Looking Back and Reviewing

Anchored Year 3, atop Mount Jieli. Li Fan, sitting cross-legged in deep contemplation, suddenly opened his eyes. His thoughts were in turmoil, unable to maintain composure. Exhaling a long breath, he slowly rose and walked out of the wooden hut. He approached the cliff's edge to gaze out at the sea of clouds. Mountain winds blew in gusts, whipping his robes with sharp snaps. Only after nearly half a day did Li Fan's mental state gradually regain its calm. Over the past three years, this scene had played out more than once. Unlike before, when Li Fan successfully used Trueness to return to Anchored Year 1 this time, the experiences of his past cycle still weighed deeply upon him. It was not a passive affliction like falling into the True Immortal's Web, but rather an issue within Li Fan's own mindset. Even with the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation protecting his body, he could not shake it off. Whenever his mind sank into stillness, amid pitch darkness, the image of Cat Treasure leaping up and devouring the figure of the True Immortal of the Immortal Ruins would uncontrollably surge from the depths of his memory. It would shock him into a cold sweat, throwing his mind into chaos and making it impossible to remain in meditation. "Cat Treasure, Cat Treasure..." Li Fan's eyes flickered as he repeatedly muttered the name. Cat Treasure clearly possessed three extraordinary abilities—item replication, lifeform simulation, and marrow-cleansing physique transformation—yet when it was caught from the fishing pond, it was merely of white quality. The fishing pond seemed to be the creation of an unnamed True Immortal who had comprehended the Dao of Fishing. And how could Cat Treasure, an entity capable of deceiving such a pond, possibly be simple? The fact that Cat Treasure fed on Source Power Essence also testified to its extraordinary nature. Yet neither the Holy Emperor, acting as a pawn, nor Li Fan, who considered himself the chess player, had ever imagined... Cat Treasure would turn out to be such a terrifying creation. Wherever immortal power reached, it was as if the True Immortal had arrived in person. Even if it was merely a phantom rather than the true body, with a casual gesture it had suppressed the "Immortal Descends, All Things Return to Void" grand formation that had pulverized the Xuanhuang Realm. In stark contrast, the three Supreme experts of the Star Sea could barely survive within that immortal formation even after exhausting all their strength. The gulf between a Supreme and a True Immortal could not be measured by conventional standards. And Cat Treasure, which had swallowed the True Immortal's phantom in a single bite... Its true strength was unimaginable. In his previous life, Li Fan activated Trueness just as the Immortal Ruins' suction vanished, the High Wall collapsed, and the Star Sea fell into turmoil. His instinct for survival had driven him to suppress the terror in his heart after the initial shock. Only upon arriving in this life did he truly recover his senses. And he felt a profound, lingering dread. Having once faced the True Immortal of the Immortal Ruins—even if through an avatar, and even if returning with Trueness carried numerous side effects—Li Fan had nonetheless succeeded in using Trueness. Thus, when the True Immortal descended in the previous life, Li Fan had been shocked but not panicked. He had remained vigilant without immediately using Trueness, hoping to pry into more secrets concerning True Immortals. He never expected that the descent of a True Immortal would coax out Cat Treasure's true form. The True Immortal of the Immortal Ruins, who could annihilate Xuanhuang with a single glance, had not even been able to react before being swallowed whole by Cat Treasure. If Cat Treasure had set its sights on Li Fan, how could he have survived? A hundred lifetimes of effort had nearly vanished in an instant, plunging him into eternal damnation. How could he not feel a lingering dread? "I thought I had been cautious enough." "The waters of the Xuanhuang Realm were basically charted, so I wouldn't need to fear as much going forward. Who knew that outside the High Wall, I would receive such a massive shock..." Ignoring the Trueness inheritance prompts that continued to flicker before his eyes, Li Fan returned inside the wooden hut. The room was filled with wooden carvings of small cats. They were varied in posture and lifelike in form, yet every single one was a half-finished piece missing legs or ears, making it impossible to discern the cat's original appearance from the statues. All of these had been carved by Li Fan's own hands over the past three years. He had not channeled any spiritual energy, crafting them purely by hand. Li Fan stared at them for a moment, selected another suitable piece of wood, and took up a rasp from the side. He began to carve with patient deliberation. Li Fan was using the method of reproducing the image in wood to confront the root of the fear within his heart, seeking to erase the lingering impact Cat Treasure had left on him. It indeed had some effect. The frequency with which he woke in shock from nightmares of Cat Treasure was far lower than three years ago. However, Li Fan knew well that truly resolving this inner demon would still take a considerable amount of time. He could also use this opportunity to thoroughly review and reflect upon past events. At the final moment of the previous life, the Star Sea was thrown into turmoil. The shockwave brought by the collapse of the High Wall caused many powerful cultivators who had survived the cataclysmic immortal formation to perish under the strain, reduced to ash. At that time, in the core of the immortal formation, Li Fan's divine fragment, drawing upon the formation's residual power, had faintly sensed that the Star Sea's upheaval was not entirely due to the collapse of the High Wall. There was also the sudden descent of some entity. Like a massive boulder plunging into a deep pool, splashing up countless waves, it stirred towering billows across the already tempestuous Pitch-Black Star Sea! This was a major upheaval unseen in the Pitch-Black Star Sea since the severance of the immortal road ten thousand years ago. In such a chaotic and perilous scene, Li Fan had indeed successfully activated Trueness thanks to his decisive alertness. Yet the vision he experienced during Trueness had undergone certain changes compared to before. This was the deeper reason why Li Fan had been unable to truly settle his mind over the past three years. A normal Trueness scene involved the surroundings growing dim and obscured, as if veiled behind a mist. Once Trueness took effect, all images would freeze, shatter, and fly entirely into his mind. When facing an overwhelming threat—such as when Xuanhuang was destroyed by a single glance from the True Immortal of the Immortal Ruins, or when the Faceless True Immortal tracked him down—those formidable beings could move within the frozen scene of Trueness. However, their movements were very slow, as though the inside and outside of Trueness belonged to different spacetimes. Yet in the previous life, the Trueness scene Li Fan experienced was entirely different. The scene outside Trueness seemed unaffected and remained frozen, but the mist-wrapped surroundings flickered from time to time, shifting between bright and dim like an old television losing its signal. At that moment, Li Fan's thoughts had gone almost completely blank. Lacking any means of countermeasure, he could only await the arrival of his final fate, like a convict awaiting judgment. Fortunately, Trueness had ultimately triggered successfully, and he, Li Fan, had returned once more to Anchored Year 1. When the incomparably familiar scenery appeared before his eyes, Li Fan had nearly collapsed, drenched in cold sweat. Thinking of this, Li Fan's rasp slipped, instantly ruining what had been an otherwise perfect wooden carving of a cat. Setting it aside, Li Fan took up another piece of wood and resumed carving, expelling all stray thoughts from his mind with absolute concentration. Only when a carving closely resembling Cat Treasure—yet missing two ears—took shape did Li Fan feel his heart settle significantly once more. He began to review the experiences of the previous life. The greatest gain of the previous life was naturally learning of Cat Treasure's existence and acquiring a concrete understanding of what lay outside the High Wall. Li Fan had once planned to see if he could cross the High Wall using the legacy left behind by Mr. Bai if the opportunity arose. Now, however, he temporarily shelved that thought. Terrifying though the world beyond the High Wall might be, its current impact on Li Fan was actually not very significant. After all, judging from Cat Treasure's actions, the only entities capable of catching its eye were at the level of True Immortals. Li Fan was still far too distant from the realm of a True Immortal. Because he was too weak, there was no need to borrow trouble. As for the origin of the terrifying Cat Treasure, based on the previous life's events, Li Fan had two hypotheses. First, Cat Treasure was originally a creation of the Nameless Immortal who created the fishing pond. It might even be an extension of that Nameless Immortal's power. The fishing pond and Cat Treasure were very likely not unique, nor were they distributed in only one place. Their mission was to search for the True Immortals surviving in the world. Once their traces were discovered, the Nameless Immortal would descend to devour them, just like the fate of the "fish kings" Li Fan had seen in the fish-anchoring pond in the Congyun Sea. Yet within this hypothesis lay a question. Something was devoured because it held value. A fish king was carved up because it had been nourished by the spiritual energy of the cultivators participating in the fish-anchoring contest, making it immensely tonic to other fish kings. For a Nameless Immortal who had already comprehended a path and achieved transcendence, ordinary True Immortals did not seem to possess much value worth devouring. "Or perhaps the true target is a True Immortal like the one in the Immortal Ruins, who has comprehended the Dao for ten thousand years and is on the verge of advancing. By devouring them, one can claim their comprehension of the Dao as their own, possessing a second, or even more, Daos..." True Immortals were already unimaginably distant, and records regarding Nameless True Immortals were practically nonexistent. Li Fan could only make reasonable deductions based on his past understanding of things. Beyond the possibility that Cat Treasure was an extension of a Nameless True Immortal, there was a second hypothesis. The reason Cat Treasure appeared in the fishing pond was that its target had been the Nameless Immortal who attained the Dao through fishing all along! The fishing pond scavenged treasures from the starry sky. Upon sensing its power, Cat Treasure disguised itself, took the bait, and voluntarily entered the fishing pond—all for the chance to find the Nameless Immortal behind it. As the saying went: the angler, too, may be hooked. Yet while waiting bored for its prey to bite, it had discovered another True Immortal, which could be considered an unexpected delight. Judging from Cat Treasure's expression at the end of the previous life, it did not seem picky about its food. It had appeared equally delighted by the emergence of the True Immortal of the Immortal Ruins. What the second hypothesis implied was far more terrifying than the first. After all, Li Fan had long known of the Nameless Immortal's existence. The realm of a Nameless Immortal stood above that of a True Immortal, so instantly slaying a True Immortal was only natural. However, if the second hypothesis proved true... it meant Cat Treasure was likely merely a vanguard— a hunter employed by a civilization outside the wall specifically to hunt True Immortals, or even Nameless True Immortals. Li Fan recalled the scene at the end of the previous life when Cat Treasure leapt upward toward the Immortal Ruins. "I couldn't perceive the specific conditions inside, but the gradual disappearance of the Immortal Ruins' suction is already enough to prove certain facts." "No shockwaves from combat emanated..." "The True Immortal of the Immortal Ruins must have been captured without being able to put up much resistance." The reason he used the word "captured" rather than "slain" was that Li Fan had distinctly felt the gradual disappearance of the suction from the Immortal Ruins. It was as if the source of the suction was slowly dragged into a quagmire, fading away bit by bit, rather than the suction vanishing in an instant upon the death of a True Immortal. "If this hypothesis is correct, then the collapse of the High Wall and the upheaval in the Star Sea were proof of the descent of the faction behind Cat Treasure to capture the True Immortal." "To be capable of producing a creation like Cat Treasure, that faction outside the High Wall must have developed to an unimaginable degree." "Capturing True Immortals must yield profit." "If True Immortals have any value, one is immortal spirit power, and the other is the Dao of the True Immortal..." As Li Fan pondered, he set aside the newly carved wooden cat. His mind grew a measure calmer. With his fear dispelled, another thought arose in Li Fan's mind: "Thinking carefully, discovering Cat Treasure isn't entirely a bad thing for me." "At the very least, I now possess a means to keep True Immortals in check. I have the capital to flip the table if things go sour," "rather than being forced to activate Trueness in disarray the moment a True Immortal descends, as I had to before." Li Fan's eyes flickered. "The only thing to watch out for is exposing Trueness." "Judging from the scene during Trueness at the end of the previous life, the civilization behind Cat Treasure actually possesses power sufficient to influence Trueness." "It wasn't like True Immortal power acting directly upon me to affect the triggering of Trueness." "Rather, it genuinely affected Trueness itself," "even if it was merely a slight fluctuation in the Trueness vision..." "If I want to borrow Cat Treasure's power, I will inevitably have to employ clones." At this thought, Li Fan frowned slightly. In the previous life, his true body had remained stationary within the Dharma Formulation Jade space, dividing into multiple entities to scheme in secret: the Holy Emperor clone, the Holy Embryo, multiple divine fragments... While nothing had gone critically wrong on the whole, slight losses of control had indeed occurred. For instance, the Holy Emperor clone had displayed a strong moral perspective. Although this had been an attribute Li Fan imposed upon him during creation, it had produced an irreconcilable conflict with the true body. Later, the clone had even severed contact with the true body entirely, cutting off the true body's perception and leaving Li Fan unable to learn certain details from the battle against Chuanfa and the Heavenly Physician. Furthermore, the mental stability of the divine fragments had been inferior to that of both the true body and the clone. Their emotional fluctuations were sometimes too violent, running completely contrary to the true body. Although Li Fan could completely control every word and deed of the divine fragments, he could not entirely prevent this loss of mental composure. Aside from the fact that a divine fragment was merely a wisp of divine sense and inherently too weak, Li Fan had also faintly realized the root cause of why the divine fragments split off in the previous life were so prone to emotional fluctuations: the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation! First, the Holy Embryo had taught the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation to the Qingxuan Army guarding the Chizha Abyss. Then the Holy Emperor had bestowed the Immortal Heart Incantation upon the Imperial Guards of Great Qi. The number of beings practicing this method exceeded a hundred thousand. At first, Li Fan had not thought that widely spreading the Immortal Heart Incantation would have any effect on himself. Yet facts had proven him wrong. The Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation had accompanied him ever since he stepped onto the immortal path. Through cultivation that had become second nature, it had subtly fused with his very being. Once he disseminated it to the outside world, the incantation's ability to maintain mental stability had been compromised accordingly.