"In this extra simulation, I didn't seem to possess the exotic treasure Revert to the True. Other than that, it was no different from everything I experienced firsthand."
Recalling the countless scenes that had just flashed through his mind, Li Fan looked solemn.
When the black mist of Dao Annihilation engulfed the falling Xuanhuang Realm, with nowhere left to run, he had not attempted to activate Revert to the True, resigning himself to wait for death.
"Yet the 'me' in the simulation didn't find the disappearance of Revert to the True abnormal at all. It was as if the simulated me had never possessed this wondrous treasure in the first place. The moment I initiated the extra simulation, a branch branched off that excised Revert to the True..."
"Intriguing. Even for a simulation created by Revert to the True, as long as it is an extra one—when the primary simulation already exists—a branch simulation cannot simulate itself?" A thought struck Li Fan, a flash of insight suddenly darting through his mind as if he had grasped something.
Yet this inspiration was like a candle flame in the dark night, engulfed in an instant by the boundless surrounding darkness. When Li Fan tried to recall it, he could not bring it back no matter how hard he tried.
Knowing he might have brushed past the secret of Revert to the True only to miss it, Li Fan stared blankly for a moment, feeling a touch of melancholy.
However, he quickly regained his composure.
Li Fan believed that as his comprehension of the Transformation of Real and Unreal continued to deepen and his resonance with Revert to the True grew, the day would come when he could truly and thoroughly unravel the secret of Revert to the True.
Exhaling a long breath, Li Fan collected his thoughts and carefully pondered his experiences within that branch simulation.
"The plan for Xuanhuang's sublimation went almost entirely as I anticipated. There were no major oversights in preparation, nor did any unexpected enemies appear."
"The only obstacle to Xuanhuang's ascension was that it fell just a hair short of the final qualitative transformation. This is the chasm between immortal and mortal."
"Just how can this qualitative leap be achieved?"
In an instant, countless plans flashed through Li Fan's mind.
"The character for the Transformation of Immortal and Mortal? Or continue utilizing the immortal domain chess pieces? Or perhaps, based on the remnant ancient immortal array, attempt to repair the Grand Star-Crossing Array?"
Each attempt involved endless possibilities. The vast majority of existences connected to 'immortals' were complete unknowns, far beyond what the current Li Fan could deduce. Li Fan thought until his head throbbed, yet he still could not settle on the most suitable path.
It seemed as though every method could work, yet every method seemed doomed to fail.
"Could it be that in this lifetime, I still cannot merge with the Dao and ascend to the immortal realm?"
"If all else fails, I'll just try every single method once across different lifetimes. I'll eventually find the right path for the world's ascension." Such a disheartened thought quietly crept into Li Fan's heart.
Once this thought took root, it was like a river breaching its dykes, collapsing across thousands of miles. It completely shattered Li Fan's mental defenses.
The thoughts in his mind churned uncontrollably, as though seized by a raging tempest.
Li Fan ceased contemplating the conditions needed to catalyze Xuanhuang's sublimation and ascension. Instead, he began considering how to end this lifetime and what course to take upon opening the next.
The plans were well-conceived.
Yet for some reason, Li Fan felt a persistent unease.
Theoretically, everything within a simulation could be reproduced through another simulation. When it came to the affairs of the world, there was no true "loss" for Li Fan.
Except for changes to Li Fan himself.
Each time Revert to the True was activated to return to an established anchor, everything in the world was reset.
Even Li Fan's physical resilience and cultivation base were no exception, requiring the cultivation inheritance function of Revert to the True to restore him to his previous state.
Yet within each reset, there was a variable that moved continuously forward:
Li Fan's mind and willpower!
Expressed concretely on the panel of Revert to the True, this was Li Fan's upper limit of psychological age and the default charging progress of Revert to the True.
And neither of these had changed in a very long time...
At this moment, Li Fan felt a hesitation unlike anything he had known before.
Minute by minute slipped by, yet Li Fan could not bring himself to make a final decision.
Only ten shichen remained until the moment in the Trivium Technique's branch simulation when he was supposed to initiate Xuanhuang's ascension. With an unfathomable expression, Li Fan stepped forward and arrived at the very beginning of it all:
Daxuan, the house where this mortal body had lived during its former life.
Even though "Li Fan" had vanished without explanation, the study remained spotless, just as it had always been. Clearly, that "aunt" still harbored some lingering hope in her heart for "Li Fan's" return.
Li Fan lay on the bed and closed his eyes.
It felt as if he had returned to the exact moment he first transmigrated here.
Time seemed to stand still, then quietly began to flow again like cracking ice.
Through a hundred reincarnations, all manner of experiences swept through Li Fan's mind in an instant.
Li Fan attempted to find a way to break through the impasse in this manner.
Day turned to night. Li Fan simply lay quietly on the wooden bed, as if fast asleep.
Indeed, Li Fan could use simulation after simulation with Revert to the True, employing the process of elimination to determine, one by one, the key factor behind the qualitative transformation.
That was the most prudent approach.
Theoretically, there was nothing wrong with it.
Yet whenever Li Fan made up his mind to do so, certain images unbiddenly flashed across his mind:
Mo Rubin's obsession beneath the flaw in the High Wall, willing to sacrifice his life just to glimpse the truth; and in the illusion array, the Heavenly Physician ultimately giving up his comprehension of the High Wall for the sake of the Tianfa Realm.
"Lost once, lost forever."
In the darkness, Li Fan's eyes snapped open.
He softly murmured these words over and over.
With Revert to the True, there truly should be nothing in this world that was lost forever to him—unless the status of that thing surpassed even Revert to the True.
Clearly, the mere metamorphosis from mortal to immortal was far from possessing such status.
"The true 'lost once, lost forever' resides within my own heart."
"Revert to the True can affect everything in the world, yet it alone cannot reverse changes within me."
As if understanding had dawned upon him, Li Fan's gaze seemed to pierce the darkness, growing steadily brighter.
"Losing this unknown quality might not prevent me from stepping into the True Immortal realm. But for the path beyond True Immortal, it could have far-reaching consequences!"
Through prolonged contemplation, when a sliver of sunlight appeared on the earth and dispelled the night, Li Fan finally understood completely where the uneasy dread in his heart had come from.
"Why exactly is this so?"
"Is it an over-reliance on Revert to the True?"
"Or something else?"
"The path beyond True Immortal is simply too distant for me. Moreover, from what I know, reaching the realm of a Nameless True Immortal seems to require only thoroughly mastering and refining a particular Great Dao. There seems to be no connection whatsoever..." Li Fan furrowed his brow, perplexed.
"Yet other than brute-force trial and error, I don't seem to have a better choice."
...
Li Fan walked out of the house and looked at the morning sun rising on the horizon.
Continuing his thoughts, he stepped out of the Daxuan pocket world.
He began pacing through the Xuanhuang Realm.
The scenery around him shifted ceaselessly in stuttering leaps. Li Fan reflected everything around him into his mind.
Starting from the Sea of Clouds in the east, he headed west all the way.
While his thoughts churned without pause, the frequency of the scenery's shifts grew faster and faster.
Li Fan was immersed in a meditation bordering on epiphany, not altering the power he exerted outward.
The reason he "walked" faster and faster was precisely his special relationship with Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao. He was like its adoptive parent, held in extraordinarily high regard.
Thus, without any prompting from Li Fan, Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao fawningly helped lighten the burden of his travel.
Even though Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao had no idea why Li Fan was darting around the world without apparent rhyme or reason, it perhaps assumed he was making final preparations for the ascension.
Li Fan naturally noticed the flattery offered by Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao, but paid it no heed.
Earlier, when Great Heavenly Venerable Wuming had walked the world to repair Xuanhuang's various wounds, the Xuanhuang Realm had provided the same convenience:
With a single stride, distances between heaven and earth shifted on their own, like contracting the ground into inches.
It was just that as the anomalies across the realm were resolved, the Xuanhuang Realm had not taken the initiative to do so for a long time.
"What a treacherous cur!" Having witnessed the Xuanhuang Realm's true face in the branch simulation, Li Fan cursed internally.
"I possess supreme escape techniques—why would I need your crude favors?"
With a thought, the phantom of the wooden sword unsheathed itself, hovering beside Li Fan in protection.
Just as he prepared to fly away to shake off the clinging attentions of Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao and seize the remaining time to think calmly—
His movement suddenly halted.
He looked at the wooden sword phantom beside him.
In his mind, he recalled how the Xuanhuang Realm had manifested that convenience.
A subtle expression gradually emerged on Li Fan's face.
"My supreme escape technique merges my understanding of the sword path's indomitable momentum, the Transformation of Real and Unreal, and..."
"The teachings of King Xuantian, preserved in the soul memories of Ji Yuzhen, Dharma King of the Xuantian Sect."
"The core of the Golden Lock Traversing the Void Array—the Close Horizons Array!"
"And the Close Horizons Array was obtained by King Xuantian from the Immortal Realm..."
Li Fan rapidly recalled what he had witnessed back then.
King Xuantian had said softly to Ji Yuzhen: "The Golden Lock Traversing the Void spans the myriad heavens. Even if a target is at the far end of the starry sea, once locked onto, the chains can arrive in an instant and capture them. As I told you before, the reason it achieves this effect is that it embeds the Close Horizons Array. This array was originally engraved upon the Immortal Ascension Platform in the Immortal Realm. When I fled back then, I moved the entire immortal array down with me..."
Boom!
The voice of King Xuantian echoed like peals of thunder, traversing eternity and piercing the fog to illuminate Li Fan's mind.
"Wait! Could it be...?"
A sharp gleam flashed in Li Fan's eyes.
He waved his hand, dismissing the wooden sword phantom beside him.
He resumed pacing slowly through the Xuanhuang Realm.
Just as expected, sensing Li Fan's movement, Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao soon resumed its fawning.
Without Li Fan exerting any effort, it moved on its own accord.
The scenery around him began shifting rapidly once again.
Li Fan closed his eyes, sensing the alterations taking place in the heaven and earth of Xuanhuang around him.
"This feeling..."
"There's no mistake!"
"It's Close Horizons!"
Li Fan's figure ground to an abrupt halt.
An irrepressible surge of excitement washed over him.
His thoughts raced frantically: "As part of the Grand Star-Crossing Array, the Golden Lock Traversing the Void Array has already suffered damage."
"Yet activating that array incurred an immense toll each time. Ever far-sighted, King Xuantian had made three duplicate copies early on to prepare for unforeseen crises."
"The Close Horizons Array isn't what matters. What matters is..."
A brilliant light erupted in Li Fan's eyes as his gaze swept piercingly across the heaven and earth of Xuanhuang.
"The Immortal Ascension Platform! The engravings! Complete!"
Li Fan's body trembled slightly with excitement at this deduction.
"The Immortal Ascension Platform was undoubtedly the place where the Immortal Realm once received lower-realm cultivators."
"To be named 'Immortal Ascension,' it must have possessed engravings of other powers intertwined alongside the Close Horizons Array."
"At that time, King Xuantian was also fleeing for his life in a panic. Furthermore, having only recently entered the Immortal Realm, he lacked the means to isolate and detach the Close Horizons Array on its own in a short time."
"Therefore, there is a very high probability that the three duplicate engravings King Xuantian left behind back then are complete engravings from the Immortal Ascension Platform!"
"This might be the very key!"
Even without absolute certainty, Li Fan had unquestionably found the element most likely to deliver that final push.
Through all his years of experience, Li Fan had never dared underestimate anything originating from the Immortal Realm.
"Now, the most critical question is: where on earth were the three duplicate copies left by King Xuantian hidden?"
Li Fan had destroyed the Xuanhuang Realm more than once, and the items surviving to the end within the world-destroying array had not included these engravings.
From that perspective, the engravings should not have been within the Xuanhuang Realm.
Had Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao not fawningly taken the initiative and triggered Li Fan's faint realization, Li Fan might have gone outside the Xuanhuang Realm, into the Eye of the Tian Beast, or even into the Great Wall of Remnant Worlds beneath the High Wall to scour for clues.
Yet now, Xuanhuang's inadvertent action pointed toward a distinct possibility.
"The engravings from the Immortal Ascension Platform might be inside the Xuanhuang Realm itself!"
"Under the subtle influence of the engravings over time, the heaven and earth of Xuanhuang unconsciously learned this Close Horizons Array."
"In fact, among Xuanhuang's innate characteristics from the Immortal Realm that I deduced in the branch illusion, some might also have been influenced by this Immortal Ascension Platform!"
Li Fan suppressed the urge to immediately dig three feet into every inch of Xuanhuang.
Calming his mind, he communicated with Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao as if offhandedly, bringing up the favors it had proactively offered.
Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao seemed rather proud of its actions and quickly fell into Li Fan's verbal trap, recounting everything in full detail.
"Just as I anticipated!"
"It somehow learned it spontaneously without knowing why!"
Li Fan held his patience and continued inquiring into the specifics.
Having been continually bolstered by Li Fan, Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao had reached an unprecedented peak in its mastery over itself.
Guided by Li Fan, it gradually uncovered the source responsible for this inexplicable learning.
Following the guidance of Xuanhuang's Heavenly Dao, Li Fan flashed across space and arrived at the destination.
It seemed to lie millions of li deep beneath the earth of Xuanhuang.
Even the coursing earth veins vanished here; all around was merely a pure accumulation of Xuanhuang power.
Li Fan looked at the somewhat familiar architectural style around him, reminiscent of an ancient magical array.
A stone slab was embedded at the array's center.
Chapter 1400