All the rapidly shifting patterns on the stone slab smoothed away and sank inward.
It became just like an ordinary mortal slab, utterly unremarkable.
Yet Li Fan had witnessed its divine might with his own eyes, so how could he possibly be deceived by the mundane illusion it now presented?
"The key is how to unleash the slab's power," Li Fan pondered, lost in thought.
The stone slab in his hands had ceased to respond to any external stimuli. Whether approached and threatened with spiritual energy, Source Power essence, True Immortal flesh and blood, or the Obliterating Wind Disaster, none provoked the slightest reaction.
Li Fan could even faintly sense that against the various powers he used to test it, the stone slab before him genuinely possessed no defensive strength whatsoever.
If those forces took half a step further and made physical contact, they would likely tear the slab to shreds in an instant.
"This..." Given that this concerned his ability to successfully unite with the Dao and attain immortality in this lifetime, Li Fan's eyes flickered. Ultimately, he abandoned the thought of probing it through direct destruction.
His gaze swept repeatedly across the stone slab. Recalling how it had displayed such boundless divine might at the heart of that eerie formation earlier, a thought struck him.
"Could it be that in its normal state, this slab truly is nothing more than the mortal object it appears to be? Only when placed within that unknown array are its wondrous properties awakened?"
Li Fan could not help glancing toward the eerie array not far away, which seemed to have dispersed into heaven and earth the moment the slab was removed.
"I went through so much effort to extract it. Must I really place it right back?"
Li Fan's expression darkened and cleared unpredictably.
At this moment, he suddenly found himself missing Cat Treasure.
"If only Cat Treasure's copying ability were here, I wouldn't have to agonize like this."
Returning the slab directly to its original position was out of the question. Given the little Tian beast's current near-death condition, it was completely incapable of traversing the array to retrieve the slab a second time.
"From the looks of it, the slab and array stimulate one another; neither can be dispensed with. While I cannot copy the slab, I can copy the array."
"Even if I can only replicate a fraction of it..."
Li Fan temporarily set aside the slab that King Xuantian had duplicated from the Immortal Realm's Immortal Ascension Platform. He focused his full attention on observing and studying the mysterious formation buried a million li beneath the Xuanhuang Realm.
Without the slab's enhancement, the array had concealed itself, yet it had not truly vanished.
At the very least, compared to the "formlessness" of the Great Wall, Li Fan could still faintly and hazily sense the array's presence.
With a thought, thousands of golden threads shot out in unison, piercing into the area covered by the formation. Transforming into countless sensory tentacles, they assisted his perception and analysis.
Within his sea of consciousness, the Dissociation Disc instantly blazed with brilliant light.
It was not overloaded; rather, it had vaguely detected an entirely new type of array formation. In an exceedingly rare display, it erupted with waves of craving and excitement.
Li Fan stood motionless, synchronizing everything he discerned directly to the Terminal Dissociation Disc.
At the same time, guided by the feedback from the Terminal Dissociation Disc, he continually adjusted his method of observation.
Back and forth it went.
Even though its core could now deduce immortal arts, parsing this array remained exceptionally arduous for the Dissociation Disc.
Minutes and seconds ticked away. Only three shichen remained until the moment in the branch simulation when Li Fan was to unite with the Dao.
In truth, Li Fan could disregard the branch simulation's outcome and felt no pressing urgency to make his breakthrough within those twelve shichen.
Yet doing so would invite far more unexpected variables.
Within the timeframe encompassed by Revert to the True's branch simulation, everything unfolded as if Li Fan had experienced it firsthand. The movements of Chuanfa, the Heavenly Physician, the Archmage, the Hunger Immortal, and others remained within his grasp. This allowed him to concentrate wholly on propelling the Xuanhuang Realm to ascend and sublimate without worrying about external disruptions.
Should time drag past the window covered by the branch simulation, however...
Anything could happen. The variables would be far too numerous, like walking upon thin ice.
"Were it not for my faint intuition of a certain 'once lost, lost forever' nature during the attempt to attain immortality, I wouldn't need to be so cautious. After all, with Revert to the True capable of turning the tide, I could at least ensure my survival no matter what went awry."
"If my pursuit were merely to become a True Immortal, that would be one thing. Over hundreds or thousands of attempts, I would eventually step into their ranks."
"Yet what I seek is longevity!" Li Fan's gaze grew profound, stripped of all emotion.
"True, genuine longevity! True Immortals who perish like ants when the great calamity falls, or even the nameless True Immortal whose leg bone was sealed and forged into the Pillar of Immortal Heaven..."
"None of them are my ultimate goal!"
"To wander unfettered in longevity, boundless and unbound by any constraint—that is what I have striven so bitterly to achieve!"
Having grasped the deepest truth of his heart, the moment the thought solidified, all trepidation and unease within Li Fan vanished without a trace.
The stray thoughts of countless alternatives scattered like smoke. At this moment, nothing remained in his mind save the purest, most unyielding resolve to pursue the Dao, ascend to immortality, and attain everlasting life.
The Terminal Dissociation Disc sensed its master's will at that very instant. Its brilliance surged to unprecedented heights.
No longer minding its operational limits, it threw itself into deduction without reservation. Countless array unit data points shifted at breakneck speed, and cracks began snaking across the disc's surface.
Li Fan paid no heed to the imminent collapse of the Dissociation Disc as it staked its existence.
His mind was entirely submerged in comprehending the array.
Across hundreds of reincarnations, from He Zhenghao's Hundred Meridia Array Diagram to Zhang Zhiliang's Infinite Method; from the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' Heavenly Mystery Spirit-Locking Array to the ancient Xuantian Sect's Drifting Starry Void Array; and even to the immortal array Xuan Yuan Shi Ling...
From antiquity to the present, from mortal crafts to immortal wonders, Li Fan had witnessed far too many formations. Moreover, with the supreme treasure, the Terminal Dissociation Disc, accompanying him, constantly innovating day and night, his mastery over the path of arrays had long reigned supreme throughout the starry sea.
Although he had never before encountered this bizarre formation type, it still fell within the domain of "arrays."
Through their joint deductions, Li Fan gradually began to grasp the formation's mode of existence.
Li Fan's eyes gleamed. Recalling the Medicine King Dao-Refining Scripture passed down by Sun Piaomiao, he murmured thoughtfully, "What is an array?"
"Back in the Congyun Sea, Zhang Zhiliang once said that an array is standardized law. In my eyes, however, an array is a shortcut connecting numerous laws."
"We cultivators can move mountains and overturn seas with mortal flesh precisely because we invoke the power of heaven and earth's laws. The most rudimentary arrays can be viewed as such tools."
"Yet deeper formations—immortal arrays—interlink, merge, and alter worldly laws at will, turning the mundane into the miraculous!"
Countless sparks of inspiration burst forth in Li Fan's mind, as if elevating him into an unfathomably profound realm.
"The great Dao laws of the world endure across eternity, cycling forever. Ordinary arrays require an energy source to drive them because invoking the laws through an array necessitates an initial connection to be established."
"Yet this array before me..."
A strange glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes. "It uses the Dao as the array!"
"It dispenses with the process of establishing a connection, relying instead on the inherent circulation of the Great Dao to drive its operation!"
"Furthermore, the Great Dao has no physical form. Once the delicate balance of 'using the Dao as the array' is broken, the formation naturally returns to the Dao, fading from the world!"
Li Fan's thoughts spun faster and faster.
What lay before him was no ordinary formation. It was a supreme divine ability that had plucked threads of the world's Great Dao laws with unfathomable craft, kneading and reshaping them into one!
Realizing this, Li Fan felt as though he were confronting a portion of the Great Dao itself, and his mind was inevitably shaken.
At this moment, the Dissociation Disc, having peered into this "Dao array" while operating in a state of severe overload for so long, finally reached its absolute limit.
Countless fissures surfaced in succession, covering it in an instant like ravines carving through the earth.
*Ding!*
With a crisp chime, the Dissociation Disc that had accompanied Li Fan for so long shattered!
It disintegrated into countless motes of starlight, lingering within Li Fan's soul.
Without the aid of the Dissociation Disc, Li Fan's vision blurred instantly.
He could no longer peer into the true essence of the Dao array.
Yet not the slightest sign of dejection appeared on Li Fan's face.
Turning his gaze from the Dao array, he looked toward the nearby stone slab.
"If this array is the manifestation of the Great Dao, then this stone slab is the key that awakens the various Daos."
"In truth, there is indeed nothing special about the slab itself. It is simply that the patterns carved upon it happen to correspond to the Daos intertwined within the Dao array."
The surging aura around him completely receded into calm.
"The gentleman's nature is no different from others; he is merely good at utilizing things."
"Even if I cannot fully fathom the essence of this Dao array for now, that does not stop me from..."
"Using it!"
"Using the Dao as the array..." Li Fan softly murmured those words.
With a flicker of his figure, he departed the depths of the earth and appeared beneath the vault of the Xuanhuang Realm.
*Using the Dao as the array,* Li Fan repeated inwardly.
"Transforming mortal into immortal." With an inscrutable expression, he looked toward the stone stele standing within the pocket world of the You people.
Upon the stele, accelerated by Li Fan's multifaceted methods, the character representing the transformation between immortal and mortal was just a sliver away from fully revealing itself.
Taking a deep breath, Li Fan used his finger as a brush. Without infusing any energy, he purely copied its form.
Exerting slight force, he left only a faint trace on the stone slab.
Moreover, the trace seemed as though it might disperse at any moment.
Li Fan was completely absorbed. Even though the character for the transformation between immortal and mortal remained incomplete, it did not stop him from mimicking its shape.
While copying the True Immortal seal character, Li Fan also observed every subtle disturbance in heaven and earth.
To his disappointment, even when he completely inscribed every currently known stroke of the character onto the stone slab, no anomalous phenomenon descended.
"Must it be complete to work?" Li Fan's brow furrowed.
Looking at the remaining You people within the pocket world, Li Fan contemplated whether to sacrifice them all into the nameless True Immortal's leg bone to fully manifest the character.
"Or perhaps... it needs to be in another location." After a brief pause, Li Fan refrained from acting immediately.
Instead, carrying the stele with him, he arrived at the center of the starry sea.
"Ascend!"
With a single thought, True Immortal flesh and blood burned fiercely, turning into boundless propulsion for the Ascent Array.
Holding the stone slab aloft in one hand, Li Fan watched the starry sea shrink rapidly in his vision.
Yet strangely enough, no matter how high Li Fan's momentum climbed, the stone slab held aloft in his palm remained constant in size!
At first, compared to the entire starry sea, it was a negligible speck of dust.
Yet as Li Fan's momentum rose continuously, amid change and changelessness, the slab grew nearly comparable to the vast starry sea itself!
"The projection of the Great Dao descends from above. Whether mortal or immortal, each can only glimpse a portion of the Dao. It is merely that the scenery each perceives is different. For the Great Dao itself, differences in cultivation realm matter not. The Dao glimpsed through one's eyes does not undergo any drastic shift."
"The only thing that can affect it to a certain extent is one's own comprehension of the Dao."
"Such is true of the Great Dao, and such is true of the Key of Dao."
Having ascended to the pinnacle of the mortal realm, the energy within Li Fan's body drained at an alarming rate. Only by drawing upon the power of Qiushui the Dao Child's boundless starry sea could he barely sustain himself for a brief moment.
Holding the stone slab doubled the consumption.
Were it not for the starry sea's support, Li Fan could not have lingered at such heights for even a breath.
Steeling his mind, Li Fan painstakingly continued his unfinished task upon the stone slab.
With his finger, he traced the character for the transformation between immortal and mortal!
It still left only faint scratches.
Yet unlike before...
Li Fan's actions provoked an echo from a matching symbol deep within the slab.
Or rather, a resonance!
Just as when it was stimulated by the Dao array earlier, patterns began to emerge regularly across the slab. This time, however, instead of countless patterns shifting endlessly, only a single one appeared.
*Hum...*
As the stone slab underwent this astonishing change, a corresponding anomaly arose within the starry sea.
A muffled pop sounded at the center of the starry sea, like paper being punctured by the tip of a brush.
Summoned by the slab, an exceedingly profound principle of the Great Dao descended upon the center of the starry sea!
It felt as though, standing atop the summit of a mountain, someone had given him another upward thrust.
Li Fan sensed the scenery of the starry sea converging entirely within his vision. Countless lines curled inward, collapsing to a single point. His spiritual energy, flesh and blood, and even his soul felt scorched as if tossed into raging flames—white-hot and boiling.
Like raw gold refined in a furnace, or gravel sifted through roaring waves.
Purging impurities to extract the essence.
Yet the expenditure demanded by this smelting and refining was utterly terrifying.
Even though Li Fan cultivated the new method, able to continually regenerate flesh and blood via his grotto-heavens, and had mastered the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method to keep his Source Power ceaseless and his soul indestructible, he still could not endure long before an expenditure of such magnitude.
Sensing the shifts within his body with a touch of horror, Li Fan made a decisive move.
The phantom wooden sword unsheathed, and clutching the stone slab, he plummeted at the speed of light.
The anomaly in the starry sea paused for an instant. Then, out of absolute silence, an earth-shattering roar like the collapse of high heavens erupted, echoing endlessly without dispersing.
At the same time, like splashes kicked up by a boulder crashing into water, billowing black mist emerged from the center of the starry sea shortly after Li Fan's departure.
Li Fan was well aware of the consequences of attempting an ascent in this unique region at the center of the starry sea.
Yet he also knew that the black mist herald of the Dao Annihilation Tribulation would not spread quickly.
It would not hinder his plan to propel the Xuanhuang Realm to ascend and sublimate in this lifetime.
He had an unavoidable reason for acting here.
"The center of the starry sea combined with the pinnacle of mortal momentum."
"The convergence of these two factors created the highest vantage attainable in the starry sea, short of being a True Immortal."
"It brought me one step closer to the Great Dao itself."
"It was precisely this single extra step that finally allowed the stone slab's function as the Key of Dao to manifest normally." Having returned to the standard Xuanhuang Realm, Li Fan stroked the stone slab in his hands.
The various marks upon it had long since faded.
Just as the Dao comes and goes, leaving behind not a trace.
Yet the deduction in Li Fan's heart had been validated.
"The Dao array is a formation created through supreme means, plucking a single strand from numerous Great Dao laws and fusing them together."
"The stone slab is the key to activating the laws within that Dao array."
"If True Immortal seal characters are the concrete manifestation of the Great Dao, then the Dao array has already dismantled countless True Immortal seal characters and integrated them into the formation's usage."
"Strictly speaking, this shares the exact same principle as compressing and expanding True Immortal seal characters to form Immortal Territory fragments."
The texture of the stone slab in his hands was peculiar. It felt like both metal and wax, cool to the touch yet slightly yielding. When squeezed hard, however, its indestructible density became apparent.
Li Fan stroked it gently, closing his eyes to feel it.
"This Key of Dao once existed upon the ancient Immortal Ascension Platform. In the ancient cultivators' successful ascensions, the laws inscribed within this Key of Dao undoubtedly played an indispensable role."
"Activating the Key of Dao is certainly no simple feat. Perhaps the Immortal Realm once possessed simpler methods, but the most primitive and fundamental way is to carve the True Immortal seal character representing the law itself onto its surface."
"The True Immortal seal character resonates with the imprint inside the Key of Dao. The imprint, in turn, mobilizes the corresponding Great Dao law of that character..."
Within Li Fan's mind, a flawless cycle took shape.
"It is like entering the correct password to log into an account and gain authorization to use the Key of Dao."
"And then using the Key of Dao to command the corresponding law's power."
"In this fragile lower-realm starry sea, the destructive force unleashed by True Immortal seal characters versus the manifestation of the Great Dao itself makes little practical difference. Yet certain unique Great Dao laws are exceptions."
"And the Key of Dao happens to encompass one of them."
Li Fan's eyes snapped open, blazing with sharp determination.
"Uniting with the Dao and ascending to immortality shall be today."
***
The final moment predicted by Revert to the True's branch simulation arrived.
Step by step, following the memories from the simulation, Li Fan catalyzed and propelled the Xuanhuang Realm toward its sublime transformation.
Armed with foresight, however, Li Fan prudently made a few subtle adjustments.
Within the Eighteen Bronze Men encaging Archmage Tiandu, in addition to concealing the Obliterating Wind Disaster and the decaying greenery, Li Fan had quietly laid down a Close Horizons Array at the core of each bronze automaton.
The destination they linked to was none other than the center of the starry sea.
Should the Archmage dare emerge and successfully suppress the wind disaster and rotting greenery, the Close Horizons Arrays would trigger instantly, teleporting him right beside the billowing black mist herald of the Dao Annihilation Tribulation.
Given the extreme sensitivity to "immortal-grade" power that the black mist had displayed in the previous life, the Archmage would stand no chance of survival.
Amid the rumbling of the Xuanhuang Realm, numerous grotto-heavens and blessed lands took shape like the realm's internal organs. Every region enveloped by a halo of light harbored the new worldly laws emerging as the Xuanhuang Realm ascended and sublimated.
The instant each grotto-heaven descended, a dark shadow slipped silently inside, unnoticed.
Concealed within, they comprehended the laws.
These dark shadows were all slivers of divine sense detached by Li Fan. Beyond intimately perceiving the newborn laws of the Xuanhuang Immortal Domain, their greater purpose was to induce and detonate a Xuanhuang collapse within the grotto-heavens at the crucial juncture.
Combined with the contingency measures he had secretly planted throughout the Xuanhuang Realm earlier, even if the realm successfully transformed into an Immortal Domain, Li Fan could turn it upside down with a single thought.
He had no need to contend head-on with the Xuanhuang Immortal Domain; rather, he would borrow its own momentum against it, repaying it in kind.
Everything unfolded identically to the branch simulation.
Once the grotto-heavens completed their derivation, four heavenly pillars rose from the four corners of the Xuanhuang Realm. Meanwhile, Li Fan continuously formed hand seals, and at the realm's center, the phantom formed by the faceless True Immortal stele manifested simultaneously.
Five peaks stood abreast, propping up the heavens in a magnificent spectacle.
Next came the appearance of Great Heavenly Venerable Wuming.
Three immortal artifacts—the Great Sun Golden Bell, the Hunyuan Five Elements Roulette, and the Great Void Azure Lamp—were integrated into the Xuanhuang Realm one after another.
Yet what even the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao failed to detect was that wisps of an eerie, aberrant power entered the Xuanhuang Realm's body alongside these immortal artifacts.
"Aberrant" was not merely an adjective, but a concrete existence named the Aberrance.
Inspired by the Heaven-Spiting Arrow, it preserved and refined the discordant friction born when worlds merged.
Once brought under Li Fan's control, it acted like a targeted remedy, quietly accompanying the merged immortal artifacts directly into the Xuanhuang Realm.
Augmented by the three immortal artifacts, the overall balance of power between the Xuanhuang Realm and the cultivators tilted sharply.
Yet this did not affect Li Fan in the slightest.
By leveraging the aberrant power under his command, Li Fan could even mobilize a portion of the newly integrated immortal artifacts' might.
Li Fan showed none of this, however, continuing to feign an inability to bear the pressure as his body dipped slightly downward.
All preparations were complete.
Next, Li Fan held the Edict Jade Talisman, sweeping it across the Xuanhuang earth like wielding a brush soaked in ink.
With a single stroke, he wrote the two characters for "Creation"!
Having done it once before, Li Fan wielded the brush with even greater fluency.
Before long, the sacred power of Creation began diffusing across heaven and earth.
The four immortal pillars surged upward once more, connecting directly with the firmament. The grotto-heavens and blessed lands overflowed with radiant light, their intrinsic laws growing increasingly sacred. The mortal beings of the earth reaped the benefits without effort, their souls and physiques strengthening by leaps and bounds with every passing day...
Everything that had transpired in the branch simulation played out again in exact synchrony.
Having prepared well in advance, Li Fan operated the Sitting Heaven Technique, channeling the seemingly boundless feedback into an illusory Xuanhuang Realm within his dantian.
Because he had received the feedback of this sublimating power from the very inception of the Xuanhuang Realm's transformation, by the time the realm reached the limits of its growth, the illusory Xuanhuang Realm gathered in his dantian was equivalent to thirty-six times the realm's total combined strength at its threshold of ascent.
Even having experienced it once before, Li Fan still felt a tremor of awe.
The feedback from a complete ascent from beginning to end far surpassed assisting halfway through.
"This is not the limit yet."
"The greatest feedback will arrive when the Xuanhuang Realm officially ascends into an Immortal Domain."
"I truly wonder what kind of spectacle will unfold then..."
In Li Fan's thoughts, the Xuanhuang Realm's journey of ascent had reached its terminus.
Next, barring any external intervention, its fate would mirror that of the branch simulation.
It would plummet violently, then be swallowed whole by the boundless black mist of Dao Annihilation.
As if sensing its impending doom, the Xuanhuang Realm transmitted panicked, terrified pleas for help to Li Fan.
After all, Li Fan was the one who had orchestrated all these changes, and he was the sole lifesaver it could cling to at this moment.
Without the slightest courtesy, Li Fan made exorbitant demands, claiming immense authority from the Xuanhuang Realm.
It was virtually an indenture; the authority he demanded far exceeded even that of the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerable.
Faced with a transaction where it was effectively buying the rope to hang itself, the Xuanhuang Realm felt endless reluctance and sorrow. Yet pressed by life and death, it had no choice but to agree.
The deal between Li Fan and the Xuanhuang Realm concluded in a heartbeat.
Just as the sublimated Xuanhuang Realm was about to begin its plunge, Li Fan acted.
Supporting the collapsing heavens, he turned the tide.
The momentum of the Xuanhuang Realm had reached the apex of the mortal realm.
Wielding his newly acquired authority, Li Fan—his body, spirit, and will united as one with the Xuanhuang Realm—had no need to ascend again.
Li Fan's towering avatar manifested between heaven and earth, assuming the colossal form of the Phenomenon of Heaven and Earth. Once again, he donned that mysterious black-and-gold robe, a starlight-gleaming crown adorning his head.
This time, however, Li Fan no longer veiled his expression.
Instead, he deeply imprinted his countenance into the minds of every living being in the Xuanhuang Realm, whether conscious or unconscious.
Even the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao was thoroughly inscribed with Li Fan's majestic countenance as its savior.
Though he had expanded into a titan propping up heaven and earth, in Li Fan's eyes, the stone slab he held aloft remained entirely unchanged in size.
Understanding dawned in his heart. With a shift of his will, he began mobilizing the residual immortal spiritual energy lingering between heaven and earth.
He divided it into three streams.
One stream was used to begin tracing the character for the transformation between immortal and mortal onto the stone slab.
The second stream surged into Li Fan's body. Still possessing a mortal frame, he could not utilize immortal spiritual energy directly. Upon entering his body, it was absorbed by the fragments of the Terminal Dissociation Disc scattered like starlight across his soul.
Countless fragments glittered like a sea of stars. Nurtured by the immortal spiritual energy, each fragment seemed to give birth to a new Terminal Dissociation Disc.
As for the final stream, Li Fan directed it toward the dying little Tian beast, which remained asleep and recuperating. Immortal spiritual energy was apparently an immense tonic to it; even while unconscious, the beast instinctively raised its head as the energy drew near, greedily craving it.
To Li Fan's surprise, despite both being living forms, the Dao Child Qiushui recoiled from the immortal spiritual energy as if from a plague, treating the energy that countless beings yearned for as though it were lethal poison.
The Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao harbored immense resentment toward Li Fan's squandering of the already scarce immortal spiritual energy.
Yet under Li Fan's intimidating presence, it dared not show the slightest protest.
For as Li Fan wrote upon the stone slab, a vortex abruptly emerged in the firmament of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Within it lay an endless expanse of wondrous scenery, anchoring the falling Xuanhuang Realm firmly in place.
"Condense!" Li Fan shouted softly in his mind.
Countless You people, like mere ants, were absorbed into the nameless True Immortal's leg bone.
The character for the transformation between immortal and mortal was finally perfected.
And upon the stone slab, Li Fan inscribed the final stroke.
Chapter 1402