Paying no heed to the peculiar looks from the crowd, Chang Ji respectfully performed a deep bow toward the heavens.
Then, turning into a streak of light, he flew away.
The words he spoke before departing immediately drew the attention of attentive cultivators.
Upon a thorough investigation, people finally discovered that this Chang Ji should have died completely a year ago.
While exploring a ruined sect in the wilderness, he had unfortunately triggered a protective formation, meeting an end where not even an intact corpse remained.
Over a dozen companions who had been with him at the time could testify to it—there was no faking it!
And now, this Chang Ji had actually come back to life!
The location of his revival happened to be the major river nearest to the place of his demise!
This alarming discovery swept through the entire Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals in an instant.
Soon, friends from Chang Ji's past sought him out one after another, wanting to verify the truth of the report.
Chang Ji made no attempt to deny it, either, openly admitting that he had returned to life.
"All thanks to the divine might of the Heavenly Venerable!" he did not forget to declare with utter devotion before everyone.
In the past, whenever cultivators in the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals spoke of the Heavenly Venerable, they inevitably meant the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable.
Yet now that it came from Chang Ji's lips, everyone knew he was referring to that Longevity Heavenly Venerable who had quietly inverted life and death.
Seeing that his friends and family remained somewhat skeptical, Chang Ji directly invited them into his Heavenly Profound Mirror space.
As was widely known, a Heavenly Profound Mirror space was bound to a cultivator; only the cultivator themselves could open it.
With the Heavenly Profound Mirror as proof, everyone finally believed Chang Ji's true identity without a doubt.
Rising from the dead—and by no means an isolated case.
This shocking news soon became known far and wide.
Over the days that followed, the appearance of more and more revived cultivators served to verify its authenticity.
According to collated findings, every single revived cultivator on the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' side reemerged without exception from the major river closest to where they had died.
Across the Immortal Alliance's territory, there were fifty-four such rivers of revival in total.
As for the Five Elders Association's side, there seemed to be a corresponding fifty-four.
These one hundred and eight rivers altogether formed the Rivers of Revival of the Xuanhuang Realm.
The time required for cultivators to revive appeared linked to their strength in life.
The stronger their cultivation realm, the longer the revival took.
The first batch of revived cultivators were, without exception, only at the Foundation Establishment stage or below.
As for how long higher-realm cultivators would need to revive, that remained to be verified slowly over time.
Upon reviving, they always appeared stark naked. The possessions they carried prior to death, even those stored within the soul, did not reappear with them. Still, escaping with one's life was already an immense blessing, so no one cared overly much about such worldly possessions.
The revived cultivators appeared to be the same age as in life.
However, after meticulous testing, it was discovered that the reborn body seemed one year younger than before death.
It was not just cultivators—as long as it was a living creature of the Xuanhuang Realm, death would see it revived from the river waters.
Thus, along the rivers of revival, people could constantly witness the bizarre spectacle of creatures clambering out of the water onto the banks.
A miraculous power within the river waters seemed to protect newly revived creatures, keeping them from drowning the moment they returned to life.
Yet once they left the rivers of revival, this power swiftly vanished. Even if they plunged back into the river, no trace of it could be found again.
***
The various wonders surrounding revival from death became the most intensely debated topic among the cultivators of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Some rejoiced, feeling that they finally had no fear of perishing in the future.
Others, however, began to worry that if no new living beings were born, the Xuanhuang Realm's future would look bleak.
Fortunately, a discovery soon dispelled these concerns.
In certain provinces of the Immortal Alliance, new lives were still being born after the Heavenly Venerable inverted the Principle of Life and Death. It was just that the numbers were extremely small—across the entire Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, fewer than fifty were born in a year.
Still, the conception of new life had not ceased entirely.
And even if life would not completely vanish from then on, an increase of fifty cultivators a year posed no great problem for the Xuanhuang Realm.
Soon, cultivators turned their attention to other crucial questions.
For instance, after dying once, could one revive again? How much time would a second revival take? Was there truly no limit on how many times one could revive?
With age decreasing by one year upon each death, was there a limit to this?
***
That utterly enigmatic Heavenly Venerable never stepped forward to offer an explanation from beginning to end.
Cultivators had to explore all of this on their own.
As these would become guidelines that had to be observed going forward, the cultivators naturally attached great importance to them.
Soon, under the orders of certain beings, some recently revived cultivators were once again forced to sacrifice their lives to probe the mysteries of revival.
Fortunately, knowing they could revive from death, and having been promised handsome compensation, these cultivators used as test subjects did not have many complaints.
After all, they had already died once.
After death, they had no conscious awareness anyway.
Close your eyes, open them, and you were a good fellow all over again.
On top of that, they could obtain rewards they would never earn in an entire lifetime alive, so why not?
Unraveling the secrets of revival would likely take some more time.
After hearing the news spread, Li Fan personally went to one of the rivers of revival to investigate for a long while.
In the end, he still could not discern any clues.
"Compared to the Manor of Rebirth from my previous experience, this lifetime's Dao of inverting life and death is clearly far more complete."
"To actually breed life out of thin air from the rivers..."
"Truly inconceivable."
The Principle of Inverting Life and Death had completely merged with the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao, making it difficult to distinguish on its own.
Even as someone proficient in formations, Li Fan could not detect any traces of the Grand Formation of Inverting Life and Death that he had seen before.
Worried that this Heavenly Venerable who had appeared out of nowhere might affect his grand scheme, Li Fan quietly contacted Dharma Transmitter Zhou, attempting to pry some inside information from her.
To his disappointment, Dharma Transmitter Zhou still gave the same answer as before—that she knew nothing about it.
"From what I know, your Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals has an agency called the Department of Heavenly Oversight specifically to monitor the principles of Heaven and Earth in Xuanhuang. It has been so long since this Heavenly Venerable successfully inverted the principle, yet you insist you have noticed nothing at all... Fellow Daoist Zhou, doesn't that seem a bit unreasonable?" Li Fan questioned in an unfriendly tone.
Dharma Transmitter Zhou smiled. "Your Myriad Realms Association truly is well-informed."
"Even confidential entities like the Immortal Alliance's Department of Heavenly Oversight cannot be hidden from you. However, I am not fobbing you off—I genuinely know nothing about this."
The smile on Zhou's face gradually faded, and her expression grew serious.
"Generally speaking, for a Dao Integration cultivator to succeed in inverting a principle, it is a gradual process."
"During this process, the signs of the principles of Heaven and Earth being warped and altered are quite obvious, which is why the Department of Heavenly Oversight was able to detect the impending emergence of the Longevity Heavenly Venerable."
"But this Heavenly Venerable Rebirth is different."
"His appearance was..."
"A bit too fast."
Chapter 1103