The Significance of Anchors

A deep black robe was embroidered with nine golden dragons twined around one another. Beaded tassels hung from his imperial crown, veiling his features and hiding his face from view. *He truly is the Destined Holy Emperor. Mortals can hardly hope to look upon his imperial countenance.* Feeling Li Fan's gaze fall upon him, Sun Erlang shuddered slightly and subconsciously lowered his head. At the same time, he said in a strained voice, "Disciple is incompetent, Master. Only yesterday did I barely break through to the first level of Qi Condensation." "Relying solely on the meager spiritual energy gathered within the imperial palace, completing the step of drawing Qi into your body in such a short time is no small feat," Li Fan said. Far from rebuking him, he nodded with words of comfort. Hearing this, Sun Erlang looked even more ashamed. "If not for the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation imparted by Master, I fear I would still be plagued by the miasma in my body, unable to step onto the immortal path." With that, Sun Erlang prostrated himself and kowtowed several times in deep gratitude. Li Fan did not stop him. Once Sun Erlang stood back up, Li Fan asked placidly, "How is the Imperial Guard's overall progress with the Immortal Heart Incantation?" "As of yesterday, a total of one hundred and sixty soldiers have successfully initiated their training and shed their mortal forms. The rest who failed the trial have all been disposed of cleanly." A flicker of reluctance crossed Sun Erlang's eyes, though he quickly masked it. "In the future, you shall be the main force of Our conquest across myriad realms. You must strive in your cultivation day and night, without the slightest slackening." "As for the shortage of spiritual energy, you need not worry. Three days from now, you will personally board this immortal boat and head to the eastern Ruins Abyss." With a flick of Li Fan's finger, a wooden boat a hundred feet long materialized before Sun Erlang. Intricate silver lines were carved across its hull, radiating waves of profound aura. *A genuine immortal treasure. To think Master would entrust such an item to me without hesitation.* Sun Erlang felt a jolt in his heart and hastily bowed to accept the command. The immortal boat flew into his arms, and a sensation of seamless, intuitive control instantly welled up in Sun Erlang's heart, as natural as moving his own limbs. "You may withdraw," Li Fan's voice rang out just as Sun Erlang was reveling in the wondrous craft. Sun Erlang bowed respectfully and took his leave. Li Fan was left alone in the imperial rear garden. Beneath the beaded tassels, his featureless face in the shadows looked bizarre and sinister. "Heh. If not for the fact that this life is destined to end soon, prompting me to simply experiment with imparting techniques to others, it would have taken me a long time to realize that the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation is exempt from the restriction that dharmas cannot be practiced concurrently." "Is it because the Immortal Heart Incantation does not fall into the category of cultivation arts, or is it a privilege granted by the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao to the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerable?" "Regardless, my future plan to select a suitable successor for the title of Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerable will be far easier to execute than I imagined." Li Fan's thoughts turned slowly. With a flicker of his figure, he appeared atop the Holy Emperor Throne towering over Xuanjing. Faint threads of spiritual energy nourished his flesh, preventing his current late Foundation Establishment realm from regressing due to a lack of Qi. Having cycled through over a hundred reincarnations, with his peak strength reaching the Soul Formation realm—rivaling Dao Integration cultivators—Li Fan had now returned to the Foundation Establishment stage. Yet the world in his eyes was entirely different from before. For instance, a mortal realm like Great Xuan was not entirely devoid of spiritual energy; after all, it remained connected to the Xuanhuang Realm. It was only due to the unique structure of this minor world, coupled with the blockade of the Immortal Severing Formation, that its spiritual energy had become vanishingly thin—practically nonexistent. Cultivators could not harness it through ordinary means. Only long-lived beasts, accumulating it drop by drop over endless years, could harvest limited amounts. Take, for example, that serpent thousands of feet long atop Mount Jieli. "Extracting all the spiritual energy of an entire realm is barely enough to sustain a single Foundation Establishment cultivator's survival..." "Borrowing some from the Xuanhuang Realm will do no harm, however." The Taiyan Boat Li Fan gave Sun Erlang had been retrofitted with new formations. Its purpose was to automatically fly into the Xuanhuang Realm, absorb and store spiritual energy, and then return. Naturally, Sun Erlang would not be able to see outside while inside the craft. All he needed to do was bring the boat to the edge of the Ruins Abyss. Given Li Fan's current mastery of formations, stealing spiritual energy from the Xuanhuang Realm beneath the shroud of his arrays would be virtually impossible to detect. Yet this was hardly a long-term solution. To generate spiritual energy out of nothing, he still had to rely on the Dao One Bug. The Dao One Bug was an extraordinary exotic beast, something Li Fan could not fabricate from scratch. However... Bypassing True Reversion's prompt to retain an option from his previous life, Li Fan looked at his status panel: Name: Li Fan Realm: Late Foundation Establishment Physiological Age: 20/399 Psychological Age: 1399/9999 Reversion Charging Progress: 3% Anchor Charging Progress: 0% Current Anchors: 3 Available Anchors: 1 Bound Items: Xuan Heavenly Mirror Origin (Fragment), Taiyan Boat, Ten Thousand Beasts Condensed Crystal, Essence-Blood of Ten Thousand, Dao Transformation Stone, Terminal Dissociation Disc ... "My physiological age has reverted to 399, the expected lifespan for Foundation Establishment, but that hardly matters. Long before my time runs out, I will have already used True Reversion." "As for the upper limit of my psychological age, even after breaking through to Soul Formation, it did not increase accordingly. It seems I have hit a bottleneck..." Li Fan merely glanced over these details before moving past them. He focused his attention primarily on the number of anchors and his bound items. Originally, he had two available anchors. After absorbing the nascent Five Elements Grotto-Heavens, that number increased to three. As for why only one remained available now, it was because Li Fan had used a blank anchor to replace a bound item. The *Golden Chapter of Thousand Mechanisms and the Jade Cosmos* had been replaced by the Xuan Heavenly Mirror Origin. The Step-Halting Broken Stele (Damaged) had been replaced by the Ten Thousand Beasts Condensed Crystal. Anchors had never been easy to come by. Yet through the process of absorbing the nascent Five Elements Grotto-Heavens to generate an anchor, Li Fan had gained a new understanding of their nature. Heaven and Earth wonders, Golden Core laws, and Nascent Soul grotto-heavens. The reason True Reversion required absorbing such things to serve as anchors was very likely because it was rounding out its comprehension of 'external things.' Much like how the Heavenly Profound Mirror achieved its own elevation by surveying Heaven and Earth, True Reversion simply devoured them in a crude, direct manner to assimilate experience. *So it is the exact opposite of what I previously thought.* *The closer something is to the essence of the world, the more charging progress it provides. Foundation Establishment wonders and Law Golden Cores are too insubstantial; they can hardly satisfy True Reversion's appetite.* *That was why the anchors generated from absorbing them were so limited in number.* *Conversely, Nascent Soul grotto-heavens, nascent transformations, and even the anima of Heaven and Earth yield massive amounts of charging progress.* *With a behemoth like the Xuanhuang Realm to feed on, the quantity of anchors is not something I need to worry about for now.* Consequently, Li Fan had utilized the anchor replacement function without hesitation. The Xuan Heavenly Mirror Origin was something he had obtained by chance in his previous life. As for the Ten Thousand Beasts Condensed Crystal... Before executing his world-ending plan in his previous life, Li Fan had visited various minor worlds to conduct a final inventory. The Ten Thousand Beasts Wheel of Transmigration was the harvest he had reaped from the Empire and Xu Ke. Li Fan's thoughts drifted back to that moment. "A sudden attack by the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals? The Federation headquarters has been destroyed?!" Upon hearing Li Fan's words, Qing's face turned deathly pale. "Had I not severed the link between the Spirit Wood Realm and your territory in time, the Empire would likely be reduced to rubble by now," Li Fan sighed softly. The Imperial Daughter and Hong exchanged a glance, their hearts filled with lingering terror. "You need not worry overmuch, however. Though the Spirit Wood Realm was destroyed, the vast majority of headquarters personnel escaped safely and have gone into hiding for the time being. Once the storm passes, the Federation can rise again in an instant," Li Fan coaxed them without blushing. Hearing this blatant lie, the Imperial Daughter and the others actually felt their hearts settle. While listening to their report on recent developments, Li Fan made his way into the Empire's treasury.