's mind.
He even began to wonder if they had already departed from the Xuanhuang Realm.
*Their objective was to find the King of Profound Heaven.*
*If they are already in his hiding place, then that might explain it.*
*The King of Profound Heaven has been missing for so many years without anyone finding him. If he truly is still alive, he must be hidden in an exceedingly secret place.*
The crystalline Dao Transformation Stone in Li Fan's mind spun rapidly, synthesizing all the clues gathered over the past five years in an attempt to find some thread.
*Whatever exists must leave a trace. I refuse to believe you can hide for a lifetime.*
*If worse comes to worst...*
A glint of ferocity flashed through Li Fan's eyes.
Following his thought, an illusory projection of the Book of Transcending Calamity slowly materialized in the void before him.
Beyond its countless shifting silhouettes floated tiny rainbow-colored spheres of light.
Within the spheres, an unknown yellow substance seemed to flow sluggishly.
As if sensing danger, the Book of Transcending Calamity flipped and shifted at an extreme speed.
"Young friend, we can talk things through. Why stir up murderous intent again?"
A paper figure suddenly drifted out from the Book of Transcending Calamity, casting a wary glance at the rainbow orbs as it gently reasoned with him.
Li Fan offered a faint smile and paid it no mind.
The paper figure sighed and pulled a bitter face, seemingly long accustomed to this treatment.
Chapter 1049