“The Xuanhuang Realm truly lives up to its reputation as a realm favored by immortals. The power of its Heavenly Dao far exceeds that of the Tianfa Realm.
“This Heavenly Soul Reincarnation technique completely severs all ties with one’s native realm, leaving behind only a remnant thought to reincarnate. I tested it tens of thousands of times in the Tianfa Realm beforehand and never once failed.
“Though I anticipated encountering some unexpected complications in the Xuanhuang Realm, the actual peril has still far exceeded my expectations.
“A full fifty years without awakening...”
It seemed to take some time to discern the condition of the current body.
After a long silence, the aged voice spoke once more, filled with suspicion and disbelief. “How bizarre! Heavenly Soul Reincarnation sacrifices the Heavenly Soul Great Dao of the Tianfa Realm to allow reincarnation into the Xuanhuang Realm as a native living being, thereby deceiving the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
“The original plan was that once I awakened, I would diagnose Xuanhuang and then forge a new method, causing chaos to arise from within. Yet now, before my true consciousness had even awakened, this body has already created the new method?!
“Defying the principles of Heaven and Earth to attain longevity...”
The Heavenly Physician grew increasingly astonished. “This cultivation method aligns uncannily with what I had envisioned. In fact, many of its intricate details are even superior!”
Just then, as if sensing the Heavenly Physician’s words, Xuanyuan Tuo’s eyelids twitched violently.
The Heavenly Physician’s voice began to fade.
“Wait! Heavenly Soul Reincarnation is far superior to ordinary body possession. I have already awakened, so why does this body’s own consciousness still remain?
“The Xuanyuan clan?!” Amid the Heavenly Physician’s cry of shock, Xuanyuan Tuo awoke completely from his stupor.
The Heavenly Physician fell entirely silent.
Upon waking, Xuanyuan Tuo seemed completely unaware of the Heavenly Physician’s presence within him.
He merely examined his newly achieved Qi Refining cultivation with boundless joy.
After a long while, Xuanyuan Tuo took to the wind and soared into the sky amid cries of awe from mortals across the city.
Within the immortal array, light and shadow shifted.
Following this, guided by an uncanny intuition in his mind, Xuanyuan Tuo continually sought out cultivation wonders across the Xuanhuang Realm.
In a mere half year, he built his Dao foundation with All Spirits of the Profound Heaven, formed his Golden Core with the Heavenly Derivation Method, and ascended to Nascent Soul with the Primordial Grotto-Heaven.
Then, with the transformations of the Myriad Phenomena of Creation, he stepped into Soul Formation.
He advanced in leaps and bounds, unstoppable!
Only when he reached the pinnacle of Soul Formation, at the step of sacrificing a Heaven-and-Earth Essence to merge with the Dao, did he finally come to a halt.
The Xuanhuang Realm held countless essences of Heaven and Earth.
How to choose among them became Xuanyuan Tuo’s dilemma.
Before the creation of the New Method, cultivators had regarded Heaven-and-Earth Essences as projections of the will of the Great Dao, the ideal conduits for comprehending the laws of the Heavenly Dao.
Though some cultivators had attempted to capture Heaven-and-Earth Essences in the past, at most they used them to assist in their comprehension of the Dao. No method existed to refine and convert the power of an essence into one’s own cultivation.
“Heaven-and-Earth Essences are born bearing heavenly mandates. Even after manifesting as human-shaped phantoms, though they appear as independent entities, they remain linked to the great web of the Great Dao. The New Method I envision steals the power of Heaven and Earth precisely through that link.
“Every Heaven-and-Earth Essence corresponds to a specific law of Heaven and Earth. My goal, however, is...”
Xuanyuan Tuo gazed at the world of Xuanhuang. The scenery of the realm blurred and turned ethereal, dissolving into a colossal, crisscrossing web. Sweeping his gaze across the great web, Xuanyuan Tuo carefully searched for his target.
No one knew how much time had passed...
Xuanyuan Tuo’s gaze suddenly focused.
A myriad of complex expressions crossed his face—perplexity, pleasant surprise.
“For some reason, it feels strangely familiar.
“Moreover, the law corresponding to that Heaven-and-Earth Essence does not seem native to the Xuanhuang Realm. Compared to the other laws, it looks somewhat out of place...
“Does it hail from the upper realm?”
Xuanyuan Tuo fell silent for a long time before finally making up his mind.
Spending another half year and employing every means at his disposal, he at last lured out this extraordinary Heaven-and-Earth Essence!
It was shrouded in golden light, radiating an inviolably sacred aura. It looked down upon Xuanyuan Tuo below as though regarding an ant.
“Even if you originated in the Immortal Realm, merging into Xuanhuang has dragged you down into the mortal dust. Death stares you in the face, yet you remain ignorant!” A year ago, Xuanyuan Tuo had still possessed the mentality of a grieving, fifty-year-old farmer.
Yet over this past year, as his cultivation and realm soared and more memories flooded his mind, his demeanor had grown completely different.
Even an entity with deep ties to the upper realm held no sanctity in his eyes; he viewed it merely as prey.
Xuanyuan Tuo struck with his palm, and the space around the golden Heaven-and-Earth Essence instantly froze. Countless scenes of the Xuanhuang Realm transformed into grim, formidable apparitions that swarmed forward.
It was as though a world had been conjured around the golden essence, from which phantom essences were derived to lay siege to it.
Like a commander-in-chief seated motionless in his central tent, Xuanyuan Tuo watched dispassionately as his forces fought.
Strong as the golden Heaven-and-Earth Essence was, once Xuanyuan Tuo severed its connection to the world of Xuanhuang using unfathomable methods, it became nothing more than a tree without roots, water without a source.
In the end, it was ground down to death. Transforming into a beam of golden light, it was devoured by Xuanyuan Tuo.
“Heaven-and-Earth Essence, Gold Arbiter!”
As the brilliant golden radiance receded inward, Xuanyuan Tuo let out a long breath.
Gold Arbiter had existed since the creation of the Xuanhuang Realm. Created by immortals, it held the power to govern and create all things in Xuanhuang. Originally hidden deep within the realm, it was undetectable to mortals. But when the Immortal Realm was destroyed, the ancient formation upon which the law of Gold Arbiter relied to function had also shattered.
Only then had Xuanyuan Tuo detected its traces.
By merging with the Dao through Gold Arbiter, Xuanyuan Tuo’s strength leaped forward once more. Ordinary Longevity cultivators were no match for him; only the sect masters of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, with their immense foundations, might pose a slight threat.
Xuanyuan Tuo knew it was time to embark upon his path of spreading the Dao—which was also his final step.
“Seize Heaven’s momentum through mortal momentum.
“Establish Heaven’s Dao through the Mortal Dao.
“When the cultivators practicing my New Method multiply across the world, turning the cosmos on its head until this becomes the only path under Heaven, that day shall be when I attain the Dao!
“From this day forth, I shall turn the Xuanhuang Realm upside down!”
Bearing this conviction, Xuanyuan Tuo arrived at Congyun Marsh on the borderlands of the Xuanhuang Realm.
There, he began his very first sermon.
When he manifested his Dharma Idol and declared to the world, “Defying the principles of Heaven and Earth to attain longevity,” it did not actually create much of a stir. Because the New Method was too shocking, very few cultivators were willing to believe him and abandon their progress to start over.
Yet Xuanyuan Tuo was unbothered, continuing to spread the New Method across the lands of Xuanhuang.
And when the first batch of mortals who were originally unable to cultivate advanced into cultivators, they became Xuanyuan Tuo’s most fanatical disciples.
They did not know Xuanyuan Tuo’s name, reverently addressing him only by the title Chuanfa Immortal Venerable.
The believers spontaneously founded an organization called the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals to support one another and spread the New Method.
In just a few years, the New Method grew like wildfire, sweeping across the world!
Such an upheaval naturally drew the attention of the high and mighty Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao.
Slaughter descended.
The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had only just found its footing; how could it rival the Ten Great Immortal Sects that had ruled the Xuanhuang Realm for thousands of years? The Ten Great Immortal Sects did not even need to take action personally; their subsidiary sects alone inflicted grievous losses on the alliance.
Yet New Method cultivators possessed advantages that practitioners of the Old Method could never match.
First, the cultivation speed of the New Method was unimaginably fast. Even if they were nearly wiped out, hordes of New Method cultivators would spring up again before long.
Second, once they stepped into the Nascent Soul realm, the survivability of New Method cultivators became staggering. As long as their souls did not suffer lethal trauma, no matter how severe their physical injuries, their bodies could recover in an instant.
Combining these two factors, while many New Method cultivators died, the casualties were mostly at the Qi Refining through Golden Core stages. The upper echelons at Nascent Soul and above managed to survive time and again.
Through relentless struggle, they grew increasingly seasoned.
Practitioners of the Old Method, by contrast, required massive amounts of time and resources to cultivate a capable combatant. Every casualty was an irreplaceable loss.
As one side waned and the other waxed, the tide gradually began to turn.
Furthermore, Xuanyuan Tuo could sense that people within the Ten Sects had begun secretly converting to the New Method. When their own ranks were no longer monolithic, how could they hope to sweep away external foes in one fell swoop?
Just as everything seemed to be progressing favorably according to plan, an ominous foreboding grew increasingly heavy in Xuanyuan Tuo’s heart. It felt as though catastrophe might strike at any moment!
Even though Xuanyuan Tuo cautiously concealed his movements and stopped openly preaching in broad daylight, the sense of impending doom refused to abate.
Thus, Xuanyuan Tuo knew that the prominent figures of the Ten Sects had certainly set their eyes upon him.
Only by facing them in person could one truly understand the bone-deep despair of confronting behemoths like the Ten Sects.
Xuanyuan Tuo exhausted every tactic, yet there seemed to be only one possible outcome for him:
Death.
Yet Xuanyuan Tuo did not want to die.
Just as despair threatened to swallow him whole, that ethereal murmuring that had accompanied him since childhood resurfaced after so many years!
Ever since he stepped onto the cultivation path, that voice had vanished from his life. Now, upon its return, it brought back everything Xuanyuan Tuo had experienced over all these years!
Amid the bewildering, mystical murmurs, Xuanyuan Tuo felt as if he were reliving the past anew.
Moreover, he could carefully observe everything around him from the perspective of an outside bystander.
An inexplicable intuition even sprouted in his heart:
He seemed capable, to some degree, of manipulating and altering these people’s thoughts!
When he saw a young cultivator in his memory who had gathered around to listen to his sermon, a sudden wave of great joy surged in Xuanyuan Tuo’s heart for no apparent reason.
He knew that this young man was his sole chance at survival!
His soul rejoiced and leapt with excitement. Accompanied by the persistent murmurs, Xuanyuan Tuo approached, touched, and infiltrated...
Even though it was only a phantom within a memory, empowered by the mysterious force of the murmurs, Xuanyuan Tuo felt as though he had truly entered the person’s soul.
He learned everything about him.
Chen Tianhai! The chief direct disciple of the Taiyan Sect!
The Nine Scrolls of Heavenly Derivation, the Dao Transformation Mother Stone!
“There exists such a divine artifact under Heaven?” Xuanyuan Tuo’s mind stirred violently, nearly snapping him out of the mystical trance.
This Dao Transformation Mother Stone was something he had never heard of, even among the myriad visions constantly welling up in his mind.
“If I can borrow the power of this Dao Transformation Mother Stone for deduction, it will surely find a glimmer of life for me!”
Hope ignited in Xuanyuan Tuo’s heart.
Yet not even Chen Tianhai, the chief direct disciple of the Taiyan Sect, was qualified to use the Dao Transformation Mother Stone. For an outsider—and a mortal enemy of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao—to employ it...
It was nothing short of a pipe dream!
“Perhaps I can manipulate and influence Chen Tianhai to accomplish this.”
Enlightenment suddenly dawned upon Xuanyuan Tuo.
Peering into the thoughts of a phantom within a past memory was already inconceivable.
To influence the future of reality through a phantom from the past was utterly unheard of.
Yet for reasons unknown, Xuanyuan Tuo felt an unfounded confidence bloom within him. If he could harness the murmuring voice in his mind...
This would not be difficult.
Xuanyuan Tuo was truly a natural genius.
Even though he did not comprehend the underlying principles of the murmurs at all, it did not stop him from instinctively figuring out their practical application.
In a daze, he forged a connection with the real Chen Tianhai.
Vaguely, he could perceive Chen Tianhai’s thoughts at every waking moment.
And so, Chen Tianhai’s memories were quietly altered.
It seemed as though, when Chen Tianhai had watched Chuanfa preach back then, Chuanfa had given him an inscrutable glance.
In the years that followed, that glance from Chuanfa haunted him incessantly.
It became his inner demon, robbing him of sleep and peace.
For Chen Tianhai to be chosen as the Taiyan Sect’s chief direct disciple, his talent and disposition were naturally beyond reproach; he was an absolute prodigy.
Relying on sheer willpower, Chen Tianhai forcibly suppressed the unsettling dread in his heart.
Xuanyuan Tuo felt neither haste nor frustration, merely waiting patiently for the opportunity he sensed approaching.
Now that the seed had been planted, the day of its blossoming and fruition would inevitably arrive.
Sure enough.
Not long after, regarding the encirclement and suppression of Chuanfa by six Longevity experts, Fang Dingge, the sect master of the Dadao Sect, entrusted Daoist Xingji, the sect master of the Taiyan Sect, with using the Dao Transformation Mother Stone to perform deductions before setting out.
Daoist Xingji ran the deduction five hundred million times, and every single outcome ended with Chuanfa’s death.
Having received this answer, Fang Dingge set out to hunt down Chuanfa.
“Six Longevity cultivators... what immense grandeur,” Xuanyuan Tuo thought, a chill running through his heart.
Sensing death drawing near, Xuanyuan Tuo was alarmed but did not panic.
He utilized the mysterious power of the murmuring voice to continue corrupting and influencing Chen Tianhai’s mind.
Fortune seemed to decree that Xuanyuan Tuo was not fated to die.
Daoist Xingji temporarily left the Taiyan Sect to suppress an anomaly in the Indeterminate Prison.
Unable to resist the temptation gnawing at his heart, Chen Tianhai unauthorizedly initiated the deduction of the Dao Transformation Mother Stone.
Who knew how many times he drove the Mother Stone to calculate.
At last, amidst countless impossibilities, he found the sole thread of survival!
Chen Tianhai seemed to foresee the fall of the six Longevity cultivators; shaken to the core, he became absentminded and dazed.
Meanwhile, Xuanyuan Tuo seized the final window of opportunity, rushing straight toward the pocket world indicated by the Mother Stone’s deduction.
He reached his destination just barely before the six Longevity cultivators of the immortal sects encircled him.
The six Longevity cultivators arrived one after another.
Even with heaven-defying divine abilities at his command, Xuanyuan Tuo was swiftly wounded grievously under the combined assault of the six Longevity experts.
Just as he teetered on the brink of death,
an alien race in the pocket world—suffering catastrophic casualties from the fallout of their clash—launched an unexpected counterattack.
Those beings, whom the six Longevity cultivators viewed as mere ants unworthy of notice, chanted and summoned a doorway.
It engulfed all seven of them, Xuanyuan Tuo included.
The doorway swung open, and endless gloom submerged everyone.
Within the Sea of Endless Gloom, guided by the vision from the Dao Transformation Mother Stone’s deduction, Xuanyuan Tuo exploited the awakened will to survive of a True Immortal to slay the six Longevity cultivators one by one.
Yet in the end, due to his severe injuries, he fell unconscious within the Sea of Endless Gloom.
During this time, the Heavenly Physician, who had been lurking and biding his time all along, finally regained control over the body.
“What in the world is that murmuring?”
Watching from start to finish, the Heavenly Physician was thoroughly stunned by that mysterious, unfathomable power.
The Heavenly Physician had believed this body was doomed beyond escape, never expecting that Xuanyuan Tuo would truly discover a thread of survival amidst the impossible.
Affecting and altering reality from past memories—
such an ability could never belong to the mortal realm!
“More importantly, Xuanyuan Tuo and I are effectively one body sharing the same soul. Yet that murmuring exists solely within his memories.
“Although I am aware of its existence, I cannot recall or perceive it in any concrete way...”
The Heavenly Physician’s mind trembled in turmoil, unable to calm for a very long time.
Chapter 1409