The so-called "comprehension points" in the Dream Paradise were actually the insights into the Great Dao acquired by Dharma Transmitter Jiang through the trait of "Great Dao Like Me."
They were separated merely by a single wall.
Dharma Transmitter Jiang's efficiency in comprehending the Dao had not changed. What had changed was the environment itself. Put simply, cultivation for cultivators outside the wall would generally be many times easier than within the high wall.
Just as Li Fan had previously surmised, as long as a cultivator possessed the ability to step onto the path of cultivation by their own strength—even if they were utterly ordinary—outside the wall, they could be hailed as a "chosen genius"!
Moreover, this was only the beginning.
Li Fan keenly sensed that after coming into contact with the environment beyond the high wall, Dharma Transmitter Jiang's efficiency in comprehending the Dao within the Grand Array of Reaching the Heavens was gradually climbing.
His prolonged comprehension of the Great Dao had finally begun to nourish him in turn.
Synchronizing with Jiang's sensations, Li Fan looked upward from below at that heaven-reaching Great Dao, which seemed to gradually shift from dull gray and white into vivid, swirling colors.
"Is this the difference between a so-called Dao Annihilation Land and a normal environment?" Even Li Fan was momentarily captivated by the magnificent spectacle.
"Outside the high wall, it is so beautiful that it terrifies the heart. If anything, it makes one shrink back."
A voice sounded beside Li Fan's ear, interrupting his musings.
Li Fan turned his head toward the blue silhouette beside him.
It was none other than Chen Tianhai of the Taiyan Sect!
"I can feel that the demonic voice's influence over me seems to have intensified again. Past memories are becoming clearer. Even though I have seen with my own eyes the sight of Heavenly Venerable Chuanfa being suppressed, and even though I already know those were merely altered memories,
"that glimpse back then still lingers like a nightmare, haunting me incessantly." Chen Tianhai's figure fluctuated uncontrollably.
Li Fan did not reply. Instead, he attempted to silently chant the demonic chanting voice in his mind.
An invisible force seemed to pierce through the Dream Paradise, faintly linking him to what lay beyond the high wall.
Those mystical melodies grew considerably clearer.
Li Fan's heart tightened. To counterbalance it, he immediately began to silently recite the Protection Immortal Scripture that originated from the Archmage.
"The Dao is born, passed down from primordial antiquity. In grief and toil, the Dao is extinguished."
...
As the two voices harmonized, the demonic chanting's influence was significantly diluted. Yet compared to when he was strictly within the high wall, the neutralizing effect of this Protection Immortal Scripture was clearly much weaker.
It was gradually becoming unable to contend with that eerie, unfathomable demonic sound.
"Xuanyuan Hong..." Li Fan wore an inscrutable expression.
When Heavenly Venerable Chuanfa had sought life amid death all those years ago, he had relied precisely on the whispered power seemingly innate to the Xuanyuan clan to influence and alter the memories of Chen Tianhai of the Taiyan Sect, a man he had met only once.
Through the deductions of the Dao Transformation Mother Stone, he had discovered the means to slaughter the many Longevity cultivators of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao.
Though Chuanfa had been suppressed by Li Fan, the mark of the whispered voice left upon Chen Tianhai had never dissipated.
When he followed the power of the Dream Paradise beyond the high wall, its influence flared up once more. Even though Chen Tianhai had already been converted into information and become part of the Dao Transformation Mother Stone, he was still not exempt from it.
"Part of this is because the Great Dao is far more distinct out here. The mystical sounds that depict the Dao through melody are naturally amplified. If one were to write True Immortal seal characters, their might would likely be boosted several times over as well.
"Yet that is not the only reason.
"The degree to which it has been strengthened is simply too drastic. Both belong to the Dao of melody, yet the Protection Immortal Scripture was never enhanced to such an exaggerated degree..."
Faint whispers faded in and out by his ear.
Li Fan turned it over in his mind and could only attribute it to the missing King Xuantian.
Five years ago, when Li Fan visited the Taiyan Sect and met Chen Tianhai,
he had pierced the veil of truth in a single sentence, revealing that Chen Tianhai was corroded by the demonic voice.
At first, Chen Tianhai had refused to believe that his memories had been tampered with all along. It was only after Li Fan taught him the Protection Immortal Scripture to counteract the altering power
that Chen Tianhai regained his true memories, left struck as if by lightning and speechless for a long time.
"It was not that you were lacking. How could mere mortals be exempt from immortal methods?"
This single remark from Li Fan had truly liberated Chen Tianhai from his past torment.
As for why Li Fan had gone to the Taiyan Sect, it was naturally for that Dao Transformation Mother Stone.
After helping Chen Tianhai dispel the nightmare that had plagued him for ten thousand years, Li Fan used a mix of intimidation and enticement to bring the Taiyan Sect to its knees.
Today, this Dao Transformation Mother Stone resided within Li Fan's sea of consciousness.
However, after studying it, Li Fan had not chosen to directly merge it with the high-grade Dao Assimilation Stone in his mind.
Back then, after the entire Taiyan Sect chose to turn into information and merge into the Dao Transformation Mother Stone, their myriad consciousnesses had fused seamlessly into the stone mother, becoming inseparable and forming a fundamental trait of the Mother Stone itself.
Li Fan was not confident he could wipe away these consciousnesses without damaging the Mother Stone.
If he directly devoured it...
The Mother Stone was countless times more powerful than a high-grade Dao Assimilation Stone.
The consciousnesses of the Taiyan Sect members within it could very well contaminate Li Fan's own Dao Assimilation Stone.
Even though Li Fan could forcibly cleanse those consciousnesses afterward,
deep within the Dao Transformation Mother Stone lay another rather peculiar sleeping consciousness, one that even Li Fan, as a half-immortal, found rather troublesome.
Besides, having mastered the Transformation of Real and Unreal, Li Fan no longer needed to resort to crude devouring to bolster his own power.
In his sea of consciousness, around the Dao Transformation Mother Stone,
tens of thousands of threads flew from the void, making contact with, analyzing, and comprehending the essence of the Dao Transformation Mother Stone.
Meanwhile, in the depths of his sea of consciousness, within an isolated area partitioned from the rest,
another crystal identical in appearance to the Dao Transformation Mother Stone quietly floated. It merely existed in a hazy, ethereal state like mist, flickering indistinctly.
It was none other than the Dao Transformation Mother Stone Li Fan had "duplicated" using the Transformation of Real and Unreal.
Having already successfully reproduced Jinggu Cangyuan, his own cultivation, and even the Azure Nether Pearl, Li Fan had originally thought replicating this Dao Transformation Mother Stone would be just as effortless.
Yet to his surprise, replicating this crystal proved dozens of times harder than replicating the immortal artifact Azure Nether Pearl.
To reproduce the Azure Nether Pearl, he only needed the enhancement of triple cultivation; though taxing, it was ultimately achievable.
Facing this Dao Transformation Mother Stone, however, brute force seemed entirely useless.
After several failures, Li Fan realized that it was not a lack of power, but that his understanding of the Dao Transformation Mother Stone had not reached the minimum threshold required to reproduce it.
This was a first for Li Fan.
In the past, using the Transformation of Real and Unreal had never required him to understand the essence of an object.
Yet after careful contemplation and arduous communication with Revert to the True, Li Fan finally understood why.
To put it simply: any object that Li Fan could see in its entirety at a glance could be briefly reproduced through the Transformation of Real and Unreal.
This rule still held true for the Dao Transformation Mother Stone.
The reason reproduction had failed was that Li Fan had been unable to perceive the Mother Stone "in full."
This was also why Li Fan had sealed the Mother Stone in his sea of consciousness, observing and studying it day and night without pause.
He had opened an isolated zone so the Mother Stone would not pry into his memories.
The members of the Taiyan Sect could also leave this zone at any time, exiting Li Fan's sea of consciousness into reality.
Now, Li Fan was already able to reproduce the Dao Transformation Mother Stone and continuously layer it to strengthen the Dao Assimilation Stone in his sea of consciousness, which naturally meant he had finally seen the Mother Stone in full.
And through his interactions with the Mother Stone over this period, Li Fan also understood why he, despite being a half-immortal, had been unable to take in its full form at a single glance.
"Dao Transformation Mother Stone... Mother Stone of the Dao's Manifestation."
With a stir of Li Fan's mind, the illusory Mother Stone he reproduced turned into a halo of light, affixing itself onto his Dao Assimilation Stone.
Circulating the modified Spirit Unity with Dao Transformation secret art, he rapidly absorbed the incomparably pure energy within it.
The illusory Mother Stone reproduced by Li Fan contained none of the Taiyan Sect's consciousnesses. Even the mysterious consciousness hidden deep within the real Mother Stone was absent; it was solely the pure Mother Stone itself, and thus could be absorbed without reservation.
Although each use of the Transformation of Real and Unreal left behind only a small remnant,
the Dao Transformation Mother Stone was so miraculous that with every reproduction, the quality of the Dao Assimilation Stone in Li Fan's sea of consciousness grew exponentially.
In the span of ten years, Li Fan had achieved nearly a hundred reproductions and superpositions.
At this point, the Dao Assimilation Stone in his mind was hardly inferior to the physical Mother Stone in reality.
Thus, he had formed a faint conjecture regarding the true nature of the Dao Transformation Mother Stone.
This otherworldly treasure was quite possibly a direct manifestation of the Great Dao itself!
It was the same principle as the beast clan's Primordial Manifestation.
Yet Primordial Manifestation represented only a single Dao, whereas the Dao Transformation Mother Stone...
Li Fan surmised that it might well be an aggregate of all complete Daos!
It was just that the possibility from which the Mother Stone originated was far weaker than the one Li Fan was familiar with.
Moreover, it had endured the baptism of crossing possibilities and surviving the Dao Annihilation Tribulation,
weakening it even further.
Therefore, even though it was an embodiment of the complete Dao, in terms of power, it could not even match an ordinary Nameless True Immortal.
Of course, all of this was merely speculation based on Li Fan's insights gained during the reproduction process.
The Mother Stone's only surviving memories were of fleeing frantically to escape some impending catastrophe, eventually arriving in the Xuanhuang Realm by chance, where it was later discovered by the Taiyan Sect.
Li Fan guessed that the reason the Dao Transformation Mother Stone had severed all ties to its past was precisely to evade the pursuit of the Dao Annihilation Tribulation.
Even though the Mother Stone had lost its past memories, from its lingering dread of that terrifying catastrophe, Li Fan could still detect the faint, ominous aura of the Dao Annihilation Tribulation.
Li Fan was reasonably confident in his deduction. After all, in the entire mortal cosmos, what else could force a crystal of the complete Dao to flee in panic?
And the Dao Transformation Mother Stone had arrived in the Xuanhuang Realm by sheer "coincidence,"
which reminded Li Fan even more of the scenes he had once witnessed in a True Immortal's memories.
"There must still be profound mysteries in this Xuanhuang Realm that I have yet to discover.
"Mysteries capable of drawing so many extraordinary entities across spacetime, and even across possibilities, to this very place.
"Perhaps, even my own transmigration..."
The realization that the Dao Transformation Mother Stone hailed from another possibility also stirred faint doubts in Li Fan regarding his own transmigration.
While he felt no nostalgia for his pre-transmigration life, let alone any desire to return,
what truly mattered to him was whether the awakening of Revert to the True had occurred within the body belonging to this possibility—with him merely occupying another's nest—
or if it resided within himself.
With his continuous development and application of the Transformation of Real and Unreal, Li Fan's perspective and mindset had undergone a subtle shift.
In the past, whenever he encountered the rare treasures of the mortal world, he could not help but feel the urge to claim them for himself, whether out of greed or a desire to improve his chances of survival.
Now, however, that desire to possess had gradually faded.
All he thought about was analyzing and understanding.
After all, with the Transformation of Real and Unreal at his disposal, he could conjure endless duplicates of any treasure whenever he wished.
The only thing Li Fan truly desired to possess now
was Revert to the True itself.
...
His myriad thoughts came to an end as yet another illusory Dao Transformation Mother Stone was assimilated.
Li Fan felt his thought processes accelerate even further.
His attention returned to the mystical, unfathomable demonic sound whispering in his ear.
After Li Fan's prompt, and based on Heavenly Venerable Chuanfa's past memories, the Mother Stone had run countless simulations and arrived at a conclusion:
that lingering whisper was likely King Xuantian's handiwork.
Yet it was not a contingency meant to engineer a resurrection from death.
Rather, it was a natural transformation occurring in bloodline descendants once the source of their lineage reached an unfathomable realm.
One piece of evidence was that the demonic voice's influence on the Xuanyuan clan had grown progressively stronger over time,
reaching its peak with Xuanyuan Sheng.
Unable to bear it, Xuanyuan Sheng had sought to sever this influence entirely,
yet that still had not prevented the demonic voice from appearing in Xuanyuan Hong.
And upon venturing beyond the high wall, the demonic voice was amplified yet again.
This seemed to corroborate the Dao Transformation Mother Stone's deduction from another angle.
"After King Xuantian vanished inexplicably all those years ago, not only did he not die, but he advanced even further?"
This speculation sent Li Fan's thoughts racing.
Ever since seeing the Black Heavenly Physician and Evil Su Bai, a notion had been budding in Li Fan's mind,
though its full meaning had eluded him.
Only with this deduction from the Dao Transformation Mother Stone did that notion finally take root, sprout, and surface.
The Black Heavenly Physician and Evil Su Bai both originated from a very specific possibility.
Could it be that the possibility Li Fan currently inhabited had also given birth to such an unknowable powerhouse capable of traversing possibilities?
If that possibility truly existed,
then in all the history Li Fan knew, the one who looked most like he had been handed the protagonist's script was probably King Xuantian.
After all, being the very last ascendant before the destruction of the Immortal Realm
was simply too legendary.
"Perhaps beyond the high wall, there are other figures who defy the heavens even more.
"Regardless, anyone whose methods can bridge the high wall and span ancient and modern times is someone I must guard against."
The more powerful an entity was, the more likely they were to know of Revert to the True's existence.
Whenever Li Fan crossed paths with them, he would have to conceal himself with the utmost caution.
"I wonder if King Xuantian still has any other bloodlines remaining in the Xuanhuang Realm today?"
Chapter 1432