Mo Rubin looked back toward the boundary of the High Wall, a flicker of reluctance surfacing on his face.
Yet, as a peerless prodigy of the ancient cultivation world after all, his composure returned before long.
Exhaling a breath of turbid air, Mo Rubin said slowly, "Once, I too was only a single step away from ascending to immortality.
"As a Half-Immortal, Big Brother Xuanyuan rarely displayed his true strength before us, interacting with us more as companions.
"That gave me the illusion that the chasm between mortal and immortal was not so profound.
"At least for me, it felt far from an insurmountable abyss. But now... heh heh..."
Mo Rubin's tone was laden with wistful sighs.
"Without climbing the mountain's peak, one cannot know the height of the mountain; without standing beside the deep abyss, one cannot know the depth of the waters. Even having drawn near the Immortal Ruins and genuinely felt the might of a True Immortal, how could that compare to truly reaching out and touching it as we are now? To tell the truth, the power of a True Immortal truly exceeds my imagination," Li Fan also sighed.
"What does Fellow Daoist plan to do next? Will you remain here to investigate the secrets of the High Wall, or depart for the time being to continue searching for the King of Profound Heaven?" Having shared in the sentiment, Li Fan asked in turn.
After hesitating for a moment, Mo Rubin looked back once more at the boundary of the High Wall. "Leaving directly like this leaves me unwilling. I intend to... look a bit longer.
"A limit of thirty days. If I gain nothing at all within these thirty days, I will immediately turn and leave, never facing the High Wall again in this lifetime." Mo Rubin felt torn, yet also somewhat adrift.
Li Fan could well understand Mo Rubin's state of mind.
To hear the Dao in the morning is to die content at dusk. The secret of a True Immortal lay right before their eyes—even if invisible and untouchable, who could turn away decisively after just one glance? Especially when the mystery of the High Wall was tied to the hope of escaping the Pitch-Black Star Sea.
Li Fan said in a low voice, "In that case, I will leave behind a wooden sword phantom to lend Fellow Daoist a hand!"
With that, Li Fan split off a small sword phantom, enveloping Mo Rubin within it.
"You're actually choosing to leave and not investigate further?" Mo Rubin was taken aback.
"Heh, I am different from you, Fellow Daoist. Back in the day, you were someone with prospects of ascending," Li Fan flattered him smoothly, then sighed softly. "Meanwhile, I know full well that given my aptitude, even looking ten million more times would bring no substantial change. I could never see through the secrets of the High Wall."
Mo Rubin fell silent upon hearing this. Glancing at the wooden sword phantom swirling around him, he was about to speak again.
Yet he heard Li Fan's tone suddenly turn impassioned: "However, my temporary departure does not mean I am giving up!
"Since someone crude like me cannot achieve it, why not let all under heaven have a try?!"
"Hm?" Mo Rubin's eyes went wide, thinking he had misheard.
"You want to transport everyone in the world here to comprehend the Dao at the foot of the High Wall?" He found the idea absurd.
"With our strength, surviving beneath the High Wall is already this difficult. Those of lower cultivation would inevitably be crushed directly by the High Wall's might. How could they speak of comprehension?"
Li Fan laughed free and easy. "My eyes are as the eyes of all people under heaven; my hands are as their hands. My presence is as if all people have arrived in person...
"Lending my form, I invite all living beings under heaven to comprehend the principles of the High Wall together."
Amidst his rhythmic, chant-like words, another phantom flew forth from Li Fan.
Its aura was ninety percent similar to that of the wooden sword phantom, yet it faintly bore Li Fan's own likeness.
This was a wisp of Li Fan's divine soul, separated and fused into an escape art phantom, then augmented by an array formation to magnify the soul's perceptions hundreds and thousands of times.
"Let this phantom of mine remain here to accompany Fellow Daoist in comprehending the Dao. As for me, I shall return to the Xuanhuang Realm and share the phantom's perceptions with all under heaven," Li Fan smiled.
Mo Rubin opened his mouth, then hesitated.
Li Fan added, "Rest assured, I will not directly disclose the existence of the High Wall to the world, nor will I explain to them that what they feel is its flaw.
"I will simply synchronize the perceptions of my comprehension phantom to them.
"Tens of millions of people, tens of millions of thoughts. The answers each gives will not be identical. Even if there is no correct answer among them, it will at least grant us some inspiration." Li Fan wore an expression of effortless confidence.
"...That is indeed a method," Mo Rubin fell silent for a long while before giving this reply.
"I'm off!" Before his voice even finished fading, Li Fan's figure had already followed the wooden sword piercing through the star sea, vanishing from Mo Rubin's sight.
Mo Rubin shook his head slightly, putting Li Fan out of his mind for now. Gathering his focus and resting a moment, he once again steered the wooden sword phantom, approaching to explore the flaw in the High Wall.
Meanwhile, even before Li Fan had returned in person to Xuanhuang,
drastic changes had already occurred across the lecture platforms erected in the various pocket worlds of the Xuanhuang Realm.
The phantom of the Saint Teacher, which had been lecturing day and night without pause, suddenly stopped.
Gazing toward the heavens, it wore a pensive expression.
Then, a colossal roar erupted from the lecture platform.
The living beings of the pocket worlds did not understand what was happening, growing alarmed and unsettled, murmuring amongst themselves.
Yet beams of pitch-black light abruptly descended from beyond the vault of heaven. Tracing along the firmament, they corroded and tainted it. In barely the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the once azure sky was dyed completely ink-black.
The worlds were thus plunged into utter darkness. No matter how the great sun high in the heavens poured forth its light, it could not illuminate this murky, turbid world.
Between heaven and earth across the pocket worlds, darkness engulfed everything, just like the Pitch-Black Star Sea at this moment.
Only the comprehension phantom standing steadfast on the lecture platform emitted a faint glow,
bringing the world its sole remaining light.
How could mortals in the pocket worlds have ever witnessed such a terrifying sight of light being devoured? One after another, they believed the end of the world was at hand, instantly plunging into dread and despair.
Had the light from the lecturing phantom not kept the pocket worlds from falling into total darkness, many beings would likely have taken their own lives in despair within that brief span of time.
And so, the lecturing phantom shining with salvation became their only lifeline.
Originally, only mortals aspiring to cultivate would go to the lecture platforms to listen. But now, in order to survive, nearly all living beings instinctively swarmed toward the lecture platforms at the centers of their pocket worlds like moths to a flame.
The creatures beneath the lecture platforms grew more and more numerous.
The lecture platforms expanded accordingly,
swelling ten million times beyond their original scale until they encompassed nearly the entire pocket world within them.
The people knelt on the ground, begging the Saint Teacher phantom above for salvation.
The Saint Teacher phantom stood silently, unmoving.
The people pleaded bitterly; with no response from the Saint Teacher, they dared not stand up.
At last, a compassionate, sorrowful sigh echoed across heaven and earth.
Within that sigh, the pitch-black sky also changed.
The Saint Teacher phantom flew toward the heavens.
Incomparably brilliant light erupted from his form, briefly illuminating the darkened world.
The Saint Teacher's figure turned into an expansive rainbow stretching across the firmament,
covering the entire sky and lightly holding back the darkness encroaching from without.
As though draped with a mantle of light, the world grew somewhat brighter.
This gave the creatures of the world hope of survival.
They cheered, chanting praises to the Saint Teacher's great name.
However, not long after, their celebrations came to an abrupt halt.
Surging darkness seemed to arrive once more from beyond the heavens, pressing down across the firmament like a high wall.
The meager light brought by the Saint Teacher was mostly extinguished once again.
Panic seized the people once more, and weeping of despair echoed across mountains and plains.
Upon the glowing celestial cloth, the Saint Teacher's resolute face appeared.
He seemed to muster the last remnant of his strength, charging toward the dark wall outside the world,
attempting to shatter this world-destroying darkness.
The collision between the Saint Teacher and the darkness was utterly silent.
In the end, the Saint Teacher vanished completely without a trace. And that surging wall of darkness beyond the world...
seemed to have become slightly different.
The people stared intently at the exact point where the Saint Teacher's visage had struck the dark wall.
In their ears, they seemed to hear the final words the Saint Teacher wished to impart to them:
"The path to salvation lies within."
The people wept bitterly.
Faced with the crisis of world annihilation, some abandoned themselves to despair, completely relinquishing any hope of living.
Yet the vast majority did everything in their power to ponder the Saint Teacher's parting words.
Clearly, the method to break through the dark wall and save the world lay within that invisible yet real point created by the Saint Teacher's desperate strike.
Just as the creatures on the ground wished to perceive the true nature of that tiny point,
something miraculous occurred.
The lecture platform left by the Saint Teacher gave off a faint glimmer that drifted over them. In an instant, they felt as if they had crossed the distance between earth and sky, personally arriving high above the firmament.
As though experiencing it firsthand, they could feel the existence of that small point.
And so the people understood: this was the final method left by the Saint Teacher for them to save their world and themselves.
In order to save themselves, the living beings on earth erupted with astonishing potential. One after another quickly opened a connection with the lecture platform, using their mortal bodies to comprehend the tiny point within the dark wall.
...
Such scenes played out across every pocket world where a lecture platform stood.
And the cause of all this was, naturally, Li Fan.
At this moment, Li Fan's true body had already returned to the Xuanhuang Realm.
After using the power of array formations to manifest boundless darkness and seal off the firmaments of the numerous pocket worlds, he felt the resistance surging from their Heavenly Daos.
Though the strength of a single realm was negligible to the current Li Fan, when multiple worlds combined, handling them was somewhat strenuous.
However...
it was merely strenuous, nothing more.
Expending some effort, Li Fan suppressed them all. At any rate, according to the plan, these pocket worlds would ultimately return to Xuanhuang as nourishment to elevate the Super Xuanhuang Realm; their Heavenly Dao consciousnesses were destined to be swallowed up anyway.
Linking these nourishing pocket worlds together via array formations,
Li Fan observed the conditions within them.
"In my experience, mortals only unleash their greatest potential when confronted with a mortal crisis. If I simply asked them to help comprehend without the pressure of such dread, efficiency would surely plummet.
"Like this... is quite good."
Sensing the thoughts and insights of countless beings synchronized through the lecture platforms, Li Fan nodded with considerable satisfaction.
The gap between mortals and cultivators was already like heaven and earth, let alone between mortals and True Immortals.
Yet precisely because True Immortals were so far above,
in the eyes of a True Immortal, mortals and ordinary cultivators were practically no different.
Hence, when it came to comprehending that flaw in the High Wall, cultivators and mortals were essentially the same.
"The advantage is that mortals are numerous enough, providing a sufficiently comprehensive sample size.
"Besides, during this period, under the subtle influence of the lecture platforms, the pocket worlds have begun transforming toward cultivation worlds. Quite a few cultivators have already emerged from their ranks."
After analyzing the thoughts of all living beings for a while, Li Fan found that almost all of them were useless. Yet he felt no discouragement; this was only the beginning.
He split off an array-simulated persona specifically to categorize and process the comprehension thoughts of the masses,
filtering out most of the useless noise and retaining only what was worthy of his personal inspection.
"This is merely one arrangement.
"I don't truly expect the boundless masses to unveil the secrets of the High Wall.
"In the end, I may still have to rely on myself."
Li Fan sensed the impressions synchronized from his comprehension phantom at the distant edge of the star sea.
"The High Wall is a creation of a True Immortal. Studying it alone is truly rather difficult.
"Besides the masses, I could also have those immortal artifacts lend a hand.
"Unfortunately, I have already fed the Boundless Mirror to the Xuanhuang Realm. If this lifetime yields no gains, I can consider trying that in the next."
In truth, discovering the High Wall's flaw through Mo Rubin was an unexpected boon.
Li Fan's primary objective at present remained uniting with the Dao using the Heaven and Earth Immortal Soul.
As for crossing the High Wall, it was not yet so urgent.
"Even if I truly decipher the High Wall's secrets, I will never put myself in harm's way!
"Beyond the High Wall is simply too perilous!"
Before his eyes flashed scenes from his previous life—Maobao devouring an immortal, and the collapse of the High Wall.
With no fear left in his heart, he merely snorted coldly and suppressed all these stray thoughts.
Taking a step forward, he arrived in the Xuanhuang Realm proper.
Looking up, he gazed at the vault of heaven.
Having obtained the Star Sea's promise, Li Fan now established a connection with the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao almost effortlessly.
Moreover, the Heavenly Dao was no longer cold and indifferent as before.
Instead, it distinctly carried a hint of fawning.
"This Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao..."
Li Fan gave a soft snort, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Putting this aside for the moment, through his communication with heaven and earth, Li Fan began to gain a deeper, more concrete understanding of the various changes occurring within the Xuanhuang Realm.
It was like conducting a thorough examination on a critically ill patient before a major surgery.
Although Li Fan could inspect things himself, it was never as convenient or accurate as inquiring directly of the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao consciousness.
During their communion, Li Fan also steadily imparted to the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao some of the insights he had gained in this lifetime regarding the Star Sea's source true meaning and the foot of the High Wall.
It was entirely active giving, without any demand in return.
This step was to increase his intimacy and bond with the Xuanhuang Realm.
Just as childhood is the easiest time to cultivate fond feelings, Li Fan needed to reinforce their mutual rapport before the Xuanhuang Realm completed its ascension,
making it all the easier when the time came to swallow the Heaven and Earth Immortal Soul.
Chapter 1354