"An exquisite concealment method. Only in the eyes of someone intentionally searching for these items and knowing a secret might be hidden within will their anomalies show themselves. But in the eyes of anyone else..."
"They are merely ordinary objects." Everyone present came to a tacit realization.
"If Brother Li hadn't chanced upon the secret within that figurine, our Celestial Vessel might not have discovered anything strange about them even after another thousand years," Lu Yuzhi remarked with a sigh.
"The problem now is that merely knowing they are peculiar doesn't give us a way to decipher the mystery."
"Hehe, what's the rush? If we can comprehend even the True Immortal seal characters, can we really be stumped by a few mere trinkets? Is this Sun Piaomiao stronger than a True Immortal?" The elders of the Celestial Vessel possessed great confidence in themselves.
And indeed, their talents were not to be underestimated. After seven continuous days of collective examination, someone truly discovered something abnormal about Sun Piaomiao's relics.
"Everyone, look closely at this small cauldron." The speaker was Mo Yinfeng of the Severing Immortal Tower, who was usually taciturn and focused solely on his own research.
"Previous surveys and appraisals conducted by the Celestial Vessel deemed it a superior-grade alchemy treasure. It even comes with a grotto-heaven space capable of generating spiritual energy and cultivating spirit plants on its own. However..." As Mo Yinfeng spoke, he unleashed a seal character for "Reveal," enveloping the Medicine King Cauldron.
As if plunged into a haze of bewitching light, distinct lines—some thick, some thin—emerged from the mist surrounding the Medicine King Cauldron.
Tearing through space, they flew off in different directions, vanishing from everyone's sight in an instant.
"This is... The Medicine King Cauldron isn't a unique piece? It still maintains a connection to things out in the star sea?!" Upon seeing this, the other elders of the Celestial Vessel all changed countenance slightly.
Li Fan also narrowed his eyes. Among everyone present, only he recognized that one of the misty lines streaming from the Medicine King Cauldron led straight toward the direction of the Xuanhuang Realm.
As for the others...
"The vast majority flew into the Great Wall of Remnant Worlds. But two or three pointed toward somewhere in the Pitch-Black Star Sea!" One function of the seal character for "Reveal" was to bring to light the mutual connections between all things.
Under the illumination of the "Reveal" character, the secret the Medicine King Cauldron had concealed for ten thousand years was finally exposed.
"If I'm not mistaken, Sun Piaomiao must have forged numerous Medicine King Cauldrons back then. These cauldrons formed a unified whole, bound by a mysterious connection. Even across half the star sea, they can still sense each other's existence." Zhong Daogong stared into the air, as if he could still see those lines that had already dispersed.
"Judging by the records of Sun Piaomiao's words and deeds during his time on the Celestial Vessel, he once traversed the star sea far and wide. The scope of his travels was on par with, if not broader than, that of the Celestial Vessel itself. Forging this Medicine King Cauldron could not have been easy, yet he deliberately scattered them across various parts of the star sea... One of his purposes might have been to anchor his own location using their positions," Mo Yinfeng said at an unhurried pace.
"I fear it's far from being that simple. After all, the calamity of world destruction had not yet erupted at that time, and the positions of the cultivation realms across the star sea were relatively fixed. If he merely wanted to avoid losing his way, there were far too many simpler methods available. Why go to such extraordinary lengths?"
"Indeed. If I remember correctly, beacon coordinates for various realms were hardly state secrets back then. Since Sun Piaomiao could already traverse the star sea, obtaining accurate beacons wouldn't have been difficult for him." The elders buzzed with discussion, while Mo Yinfeng simply listened in silence.
Only after the elders quieted down did he give a soft cough, his tone turning somewhat ethereal. "If it was merely to explore the known star sea, such trouble would naturally be unnecessary. But what if it was to travel beyond the Great Void?" At these words, the expressions of the group turned varied and complex.
"The Great Void?" This was a term Li Fan had never heard before. His bewildered expression was genuine as he looked toward the contemplative Zhong Daogong, seeking an answer.
After musing for a moment, Zhong Daogong explained slowly, "In those days, the footprints of the Xuan-Shang Celestial Vessel spanned every explored star realm. Even the barbaric fringes at the furthest edges of the sea of stars were staffed with our traveling merchants.
"Yet in truth, the civilized star sea is not infinite. Further beyond the barbaric fringes lies the Great Void—a bottomless, pure expanse of nothingness.
"No one knows how vast the Great Void is. Nor has anyone ever walked out of it. Any cultivator who attempted to cross the Great Void met with only one fate: becoming entirely lost!" Zhong Daogong's expression grew solemn.
"However, the explorable star sea back then was far more vibrant with life than today's Pitch-Black Star Sea. With ample living space, the vast majority of cultivation realms couldn't even reach the barbaric frontiers, so very few cultivators truly cared about the existence of the Great Void.
"Yet by our very nature as cultivators, we yearn to cast off every shackle upon us. Thus, there has always been a tiny minority who sought to break through the Great Void and investigate the secrets beyond it. Sun Piaomiao was evidently one of them. Regrettably, no one has ever succeeded. Neither did he."
"The Great Void, the High Wall. It seems the plight of us cultivators has never changed from ancient times to this day," Li Fan murmured softly.
At the same time, he thought to himself, *The Great Void... could that be why Sun Piaomiao was unable to continue his exploration? Seen in this light, the eighteen beacons he left behind are rather peculiar. With the breadth of the star domains he explored, they certainly encompassed far more than eighteen cultivation realms. Yet he specifically left only these behind...*
*What kind of secret could it be that it could not be stated openly, forcing him to hide it in such a manner?* Countless doubts arose in Li Fan's mind.
"Xiaoyao, Xuan-Shang, Guanghai, Beige, Lingqiu..." Having once been the Young Sect Master of the Medicine King Sect, Li Fan naturally knew the information handed down by their ancestor, Sun Piaomiao.
Back then, however, he hadn't paid it much heed. First, the great calamity had descended, shattering the realms; second, due to the presence of the Immortal Ruins, even if those cultivation realms hadn't been destroyed, their spatial positions would inevitably have shifted.
The beacons passed down by Sun Piaomiao had naturally lost their meaning.
*What if Sun Piaomiao anticipated this very situation back then, and left behind the Medicine King Cauldrons to assist?* A bold conjecture couldn't help springing into Li Fan's mind.
There was no substantive evidence—merely a flash of inspiration. The discussion among the vessel's elders continued.
"The power contained within this Medicine King Cauldron is exceedingly mysterious. Perhaps one could rely on this connection to maintain a sense of direction inside the Great Void. That way, even if the exploration failed, one could at least return safely rather than throwing one's life away in vain."
"Keep in mind, the Great Void is literally a vast void. According to the limited records available, let alone light and spiritual power, there isn't even a medium through which divine consciousness can propagate. It is an absolute domain of nothingness..." Mo Yinfeng's hypothesis won the agreement of several elders.
Exploring the Great Void was one of the loftiest ideals and pursuits of cultivators in that era. It was entirely possible that Sun Piaomiao had done precisely that.
"Whatever his purpose may have been, being able to uncover the mysterious power maintaining the connection between these cauldrons would undeniably be a great boon to our Celestial Vessel." With a clear objective in place, the ensuing research proceeded far more smoothly.
After a unanimous vote by the elders, including Li Fan, they decided to completely smelt the Medicine King Cauldron to force out the mysterious power latent within it.
As a prominent alchemy cauldron, the Medicine King Cauldron's sturdiness was beyond question. After all, an identical counterpart had previously shouldered the mission of carrying the entire Medicine King Sect across the void.
Yet to the Celestial Vessel, which had already mastered the power of the True Immortal seal characters, the cauldron's sturdiness was simply not worth mentioning.
*Bang! Bang!* Under the crushing pressure of invisible, titanic force, the bronze cauldron instantly shattered into tens of thousands of fragments, which were then continuously ground down, breaking into ever-finer microscopic particles.
In the end, even these particles ceased to be visible. However, as the dissolution progressed, the expressions of the Celestial Vessel's elders gradually grew grave.
They discovered that the substance composing the Medicine King Cauldron did not disappear as the applied force intensified.
It merely became more condensed.
"Our previous appraisal indicated that this Medicine King Cauldron was forged from rare ores combined with heaven-and-earth treasures refined from various cultivation realms."
"Now it seems that was all an illusion!"
"This substance..." The elders stared intently at the final change taking place within the force field. Its size was invisible to the naked eye; in fact, had they not monitored the process from start to finish, even divine consciousness could not have easily detected it.
Condensed to the absolute limit, it was not a pure sphere. Instead, it was slightly flattened and convex on both sides, resembling a Go stone!
"That massive Medicine King Cauldron was transformed from this very object?" Every elder was struck dumb with astonishment.
Li Fan also stared at the gray Go stone, his thoughts drifting back to the lifetime where his Sacred Embryo avatar had steered the reinforced Medicine King Cauldron and charged into the Immortal Ruins.
*Back then, I was overwhelmed by the True Immortal destroying the world with a single glance, and didn't notice anything amiss. Thinking back now, there were indeed several irrational details.*
*In the eyes of a True Immortal, cultivators are like ants. Much less my Sacred Embryo, which possessed only mortal cultivation at the time.*
*How could a True Immortal in seclusion be disturbed by that?*
*Just as my own seclusion would never be interrupted by an ant. Before an ant could even draw near, it would be torn apart and reduced to nothingness by my protective wards.*
*Yet the seclusion of that True Immortal in the Immortal Ruins was truly disrupted!*
*In my previous life, when I used an immortal formation to destroy Xuanhuang, He merely sent a projection avatar to investigate.*
*Whereas in that life...* Li Fan narrowed his eyes, as if returning to the scene of that day. In the pitch-black field of view, an endless expanse of wilderness had abruptly appeared.
Across the wilderness, countless ruins lay scattered. The True Immortal had only a layer of skin draped over his skeleton, resembling a desiccated corpse.
Dozens of blood-red chains were deeply embedded into the earth, binding the True Immortal upon the desolate ground. When He sensed Li Fan—or rather, the Medicine King Cauldron Li Fan was piloting—
This Dao-Attaining True Immortal suddenly opened his eyes!
*So that's how it was. What caused the True Immortal to open his eyes wasn't simply an external object intruding into the Immortal Ruins.*
*It was the mysterious Go stone material that forged the Medicine King Cauldron...* Li Fan's thoughts returned to the present. Like the elders around him, he stared fixatedly at the gray Go stone.
Having returned to its original form, the power connecting it to its "companions" in the star sea seemed to grow even tighter. Without needing to use the "Reveal" seal character, everyone present could faintly perceive the direction of the connection.
However, it was intermittent, insufficient to serve as a proper guide for a search.
"It seems having just the stone is not enough. It must be paired with a specialized technique." Zhong Daogong also discerned the underlying secret.
"Intriguing. Now I am truly curious—just what did that Sun Piaomiao take such great pains to conceal?"
"Though this gray stone has a mysterious origin, claiming it is connected to the power of immortals might be a stretch. The Celestial Vessel has collected quite a few immortal artifacts after all, so we possess the judgment for such matters..."
"I, however, believe this gray stone might truly originate from the Immortal Realm." Amid the elders' discussion, Li Fan suddenly spoke up, proposing a completely contradictory viewpoint.
"Oh? What makes Brother Li say that?" Present-day Li Fan held considerable prestige within the Celestial Vessel. With a conclusion coming from him, no one dared take it lightly, and they quickly pressed for his reasoning.
Li Fan said in a solemn voice, "It is simple. One need only look at this item's reaction to the 'Reveal' character to realize it, no?" Hearing this, the elders were taken aback at first.
Then, many of them slapped their thighs in sudden comprehension.
"Indeed! Although the 'Reveal' character can stimulate connections between things, this Medicine King Cauldron... or rather, this gray stone, was remarkably sensitive to the remnant power of a True Immortal."
"Precisely!" To verify Li Fan's conjecture, Lu Yuzhi produced a rainbow-colored stone.
"This stone was crafted from jade crystal marrow. There are eighteen in a complete set, and the other seventeen reside in my private courtyard." As he spoke, Lu Yuzhi struck out with the "Reveal" character.
The power of the True Immortal seal character enveloped the rainbow-colored stone. As if immortal power were slowly permeating it, it took a long time before guiding mist and fine threads emerged from within the stone.
The contrast with the Medicine King Cauldron's earlier reaction was immediately obvious.
"Before, we all assumed it was due to the mysterious power contained within the cauldron. To think it was actually caused by the cauldron's raw material itself!"
"Immortal and mortal are worlds apart. An object of the Immortal Realm would naturally possess far greater sensitivity to immortal power," the elders marveled.
"Don't forget, the directions indicated by this stone earlier showed that many identical objects exist across the star sea! Objects of the Immortal Realm..." Hearts began to race with excitement.
Zhong Daogong remained the most composed. "Let us first ascertain the background of this gray stone.
"When its nature is unknown, an object of the Immortal Realm can sometimes prove a bane rather than a boon." Having determined the item's likely origin, the Celestial Vessel naturally had an established research protocol for items from the Immortal Realm.
Without fearing that the power of True Immortal seal characters might damage the object, they could utilize different seal characters to test it to the greatest extent.
At the same time, Li Fan, who was participating in the tests, laid eyes for the first time on the Celestial Vessel's supreme treasure in the realm of research: a blank scroll painting.
"The *Myriad Manifestations Yin-Yang Chart*? It clearly displays a blank image, so why give it such a name?" Li Fan asked, somewhat curious.
Zhong Daogong replied with a touch of pride, "Precisely because it encompasses all phenomena of the world, it manifests as absolute blankness."
Chapter 1341