The Dao Assimilation Stone within Li Fan's sea of consciousness finally began to feel the strain.
Forging a world out of nothing, even with a real, existing realm as a template, proved far more difficult than Li Fan had anticipated.
The crux of world creation lay in people.
Countless physical individuals were not difficult.
The difficulty lay in creating individuals with "thoughts" of their own.
Initially, Li Fan's train of thought had strayed down the wrong path.
He had tried to simulate and create true consciousness belonging to living beings within his world.
As a result, after consuming nearly half of the Dao Assimilation Stone's computational power, he had only spawned three individuals.
Three conscious intents possessing subjective agency drifted in the sky of the virtual Xuanhuang Realm.
These three individuals had become completely independent of the Dao Assimilation Stone. The circulation of their thoughts no longer relied on it. Yet the computational power they had consumed was very real.
The performance of the Dao Assimilation Stone plummeted by half. Had Li Fan not possessed the ability to turn the unreal into the real and could disregard such expenditure, he likely would have abandoned the attempt on the spot out of pure heartache.
"Judging solely by their capability, these three conscious intents even far surpass my own. It is merely that they are still at the dawn of their birth, in a state of complete ignorance. The vast majority of their computational power remains untapped..."
"Were it not for the fact that they were all derived from the Dao Assimilation Stone, allowing me to erase their existence with a single thought, keeping three such behemoths in my sea of consciousness would indeed be terrifying."
Li Fan quietly gazed at these three sleeping, infant-like intents.
Then, his thoughts returned to the matter at hand.
"Creating living beings with self-awareness under normal circumstances certainly wouldn't require such enormous expenditure. I essentially brute-forced my way through—though I had not comprehended the methods of creation, I broke through and ignored those unseen limits through sheer computational power."
"I was clinging to forms. Driving the Dream Paradise doesn't require true living consciousnesses. All I need to do is add a single command to those simulated minds: 'dream'..."
After a brief pause in thought, Li Fan began connecting the Dream Paradise into the simulated Xuanhuang Realm.
The Dao Assimilation Stone glowed with circulating brilliance as streams of light representing thoughts swiftly flowed into the dream.
At the same time, massive swarms of living beings descended into the dream.
In outward behavior, they appeared no different from real people.
Communicating, trading, teaming up to venture through the dreamscape—whatever normal cultivators could do, they handled flawlessly.
Furthermore, with the sample data provided by this initial batch, the simulated conscious minds generated by the Dao Assimilation Stone began iterating and evolving at a terrifying speed.
At first, they were occasionally stiff in conversation. But before long, even Li Fan could scarcely distinguish the real from the fake.
Operating these simulated beings hardly occupied much of the Dao Assimilation Stone's computational power.
This was because all of these living minds could be reduced to ninety-nine behavioral archetypes.
The Dao Assimilation Stone only needed to maintain these ninety-nine original templates, and it could leverage them to drive hundreds of millions of endless beings.
"Outwardly, they all appear to be distinct individuals, but at their core, they are merely ninety-nine people."
Having found the right method, the exponentially multiplying simulated minds gave even Li Fan a slight sense of unease. Fortunately, after reconfirming that he held absolute control over them through the Dao Assimilation Stone in his mind, his anxiety gradually subsided.
The beings in the virtual Xuanhuang Realm had no need to live in reality. All of them were linked into the Carefree Dreamscape.
With these "ghost soldiers" aiding the cause, the outward exploration speed of the dream tentacles accelerated drastically.
Next, Li Fan followed the same pattern.
While continuing to restore the Dao Assimilation Stone with the compounding power of the Transformation of Real and Unreal, he "replicated" and created more simulated Xuanhuang Realms.
In one breath, he created twelve more virtual Xuanhuang Realms before finally stopping.
"Ghost soldiers from thirteen worlds are more than enough."
Li Fan looked at the three conscious intents still in a hazy, oblivious state within the first virtual Xuanhuang Realm. He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately cast them into the Dream Paradise as well.
"I'll first observe their potential within the dream."
"With such immense computational power backing them, no matter which path they choose, they can reach the pinnacle."
The three conscious intents, named by Li Fan as Qi, Shi, and Zhong, finally manifested physical bodies in the dream.
Compared to the simulated minds, they still appeared rather clumsy, brimming with immense curiosity toward everything in the outside world.
Yet Li Fan knew their growth rate would outstrip any other living being in the dream.
Li Fan did not interfere with the growth of Qi, Shi, and Zhong.
He merely recorded and preserved the method by which the Dao Assimilation Stone had spawned them, ensuring that even if they were destroyed, they could be quickly reproduced.
Afterward, Li Fan's attention returned to the exploration of the dream tentacles.
Crossing the vast Annihilation Lands and traversing the boundless, dead star sea, the dream tentacles finally arrived at the vibrant starry sky where factions like the Sword Domain and Shengshang resided.
The tentacles explored with ever-increasing caution.
An invisible veil slowly enveloped that starry sky.
Yet to Li Fan's surprise, out of the hundreds of millions of living beings across this starry sky, not a single one was captured by the power of the dream.
It was as though a natural barrier stood between reality and illusion, warding off the dream's erosion of real living beings.
As master of the dream, Li Fan sensed that if he expended the full might of the Dream Paradise, he might forcibly tear an opening in this barrier, but that would inevitably draw the attention of the various factions.
Li Fan chose to wait patiently for an opportunity.
Heaven rewards the diligent; after the dream tentacles had reached the vibrant starry sky for a full year, a turning point finally arose.
A tremendous disturbance in the star sea shook even the ethereal Dream Paradise, naturally drawing Li Fan's attention.
Seven figures suddenly flashed into being within the star sea, cutting off another dim, warped silhouette together.
"Hmm? Not on the Immortal Capture Record?"
"Who would have thought that staking out Changsheng Immortal would yield an unexpected bonus."
"A pity there seem to be no signs of him having attained the Nameless Dao."
"Do not be careless... I can sense faint danger from him."
The seven figures chimed in one after another, using the distinct mode of communication peculiar to the Immortal Hunter organization from Qin Zhuang's memories.
Their exchange did not hinder them from taking action.
And for the first time, Li Fan truly glimpsed the might of Daoyuan.
If the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth was like a colossal net crisscrossing between heaven and earth, then with every gesture, these seven Immortal Hunters possessed the power to haul that giant net and capture their prey.
Li Fan perceived all manner of unfathomable methods.
For instance, countless swords materialized out of nothingness, turning from unreal to real, and behind each sword faintly stood a hazy figure. Thousands of sword dao divine abilities bloomed simultaneously across the starry sky, triggering resonances in the Sword Dao as though receiving its blessing. The power contained within each sword move was immense, seemingly capable of cleaving the Xuanhuang Realm in two.
Or again, something seemed to illuminate the dim starry sky, as if countless pairs of eyes beyond a curtain were staring intently at the combatants. The auras of the seven Immortal Hunters surged, while the besieged True Immortal found his movements occasionally slipping out of control—his figure shaking so violently that it threatened to split into another version of himself.
And for example, a brush seemed to be secretly recording and revising the battlefield. Li Fan had clearly seen moments earlier that the True Immortal had unleashed a long-bided, fully charged strike that struck one of the Immortal Hunters. The hunter's figure shook violently, visibly heavily wounded. Yet after a blur of light and shadow, it was as if that moment had never happened at all. The injury vanished. Instead, a counterstrike struck the True Immortal squarely!
The True Immortal was left in stunned disbelief and quickly fell into a disadvantage, forced to parry frantically. In the blink of an eye, he was in dire peril.
...
The seven Immortal Hunters each displayed their divine abilities.
Yet Li Fan keenly observed that besides these seven Immortal Hunters, another Immortal Hunter seemed to lurk in secret.
This Immortal Hunter did not take part in hunting the True Immortal.
Instead, they silently repaired the starry sky affected by the battle!
In a daze, Li Fan saw the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth—bent and rendered fragile by the invocation of Daoyuan power—regain its hardness and stability under the maintenance of this orderly force.
Even though it was a chaotic clash at the level of True Immortals, it caused little severe damage to the starry sky.
Moreover, the memory of this battle seemed to be recorded into the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth.
Should similar battles occur in the future, the resilience of the Great Dao would become even stronger.
"Besides Immortal Hunters, there are also 'Heaven Menders'?"
"Interesting."
As the saying goes, destroying is easy, but creating is difficult.
Li Fan lurked in secret, quietly watching the battle, but the vast majority of his attention remained on the Heaven Mender's side.
Li Fan keenly sensed that perhaps this "Heaven Mender" was the strongest one present.
For it was evident that no matter what kind of Daoyuan power caused destruction, the mender could always easily repair it with consummate ease. In contrast, those seven Immortal Hunters manifested divine abilities related to only a single Great Dao from beginning to end.
The seven Immortal Hunters wounded but did not kill, seemingly intending to capture the True Immortal alive.
As the True Immortal gradually fell into despair, countless True Immortal glyphs suddenly surfaced across his body, densely covering him from head to toe!
His aura surged hundreds of times over, and the net of the Great Dao shook violently like a web in a gale.
Even the divine abilities wielded by the seven Immortal Hunters were disrupted!
A desperate, fight-to-the-death gamble by the True Immortal.
Right at that moment, a golden ring lit up, truly confining them like a prison drawn on the ground. It completely sealed off the battlefield.
Between inside and outside the golden ring, all connection was utterly severed.
Even the tentacles of the Dream Paradise were cleanly cut.
The vision abruptly vanished.
Li Fan could only look on from afar beyond the golden ring.
The True Immortal's desperate, all-out strike was completely contained by this golden ring before him.
No matter how fierce the storm raged within, the outside world felt not the slightest tremor.
Gazing at this golden line exuding a sacred aura, Li Fan suddenly felt a surge of familiar recognition.
"This..."
"Is this an Immortal Heavenly Pillar?"
In his mind, the Southern Immortal Heavenly Pillar forged from a True Immortal's leg bone began to overlap with the golden ring before him.
Li Fan was filled with shock and suspicion. Following a sudden flash of intuition, he drastically retracted the dream tentacles,
merely observing from a great distance afar.
A white-robed figure quietly appeared outside the golden ring,
seemingly watching the battle inside with a grave expression,
occasionally looking up at the sky to record something.
Li Fan also sensed that it was precisely the "support" of this golden ring, acting as a pillar for the Dao net that had grown fragile during the great battle, that averted an impending catastrophe.
The white-robed figure sent out streaks of brilliance from time to time, reinforcing the golden ring and making it increasingly solid.
"This must be that 'Heaven Mender.'"
"Fortunately, their attention was entirely consumed by the battle, and the Dream Paradise's power is unique, so my spying went unnoticed."
Li Fan secretly breathed a sigh of relief at his good fortune, but dared not get too close,
continuing to observe from afar.
Before long, the fighting appeared to finally subside. The golden ring's radiance gradually dispersed, and the seven Immortal Hunters reappeared.
Yet the True Immortal had vanished without a trace.
Looking at the varied, colorful expressions on the seven Immortal Hunters' faces, the white-robed figure showed a trace of surprise and finally spoke:
"He escaped?"
One of the Immortal Hunters explained in a heavy voice, "He was already at the end of his rope. But at the critical moment, another power seemed to intervene and rescued him."
"Even my Brush of Heavenly Depiction was powerless to alter that reality. Evidently, a Nameless True Immortal intervened," another Immortal Hunter chimed in.
"And what's more, an unrecorded Nameless True Immortal."
At these words, the expressions of all the Immortal Hunters present grew strange—a mix of excitement and dread.
The white-robed figure nodded slightly. "Though you failed to capture the True Immortal, learning of a new Nameless True Immortal by chance can be considered a gain amidst the loss. The rest of you return first to report the traces of the Nameless. Brother Chu, stay behind and repair the Dao marks with me."
In an instant, six figures vanished,
leaving only the two standing in the starry sky after the battle.
Without even seeing how they performed the repairs, Li Fan, watching from afar, could distinctly sense that this stretch of starry sky had become significantly "sturdier."
"Brush of Heavenly Depiction. Brother Chu."
The voice of that distant Immortal Hunter echoed in Li Fan's mind.
"Chu Youhong of the Divine Brush Sect?"
A moment later, Li Fan had essentially confirmed the person's identity.
Chu Youhong, former Sect Master of the Divine Brush Sect.
He was that seemingly utterly selfish yet actually devoted cultivator who had once declared: "Even if all of you die, it matters not. So long as I live, the Divine Brush Sect still stands. Master entrusted the Divine Brush Sect to me before his death, so I absolutely cannot let it be ruined in my hands."
After leaving a profound stroke in the history of the Xuanhuang Realm, he had vanished without a trace.
Li Fan had not expected to encounter him once again today, here in the vibrant starry sky beyond the High Wall.
Li Fan reflected on the divine ability Chu Youhong had demonstrated just now.
"Able to use a paintbrush to overturn established facts, and even rewrite them to a certain degree..."
"Though not a True Immortal, his actual combat strength is likely by no means inferior to one."
Li Fan was secretly astonished.
At last, he had gained a clearer understanding of the power of Daoyuan beyond the High Wall.
While he was pondering, Chu Youhong and the white-robed figure had already finished repairing the so-called "Dao marks."
"Brother Chu, what do you make of that Nameless True Immortal who mysteriously appeared at the end?"
"While it might have fooled the others, it surely could not have escaped your observation."
"After all, Brother Chu is said to be capable of copying and replicating the Great Dao itself."
The white-robed figure's words gave Li Fan another great jolt of surprise.
Chapter 1434