"In fact, not just an ordinary True Immortal."
"There is a very strong chance he was once even a Nameless True Immortal!"
Li Fan lowered his head, concealing the thoughts in his eyes as he quickened his pace toward his dwelling.
"Customer, come have some fun!"
"Brother Ma, long time no see! Come over and have a drink!"
"You punk, I've finally caught you again! Don't you run!"
...
As he walked through the City of Ultimate Bliss, distinct shouts and calls echoed in his ears one after another. And rising alongside these interwoven voices came fragments of memories tied directly to each sound.
The owners of these voices were old flames he had met while frequenting pleasure houses to listen to tunes, sworn brothers with whom he had shared life and death, or enemies made through reckless trouble.
Scenes surfaced in rapid succession, as vivid as if he had experienced them all firsthand.
Yet Li Fan turned a deaf ear to it all, keeping his head down and striding at an unhurried, measured pace toward his destination.
He had only recently taken over Ma Tiande through body possession. Li Fan was certain that these memories had never existed in Ma Tiande's mind before. They were only now being branded into his consciousness along with the spoken words he heard.
'This isn't merely an illusion technique.'
'It feels as though these events truly transpired in the City of Ultimate Bliss.'
Even as the voices faded with distance, the memories branded into his mind did not disperse. Instead, they grew ever more profound.
Throughout his walk, "Ma Tiande" had numerous experiences forced upon him.
Each experience represented years of life.
Wrinkles quietly crept up the corners of his eyes, and Ma Tiande's visage grew faintly weathered and aged.
These physical changes naturally did not escape Li Fan's notice. He deliberately controlled his pace, slowing down as though each step were taken with immense struggle.
After crossing a ward of the City of Ultimate Bliss, "Ma Tiande" finally returned to his quarters.
The moment the pitch-black door closed, all the clamor from the outside world vanished instantly, submerged into darkness.
In accordance with Ma Tiande's old habits, he settled all routine matters.
Then he sat cross-legged and closed his eyes in meditation, appearing to study the patterns of the Dao Net.
In truth, however, Li Fan was still contemplating the changes this body had undergone along the way.
'Using a false past to influence the real present.'
'Is this method Heavenly King Xuan's demonic scripture chanting?'
The supreme Dao Transformation Stone within his divine sense whirred into operation, assisting his analysis.
'If Ma Tiande had failed to resist temptation, been lured in by any of those voices, and joined in...'
'Then the "past events" spoken of in conversation would all have been enacted upon his body...'
In the projected deduction, Li Fan vaguely saw Ma Tiande at a banquet, aging at a horrifying speed. In the blink of an eye, he turned into withered bones, yet he continued laughing and chatting animatedly with those beside him.
Until the pleasure finally ran dry, the decaying skeleton crumbled into flying ash, and Ma Tiande's consciousness remained trapped forever in this City of Ultimate Bliss—identical to the countless lingering thoughts in the city.
"Kid, once you reach the City of Ultimate Bliss, don't do anything other than what Scholar Zhu assigns to you. Stay honest and bide your time for three full years, and you might still have a chance of returning."
A vision of the senior member of the Shuoxing Sea's Governing Council giving solemn, earnest instructions before Ma Tiande set off for the City of Ultimate Bliss instantly surfaced.
"That the Shuoxing Sea can hunt immortals as mortals owes much to the aid of entities who reverted from immortal to mortal, such as Scholar Zhu."
"Though fallen into the mortal dust, the strength of these former True Immortals must still not be underestimated."
"Whether to appease them or to grant their twisted minds an outlet for venting, the Governing Council prepared dedicated 'playgrounds' for them. This City of Ultimate Bliss is the one reserved exclusively for Scholar Zhu."
"The countless beings you see within the city are all long dead. It is a ghost city in every sense of the word. That they can maintain physical form is solely due to a bizarre energy sustaining them. Even with the cyclical shifts between day and night across three years, and the endless slaughter among them, no one truly dies. They merely await rebirth once the next cycle begins."
"However, the ultimate victor in that slaughter..."
Li Fan smacked his lips, recalling the taste of the red soup he had just drunk.
All were ghostly lingering thoughts, so naturally there was no true taste of flesh and blood.
What Li Fan had swallowed at Scholar Zhu's manor was the flavor of sentient beings' wills and thoughts, tempered a thousand times and meticulously simmered!
'Just like an Eternal Lingering Thought!'
'No wonder it tasted so exquisite.'
With a bowl of red soup in his stomach, there was no need to undergo everything the creatures in the bowl had endured; one could directly reap the rewards of those experiences.
And the entire City of Ultimate Bliss could be viewed as a vastly larger bowl of red soup.
It was only that the methods used to brew the beings within the City of Ultimate Bliss were even more exquisite.
Li Fan's thoughts raced as the computational power of the supreme Dao Transformation Stone fired at full capacity.
He peered through the bustling, hair-raising spectacle he had witnessed into the reality underneath.
'Influenced by the omnipresent demonic scripture chanting, the experiences of the lingering thoughts in the city grow almost every single moment. The sheer breadth of experience possessed by any random denizen in this city is likely hundreds or thousands of times greater than that of ordinary beings!'
'First, any will that can continue to exist after being forcibly stuffed with such complex experiences has already undergone a qualitative metamorphosis, far beyond anything ordinary.'
'Second, just as with brewing medicinal broth, a century-old ginseng produces far different efficacy than a ten-thousand-year-old ginseng.'
'Under the shroud of these mystic tones, the brewing efficiency of this City of Ultimate Bliss has multiplied beyond measure.'
Even though he did not know whether what the Lord of Ultimate Bliss ultimately sought was indeed an Eternal Lingering Thought, what Li Fan witnessed in the city made him keenly aware of how crude his own past methods had been when pursuing a similar plan.
'I thought cultivating Eternal Lingering Thoughts in a fabricated Dream Paradise was already the pinnacle.'
'Yet I was still taught a lesson by this former True Immortal.'
'Truly worthy of someone who survived the Great Tribulation of the Immortal Realm's Destruction. His methods of tormenting souls are truly unheard of—and well worth learning.'
'Three years to blossom, three years to bear fruit. An endless cycle repeating itself...'
'The so-called "Grand Rite" is naturally the moment to savor these fruits.'
These beings indulged themselves recklessly in the City of Ultimate Bliss, savoring life for three years as their desires continually swelled and climbed.
Until the moment they reached the zenith, like oil poured onto a raging fire, they erupted with a roar.
'The daytime slaughter is certainly not as simple as it seems on the surface either.'
'If the demonic sounds still envelop the City of Ultimate Bliss during the day, what the survivors must endure is likely far beyond imagination. And to survive until the very end under such conditions...'
Even Li Fan felt a stir of yearning at the thought of how vivid and potent those "fruits" would be.
'In thirty days, perhaps I will see it with my own eyes.'
'It is easy to imagine that these fruits of lingering thoughts are of immense benefit to cultivators. Yet Scholar Zhu only invited the faction from Blade Island?'
Though Ma Tiande was a newcomer, he had previously heard about the City of Ultimate Bliss hosting guests from all quarters.
'I wonder what unexpected change occurred this time.'
In the Shuoxing Sea, Blade Island and the Sword Domain were two colossal pillars of strength. The Sword Domain was centered around the Heavenly Sword Sect from the former Xuanhuang Realm, gathering a multitude of sword cultivators—a massive force numbering in the millions.
Blade Island, by contrast, had only ever had eighteen cultivators from beginning to end. Anyone wishing to set foot on the island was required to challenge an island cultivator first. The loser died; the victor joined Blade Island. Supposedly, this rule had been instituted by the very first cultivator who set foot on and founded Blade Island. Moreover, the number eighteen was an expansion—originally, only five peerless blade cultivators had resided on the island.
In the past, when the Shuoxing Sea brimmed with vitality and blade cultivators abounded, challengers flocked to Blade Island in an unbroken stream. Though none ever returned, successors continued to arrive without end.
This was because the Blade Dao stood upon Blade Island.
It was no mystical illusion, but truly the Blade Dao of heaven and earth itself.
Glimpsing it allowed one to face the Great Dao directly. A moment's epiphany would leave one with no regrets even in death.
The Great Dao was formless, yet that it manifested upon Blade Island must have had its reasons.
However, there was no consensus, and opinions varied widely. Even the Shuoxing Sea's Governing Council had never given an official response.
Among all related rumors, the most convincing was that the leader of Blade Island had once been a Nameless True Immortal as well. Furthermore, the Dao he had integrated with was precisely the Blade Dao.
When he shed his immortality and returned to mortality, the Great Dao returned to heaven and earth. Yet by some unknown method, he had solidified and revealed it, allowing the formless, profound Great Dao to be glimpsed by mortal flesh and bone ever after.
'Perhaps the one on Blade Island is an old acquaintance of Scholar Zhu from the City of Ultimate Bliss.'
Nameless True Immortals had previously existed only in ancient legends back in the Pitch-Black Star Sea. Yet upon first arriving in the Shuoxing Sea, he had encountered two possible Nameless True Immortals at once.
'Rather than calling it luck, it would be truer to say that now that the Great Tribulation of the Immortal Realm's Destruction has unfolded to this point, former immortals have no choice but to scrape by alongside mortals under the very same starry sky,' Li Fan sneered inwardly.
Li Fan had no interest in the mindset of these True Immortals who reverted to mortality.
What truly piqued his curiosity was how a Nameless True Immortal could shed their immortality while still preserving their life.
True Immortals reverting to mortality was something Li Fan had already seen in the Xuanhuang Realm, so that in itself was nothing surprising.
However, in the Nameless Realm, body and Dao merged into one.
Becoming one with the Great Dao and returning to heaven and earth—how could one disengage from that so easily?
Recalling Scholar Zhu's neither-human-nor-ghost appearance, Li Fan was certain that for a Nameless True Immortal to revert to mortality, an unimaginably horrific price had to be paid.
'Those capable of attaining the Nameless Realm must be eternal prodigies. Yet even such beings are abandoning their Dao paths one after another...'
'Is this a helpless act to preserve their lives amidst the Dao Annihilation Tribulation, or a noble ideal of returning the Dao to heaven to save the world?' Li Fan wore a rather intrigued expression.
Just like the Xuanhuang Realm after Chuanfa's new cultivation method was born.
Cultivators devoured the Great Daos of heaven and earth to cultivate, and upon their deaths, everything within them returned to heaven and earth. Those in the Nameless Realm merged body with Dao.
If the Nameless fell while the Great Dao did not perish, then naturally, the Dao would return to heaven and earth.
However, a contradiction naturally arose.
Since Nameless True Immortals had already merged body with Dao, how could the Nameless fall while the Great Dao did not perish?
'Perhaps this can also be compared to what happened in the Xuanhuang Realm.'
'Those Dao Integration cultivators merged with the Heaven-and-Earth Essences. Yet with my current methods and my understanding of the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao, capturing them and forcibly separating them from the Heaven-and-Earth Essences...'
'Is not difficult!'
'Though the might of a Nameless True Immortal far exceeds that of a Xuanhuang Dao Integration cultivator, the underlying principle is identical.'
'Perhaps the answer lies within the Dao Net.'
Li Fan's eyes flickered.
As the Shuoxing Sea's ultimate weapon for contending with and hunting True Immortals, the Dao Net naturally needed to blanket former True Immortals like Scholar Zhu.
And Ma Tiande was an operative tasked with maintaining and interfacing with the Dao Net.
In truth, Ma Tiande's life or death was inconsequential. Even if he angered Scholar Zhu and was turned into an eternally sinking lingering thought in the unceasing purgatory of the City of Ultimate Bliss's reincarnation cycle, the Governing Council would swiftly dispatch a replacement the very next day.
In Ma Tiande's eyes, he was an elite operative of the Shuoxing Sea, and running errands for a mortal-reverted True Immortal like Scholar Zhu was an insult that squandered his great talents on petty tasks.
Yet an outsider like Li Fan saw the truth clearly.
He was merely a consumable.
And consumables were inexhaustible.
Unmoved by honor or disgrace, Li Fan delved into the Dao Net-related information in Ma Tiande's mind.
'Just as I expected, the key to utilizing the Dao Net is indeed Daoyuan symbols!'
'I have already mastered the earliest Daoyuan symbols. Using Ma Tiande's body to interface with the Dao Net shouldn't pose any problem...'
Yet Li Fan soon realized how egregiously mistaken he was.
Compared to Qin Zhuang's era, the complexity of Daoyuan had multiplied by tens of thousands of times!
Every single command required the collaborative operation of hundreds of thousands of Daoyuan symbols. The slightest error would be recorded and transmitted back to the Governing Council.
'Everyone who passed the assessment knows the application of Daoyuan by heart.'
'The Governing Council tolerates one or two errors, but too many mistakes will definitely arouse suspicion.'
The body-possession technique via Dao Pill could only observe and inherit memories. But when it came to operations as complex and delicate as applying Daoyuan symbols, perfectly replicating them proved difficult.
Especially since Li Fan had not sent his true self's complete will, but only a single avatar strand of divine sense, making it all the more challenging.
'If only the Azure Nether Pearl were here right now.'
'It could inherit Ma Tiande's cognition without any loss.'
Li Fan shook his head slightly, putting down the unrealistic daydream.
Having infiltrated the Shuoxing Sea alone, he could not rely on the Azure Nether Pearl's aid.
'Thirty days from now, holding the Grand Rite will require coordination with the Dao Net.'
'It seems learning it myself is the only sound path.'
'Fortunately, I have the aid of the supreme Dao Transformation Stone. What Ma Tiande could accomplish should be as easy as flipping my hand for me to replicate.'
Li Fan began studying the Daoyuan symbol knowledge in Ma Tiande's mind from scratch.
The Thirty Basic Lectures on Daoyuan known from Qin Zhuang's memory were already completely outdated. In fact, the meanings of many symbols had changed entirely.
Li Fan had no choice but to abandon his original understanding and start over.
Yet the path to mastering the Daoyuan symbols was not as simple as Li Fan had imagined. The biggest reason was that the process by which Ma Tiande had learned the Daoyuan symbols had already vanished from his mind.
As for how he had acquired mastery over Daoyuan, Ma Tiande retained not the slightest impression. He knew only that he had acquired the skill after an arduous period of study.
There was only the result, no cause.
Li Fan could only work backward from the result.
Were it not for the Dao Transformation Stone, he would not even have been able to take this first step.
Chapter 1437