Now that Li Fan had activated the Simulating the Multitudes of Living Beings Great Formation, how could he stop simply because Jingxuan begged for mercy?
Through his past reincarnations, Li Fan had gained a clear understanding of Jingxuan's character. Perhaps to be on the safe side, Li Fan would spare his life. But as for remaining the artifact spirit of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, Li Fan would certainly never allow Jingxuan to hold that role again!
When Chuanfa acquired the precious mirror in the past, he had still chosen to keep its artifact spirit intact, merely setting up the Mirror Keepers to keep it in check. That was purely because his strength was insufficient to do otherwise. But Li Fan was different.
Not only did he have the backing of an immortal array, but he also understood and had seized Jingxuan's human avatar.
This human avatar was essentially a duplicate tailored by Jingxuan for himself, free from the shackles of an immortal artifact.
Jingxuan himself had once praised this body: "It possesses both the gravity of an artifact and the spirituality of man. Flawless and whole, it borders upon a True Immortal."
This was an escape method—or rather, a path of escape—that Jingxuan had painstakingly devised during the thousands of years he was locked down by the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals. The profundity of this path lay not just in the human body before him, but in the underlying nomological principle that continuously regenerated it. As long as the true body of the Heavenly Profound Mirror remained intact, even if the human body were slain, it could quickly be reformed anew.
When Li Fan had spoken with Jingxuan earlier, the other had spoken in profound, nebulous riddles.
Now, examining it in person, the technique was laid bare before him.
"In principle, its mechanism is largely identical to Zhang Qianmo's Great Vow Method. The only difference is that Zhang Qianmo's Great Vow Dharma Body relies on the Great Dao of the Xuanhuang Realm to exist."
"Meanwhile, the foundational bedrock of Jingxuan's avatar is merely the Heavenly Profound Mirror itself!"
"Though the Heavenly Profound Mirror likewise has not a shred of immortal spiritual energy left within it, its status as an immortal artifact remains. Furthermore, it retains a vast wealth of knowledge from the Immortal Realm, making that status all the more solid. The weight of a single artifact is no less than that of an entire realm—perhaps even greater."
Although the expression on Li Fan's face did not shift in the slightest, he could not help but marvel inwardly.
Appreciation was one thing, but his hands did not pause.
Under Jingxuan's utterly terrified gaze, Li Fan drew out a wisp of the Heavenly Profound Mirror's origin.
To the side, Di Sanmo and Dharma Transmitter Zhou, who were keeping their eyes lowered and their thoughts to themselves, certainly did not know what Li Fan had retrieved.
Yet how could Jingxuan not know?
Seeing that all-too-familiar aura curling in Li Fan's hand, the look on Jingxuan's face was as if he had seen a ghost.
His mind raced, desperately trying to recall when he had ever separated out this wisp of origin. But rack his brains as he might, he could find no answer.
Despair and gloom slowly enveloped him.
This willing gift from the Heavenly Profound Mirror in days past had now become the final strand binding him in a cocoon of his own making.
Jingxuan had once proudly declared that no one in the Xuanhuang Realm could truly harm him. In the past, that was true. But now, Li Fan had already ascended to the realm of a half-immortal!
Taking the past Xuantian Spirit-Sealing Array as its foundational core, the Dissolving Disc instantly deduced an advanced, immortal-grade version that firmly locked down the true body of the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
Tackling the mirror spirit and the human avatar simultaneously, Li Fan struck on both fronts. With the Heavenly Profound Mirror's origin serving as a natural bridge of access, he used the simulation array to forge a brand-new "Jingxuan," gradually supplanting the old spirit's control over the mirror.
Such a method of stealing the heavens and substituting the sun was utterly unimaginable to ordinary mortals. Even for Supremes of the Star Sea like the Heavenly Physician and Chuanfa, it would likely remain strictly theoretical.
Yet Li Fan could pull it off with ease. Part of the credit naturally belonged to the immortal-ranked Dissolving Disc, but what mattered even more was that Li Fan, with his standing as a half-immortal, neutralized the top-down pressure exerted by the Heavenly Profound Mirror's status as an immortal artifact.
Between the two, their standing was roughly equal; there was no unbridgeable chasm. No matter how tightly guarded the mirror was, how could it withstand a full arsenal of techniques unleashed all at once?
Even without the aid of the Dissolving Disc, Li Fan likely would have achieved his goal with just a bit more time.
The analysis and replication of Jingxuan continued. Within the true body of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, Li Fan also discovered a few lingering hidden restrictions, all of which he brushed away with ease.
Even if Jingxuan had not made any petty moves beforehand, the anomaly unfolding within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals could not be concealed.
"Chuanfa and the Heavenly Physician are already on their way back to the Xuanhuang Realm. It will be the perfect opportunity to catch them all at once and suppress them first," Li Fan thought, glancing upward casually. He did not take it too heavily to heart.
Having witnessed the Blackened Heavenly Physician and the Sinister Su Bai—those two counterparts from outside this possibility—Li Fan believed that keeping these two quiet and subdued was by far the safest outcome for every living being in the Star Sea.
While waiting for the analysis to conclude, Li Fan reflected upon the recent processes of extracting the Fa-Deduction Jade and replicating Jingxuan.
"With my current methods, completely copying a person is still somewhat difficult."
"However, creating someone eighty to ninety percent similar should pose no problem. Given that possibilities are continually being annihilated and converging, this unavoidable flaw born of insufficient strength might even be an advantage."
"The real Heavenly Physician cannot cross the high wall. But what about a pseudo-Heavenly Physician created by me...?"
Li Fan's eyes flickered as he conceptualized and fleshed out his exploration plan.
Day and night did not exist within the Heavenly Profound Mirror's space.
As expected of an immortal artifact that was truly intact, having merely shed its immortal spiritual energy, replicating its artifact spirit proved even harder than Li Fan had anticipated.
It took a full thirty-six two-hour periods before Li Fan finally completed the initial creation of the simulated Jingxuan.
For now, it could not fully utilize every single function of the Heavenly Profound Mirror the way a natural artifact spirit could. But basic operations, records browsing, and even defending against enemies were no longer an issue.
The very first thing Li Fan did upon gaining control over the Heavenly Profound Mirror was to search for the complete Xuan Yuan Shi Ling Great Formation.
He had long coveted this complete immortal-grade grand array, which possessed the power to re-establish earth, fire, water, and wind, and to open the heavens and cleave the earth within the void.
"Hmm? What a pity."
"Even the Heavenly Profound Mirror lacks the complete set of nine diagrams," Li Fan sighed inwardly.
Though his search yielded results, apart from the three he had already mastered—Xuanji, Myriad Spirits Returning to Numerical Order; Huangluo, Flowers Blooming in an Empty Chamber; and Wuliang, Primordial Chaos Squared—the Heavenly Profound Mirror contained only two other grand arrays:
Daoqi, Ceaseless Vitality, and Yuhua, Ebbs and Flows of Life and Death!
Li Fan was not an insatiably greedy man. Across so many cycles of reincarnation, he had gathered only three diagrams. Gaining two new ones all at once was more than enough to keep him occupied for a while.
He examined the two diagrams closely.
Daoqi, Ceaseless Vitality explained the mechanism of simulating, gestating, and evolving vital energy from within the array, and then circulating myriad life forces throughout a world.
"Life force generated out of nothingness, manifesting simply because the Dao exists..."
"Brilliant."
Li Fan's eyes sparkled, an epiphany dawning within him.
Only after a long while did he reluctantly shift his gaze to the other diagram:
Yuhua, Ebbs and Flows of Life and Death.
"If a world only experiences the evolution of life force, that would be unnatural. Life and death are intertwined, coexisting; only then does it accord with the Great Dao. This Ebbs and Flows of Life and Death array seems to expound upon the principles of life and death..."
Observing it closely, Li Fan found that its underlying mechanics bore some resemblance to the Grand Formation of Inverting Life and Death he had seen before. However, the sophistication of this magnificent immortal array was clearly far beyond what any mortal formation could match.
"It does not merely govern the cycle of life and death within a world. It even extends to the world itself, and perhaps even the Star Sea beyond it?"
The more Li Fan pondered, the more astonished he became.
Once activated, this Yuhua, Ebbs and Flows of Life and Death could easily drain the vitality of an entire cultivation realm dry, condensing it into a single white feather. It could likewise draw boundless life force back out of that white feather, birthing a world from a feather.
Even the Star Sea operated on the same principle.
Relying solely on himself, Li Fan could not fully comprehend these two arrays. Just scratching the surface had already brought on a slight headache.
The reason was that at the level of the Xuan Yuan Shi Ling Great Formation, it was no longer just about formations. It was fused with the ultimate principles of the Great Dao; one who merely understood arrays without grasping the Great Dao could never truly master it.
Fortunately, Li Fan possessed the immortal-ranked Dissolving Disc.
"Even if I don't grasp the underlying principles yet, I can still put them to use."
"I can gain understanding through practice."
Of the nine diagrams, Li Fan now held five.
With more than half in hand, the Dissolving Disc alone might be able to deduce the remaining portions given enough time. But the calculations involved were simply too immense.
In his day-to-day activities, Li Fan could hardly do without the Dissolving Disc, so he could not spare enough computational power to tackle such a daunting undertaking.
Thus, Li Fan merely had the Dissolving Disc dedicate a token, minuscule portion of its processing power to deduce them slowly. Perhaps, like a cultivator stumbling upon a sudden epiphany, it might grant Li Fan a pleasant surprise down the road.
Li Fan tried searching within the Heavenly Profound Mirror for clues regarding the remaining diagrams of the Xuan Yuan Shi Ling Great Formation.
"It seems that after undergoing several massive shocks, the Heavenly Profound Mirror lost a portion of its memories."
Li Fan frowned slightly.
After a meticulous check, he confirmed it was not some trick played by the Heavenly Profound Mirror, but rather genuine hidden damage deep within its true body. Only then did he feel at ease.
"The first shock occurred back in the Immortal Realm. It appears the Heavenly Profound Mirror was fought over and changed hands several times, suffering under repeated refinements," Li Fan reconstructed based on the ancient traces inside the mirror and the memories it retained.
"The second shock came after Xuanyuan Hong brought it back, when he helped it actively shed its immortal status and become mortal." Li Fan looked at the figure of the King of Xuantian within the mirror's memories, lost in thought.
"The third shock..."
His subsequent discovery jolted Li Fan's spirits.
It concerned how the Heavenly Profound Mirror had fallen into Chuanfa's hands after the destruction of the Tianxuan Sect back then. The scenes Li Fan saw also resolved an age-old question.
Back when he was inside Heavenly Venerable Yixin's illusory array, Zhao Ruoxi, the Sect Master of the Grand Dao Sect, had mentioned that a Sacred Emissary of Xuantian had escaped the hunt of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, vanishing without a trace with the precious Heavenly Profound Mirror.
The Ten Sects had exerted every effort—even offering the promise that exchanging the mirror would earn immortality in the Longevity realm—yet they never found it.
Yet in Li Fan's dealings with Mo Rubin, and within the remnant soul of Ji Yuzhen, neither had ever mentioned this Sacred Emissary of Xuantian.
Consequently, Li Fan had long assumed that this so-called Sacred Emissary of Xuantian existed only within Zhao Ruoxi's dream—a fiction that never existed in reality.
But...
Watching the scenes flash past, Li Fan's expression grew subtle.
The Sacred Emissary of Xuantian truly existed.
Yet she was not one of the Twelve Dharma Kings of the Tianxuan Sect.
In fact, she had never appeared in any official Tianxuan Sect setting at all.
A familiar mountain village scene emerged.
It was a village not far from the Fishing Pond.
A middle-aged woman of ordinary appearance woke from her sleep to inexplicably find a mirror resting beside her pillow.
Then, having received some unknown message, tears suddenly streamed down her face. Clutching the Heavenly Profound Mirror, she wept bitterly.
Faintly, the name on her lips was "A-Hong."
That was the King of Xuantian, Xuanyuan Hong's name!
"No wonder Xuanyuan Hong always maintained a distant, ambiguous attitude toward Ji Yuzhen and the other women among the Twelve Dharma Kings, never showing any definitive stance."
"It turns out he had a childhood sweetheart all along!"
"For an ordinary cultivator, the long passage of cultivation years would naturally separate the immortal from the mortal."
"Yet the King of Xuantian rose too swiftly. What's more, he possessed a supreme treasure like the Fishing Pond..."
"Keeping his childhood sweetheart alive would have been child's play!"
The light and shadows flickered rapidly.
When the King of Xuantian entrusted the precious mirror to the woman, he seemed to have also taught her methods to suppress it.
One reason was to prevent the mirror from turning on its master, and the other was to keep its aura from leaking out and bringing fatal disaster upon her.
The external images the mirror could perceive were hazy and indistinct.
It could only clearly sense that the woman in contact with it saw her strength soar by leaps and bounds in a short span.
In just three years, she leapt from a mortal to a Dao Integration cultivator.
One day, within a secret chamber at an unknown location, the woman performed a secret art upon the precious mirror.
"A-Hong told me that your origins are extraordinary, that you hail from the Immortal Realm."
"Yet the Immortal Realm has been destroyed. Though you shed your immortal status and became mortal with A-Hong's help, your unseen connection to it has not been severed entirely. If A-Hong were still here, it wouldn't matter."
"But A-Hong is now trapped in peril... I must go find him."
"This journey is fraught with mortal danger, with almost no hope of survival. I do not wish to drag you to your death."
"Stay here in the Xuanhuang Realm."
"Remember, the immortal dao is no more. Since you have already shed your immortal nature to become mortal, do not seek to ascend the immortal path again."
"Not returning to the body of an immortal artifact does not mean you have no path forward. Your Great Dao lies in Measuring Heaven and Sizing Earth."
"This Xuanhuang Realm conceals far too many wonders. Even A-Hong never fully unraveled them all back then. If you can see through every secret of this realm..."
"The Great Dao is within your reach!"
"I have shown you your path, which makes me your benefactor."
"My journey ahead is perilous, so I need you to lend me a hand!"
The figure lightly pressed her hand upon the mirror.
By some unknown method, an identical shadow suddenly drifted out from the precious Xuantian mirror!
"From this day forth, your name is Tianxuan."
"Xuantian... I am taking with me."
Her voice drifted away, vanishing into the unknown.
At the exact same time, the restrictions binding the mirror vanished like smoke.
Having attained freedom, the mirror began to follow the woman's teachings, Measuring Heaven and Sizing Earth to search out the mysteries within the Xuanhuang Realm.
Until one day, it encountered Heavenly Venerable Chuanfa.
Chapter 1422