Just three simple characters, devoid of any additional explanation. Yet they stirred endless contemplation in Li Fan.
"Illusion Becoming True"—this evidently pointed to the Dao of "when the true becomes false, the false also becomes true."
The key lay in the two preceding characters: "Divine Blessing."
"Divine... Blessing..." Li Fan carefully pondered the term displayed on the Revert to the True panel.
The crux was "divine."
Illusion Becoming True was a divine ability bestowed upon Li Fan by Revert to the True; calling it a blessing or protection was apt enough.
Then whom did the preceding "Divine" refer to?
Revert to the True itself?
Did this imply that, within Revert to the True's own cognition, it belonged to the ranks of gods?
"What is a god?"
Li Fan could not help but recall the fable left behind by Sun Piaomiao, as well as the legends concerning the Creator God, mountains, and seas.
"Over all these years, I have searched virtually every corner of the Xuanhuang Realm. Yet I never found the book Liu Ruchen spoke of. Not a single trace remains, as though it vanished into thin air.
"The likelihood of it naturally perishing in the long river of history is low. Either someone took it away on their own, or it was swept along with other resources when the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao fled...
"The remnants of the Ten Sects are almost all in the Shuo Star Sea."
Li Fan's gaze once again turned toward his neighbors beyond the Great Wall.
Acquiring the Divine Blessing of [Illusion Becoming True] was, to Li Fan, equivalent to having combat strength on par with a Nameless True Immortal ready to assist him at any moment.
Perhaps it was even far beyond that.
Suppressing all manner of surging excitement, Li Fan waited until roughly twenty-four shichen had passed and sensed that [Illusion Becoming True] was ready to be used once more.
He immediately settled his mind, activated it again, and returned to the Sea of Infinity.
Rather than marveling any further at the wondrous nature of Revert to the True's Divine Blessing, he set about immediately searching for the true application of Illusion Becoming True.
"Though a mere mortal ant, it can deceive heaven and cross the sea, sharing the same status as the Sea of Infinity during the Divine Blessing..."
Li Buren's consciousness drifted through this vast, boundless ocean, attempting to channel its infinite power into reality.
Because they shared the same status, this "channeling" did not subject him to any pressure whatsoever. It was just like the ocean acting of its own accord.
In the mortal world, his true body received the flow.
He scattered the remaining Immortal Domain fragments around the Yuanshi Heavenly Pillar in one sweep.
As if the world were being reopened, recreating earth, fire, water, and wind, the Immortal Domain fragments reverted to the Great Dao and arrayed themselves around the Heavenly Pillar.
Beholding this incomplete world, Li Fan connected his Mo Sha Myriad Manifestations Dao Net into it.
What was lacking, he would complete.
What overlapped, he sought to tame.
At the center of the Myriad Manifestations Dao Net lay the power of Wuji.
Any Dao principle unwilling to submit to the Myriad Manifestations Dao Net was shattered directly, then re-evolved using the Daos Li Fan had comprehended himself.
Amidst swirling mists, a world was born anew.
Within it was no living soul; only Heavenly Pillars such as Yuanshi, Hunger Immortal, and Wuji stood towering.
And Li Fan's hazy figure hovered even higher above these Heavenly Pillars.
"With Qian and Kun established, myriad manifestations arise."
The Dao Net concealed outside the world shone with endless hues of varied radiance. All manner of Great Daos began to manifest within this nascent realm.
This was not deduced from scratch; Li Fan copied directly from the Primordial possibility, so its evolution unfolded without the slightest hitch.
Amidst shifting lights and shadows, before long, a primordial world came into being.
Five Mound-Guarding phantoms and a sequence of Heavenly Pillars propped up the primordial firmament.
With the world completed, the infinite immortal power channeled by Li Buren surged downward along the pathways of the Dao Net.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A terrifying commotion akin to the descent of Dao Annihilation unfolded across the primordial world.
The newly born vault of heaven was completely overtaken by dark clouds. Under the immense pressure, fissure after fissure broke open across it. The world itself shook violently, sky swaying and earth trembling, seemingly on the verge of collapsing at any moment.
Yet the benefits brought by the nourishment of infinite immortal power were equally evident.
The nascent wild realm, like parched earth long starved of rain, drank in the power of the Sea of Infinity freely and greedily.
With every passing instant, the distance between heaven and earth grew ever greater.
Upon the land, mountains rose, and rivers, seas, lakes, forests, and plains surged forth in great profusion. It was no longer a barren, desolate, naked continent.
In the sky, the cracks formed from reaching the breaking point were being mended by the power carried from the Sea of Infinity.
A flash of inspiration struck Li Fan, and he did not eliminate these Scars of Heaven entirely. Instead, he preserved all thirteen tangible scars, even guiding an extra influx of infinite power into them.
Thanks to Li Fan's special care, as heaven grew higher and the earth deeper, each of the thirteen Scars of Heaven accumulated an immense reservoir of energy nearly rivaling the entire primordial world itself.
Li Fan sensed that, through the accumulation of so much energy, a faint sapience seemed to be stirring within these Scars of Heaven.
After pondering for a long time, Li Fan decided against channeling a thread of his divine sense into them to seize control.
The infinite immortal power accumulated within the Scars of Heaven had already exceeded the scope of what he could control. Attempting to forcibly dominate them might instead trigger a backlash.
Li Fan merely refined and separated the conduit connecting each Scar of Heaven to the Sea of Infinity. As long as he held the conduits linking the Scars of Heaven to the Sea of Infinity, it was equivalent to slipping reins onto them. No matter what form they evolved into hereafter, as long as he held the reins, he had no fear of them losing control.
Inspired by this, when Li Fan noticed that a consciousness was gradually awakening within this primordial realm as well, he deliberately partitioned the primordial world into five regions: East, West, South, North, and Center.
Each was connected to a different Sea of Infinity conduit.
Like a great river split into tributaries, the primordial realm's consciousness was torn into five separate parts.
The faint sense of foreboding that had arisen in Li Fan's heart vanished along with it.
"It seems that if a unified primordial consciousness were born, it would simply be too powerful, carrying the risk of spiraling out of control," Li Fan mused to himself.
Standing beyond the firmament, Li Fan watched in silence as this primordial world continued to evolve.
Endless immortal power poured down in a ceaseless torrent from the Sea of Infinity.
Under unspeakable, immense pressure, even as the primordial world grew, it was gradually compressed into something incomparably solid.
"Formed on the outside by the pressure of the Sea of Infinity, and supported on the inside by the Mo Sha Dao Net, which possesses infinite adaptability and can devour all three thousand Great Daos...
"I'm afraid that even if I attacked with all my might, I could hardly inflict much damage on this continent.
"Moreover, it is still visibly in its growth phase, seeming nowhere near its limit. As long as the nourishment from the Sea of Infinity does not cease, it can keep growing forever..."
Watching these transformations unfold, Li Fan was secretly astonished.
He also had the sensation that with the birth of this continent within the Great Wall, it was as if a thick, sturdy stone pillar had been added.
Even the entire testing ground space had become significantly more "stable."
...
Within the Sea of Infinity.
Li Buren stood inside a violently churning vortex, yet he remained completely unaffected.
After attempting to channel the Sea of Infinity's power into the real world, he discovered that no matter how much he amplified the intensity of the siphon, the Sea of Infinity could always produce corresponding adaptations.
Moreover, it did not draw the attention of the Sea of Infinity itself.
Li Buren gradually cast aside restraint and continually increased the flow. By now, the vortex he inhabited had expanded to cover every region of the Sea of Infinity he could observe!
Although he could summon wind and rain in the Sea of Infinity by virtue of [Illusion Becoming True]'s properties,
the primordial continent in the mortal realm had, after all, a finite capacity.
With the exit conduit's output throttled, the mobilized power pooled and converged here, forming a vortex that was nothing short of a supreme miracle.
"The time has come."
Standing amidst the thunderous vortex yet remaining detached and untouched, as if aloof from the world, Li Buren watched in silence and suddenly felt a premonition.
"The duration is far shorter than last time.
"It seems that causing such a massive disturbance required Revert to the True to exert quite a bit more effort to conceal it."
Lost in thought, Li Buren expertly returned along the vortex conduit.
Deprived of its channeler, the primordial continent's sustenance was promptly cut off.
The burgeoning realm froze almost instantaneously into stillness.
Then, the thirteen Scars of Heaven and the five regional realm consciousnesses all roared and howled in discontent.
Li Fan's indistinct figure stood tall between heaven and earth. With a cold snort, he suppressed all their clamor.
In the ensuing silence, these newly born entities finally realized the source of their sustenance.
One after another, they fawned and pleaded with Li Fan.
Li Fan paid them no heed.
He simply waited for the next use of [Illusion Becoming True].
In the intervals of silent waiting, Li Fan also used his hand as a blade to carve magnificent, sprawling pavilions and palaces across the earth and sky. Their designs were modeled on the Immortal Realm he had once glimpsed.
And thanks to his past practice carving wooden figurines of Cat Treasure, Li Fan recreated these Immortal Realm buildings near perfectly.
Days passed one by one. When Illusion Becoming True's cooldown ended, Li Fan was in no rush to activate it immediately.
Instead, he observed and evaluated the attitudes displayed by the thirteen Scars of Heaven and the five realm consciousnesses during this period.
For the Scar of Heaven and realm consciousness that had howled the most fiercely, Li Fan did not connect them to the infinite immortal power.
When the vast infinite power once again poured down in nourishment,
the two of them could only watch helplessly as their brethren feasted while they themselves received nothing at all.
These newly born entities possessed few complex thoughts.
Seeing others have what they lacked, they felt an instinctive, incandescent fury.
Their roars echoed across heaven and earth, even drowning out the sound of the cascading infinite immortal power.
Li Fan merely gave a cold smile and severed all connections to the Sea of Infinity once again.
The Scars of Heaven and realm consciousnesses greedily drinking were instantly stunned.
It took them quite some effort to realize why Li Fan had cut off the infinite immortal power.
For the sake of their own rations, they banded together, swarmed forward, and gave those two troublemakers a brutal thrashing.
It had to be said that beings born from the natural evolution of heaven and earth possessed truly formidable might.
The primordial continent was battered and scarred in this great brawl.
Fortunately, the outcome was favorable.
Outnumbered, the troublemakers dared not utter another peep, forced to look on wistfully while their brethren fed with delight.
When the duration of [Illusion Becoming True] ended once more, these primordial consciousnesses still could not help grumbling at Li Fan's cutoff, but the commotion was vastly subdued compared to before.
In particular, the ones starved this time made no sound at all.
The next time, Li Fan switched targets for the cutoff.
The two that had mended their ways and behaved well were granted the chance to connect and draw from the Sea of Infinity. The severed Scar of Heaven, however, was both frightened and enraged, having no idea what it had done wrong.
Little did it know, Li Fan had merely selected it at random.
The time after that was a joyful feast for all, with everyone receiving a share. The Scars of Heaven and realm consciousnesses rejoiced wildly.
Then once more, they waited for a long time, but the infinite immortal power never came. The primordial consciousnesses gathered outside the towering sky pavilions where Li Fan's figure stood, yet dared not act rashly, only watching in silent vigil.
After that, the infinite immortal power was fully reconnected once again.
Thus, day after day and year after year, Li Fan trained these primordial consciousnesses through this relentless "dog-training" method.
In the blink of an eye, another fifteen years had passed.
Li Fan realized that this primordial continent had reached its limit of growth.
Though it could still absorb infinite immortal power, it could no longer be strengthened any further.
Li Fan sat high in the clouds, gazing upon the vast expanse of land beneath his feet.
As he slowly raised his hands, a pair of gigantic palms descended over the primordial world.
Vigorous and fluid as slithering dragons and darting snakes, the Form of Living Beings was engraved onto the earth.
After erupting in a blinding burst of brilliance, the incomparably intricate character shattered into myriad fragments.
Across the primordial continent, countless living beings born from stone, flora, mountains, lakes, and seas sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Though their consciousnesses were naive and muddled, they knew who had bestowed life upon them.
Kneeling upon the ground, they cried out in unison: "We thank the Great Master for granting us life!"
With another wave of his sleeve, Li Fan distributed access rights to the Sea of Infinity to every single creature.
Of course, the scale of infinite immortal power that these post-celestial living beings could draw upon was far inferior to that of the thirteen Scars of Heaven and the five regional realm consciousnesses.
All of them combined would likely only equal one of those greater entities.
"This is authority."
Li Fan sensed that the access rights to the Sea of Infinity throughout this entire primordial world were completely under his governance.
A single thought could bestow; a single thought could strip it away.
"Perhaps the Ruling Immortal Emperors of the past wielded the power over life and death in just such a manner?" Li Fan had a faint realization.
As the primordial continent grew lively, Li Fan silently recited the incantation for Illusion Becoming True once again.
This time, however, the target of the divine ability was no longer the Sea of Infinity.
It was the primordial world before him.
Once the Divine Blessing activated, Li Fan seemed to become a part of the primordial heaven and earth.
Not only could he clearly perceive everything occurring within the world, but he could also distinctly detect the faint communications between the realm consciousnesses.
It was as if he had become one of their kin, yet they were completely oblivious to this extra "brother" who had mysteriously appeared among them.
After listening for a while and finding that these realm consciousnesses harbored no treasonous thoughts, Li Fan nodded slightly in satisfaction.
"This divine ability of Illusion Becoming True is truly useful.
"Furthermore..."
Li Fan silently gauged the duration of the Divine Blessing.
"As expected. Depending on the target upon which it is used, the duration varies accordingly.
"When applied to this primordial continent, it can last almost indefinitely. Even if this world perishes with the flow of time, the effect of Illusion Becoming True will still remain.
"This Primordial Immortal Realm is already an extraordinary creation. Yet the disparity between it and the Sea of Infinity remains so vast..."
The arrogance that had arisen in Li Fan's heart from playing the role of "Creator" dissolved in an instant.
Cold reality brought him back to sobriety.
Chapter 1492