Swept along by the shockwave, Li Fan felt like a withered leaf caught in a gale, hurled backward uncontrollably until he was pushed hundreds of li away before finally managing to steady himself.
Fortunately, the shockwave was merely grand in spectacle and lacked real destructive force.
It was as if the power had been carefully reined in, stirring up only a colossal wave that traversed the entire Congyun Sea without causing any other devastation.
It felt very much like heavy thunder with little rain.
Yet Li Fan did not dare underestimate it in the least. Such consummate control over power only underscored the terrifying might of those involved.
The lock of his Formless Killing Intent had vanished. Clearly, that unfortunate cultivator had perished in the clash between the two titans.
However, Li Fan did not retreat; instead, he advanced, flying once more toward the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
Before long, the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace came into view again.
Yet the massive, translucent blue structure was now tainted with a layer of pitch-black.
Above, dark clouds converged as thunder rumbled without pause.
A colossal vortex formed over the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace, threatening to swallow this ancient sect that had only recently been unsealed.
The entire expanse of the sky trembled. The sprawling buildings tilted, slowly collapsing toward the center of the vortex.
Faint, anguished, and furious wails seemed to echo from within the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
Yet none of it could alter the reality of its gradual disappearance.
After a long while, this ancient sect, which had reappeared in the world for barely five years, vanished once again from heaven and earth.
Immediately afterward, the thick, lightning-laced black clouds slowly dispersed.
Between the sky and the ocean, a tranquil scene of clear skies and gentle breezes soon returned.
"The Cloud Water Heavenly Palace has been resealed? This never happened in my previous life."
"Was it because of the statue of the Heavenly Physician that I sent in?"
In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Li Fan's mind.
"Does this mean that in the previous life, Sikong Yi pocketed the small statue for himself and never sent it into the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace?"
"Would he really be that daring? Relying on the Stealing Heaven and Changing the Sun Technique because he wasn't afraid of dying?"
"No, there's another possibility: the Heavenly Physician never gave the white jade statue to Sikong Yi in the first place."
"Yet he gave it to my Lin Fan clone..."
"If that's truly the case, did he see through something?"
The eerie, terrifying scene of everyone within the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace howling in unison surfaced in his mind once more, filling Li Fan's heart with mounting suspicions.
"Just what did the Heavenly Physician do to make everyone in the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace harbor such bitter hatred toward him...?"
Li Fan recalled the scene from when he first met the Heavenly Physician.
"I am merely an old man who ought to have died long ago."
"...Let this statue accompany them in my stead..."
When the Heavenly Physician had spoken those words, his wistful expression and deep sighs had seemed utterly genuine.
Yet the more Li Fan thought about it, the more a chilling dread crept into his heart.
"In any case, this old man called the Heavenly Physician is far too dangerous. His strength exceeds my previous estimates. My clone has already entered his sight, so my true self must never establish any connection with him."
"This world is not some unchanging game after all. An inadvertent action can often trigger countless unforeseen consequences."
"From now on, I must be even more cautious."
"And then there is that sword..."
"Just how many secrets are hidden within this Congyun Sea?" Li Fan sighed, losing any desire to wander further, and hurried back to Wanxian Island.
Inside the Heavenly Profound Mirror, he searched for information related to the "Heavenly Physician" and the "Master," but found only recent discussions among cultivators.
There was not a single shred of valuable information.
Li Fan was not surprised.
Over the following period, Li Fan resumed his leisurely life on the island.
Whenever he occasionally spotted a cultivator on the island who was on the verge of breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage, he would lock onto them with his Formless Killing Intent, using the connection to comprehend and accumulate the true intent of Foundation Establishment.
From time to time, he also took on tasks to accumulate contribution points.
He intended to exchange them in the Heavenly Profound Mirror for a wonder of heaven and earth to recharge True Reversion and unlock the second anchor.
As for how to specifically use the second anchor, he already had a rough plan in mind.
The specifics would have to wait until after it was unlocked.
Dull cultivation was not the entirety of a cultivator's life.
The vast majority of cultivators were not madmen who trained twenty-four hours a day like Zhang Haobo.
They had their own recreational hobbies.
In the Congyun Sea, the most popular of these was undoubtedly fish picking.
On the northwestern fringe of the Congyun Sea stood an isolated island surrounded on all four sides by sheer cliffs.
Seawater flowed upward along the cliffs and converged at the center of the island, forming a lake.
Every month, when the accumulated water in the lake reached its peak, it would spout skyward, scattering the seawater back into the ocean.
At that moment, countless fish would be swept upward, soaring into the air.
Among them, there was always one fish that leaped the highest.
Many years ago, a passing cultivator witnessed this bizarre spectacle by chance and was struck by a sudden whim.
He refined all the other fish in the lake into pure essence and fed it to the fish that had leaped the highest.
That fish underwent a transformation, growing as powerful as a demon beast before returning to the sea.
Ever since then, more and more fish gathered in the lake on that isolated island.
Later, this cultivator had a dispute with a close friend over the ownership of a treasure.
Remembering this place, he proposed that each of them choose a fish from the lake to represent them.
Whichever fish leaped higher on the day the lake erupted would determine who won the treasure.
His friend found the idea amusing and agreed.
Their wager drew the attention of several meddlesome cultivators, who put up wagers of their own and joined in.
They even established rules for this fish picking: arrays were set up around the island to prevent sea beasts of extraordinary strength from straying in by mistake.
Participants had twenty-seven days to observe and select their preferred fish. Three days before the eruption, the choices were finalized and could no longer be changed.
Winner takes all: whoever's fish leaped the highest would win all the treasures wagered by the other cultivators.
And if someone was fortunate enough to select the fish that leaped the highest among all the fish in the lake, it was considered the jackpot, and their payout would double.
Participants had to rely solely on the keen observation of their own divine sense to select their champion, and using spiritual energy to enhance the fish was forbidden. Anyone caught cheating would be executed by the rest of the cultivators.
Once it concluded, all the other fish would still be refined into essence and fed to the "Fish Champion."
...
In the end, the fish chosen by that original cultivator only took second place, and he lost the treasure.
Yet he felt no remorse, believing he had simply made an oversight and had already grasped the secret trick to it.
So they agreed to return two months later for another contest.
The other cultivators enthusiastically agreed.
In this manner, the "fish-picking lottery" gradually drew more and more cultivators into the fray.
Later, as the crowds swelled, the rules were tweaked slightly.
A prize pool was introduced.
Each time wagers were placed, half went to that round's rewards, while the other half was funneled into the prize pool.
First place was the grand prize, while second through tenth places were runner-up prizes.
The grand prize took half, while second through tenth places split the other half equally.
If someone managed to pick the overall Fish Champion, they would sweep all the rewards.
At the end of each year, the accumulated prize pool was emptied in a single payout, producing a massive grand jackpot.
Chapter 123